Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1) (13 page)

They made it back to the meadow the next evening, and Barek breathed a great sigh of relief, hugging his daughter as tears welled up in his eyes. Watching the man welcome his daughter home made Zar realize the pain Barek must have been suffering through, for the man wore a face of wonder like Shahla had come back from the dead.

Barek asked Shahla all about what had happened, and she told him what seemed to be a much longer yet less specific version of the story she had told Zar. She didn’t mention her attempt to shoot her attacker or about hearing the distress of other captives being violated by the guards. He did learn from what she told Barek that they had been given bread and water each day to keep them healthy, and that she had been in the same stall the whole time since she was brought there. Barek had explained to them he had also been searching the land for her and telling everyone he knew to keep an eye out, but Zar was happy
he
had been the one to find her. For some reason, and an admittedly selfish one Zar conceded, if Shahla would have been rescued by anyone else it wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying. Rescuing her made him feel like a good man, and Zar would give nearly anything to feel as such more often.

After he had been back in the meadow for days comforted by having Shahla back, and celebrating with Barek and her nearly every night that she was returned safe—he grew angry.

It never should have happened.

When he had rescued her he was so relieved and happy there was just no room for anger. But now that she was back and safe Zar dwelled on the absurdity of the situation—the people of Krii were not safe because of their king. The very idea was unacceptable.

“
Tiomot has a secret.”
But what did it mean?

So it was one late morning when Barek and Zar were sitting outside the cottage that Zar asked, “Would you let me use Dancer once again for a short while? I need his speed.”

Barek looked long into Zar’s eyes. “Let it alone, son. She’s back. She’s safe.”

“I cannot. He will hear my mind.”

“But he won’t,” said Barek. “You will never get an audience with the king.”

“Then his guards will relay my curses.”

Barek said nothing.

“I’ll make sure Dancer’s returned to you, but I won’t come back here for some time. I will have no danger follow me back here. I’ll call Asha when I’m far away.”

Barek’s face was grim and his eyes squinted disapprovingly. “The witch’s whistle,” he said.

“Aye.”

“Go if you must,” said Barek.

Zar left within the hour. He needed only to eat a good meal, fill up a water skin, and grab a shield from Barek’s forge before he left. He hugged both Barek and Shahla long and tight, hopped onto the stallion’s back and made off to the west. As he galloped away Shahla cried out, “Make sure Dancer comes back unharmed! And you too!”

As the stallion galloped away Zar chuckled quietly to himself, not knowing what he hoped to accomplish. But he would not sit silent. He would have the reckless king know that his affairs were known to the people, so he would go to the capital and make them known. He felt it was something he must do, filled with almost as much purpose as when he was off to rescue Shahla. He felt alive in those moments, when his friends and family were threatened and it seemed only he could do something about it. He had grown to enjoy the feeling.

Dancer’s run brought them quickly out of the meadow, and Zar travelled the high plains for hours as the sun passed and changed his day from a bright and fervent noon to a dim and quiet dusk. He made camp that night with the city in sight, the tall, white structure of Snowstone Castle standing prominently in the distance.

He made a small fire and quelled his hunger with a few large pieces of jerky. Not having Asha to talk to, he sat quietly and contemplated what he would do on the morrow when he would ride into the city of the king and attempt to make known to the people the extent of his affairs—but Zar didn’t know the extent of them. For what would have become of those girls had he not saved them?

The night was long and Zar’s thoughts kept him awake. What he had planned seemed to him the most foolish yet most important thing he would ever do. He would curse the king at his own gates for Shahla and for Barek, and for all the other women he had rescued and for their mothers and fathers, and for the women of the past who hadn’t been fortunate enough to be rescued—the lost and the unknown. Though it seemed both noble and childish, he felt deep down somewhere in his soul that his actions would serve some purpose. The king would know his deeds were discovered and known by the people of his own city.
It must c
hange something.

It was morning, it seemed, a few moments after Zar had closed his eyes. He arose and grabbed his water-skin, tilting it high and drinking long, then sat still in the cool morning air. He fed himself again with dried meat from his saddle bag, but this time added some raw, wild greens to his meal which he found growing nearby. He expected he would have to flee the city for his life this day, and he needed every extra ounce of strength and nutrients to keep his body at its best.

