The Woven End Read online

  Here is where the skovels of Tici lived, and the wind might blow through gaps in the walls. He wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced behind him as he knocked on a faded red door.

  A woman answered.

  "Your Majesty," Cova said, bowing.

  "Cova." She smiled grimly. "So he retains his integrity, hm?"

  Cova smiled and nodded.

  She peeked out to the left and right. "No carriage? No one knows you have come?"

  "Nay, Your Majesty."

  “Come in and talk with me," she said, turning away from the door and, with grace not found in any other home of this area of Sathas, poured water into a kettle and set it over her meager fire.

  Cova followed, closing the door behind him. Brádach stood in a corner, silent.

  Having only communicated with her by letters or in the Sálverøld, Cova never saw where she lived. The conditions were appalling. The idea that a woman of her rank could be demoted in such a thorough manner was unthinkable. Persenimos was certainly the passive aggressive iconoclast.

  A single wooden chair by a window overlooked a littered alley way. The woman trod in bare feet on an uneven dirt floor, dotted with skovel feces. The smell of mold did not escape Cova's pampered nose.

  She looked about her, sheepishly. "I apologize for the skovel—well, without windows it's hard to keep them out."

  "I'll send windows to you.”

  The woman smiled. "You must be certain the king does not catch wind of you helping me." She turned to the water, now boiling. "It might put you in greater danger than the idea of conspiring with me. Sit down, friend." She gestured to the chair. “I’m glad to speak with you face-to-face after all this time.”

  Cova sat in the lone wood chair while the woman stood, tending to tea.

  She looked back over her shoulder, briefly. "I must say I am still surprised at your behavior. You have always liked my son."

  "I'm doing nothing against your son."

  "What are you doing, then?" She poured tea into a chipped cup.

  Observing a stub-tailed cozer in the alley, Cova brushed the question off with a distracted air. "Helping him in spite of himself. We will have many stars ahead of us to discuss that once everything is in place."

  The woman snorted. "I wish I were as confident as you are. It is all so haphazard and careless."

  He looked at her and smirked. "And yet, how conveniently the world plays into our hands. You cannot lose when you work with a truly great soul, Your Majesty."

  The woman handed him his tea and said nothing more on the matter. She sipped at her own cup across the room, looking at the road through her front window.

  "What is the next step?" Brádach asked.

  Cova straightened up and separated himself from the life of the alley cozer to focus.

  "We will work on her emotions, bring her to a place of weakness, swoop in to advise her, and she will do exactly what we hope for. Her skill level is excellent, but only a slyte can do what it will have her attempt. She will automatically fail and open the child up for the unprecedented union. If we succeed, we will have to talk to the slytes.”

  Chapter Nine

  Queen Sidita sat alone in her room. She knew the best ways to cope and the quickest ways through the labyrinth of a breaking heart. Today should be the last day of separation. After today, she might move along.

  She stared out at the palace garden, in full bloom, and thought of very little except of thinking that she knew she was thinking about very little.

  What a sad affair to think only of how little you are thinking of.

  She turned to a portrait of Queen Nuneh hanging on her wall and set her eyes on it for several minutes.

  A black cozer leapt to the ledge of her window. She threw her hand to her mouth and gave a tiny shriek before laughing at herself. He was a large cozer, very tame, healthy, and shiny. He stepped in, and she reached out to pet him. The cozer arched the rolling hill of his silky back to meet her hand as she stroked him.

  “How did you get in here?” She asked as she rubbed under his neck. The cozer stretched his neck out with an inviting purr. The cozer sat down, licked its paw, and looked at her. She looked back at it and smiled.

  “A street cozer struggles through life. It tries to survive, it tries to enjoy itself, but it suffers as everyone else. Who are you to expect a life without suffering? This is why the Alchemine code forbids so much. Suffering must exist for anything to be pleasurable. Without suffering, our pleasures would be monotony.”

  “I hope I’ve made your day a little better, handsome cozer.”

  In this silence, her bell rang. The cozer’s tail fluffed up as he leapt out the window.

