To Stand Beside Her (14 page)

“Do you think she will really stay?” Macarius asked Nalick
when he passed
.

“I hope she does,” Nalick replied.

Leila removed her blind fold after catching the last child
and
noticed Nalick sitting with Macarius
,
while
above King Godfrith watch
ed
from his window.
Godfrith loved his son, but just didn’t know how to communicate with him.

“Hold on one second,” Leila said to the children.
She ran over to Nalick and grabbed his hand.
“It is your turn, my king.”
She pulled him back to
the children and tied the blind
fold around his eyes.

Leila and Nalick played with the children until
dinner
time.
After washing and redressing for the meal, Leila followed Nalick to the dining room.
Former King Godfrith greeted
Leila
at the
dining room
door.

“Leila and Nalick, this is my newest wife
,
Lule,” Godfrith presented his young wife.
Lule was short and a bit heavy set.
Her round face smiled brightly as she was introduced.
T
he girl was younger than
Leila
.
Lule’s hair
and other body parts
bounced as she did her best to curtsy for Leila and Nalick, but the young woman was quite uncoordinated and almost tripped over her own feet.
“And here dear is where you will be sitting, to the right of your future husband,” he added.
Leila counted the four seats next to the
former
king.
Four wives
, she thought.

“The guests should be arriving soon.
Lule, please go get the others.”
At Godfrith's
order
t
he
girl
quickly ran out the front door and down the hallway
,
stumbling along the way
.

“Picking them quite young now,” Nalick commented to his father.
Godfrith did not respond.

Tur
n
ing to Leila, Godfrith asked, “
I
f you could stand here with me, I would like to introduce you to the nobles as they arrive.”
Godfrith led Leila to the door on the right of the room.
Nalick followed close behind.
From the other door entered four women all elegantly dressed.
Leila noticed Lule was the last in the row of women.

As each woman approached, s
he bowed to Nalick and then to Leila.
Each woman was extravagantly decorated with jewels
and each younger than the one in front of them
.
T
hey looked more like street performers than wives to a former king
to Leila
, but she kept her comments to herself.
Godfrith waved his hand and the younger three women walked over and seated themselves.
The oldest wife stood to the right of Godfrith while Leila stood on his left.
In pairs, the nobles of Dria arrived to the dinner.
A lady stepped forward followed by her equally ornately decorated husband.

“She married the father so that she could be with the sons,” Nalick whispered in Leila’s ear.
Leila watched as the two men behind the lady bot
h purposely escorted their step-
mother to their seats
with their hands in places they should not have been
,
as their father stopped to talk to Godfrith.
“They have been trying to get me to marry their daughter since she was eight
and I was seventeen
,” Nalick said.

“King Nalick,” the bushy haired father called out.
“It is so great to see you.
Have you thought about my offer?”
The overweight man asked.

“One wife is more than I can handle,” Nalick replied as the man was ushered into the dining hall by the next group that approached.

“They never give up,”
Nalick
whispered to Leila.

Leila continued to meet people
until
the dining hall was filled.
Nalick escorted her to her seat before sitting himself beside his father.
S
taff served the guests in a well
-
orchestrated manner so that everyone was fed at the same time.
Leila was amused to watch as waiters dipped and danced around each other.
Not a single plate of food or drink was spilled.

After dinner a dancing troupe and band were brought in.
As the music started to play, guests meandered th
r
ough the hall greeting old friends they had not seen in a while.
Leila watched quietly.
She
studied each
intently
trying
to remember the names of the specific nobles.
Leila
had never done a job in Dria.
Dria was just across the border from the
North Country
,
and it was too hard to do jobs so close to home.
S
he
scanned over the crowd.
Suddenly
,
Leila
stopped.
Across the room
,
she recognized a face
from their
one and
only
encounter
.
He was a courier based in Samael the country directly to the west of Lior.

Leila leaned over near Nalick and asked, “
W
ho is the family over there?”
She pointed in the direction of the man she recognized.