After eating, he sat still for several moments longer, letting his food go down, and preparing himself in quiet meditation for what was to come. Once his stomach was settled and his mind set to his task, he climbed onto Dancer’s back and rode straightaway for the capital.

The trees of the mainreach had thinned out as Zar moved farther west towards Snowstone. There were now grassy steppes decorated with white stones and flowers, and a few rocky hills which were mild and were traveled over without much trouble. At the bottom of the last gentle incline where the steppe flattened into a vast green plain mottled with clusters of white stones, the city of Snowstone lay, filled with cottages and shops, inns and sentry towers. There were more buildings there than any other city, and their arrangement was uniform and neat, with cottages in straight long rows.

Not far outside the city a stream ran through the fields, and Zar left Dancer there to drink as he headed into the city on foot. He didn’t suspect it would be long before he was running back out, and he knew the stallion would be there in that very spot when he did.

He continued until he reached the gates, glancing a moment at the two sentry towers that stood on either side of it. The archers looked down grimly from their places in the towers, and Zar fixed his gaze straight ahead as he marched through the open city gates.

Tall white palisades fenced in the city on all sides, leaving access only though the front gate by way of the main road into the city, and the rear gates that guarded the royal road up to the castle. Guards were nearly as common as city folk, and the great castle of Snowstone stretched so tall it seemed the city lay just underneath it as one looked up to gaze upon its high, white walls.

Zar made his way into the city about one hundred paces, wishing he could march all the way back to the rear gates and cause his scene there, so that the king or someone else of importance might actually notice him. But Snowstone was too big, and it would take too long to march all the way down to the opposite gates. Furthermore, that gate stayed shut and more heavily guarded, and if he caused a ruckus down there he doubted he would ever make it out of the city, for even if he did somehow manage to work his way back to the front gates they would have long been closed. No, he was precisely where he needed to be—just inside the city gates.

It was guarded by two guards on foot in the front, another two on foot just inside the gates facing the city, and the pair that were looking down from above in the sentry towers. There was an inn nearby and a general shop, and seeing those amenities made Zar even more assured in the place he had chosen to make his announcement. It would be heard by soldiers and civilians alike. He drew in a deep breath, his eyes bouncing back and forth from both sentry towers above him—to watch for arrows—and yelled, nearly as loud as he could, “Your king is a dog!”

Townsfolk around him stopped and looked, and the sentries peered down curiously.

“Your king,” Zar shouted loudly, albeit, warily, “the lecher king, and rightly so called, is stealing your women away in the night!”

“Silence man!” a sentry called down, a steel arrow tip glimmering as the man knocked the shaft.

“Your king is a crook! Your daughters, your sisters, your mothers—how long will you let Tiomot take them away?”

Zar scurried to the side as an arrow flew down from the tower left of the gate. He pulled his shield from his back and darted back closer towards the gates, still yelling.

“He has ordered women to be taken from their homes! I saw them in his storehouse in Red Valley, chained in horse stalls, lying in manure, caged like animals!”

A guard lunged out and Zar held up his shield. His right hand drew his sword from his shoulder, and stabbed it into the man’s thigh as he kept moving towards the gate. He wanted to be right in between the gates so he could dart out if they attempted to shut them, and where the archers in the towers wouldn’t have a clear shot at him. Two other guards attacked him and Zar left them both bleeding, striking one in the throat and stabbing the other after deflecting the attack with his shield.

“Your king is a dog!”

Zar caught an arrow with his shield, fired by one of the sentries who had descended from his tower, and Zar rushed the man, cut him down, and darted out the gates that were squeaking shut. He slung his shield over his back and tucked his head below it as he darted away from the gates, sprinting over the plain towards Dancer who had lifted his head from the grass and was looking at him.