  "Come in."

  The servant entered the room.

  "The governor of Sakat, Your Majesty, has requested audience with you."

  He came to the palace the day before, but he did not visit her. His affairs with the king were top priority and, apparently, he had no time for his grieving niece.

  She sighed. Of course, Sidita could not deny her uncle, so he made his entrance into her chambers with the nod of her head. Upon seeing him, she fell into his arms and wept.

  "You have thrown my grieving schedule off an entire week by coming here," she said, half-laughing. Then she cried some more.

  However, Cova's manner always suited her well. He calmed her quickly and talked to her of less painful things.

  Was she happy in her marriage? Were jewels and silks still to her liking? Had she tired of being a spectacle? Or of humanitarian efforts?

  The conversation continued for a good while with some laughter. Sidita's mood improved. Cova smiled, patted her on the knee, and stood up to look at the paintings hanging on her wall. After a few moments of assembling the words in his mind, he spoke.

  "What would you be willing to do to secure an heir for Persenimos, Sidita?"

  The smile faded from her face.

  "Nearly anything."

  "I know how you can do it. Will you hear me out?" He looked over his shoulder to see her slight nod.

  "Talk to Nat-Scrios about it," he said.

  She trembled. A pang of longing, like an addiction.

  "Nat-Scrios! I think not, uncle. My dealings with that slyte are done. I will not…"

  He held his hand out to signal for silence. "Sh, sh, listen to me. It can help you. Believe me. It has ancient wisdom. Do you remember?"

  "I have not thought of, seen, nor spoken to it in stars. I have no intention…"

  "If you do not produce an heir, the only solution is for Persenimos to take a mistress, my dear."

  Silence.

  She regrouped and scoffed at the thought.

  "He wouldn't…He wouldn't do that.”

  "Kings must do things that one might not expect. It is his responsibility to provide an heir for himself and for the kingdom. If you are not able then…"

  "But, what can Nat-Scrios do?"

  "That is for Nat-Scrios to decide. Will you at least speak with it? No harm comes from speaking." He smiled.

  A mistress. The very thought poisoned all lucid mental processing. She could never look Persenimos in the eyes again if she knew he had a mistress. It would be unbearable. She would flee the palace in the Star fall and live in poverty on Bos, rather than live with a husband who must have a mistress for political reasons—such a senseless purpose for anything.

  "I will speak with it."

  "There's a good girl. A wise choice," Cova said. "I will send Nat-Scrios your way. Speak with it this Star fall."

  The Star rise passed slowly for Sidita. She wanted this ugly business over with, and yet Star fall would not come. She ventured to look into the Sálverøld several times in hopes that Nat-Scrios arrived sooner than Cova said, but it did not. She trembled lightly with a mixture of terror and elation at the impending encounter. She sat down, spine erect, shoulders back, and hands hanging lightly off the edge of the arms of the chair. She forced her eyes closed and tried to push the fear from
her mind.

  "Someone occupy me. Someone remind me of an engagement I have forgotten. Someone announce supper. Anything! Let Persenimos come in renouncing the whole plot. Let it be needless. Let it…"

  Her fingers closed around the edges of the chair’s arms. She sputtered harshly through her self restraint and wept.

  She considered crossing the waters in the Sálverøld to go to Nat-Scrios herself, but desperation had not reached such a frantic zenith just yet. The journey would tire her soul and leave her physically defenseless for too long. Were someone to knock at her door, she would be too far away to know it, and they might consider her comatose or worse: mad.

  A mad queen. Nay. She continued to weep and settled for that as her distraction.

  She recalled the thought that came to her earlier.

  Without suffering, pleasures would be monotonous.

  She would hold on to that. She would roll in her sufferings. She would taste, feel, and smell them, if it meant the soothing pleasures of life would outweigh them.

  She did not move from the chair for the remainder of the day. She refused her meals and would see no one. The room's shadows shifted with the Star and eventually fell away entirely. She sat in blackness, trying to accustom herself to darkness before seeing the slyte. Rain fell, pattering against her windows.

