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King Dunstan paced back and forth across the room, trying to focus on the echo of his boots on the flagstones and not the whispered voices of the men seated at the long table. As he so often did, he stopped and looked up at the marked beams, certain he could still smell the smoke from so long ago.
“Can this continue?” a voice asked, and he looked towards the group.
“I have ordered him to return.”
“I don’t think he believes you are the authority he should follow,” Lord Langham said. The king tried not to sigh as he sat down at the head of the table. “It is because you are without an heir,” the older man continued.
“Sir,” the king said, trying to sound measured. “You overstep.”
“It isn’t the first time,” someone else muttered, but Dunstan was so focused on Langham that he did not recognise who had spoken.
“The death of your son was a tragedy. Along with the king. And yet, to ensure the Kingdom of Burasal continues, you must produce a child. You were young, your bride still able.”
“But not willing,” he said quickly, then leaned back as the murmuring started around the table. “She was too broken by the death of our son.”
“It was not her fault. We all heard the child cry out. It was a long and painful birth, but lesser women have survived such. My own dear wife, may the God and the Goddess keep her close, managed seven before the last one took her.”
A hush fell over the room as Lord Langham gave him an odd smile across the table, his fingers working through his silver beard.
“Do you expect one of them to carry on my legacy?” the king asked.
“If you do not produce an heir, there will be upheaval for a successor.” Langham’s calm dissipated. “Perhaps you should consider taking another wife. There are enough beautiful daughters from this table to ensure at least one would meet your needs.”
Conversation erupted around the table. Some men shouted while others banged the table; there was both agreement and disgust at the idea. But it wasn’t the first time he’d been advised to take another wife, and it wouldn’t be the last.
The king waved his hand, and the noise continued. He wondered whether these men would continue to run the world as they saw fit if he were to die tomorrow. They seemed to have more say than he was sure they had in his father’s time. Although he hadn’t paid as much attention as he should have done when his father was alive. He hadn’t really wanted to, and his father had been a distant man.
It wasn’t as though he had married for love. That was not what kings did. He had married for the kingdom. No matter what he might have told himself at the time. Looking around at the angry, red faces of the older men around the table, he wanted to believe he was something very different from them.
“Do we send more soldiers after the cardinal? Call him a heretic?” one of them asked, but Dunstan wasn’t paying attention to the conversation. Again, he wasn’t sure who had spoken.
The conversation dropped to murmuring as the gentlemen of the Circle of the Sun looked around and then to their king.
“This meeting was called due to the news of yet another convent burning to the ground. All souls lost.” Lord Elliston thumped the table.
“It is frightening the people. If the sisters are not safe—if the women of the Goddess are not protected by their king—then no one is safe,” Lord Staverton murmured.
“I agree, and I asked for his return days ago.”
“Are there witches amongst these women? Or is this his way of seeking a different form of control?”
“The latter, I had thought. Although the general tells me that he had a witch.”
“Had one?” Lord Elliston asked, his voice rising too high. “Not killed her outright?”
“Your words imply she was lost,” a quiet voice whispered across the table. The king focused on the old man at the far end of the table. Lord Sumner usually sat back and didn’t speak at all.
Dunstan bowed his head to him, and hushed murmuring continued around the table as the old man sighed.
“He believes he does as he is called to do,” Lord Sumner went on. “But we all know the cardinal is not a man of the God.”
Tensions had been rising between the monks of the God and other parts of the church for some time. Tension that had always been there. Dunstan couldn’t believe that the cardinal would openly destroy these women due to religious differences. It was not the God they worshiped.
“It is not for me to determine who should be Cardinal.”
“Then ask the monks of the God what should be done,” Lord Sumner said, pushing his chair back and leaning heavily on the table to stand. For half a heartbeat, the king was tempted to stand and assist him, but he held back. They all watched him shuffle from the room, and then the table of men turned their attention to the king.
He nodded once. The others stood from the table, moving through the doorway after Lord Sumner. When the king went to stand himself, he found a man still seated at the table.
“You don’t agree?” he asked. Lord Morys had been close to his father but, as with all the others, there was little trust there.
“I do,” Lord Morys said. “But I fear that you must focus on an heir.”
The king grumbled and shook his head.
“They will use it against you. As an excuse to remove you.”
“There might be a cousin somewhere,” he muttered.
“Any threat to your claim was removed,” Lord Morys said clearly, remaining in his seat. Despite the king standing over him, he didn’t appear nervous.
“In what way?” Dunstan asked carefully.