Zar mounted the stallion, but stayed in the field by the stream. The half-closed gates opened as soldiers filed between them, a few shooting long bows at him. The Snowguards aim was shameful at such a range. The few bolts that did make it near him, Zar caught with his shield, or swatted away with the flat of his blade if he anticipated they might hit Dancer.

And all the while he yelled, “Your king is a dog!”

14

I
n the plains of Snowstone
stood a high, steep hill with sharp white crags jutting out from its walls like teeth from Leviathan’s jaws. Atop the great hill stood Tiomot’s beacon of power, a tall, white castle built from the same pale stones that adorned the surrounding hills and fields.

All things about Snowstone Castle were austere and impressive—the high hill it was built upon, the staggered double octagonal curtain walls that enclosed it, the height of the building itself that rose like a mountain peak into the sky, and the great iron castle gates that were blacker than coal and looked impenetrable. For most men the only way up to the castle was the royal road guarded by soldiers and watch towers, and if you weren’t royalty or invited by the like, traveling that way would most certainly be futile, perhaps fatal. But Stroan’s trip would be neither. The sentry’s at the lower road immediately recognized him and let him pass, and on the higher road, passing the sentries stationed about the castle gates was just as easy.

“It is I, doctor of the king’s servants,” called Stroan.

A guard squinted down through his helmet’s visor, standing in the wall tower built beside the gate and nodded approvingly to his fellow guard stationed in the tower across from him. He called down to the guards within the gate, and the black iron portcullis lifted slowly from out of the dirt, its sharp bottoms pulling out from the ground like spears from a wound.

The courtyard was quiet at dawn, and the two guards standing beside the castle’s doors wore grim and tired faces. As Stroan approached, they looked on curiously.

“I am the doctor,” said Stroan, “I come here this time every month—”

“We know who you are,” said one, “go on.”

Stroan entered the castle and walked past the sets of stairs and back to the servant quarters behind the kitchen and storeroom. Trinik, Tiomot’s steward, was there, and showed Stroan back to the servants’ washroom where the women were lined up and waiting for inspection. The steward needed to know who was healthy and who was not, if any were with disease or if any were with child, and Stroan would provide answers. His answers, however, were as good as any man’s guesses or fabrications.

Stroan was a man of many professions—
supposed
professions—in which he had no real skill, but could thoroughly convince others who had no knowledge of the field otherwise. He had become the servants’ doctor Tiomot’s steward called on by intercepting a letter from a reputable doctor to the steward, editing the message, and killing the doctor. Now he was permitted to check on all the servants every month, one by one, to make certain Tiomot’s dainties were ever in perfect health and did not upset him with news of being with child. He would place his hands across their back and tell them to breathe in deeply, rub his hands across their belly in a circular motion, have them stare at the burning wick of a lit candle as long as they could without blinking, and anything else he could think of that might seem obscure to normal folk but done by doctors.

Stroan remembered the first time he had seen them all—white clad in cotton robes that were thinner than sheets, sitting on the floor in a long line that curved around the room’s perimeter. His mouth had nearly dropped in wonder. He had never seen so many beautiful women in one place. All of the servants were women except for the steward, Trinik, and they all wore nothing but the fine white robe that the lecher king no doubt designed to be easily seen through and easily removed.

But now he was accustomed to the process, and waltzed back into the washroom quite casually to begin his usual inspection. The first was a Cyanan woman, Stroan noted by her brown skin and curly red hair; she must’ve been new, for he hadn’t seen her before. Her big, shiny eyes looked timid as he approached, and Stroan looked her over. Her top lip puckered out over the bottom one, and her narrow chin lowered under high, prominent cheek bones. The woman was exceptionally beautiful, and as Stroan opened her robe and rubbed his hands across her stomach in affected doctoral fashion, he thought it a shame she would spend her days in a vile place such as Snowstone Castle with a man like King Tiomot. Tiomot didn’t deserve this woman’s company.

He felt sorry for them all—for the pale, golden-haired girl who grinned curiously despite being surrounded by women who wore fearful and anxious faces; for the stout- framed, big-bosomed woman with green eyes so captivating he could scarcely look away from them; for the woman whose unblemished, onyx-colored skin was the smoothest he had ever seen; and most of all for the brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty whose hair hung in loose curls, whose touch meant the world.

