Kal’s eyes widen, and he flinches so minutely that most people wouldn’t notice. Nor would they notice how he takes in a breath and uses the air to straighten his back and lift his chin to a posture of grim rigidity. Extending a hand, he assists his sister into the rulers’ carriage beside him.
I almost miss Lord Gargaron’s arrival. I don’t see which carriage he came from, but he goes straight to Father with a thin smile that might as well be a dagger. He considers the sword Father has set on the cushion, then takes it upon himself to set it back under the bench out of easy reach. Father does not react as Gargaron seats himself opposite, just as if he too is a victorious general sharing in the day’s great triumph.
And of course, he is.
We descend amid the crowd’s adulation to the Square of the Moon and the Sun, and we cross it to reach Eternity Temple. The reason for dragging Nikonos’s corpse to the City of the Dead escapes me until Kal gives an order to halt the carriage inside the arched tunnel.
He stands and calls out in a tone that sounds reckless, and thus quite unlike him, as if he’s thrown prudence and consideration to the winds. “Let the High Priest of Lord Judge Inkos present himself before us. Do not delay.”
Meno? tugs on her brother’s arm, clearly angry with him. He ignores her and waits.
Gargaron shakes his head impatiently and says to my father, “Good Goat. This is unseemly. Go tell the boy we need to move on.”
“He is king, my lord, and can make his own decisions,” Father says with a defiance that amazes me.
“Can he? Whose tactics just won that battle for us?”
“Mine, my lord. But it was his choice to lead the charge, rather than have me do it.”
“Foolhardy and rash! I knew the rank would be too great a strain on his weak character.”
“Quite the contrary, my lord. He strives to be a better man and a good king. During the siege he insisted on riding out every morning among the populace. He made sure rations were fairly distributed, even refusing to eat more than what any common citizen could expect for a daily meal—”
“Is that what you call a good king?” Gargaron raps his whip on the carriage door. “Enough! Do as I say, General!”
Father glances back at my spider, then climbs down. As he walks forward to the king, Gargaron sits unprotected in front of me.
I could slice his head off with my fore blade. He wouldn’t know what hit him.
And I’d be captured and executed on the spot, and not even Father or Kal could save me. My goal is to safeguard the Efean rebellion, not to satisfy my personal anger.
This is why people who leap into the obvious openings in Rings don’t succeed.
I have to bide my time.
Father reaches the royal carriage. Because I can see over everyone’s head I get a full view of Meno? when she greets him after so many months apart: she smiles effusively, her expression like an open bloom. They look each other in the eye as two people might who have been intimate as equals. Color heightens in her cheek as he nods at her in polite greeting before addressing the king.
What Father says to Kal I cannot hear. What the king answers I cannot hear either, of course, but Father stiffens as if the king has rebuked him.
The gate into the inner temple swings open. The High Priest arrives. Every gaze follows him as he goes straight to Gargaron rather than to the king.
“Your Holiness.” Kal raises his voice so everyone must hear and witness, so the High Priest must stop in his tracks and turn. “Twelve times in the last three months, during the siege of Saryenia, we have come here to Eternity Gate to speak to our cousin Serenissima, who we placed in your care. Twelve times we have been refused entrance. Today we will not move from this place until we speak to her. If we must, we will command our honor guard to search the premises.”
The High Priest sways, caught on a wave of fear. “Lord Gargaron! Can you not counsel sense into your nephew?”
“Am I not king?” Kal cries, breaking out of his formal speech. “Do I not rule Efea? Meno?, is there some other claimant I’m not aware of?”
When she rests a hand on her pregnant belly, I am shocked even though Princess Berenise once told me that my father’s son by Meno? would be the next king of Efea.
Kal lifts his chin. Anger spills from him like poison. “Ah, I see. Well, I have some time before I’m no longer useful to you. So hear me clearly, Your Holiness. Bring Serenissima out or I will enter. Or else confess to me that she is dead, as I suspect she is.”
“Your Gracious Majesty…” The High Priest glances around as if seeking an escape route, then remembers that he is the most powerful priest in the land and has the support of Lord Gargaron. With pompous outrage he gathers himself up. “I don’t know what it is you want from me that you dare speak to the gods’ most holy representative in this disrespectful way.”
Of course Kal is too smart to accuse the High Priest in public of colluding with Gargaron to kill Serenissima. But even I don’t expect what comes next.
“I want them all released.”
“All of whom released, Your Gracious Majesty?”
“Every girl and woman currently residing in Eternity Temple must be released, now, into the custody of Queen Meno?.”
Released. At first I am sure I have misheard him.
Kal has already gone on. “To show these innocent women the proper respect due to their dedication to the gods, the blessed and benevolent queen will take them into the queen’s palace as attendants, where they may serve Efea with equal honor.”
“I will?” says Meno?.
“Of course you will.” Kal’s corrosive tone bleeds into the air. “It’s a big palace. You can put Mama in charge of seeing they are all peaceably settled. You can give their number a flattering name, the Queen’s Most Honored Guard of Maidens or some such.”
“You can’t do this,” says the High Priest in a trembling voice.
Lord Gargaron does not move, only watches, and that worries me, but not more than Kal’s caustic tone and reckless demeanor as he plunges on.
“I. Am. King. You wouldn’t want to have the highborn clans hear how for all these years the daughters they dedicated to a chaste and holy life in the temple have in fact been foully mistreated and even killed. Would you?”
An offended silence greets this accusation. Soldiers look at one another in shock. Officials whisper, and a few even hiss to hear the temple profaned with such a charge.
As if pressed past endurance, Princess Berenise finally speaks. “You may congratulate yourself for what you believe is a daring reform, Grandson, although I assure you that Saryenia’s populace won’t see it the same way you do. But have it your way. Take your uncle Gargaron to make sure that the women have all been released. He won’t see anything that will shock him.”
“Good Goat,” mutters Gargaron to himself, subtle shades of discomfort written through his frown as he hears the threat in the princess’s words. Yet he is required to act obediently to the wishes of a woman who outranks him.
Kalliarkos and Gargaron proceed inside with the fearful High Priest and several of the honor guard, including, I note, Captain Helias. My betrayer.