“As you would expect if you had a child of your own. Your father ensured you would follow him as King.”
There had never been any hint from his father as to any such activity. Had it all happened when he was very young and so he hadn’t understood? Even if he was aware of any such undertaking, he wouldn’t be sharing those ideas with this man now.
“The loss of your son was a tragedy for the entire kingdom, more of a loss than your father.” When the king opened his mouth to object, Lord Morys raised his hand. “You were there—you were ready to step in and do what was required. But there is no one to step in for you. Convince your wife or find another,” he said. “Before you lose the opportunity.”
“Are you threatening me?” Dunstan asked, leaning forward and resting a hand on the table. He wasn’t quite pinning the man in his seat, but the gesture was enough.
“I am telling you how the world is. You seem to have forgotten. You are focused on a girl long gone, likely dead, instead of the world before you and the needs of the people.”
“The people have always been my main concern. And why do you think she is dead? She survived the fire well enough.”
“She was a girl, a maid with little understanding of the world. She relied on her brother and his friends. Where would she have gone? Who would have helped her?”
“Women in a convent may have taken her in.”
The man laughed out loud, as though the king had made a joke. “Sire,” he said slowly, as though the king were a child with limited understanding, “she was a child.”
“She was closer to my age than you would think. She was slight, and shorter than her brother. Despite their being birthed together, they were different creatures, yet similar in many ways.”
“I did not realise you had paid such attention to the girl,” Lord Morys said, a cruel smirk growing.
“She was my wife’s favourite and cared for her as she carried my son—cared for them both.” He pressed his lips shut before he could mention her singing. He might want her dead, but he still dreamt of her singing.
“That is not something to be talked about in the open. A witch so close to the queen—she may be seen as something she is not. She may be a threat herself.”
The king’s sword was drawn before he thought about the action, the shiny blade held before the neck of the man still sitting too calmly at the table. “Be careful, sir. If I hear such rumours, I will know where they came from.”
“All I am saying is that if the girl was a favourite of the queen and it was not guessed at her true nature until the fire failed to consume her, some may wonder at your queen and her lack of issue.”
“The lack of issue is simple,” Dunstan murmured. He lowered the sword but held it still. He wasn’t explaining to this man that his queen refused to allow him into the bedchamber. He was sure there were enough within the walls of the castle who knew it. Likely talked about it in the kitchens and amongst the soldiers. “She has not survived the loss of our son.”
“Then give her another,” the man growled, standing quickly, and the king was forced to take a step back. “She was a clever woman; explain it to her.”
As the king gaped and tried to work out how to respond to such a statement, the man marched from the room.
The king stomped through the halls of the castle, not taking in the surroundings or anyone he passed. He was headed to his garden, to his place of refuge from the madness that Sunsong had become. Yet he didn’t manage to find much peace there of late. The turmoil followed him, haunted him.
“The Circle did not go well, I assume.” The voice startled him, and he swung to face his queen. He shook his head and looked back over the view. “They should not be making demands, but rather supporting you.”
He turned back to her again. “When did you start caring what was discussed in the Circle?”
“When my name is repeatedly mentioned. The old men blame me for the state of the world.”
“Hardly,” he murmured, unable to look away. “The cardinal is doing well enough with that.”
“He won’t return?”
“He has burnt another convent to the ground.”
Aphera covered her mouth with surprise. For a moment, Dunstan thought a tear formed in her perfect blue eye, but he must have been mistaken.
“He is trying to assert his authority, and his claim he is the hand of the God.” He thought then about the old man’s words, that he should ask the monks for help. Who exactly, he wasn’t sure, but perhaps he could call together another Circle of sorts and see what could be done. “Perhaps the sisters of the Goddess should be involved,” he murmured.
“What are you trying to do?” she asked.
“Protect what is mine,” he said, focusing on her again. She had returned to her calm, aloof self, hands held before her, head held high.
“You want another child.”
“A child has been suggested, someone to inherit the world we have created. A son.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it, as though she’d wanted to share something, but her face hardened and the idea that she might want to share anything with him was lost. She blew out a slow breath and turned away.
“I fear that you may not be given the option.”
Aphera turned back then, something dark in her features.
“They want an heir, and if you are not willing, they will find him elsewhere.”
She looked down at the ground then, something sad and lost in her features. He wanted to step forward and put his arms around her, but she was walking away before he had the opportunity. He only noticed the maid scurrying behind her as he watched her walk away. Had she heard their conversation? Was she someone to be trusted? She glanced over her shoulder at him, and something odd filled his chest as he remembered another maid from long ago.