Stroan slid his hands into Yuna’s robe. Their eyes had been locked intimately since he sat down in front of her, but Stroan broke the connection to see who was observing them and how closely. The first few inspections he had conducted had been much more difficult, for the steward Trinik would stand by and watch as Stroan performed his would-be doctor’s procedures, and the other women looked on curiously. Now Trinik rarely even stayed in the room for the inspection, but would continue with castle affairs and check back in after a time to see if he had fini shed. The other girls had also grown bored of his antics, which left Stroan to simply retrieve Yuna’s messages without much more than a glance about the room.

His skin tingled, the hairs on his arms and shoulders began to stand. These visits were the highlight of Stroan’s month, the only intimate moment they’d shared since being separated. To have her right in front of him, her big brown curls nearly close enough to tickle his cheek, but forbidden to hug her and kiss her and take her away, made Stroan feel that abominable yet now familiar sting of helplessness. How he loathed the feeling.

He let his hand drop to Yuna’s crotch and felt around until the stiff surface of rolled paper brushed against his fingertips. He pulled it out of her and closed his fingers, tucking it into his palm, reached back into his doctor’s bag and dropped it inside. He then forced himself to move on from Yuna, and continued down the line while noting which servants he would be kind to by saying they were ill or with child, for those Tiomot sent away at once, and Stroan took delight in the fact that even while being a fraud he could grant some of these women their freedom with just a few simple words.

“She’s ill,” said Stroan, pointing at a girl that looked too young to be touched by any man. “And
she
is with child.” Stroan moved his arm to the far corner of the room, pointing at the Cyanan woman he had first inspected. Hopefully she would find a safe traveling party back to Cyana and never set foot in the mainreach again.

“With child? Already?” Trinik’s thick brows furrowed as he looked to Stroan disappointedly.

Stroan wore a face that he thought to be doctorly—solemn, and shamelessly indifferent. He only nodded.

“Pity,” said Trinik, “the king did fancy that one.” The steward was looking the Cyanan up and down as Stroan exited the room.

“Wait,” he called. The steward’s voice sounded sharper than usual as if he had just remembered something—or had just figured something out.

Stroan stopped and turned slowly. Would this be the day he was found out? The steward smiled smugly and his eyes squinted, looking keen and knowing. Stroan didn’t say a word, but moved his hand into his cloak and gripped his dagger.

“I nearly forgot,” called Trinik. “The king requests you at breakfast.”

Stroan smiled. “This early?”

“Of course not. The king won’t wake for some time.

Come back in a few hours.”

“Might you know why he summons me?”

Trinik smiled, as if privileged and waiting to share the information. “Our doctor fell ill himself not long before we contacted you. He’s very old. I suppose our king wishes you to move into the castle.”

“And your thoughts on this?”

“My thoughts do not matter,” said Trinik, “not concerning this.”

Stroan smiled slowly, keeping his eyes upon Trinik’s.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes,” the steward replied, dipping his head with the answer. “But our good king can be short in temper and mercy both. If you refuse he may end up killing you.” Trinik grinned spiritedly after the statement, but there was nothing else offered to make Stroan think it was a joke.

“Thank you, friend,” said Stroan, broadening his smile. “You have told me what I need to know. I look forward to more friendly advice from you, since it appears we’ll be seeing each other often, now.”

“You need only ask,” said the steward, smiling slightly.

The steward was a kind man, Stroan felt, and genuine. He was the rare type that spoke plainly and hid no meaning in his face. It was clear he thought highly of himself, being steward of the king, but the man was not arrogant, and did not parade his status about haughtily like other nobility Stroan had seen. He seemed truly eager to help, which would usually cause Stroan to be suspicious; but in the case of Trinik he felt quite at ease. He seemed the kind to make good practical use of his title instead of flaunting it about for others to see and admire. He seemed that type of fellow—a good man, if Stroan’s readings were accurate, and if they weren’t, a good deceiver.