  After the hours of self-torture, Nat-Scrios's arrival came as a relief rather than the anticipated horror. She felt coolness, beyond that of the Star fall, a sure sign of Nat-Scrios's presence. She entered the Sálverøld.

  "Cova sent me to see you," said Nat-Scrios.

  "Yes."

  "What troubles you? I see you are troubled."

  Sidita poured out her heart and closed her statements abruptly, with a shudder.

  "I can help you if you wish to proceed."

  She nodded her head for it to go on.

  "Call for me when you next conceive. I will aid you, then."

  "But, what will you expect of me?" She spoke quickly, afraid it might disappear before she learned these important conditions.

  "Only weavings that will grant you greater wonders than you have asked for."

  "I need your help for these weavings?" She asked.

  The slyte bowed its form in a manner indicating an answer in the positive.

  “I have done weavings with your help before. Instruction is not a great matter for me. However, if this is a deeper matter where you must touch me…”

  “It is the nature of things,” it answered. “But, how long will you go on believing that my touch is poison?

  Sidita's heart knocked at her chest, threatening to burst out. This must be more thoroughly considered.

  "I may send for you. Thank you for coming to me."

  The following Star rise, Sidita sent for Cova. His icy welcome into Sidita's quarters, hardly as cordial as he expected, required formal behavior that he was not accustomed to. He stood straight, silent, and very respectful as Sidita paced the floor, throwing out all of her thoughts and concerns related to her uncle's proposed solution.

  "…You realize that the only choice is to be connected to Nat-Scrios. Not just weaving with its instruction, but touching it. I'm not convinced that this is worth the price. If the king wishes to be so immoral and to degrade himself in such a manner for the sake of a son, then let him.

  “How can I forsake my parents teaching so blatantly? So completely! To regard the Great Soul’s order in nature as filth? The sufferings that nature allows us, bring us to a place of pleasure. Without this suffering, I may never know pleasure. The Great Soul has our interest in mind, Uncle.” She paced the floor, wringing her hands.

  “The accomplished deed's glory will pale next to the weight of my conscience once I am forever bound by my soul to that dark creature of the Sálverøld. Am I to, in a fit of pride, permit Nat-Scrios to enter in on the matters of the king and queen? Am I to…?"

  "You are to do what you see fit, Your Majesty. I have simply proffered a solution, and you have but to reach out and take it. Count the costs, as you see them, for I could ask you to do no less. However, try to recall, I beg you, the affection you had for this slyte before you knew it had a name."

  With a firm mouth and unyielding jaw, she eyed her uncle. Her sudden turn toward the window ended their meeting. He bowed and left her.

  Sidita clasped her hand to her chet and sat down on her bed. She might rant and rave about the king as though his behavior meant nothing to her, but desperation clawed at her soul in such a wild manner that she was unable to ignore it. She owed so much to everyone, and she couldn't fail them, herself, or her parents.

  She got up and washed her face, put a cord of coro bark around her neck, and set out to find the king.

  It was a beautiful Star rise. The rain of the previous Star fall left residual grayness in the sky, but the Star seemed all the more radiant for it. The wetness made the royal gardens a verdant paradise. Sidita passed through the gardens to the spearing range where she suspected Persenimos would be. He made time for relaxation today, and it was certain he would use that time for working with his javelin and spear.

  She opened the gate of the last garden and stepped into the open field. Persenimos stood in the field with his javelin, alone. He preferred to throw and retrieve the javelin himself, rather than be accompanied by servants who would do the tasks for him. He appreciated every aspect of the sport and, doubtless, the focus of isolation was helpful preparation for the javelin and spear competition at the Triland’s imminent Star’s Beginning festival.

  Behind him stood a straw man, not in use. He stood a proper distance from a target, dressed in white pants and bare feet. His white tunic lay several feet away, carelessly strewn across the grass.

  Sidita mustered all the semblance of cheer she could as she called out to him, waving as she walked.

