Page 56 of Among the Burning Flowers
‘And then, in her last act,’ King Sigoso said, ‘my bride took a knife she had concealed in her sleeve, and she ensured that you would be my sole heir of the body. She brought death on herself.’
‘You killed her. With your own hands.’
‘With my own hands.’
No block in a private chamber. No rope.
A brutal, human fight between a king and queen.
‘Why have you kept me caged for ten years?’ Marosa asked, close to losing her grip altogether. ‘I knew nothing of this.’
‘You guessed.’
‘I did not want to believe my own father was capable of murder.’
‘But your Ersyri uncle always has. Jantar threatened to abduct you to Rauca,’ he said. ‘He fears for your life, as well he might. No matter what your mother intended, she did not protect you. You are no Berethnet queen, Marosa Vetalda. The world will not end if you die.’
‘That is true,’ Marosa conceded, ‘but you will die first of the two of us, Father. I am not the puppet here. And if I survive Fýredel, as you will not – if I remain – then Yscalin will be mine to remake. I will let the world know what you did to Rosarian. I will do to your image exactly what you did to hers. I will raise my mother back to glory, and bury your legacy in the dust.’
King Sigoso did not speak again. She turned away and left him to decay in his own company.
****
The Vaulted Gallery housed the foreign ambassadors. Marosa was slow to reach it, her mind seeming to drift in her wake. She had never believed that anything could frighten her more than Fýredel, but the evil in the mountains paled in comparison to the evil in her own home.
Fynch received Marosa in his apartments. As Dowager Prince of Inys, his were the finest quarters, with nine windows in the main chamber and a door leading to a roofed balcony.
‘I have seen,’ Marosa told him.
He lowered himself on to a settle, suddenly looking his age.
‘When Fýredel called your father,’ he said, ‘I sensed it was the first and last opportunity I would ever have to get inside his cabinet – the one he built for secret and sensitive documents. That is where he kept the evidence. And where the poisoned gown was made.’
‘Who told you about it?’
‘His locksmith, who is faithful to the Saint above her king. She also showed me the water passages.’
‘My lord?’
‘The copper pipes that bring hot water run in narrow tunnels behind the walls. There are entry points for plumbers, so repairs might be made if the pipes leak or rupture. I have the key to those entry points. I doubt that your father knows, but one of them is in his bedchamber.’
A lifetime spent in this suffocating tower, and somehow, Marosa still did not know it.
‘These passages,’ she said. ‘Will you show them to me?’
‘Yes.’ His gaze became distant. ‘I was not there when Rosarian died, but our child was. I am still not sure how Sabran survived it. There was … almost nothing left of her mother to bury.’
Marosa thought of Sabran, a consummate queen, never showing weakness. All while she held that memory within her.
‘I once believed my father was faithful to the Saint,’ Marosa said. ‘I do not know how he justified this.’
‘Oh, I think Sigosowasdevout, but I have long suspected him of harbouring a grudge against Rosarian for rejecting his suit. It is why I asked Sabran to make me her ambassador.’
‘When did my father court Rosarian?’
‘About five years before you were born, when Rose was still a princess. But the late Queen Jillian had wanted her to marry me. Rose respected her last wish.’ He clasped his liver-spotted hands. ‘During my inquiry, I discovered that your father once had ambitious plans for this kingdom. He hoped that, by siring a Berethnet with Vetalda blood, he could eventually move the seat of Virtudom to Yscalin. Rose inadvertently thwarted those plans. Later, it seems this Cupbearer convinced him that she was adulterous. In his mind, that allowed him to mete out punishment. By then, she had an heir. Her untimely death would not release the Nameless One.’
‘It frightens me that our faith can be twisted so.’
