Gargaron gestures toward the masked Protector and Custodian, who still have not spoken. “I see you have found Efean puppets whose strings you can pull. Who has masterminded this plan? Surely not you, a mere youth?”
The High Priest ignores him. “The trial of Garon Palace begins now. You are accused of bribery, perjury, theft, and murder.”
With her distinctive rolling walk, Maraya approaches the High Priest, scrolls piled in her arms. She is accompanied by other clerks, each of whom carries additional documents. Gargaron’s stunned expression gratifies me for only a moment, because like me he is a decisive person.
“You should have been smothered at birth,” he snarls. “Your father was weak to allow you to live, much less to breed another like yourself.”
He leaps forward and, taking her completely by surprise, sweeps the scrolls out of her arms, then slaps her across the face. As she stumbles back, he shoves her viciously to the ground. She hits hard, with a cry of pain.
I push forward, trying to reach her.
But of course Father did not stay in his spider, not knowing how quickly the situation might change inside the temple hall. In dusty scout’s gear he shoves roughly through the ranks faster than I can. Just as Gargaron is about to kick Maraya in the belly, Father grabs him by the shoulder of his silk jacket and flings him to one side with so much force that the lord slams into the blemished goat with a smack that makes everyone wince.
“You will not harm my daughters ever again.”
By now I’ve broken through and rush up as Father kneels beside Maraya.
He tips her face so he can look into her eyes. “Can you speak, Maraya?”
“Yes, just shaken up.” She clings to him, and he lifts her, sets her on her feet, and indicates that I should let her lean on me.
“So it was you all along, General Esladas.” Breathing hard, one hand pressed to his side, Gargaron glares with the enraged satisfaction of a man who has finally figured it out. “Your ambition could not be content with the command of the Royal Army. Now you have turned against your rightful masters and fomented this overthrow. How clever of you to use Commoners as your figureheads to get them on your side. They’re easily led, as you must know from years of experience.”
“You don’t understand what is going on at all.” When Father drops the my lord from his answer I know beyond all doubt that he has chosen Efea.
“Of course I understand.” Gargaron gestures toward Mother. “You can crown yourself king and call a Commoner woman your queen, but you will never be royal.”
“This can’t be true, Esladas. I’m your wife, not her.” Meno? presses a hand to her chest.
Father has kept his gaze fixed on Gargaron, but when Meno? speaks he glances toward her. It’s not regret, precisely, that shadows his face, but disquiet that he has caused pain where he intended none.
That glance is all it takes. That one moment of distraction. Gargaron moves, grabbing a sword out of the hand of one of the priest-wardens.
“Father, behind you!”
Father thinks I’m warning him about a threat to Mother, and he looks the wrong way. He looks toward the woman he has loved from the first day he set foot in Efea. I release Maraya and jump forward, but it’s too late.
Gargaron’s blade enters Father from the back, thrust so hard the point comes out through his belly, a wink of bloody metal that’s withdrawn as quickly as I glimpsed it.
Maybe I mistook a flash of light for a blade. It can’t really have happened.
Father staggers a step, then collapses. Blood pumps out of the wound.
Gargaron lifts the sword to point at the heavens. “Cut off the head, and the body will die. Now. All of you, kneel before your rightful king and queen and I will forgive this trespass. This one time. But do it quickly because my patience and my mercy have worn thin.”
In the horrible silence, I throw myself down beside Father. Maraya cradles his head in her hands as he just did to her. The royal household, the highborn clan heads, and the disgraced priests kneel before Kalliarkos and Meno?, bowing their heads. But all the other people gathered in the temple—and they are many—stay on their feet.
The Honored Protector pulls off his mask and draws his sword.
“Good Goat! Inarsis! Whom do you pretend to be in this festival mask?” Gargaron demands with a laugh.
“I am the king of Efea,” says Inarsis without the slightest flicker of doubt, “and this man was my general, who served me.”
Gargaron shakes his head. “After all that Princess Berenise did for you, this is how you repay us? Today will not end well for you, Inarsis.”
“I have killed Saroese kings. Don’t think I don’t know how to kill a lord.”
Inarsis is a man who has trained long and hard for victory. After a short, sharp exchange he neatly disarms Gargaron, slapping his sword aside by sheer force. He backhands Gargaron across the face so hard he stumbles, then punches him in the jaw with the hilt of his sword. Forcing the lord to his knees, Inarsis lays the edge of his blade against Gargaron’s throat and looks to Mother.
“What is your wish, Honored Custodian?”
Father breathes hoarsely as he fights to stay conscious. His blood leaks over my fingers in steady, sluggish pumps.
I want to scream for Inarsis to stab Gargaron again and again in the gut so he can feel this pain too.
Mother has still not removed her mask. As much as Gargaron has done to me, his offense against her outweighs all else.
In a hoarse voice she says, “Don’t kill him. Let the trial proceed. Let the evidence be presented. Then judgment will be passed in the sight of their own gods and their own laws.”
Only then does she walk to us and, with a hand pressed to her side like she too has been stabbed, kneel at Father’s side.
His eyes track her. His lips shape, “Beloved,” but he can’t get enough air to speak. He raises a hand to touch her yet hesitates, not sure if she will accept it. Instead he pulls the hand to his chest, fist to heart, in the theatrical gesture of a person heart-stricken by a hopeless love.
She takes off her mask and presses his palm to her cheek.
“Maraya!” I’ve slammed into the worst of dead ends but a desperate opening winks into view. “Do you have the crow priest’s bag? Please tell me you have it.”
Of course she understands me instantly.
“Yes, I have it with me. But I don’t know if I can.… I only read about the transfer and discussed it with the boy, because he’s helped with it twice.”
“You have to try.” My voice is ragged as I fight back sobs. “It’s what he would want.”
He can hear us. He whispers, “Let me serve, even after death.”
“There’s no spider.”
“There is!” I say. “There is one waiting for him. We just have to get him there before…”
I can’t say the word. Instead I look around, the hall a blur of confusing light and movement, so many people ablaze with the spark that is life.