  He stood, his arms akimbo as he looked toward her. He smiled and waved.

  She came near to him and bowed. He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. He seemed quite cheerful.

  "An excellent throw, Your Majesty," she said.

  He looked to the target, stuck with his javelin, and nodded.

  "I've been doing rather well today. Perhaps it's the rain. Rain energizes me. I love the colors."

  How could she broach the subject? She couldn't. That was plain enough.

  She must observe him for any indication that he might truly be considering what Cova accused him of. This would not be simple task, she knew, because she and Persenimos rarely kept secrets. They were frank and honest with each other. If he kept a secret, there would be good reason, and it would be quite a task to draw it out.

  She feared his temper. He was not one to lose control of his temper or to lash out in inappropriate ways, but it was a thing to behold—a beautiful thing to behold— when directed at injustices and treachery, but a horrifying thing when directed at oneself. The happy sparkle of his blue eyes turned into a flame licking furiously at glass. His handsome wide jaw, clenched and twitched with restraint, and his golden voice, which could lure her out of her bed to find it, seemed more like the thunder that would send her to her bed to hide under the covers, hoping it would go away.

  Still, she had to know, for her peace of mind.

  "My dear Persenimos, we are always forthright with one another, are we not?"

  Persenimos nodded, tilting his head a little and frowning. "Of course."

  She couldn't bear it. If he had not been considering a mistress, it would be such an affront to him to ask. He would never forgive her, and she would not blame him for it. What an insult to his character! She pressed her lips together as she thought.

  "I beg you," she began, "to tell me whether or not you are pleased with me."

  His left eyebrow arched as he studied her expression. He took her by surprise and swept her in to his chest with his arms and held her there. He kissed the top of her head and murmured,

  "Madam, none of the pain we have suffered together, or the tr
ials we have passed through have ever made me feel displeasure with you. To the contrary, you have stood stalwart as a susu tree in the face of a storm that the strongest of women might easily bend, to the point of breaking within.

  "I have the utmost appreciation and respect for you, and if I had my power strand as I ought, were I given a choice to go back and choose a bride again, I would yet choose you. I can think of no other woman I would prefer over my blush lalia bride with vellis petal skin, satin hair, and fire lit blue eyes."

  After a few moments, he squeezed her one last time before letting her go and looking at her half laughing, half crying eyes.

  "Does that satisfy you?" He asked, smiling.

  Oh, that it would! She believed him, but a mistress would be nothing personal, would it? It was simply a means to obtain an heir and was not intended to be a relationship which would serve as a replacement for the one he did not have with his own wife. One could follow the mistress prescription as easily as one might take a tonic. Though the tonic was sure to bring less agreeable sensations.

  Oh, yes, she believed him, but it did not uproot the poisonous, questioning weed growing within her.

  Chapter Ten

  The following constellations were no joy for Sidita. No word of a mistress ever reached her ears, and Persenimos gave no indication that such a plot brewed within the palace walls. She tried to breathe a sigh of relief but could not convince herself to rest easy. Therefore, the sigh of relief was only a sigh of hoped-for relief.

  She often prepared requests to be the king’s companion for a Star fall, but never sent them. She had the right to be so bold, but she feared willingly putting herself back into the cycle of conception and loss. She would not seek out the slyte's aid. Therefore, she could not seek out a renewal of her problem.

  They saw each other very little over the constellations subsequent to the last miscarriage. They made their appearances and waved to the people together, but the king, always busy, had little time outside of brief, in-carriage talks, and the meals they shared.

  Persenimos, however, was determined to change it. There was no reason for the king to live this way when the governors were perfectly capable of governing much more of their own affairs. He worried for his wife and the change in her manner, and he probably changed, as well. They needed to work this out. Sidita was fragile. He couldn’t explain how he knew it, but he did. She needed reinforcement and strength to face life in the wake of their tragedies. For a day, he cast all his duties aside and rejected them. With the Star rise, Sidita woke to a presence in the room. She felt the bed depress beside her, and a kiss on her cheek. She opened her eyes.