“Nobles from the western border,” Nalick replied studying the group and noticing the one that stood out.

“
He
is a courier from Samael.
The last I heard about Seth was that he stopped working for his courier station and was working directly for King Jahangir.”
Nalick understood without Leila finishing.

“How good is he?”
Nalick asked worried
ly
.

“Not better than me, but that is not why I am concerned,” Leila continued to stare at Seth.
Seth
noticed and raised his glass to Leila before giving her a wicked smile.
Leila stood up
,
and Nalick rose to follow her.
She placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait here,” she instructed.
Leila passed the crowds of people and walked out onto the dining room’s adjoining balcony.
Theo and Macarius followed her from a distance.
She stood looking over the city waiting for Seth to join her.
It was not long before he approached.

“The famed
ghost courier
.
It is an honor to be in your presence,” he said with a
flamboyant
bow
.
“
Y
our own personal guard.
I see you have moved up in the world.”

Leila turned to look at the man who had been tracking her for years.
“What do you want?”
s
he asked directly staring at him.
Seth was a rather small man
who barely
stood the same height as Leila.
H
e was not a threat personally, but his knowledge of her becoming the next queen of Lior would be a problem.

“I am here to extend to you an invitation to join me on my way home to Samael,”
Seth
smirked at Leila.

“Do you even need to ask?”
s
he replied.
“Hasn’t the last few years taught you
r king
anything?”

“Oh
,
yes, to catch the legendary
ghost courier
, one needs to get the upper hand.”
He walked around to the other side of Leila.
“Or so I have been told.
How did he do it?
Please do tell.
”

Seth
flicked a finger towards
Nalick who was watching the two of them intently.
“From what I have been told, he is just like any other king
s
, boorish, self-centered
.
Yet
,
somehow he convinced you to stay.”
Leila looked over at Nalick who now
visually
starting to get upset.

“Go back to your king
,
and tell him I am not interested.
I was not then, and I am not now.”
Leila started to walk away.
Seth grabbed her arm to stop her.
Leila swung back around and slapped the man across the face.
Nalick rose to join her as Macarius and Theo moved closer.

Seth chuckled
.
“
F
eisty as ever.”
He let go of her arm.
“I was offering you an invitation so that we can avoid what will come next if you do not join me.
One way or another, King Jahangir will not stop until you are his queen.”

Leila walked away as Nalick quickly came over to her.
Seth disappeared into the crowd before Macarius or Theo could stop him.

“Are you ok
ay
?”
A worried Nalick asked Leila.

“You brought Anatolio with,” Leila said to Nalick.
Nalick was shocked to find that Leila knew that the young tracker was with them.
“Send him to follow Seth.
I don’t know what he is up to, but I doubt it will be anything good.”

Chapter
9

Before dawn
,
Leila
woke to a gentle shake and
a
hand over her mouth.
Opening
her eyes,
Leila
was face to face with Anatolio.
He put his finger to his lips to indicate to her to be silent and motioned for her to follow him.
Leila passed Macarius and Theo asleep on the two couches in the room.
Neither man stirred as Leila and Anatolio walked past them.
Leila could make out a faint hue of the sun coming near the horizon.

Not very good guards
, Leila thought.

“Does Nalick know you are back?” Leila asked.

“Not yet.
I was told to follow Seth on your orders
,
so I thought I should first report back to you,” the young man explained.
“I followed him across the bo
rder.
He met up at a war camp.
Just outside Lior, King Jahangir has an army set ready to march here to take you back with them.
I could only hear parts of the conversation, but I know they will be here by
midday
.”

Leila nodded her head.
“
I estimated about forty people were on our ship and less on the other four that came with us.
That is not big enough to protect this city.
So what are Nalick’s options?”
s
he asked
,
knowing that the boy had more information on their traveling companions than she did.

“Nalick traveled here with less than one hundred trained men and there is a small force permanently here in the city.
From what I saw, Jahangir has at least three times the amount of people
as us
.
We have enough to
stay here in the palace and be protected until reinforcements arrive.”