Stroan left the castle and passed the early morning hours with a nap at the cottage he had appropriated. The place was polished and neat, just like the man he had hauled out of the city a few months ago. There was an unusual smell about that Stroan gathered was from the various bags of herbs and jars of tonics the doctor kept on his shelves. But after coming and going a few weeks he had gotten used to the smell, just as he had gotten used to being the doctor.

He had received several messages, taken patients at his home and made a few house calls. To those who did not know the former doctor’s face he was the good doctor, Andor, and for those who did he was Raabin, who had just taken over his brother’s practice since he had moved to the Stroan wondered how long it would hold up. He found it astonishing that while he did nothing but a few spurious antics people would get better or get worse, and if they got better they credited it to him, and if they got worse it was the will of the gods. He could not lose one battle as a doctor it seemed, for his title alone made people put their life in his hands and trust that any silly or simple thing he did could make them better. And sometimes it did.

They would all look so desperate, eyes wide and watery, like he alone held life and death in his hands, pleading for him to save their loved ones and friends. He would sprinkle them with herbs, douse them with tonics, and rub them in strange ways in strange places. Not once did any person have any inkling it was all a ruse.
Only a doc
tor would not be questione
d
. It was by far his easiest concoction. One of Anza’s books said you could always tell who was closest in a family or group by their arrangement at the meal table, and after joining the royal family for breakfast, Stroan didn’t need Yuna’s letters to find out there was dissention among them. The long table stretched nearly the length of the room, but was not evenly filled with occupants. Instead there were guests crowded together at each end, with all the other parts of the table being bare, save the very middle where the food was set.

At one end was the king, and at the other the queen.

They were divided even at mealtime, though Stroan doubted they ate many meals together, and the arrangement of the other nobles was just as distinct. Prince Tharid sat beside his mother, and beside him sat a young and pretty lady he had queen’s blood, Kazakus her brother and his young son Antiah. At the other end, Tiomot was garnished with his cousin Jorin and his wife, Vacenia, on one side, along with their two adult daughters, and Banas and Krin across from them. Between both parties were two roasted pheasants, bowls of fried eggs, sliced loaves of bread, grapes and apples, and pitchers of water and wine. A servant girl stood on each side of the table to pass food and drink to the guests who beckoned, and Stroan recognized both women from the inspection early that morning.

“This breakfast,” said Tiomot, mouth overflowing with food, “is to welcome our new doctor.” Remnants of poultry fell from the king’s hand as he motioned to Stroan. Stroan dipped his head with a prim smile. Most glanced at Stroan and nodded in approval—except for Jorin’s daughters who were occupied in their own conversation, smiling and snickering closely.

The prince turned his eyes to his father. “Good,” he said. “We will be in need of doctors.”

“With the war that’s coming.” The queen sat poised, taking tiny bites of food and nibbling on them for an eternity before starting on another. Her endless hair was pulled back and tied behind her head—and folded many times so it did not drag the ground.

Tiomot sat up straight and stiff and puckered out his lips to a point. “With the war that’s coming,” he mocked, pitching his voice high to sound like Thae’s.

The queen snickered at Tiomot, twisting her face in contempt, but said nothing.

proclaimed him to be the new royal doctor without asking him, but he certainly wasn’t surprised. He only bowed his head and smiled when the king presented him, and any other time he looked his way.

“Aye, war!” the king bellowed. “What of war? Who here is afraid of war?” The king gulped down his wine and beads of the red liquid trickled down his beard as he rested his cup back on the satin tablecloth. “Jorin? Banas, Krin?” The king looked to his men expectantly.

“Never afraid of war, my king,” said Banas, his raspy voice crackling out the words. Beside him Krin shook his head and smiled slightly.

“If there is to be a war we will win it!” Jorin proclaimed, sounding almost as loud as his cousin when he raised his voice.

“Ah, at least you men haven’t lost your nerve. A pity I can’t say the same for my wife and son.”

“Women are expected to show such softness, cousin,” said Jorin, beckoning for a maid to serve him some more roast pheasant which lay far out of his reach. “But Tharid, I fear your father is right. You’ve lost your nerve.”