Cursing, Kalindas lifted the knife to strike again.
He gave a terrible cry. The knife fell from his hand. The blade of a sword protruded from his stomach. Blood soaked his shirt front. Kelevandros, tears streaming down his cheeks, jerked his sword out of his brother’s body. Dropping the weapon, Kelevandros caught hold of Kalindas, lowered him to the ground, cradled his dying brother in his arms.
“Forgive me, Kalindas!” Kelevandros said softly. He looked up, pleading. “Forgive him, Queen Mother—”
“Forgive!” Kalindas’s lips, flecked with blood, twisted. “No!” He choked. His last words were squeezed out. “I curse them! I curse them both!”
He stiffened in his brother’s arms. His face contorted. He tried again to speak, but blood gushed from his mouth, and with it went his life. Even in death, his eyes continued to stare at Laurana. The eyes were dark, and when the light of life faded in them, the shadows were lit with the cold glitter of his hate.
“Mother!” Gilthas sprang to her side. “Mother, you are hurt! Come, lie down.”
“I am all right,” Laurana said, though her voice shook. “Don’t fuss”
“That was quick thinking on your part, Madam. Throwing the wine at him. He caught the rest of us flat-footed. Let me see.” Medan peeled back the fabric of the sleeve that was soaked with blood. His touch was as gentle as he could make it. “The wound does not appear to be serious,” he reported, after a cursory examination. “The dagger glanced off the bone. You will have a scar there, I am afraid, Madam, but the wound is clean and should heal well.”
“It would not be the first scar I’ve borne,” Laurana said with a wan smile. She clasped her hands together, to try to stop the trembling. Her gaze went involuntarily to the corpse.
“Throw something over that!” Medan commanded harshly. “Cover it up.”
Planchet grabbed hold of the cloak he had been holding, spread it over Kalindas. Kelevandros knelt beside his brother, one hand holding the dead hand, the other holding the sword that had slain him.
“Planchet, summon a healer—” Gilthas began.
“No,” Laurana countermanded his order. “No one must know of this. You heard the Marshal. The wound is not serious. It has already stopped bleeding.”
“Your Majesty,” said Planchet. “The meeting of the Thalas-Enthia . . . it is past time.”
As if to emphasize this statement, a voice came from below, querulous and demanding. “I tell you I will wait no longer! A servant is permitted to see His Majesty, and I am kept waiting? You do not intimidate me. You dare not lay a hand on me, a member of the Thalas-Enthia. I will see His Majesty, do you hear? I will not be kept out!”
“Palthainon,” said Medan. “After the last act of the tragedy, they send in the clowns.” The Marshal started toward the door. “I will stall him as long as possible. Get this mess cleaned up!”
Laurana rose hurriedly to her feet. “He should not see me wounded like this. He must not know anything is wrong. I will wait in my own chambers, my son.”
Gilthas was obviously reluctant to leave, but he knew as well as she did the importance of his talk before the Senate. “I will go to the Thalas-Enthia,” he said. “First, Mother, I have a question to ask Kelevandros, and I want you to be here to hear it. Kelevandros, did you know of your brother’s foul scheming? Were you part of it?”
Kelevandros was deathly pale and covered with his brother’s blood, yet he faced the king with dignity. “I knew he was ambitious, yet I never thought. . . I never . . .” He paused, swallowed, and said quietly, “No, Your Majesty. I did not.”
“Then I grieve for you, Kelevandros,” said Gilthas, his harsh tone softening. “For what you had to do.”
“I loved him,” said Kelevandros in a low voice. “He was all the family I had left. Yet I could not let him harm our mistress.”
Blood was starting to seep through the cloak. Kelevandros knelt over his brother’s body, wrapped the cloak around it more tightly.
“With your permission, Your Majesty,” he said with quiet dignity, “I will take my brother away.”
Planchet made as if to help, but Kelevandros refused his assistance.
“No, he is my brother. My responsibility.”
Kelevandros lifted Kalindas’s body in his arms and, after a brief struggle, managed to stand upright. “Madam,” he said, not raising his eyes to meet hers, “your home was the only home we ever knew, but I fear it would be unseemly—”
“I understand, Kelevandros,” she said. “Take him there.”
“Thank you, Madam.”
“Planchet,” Gilthas said, “go with Kelevandros. Give him what help he needs. Explain matters to the guard.”
Planchet hesitated. “Your Honored Mother is wise. We should keep this secret, Your Majesty. If the people were to discover that his brother had made an attempt on the Queen Mother’s life, I fear they might do Kelevandros some harm. And if they heard that Marshal Medan had been using elves to spy . . .”
“You are right, Planchet,” Gilthas said. “See to it. Kelevandros, you should use the servant’s—”
Realizing what he had been about to say, he stopped the words.
“The servant’s entrance around back,” said Kelevandros finished. “Yes, Your Majesty. I understand.”
Turning, he bore his heavy burden out the door.
Laurana looked after them. “The curses of the dead always come true, they say.”
“Who says?” Gilthas demanded. “Toothless old grannies? Kalindas had no high and noble goals. He did what he did out of greed alone. He cared only for the money.”
Laurana shook her head. Her hair was gummed with her own blood, stuck to the wound. Gilthas started to add comforting words, but they were interrupted by a commotion outside the door. Marshal Medan could be heard tromping heavily up the stairs. He had raised his voice, to let them know he was coming and that he had company.
Laurana kissed her son with lips that were as pale as her cheeks. “You must leave now. My blessings go with you—and those of your father.”
She left hurriedly, hastening down the hall.
“Planchet, the blood—” Gilthas began, but Planchet had already whisked a small ornamental table over the stain and planted himself in front of it.
Senator Palthainon entered the room with fuss and bustle. Fire smoldered in his eyes, and he began talking the instant his foot crossed the threshold.
“Your Majesty, I was told that you convened the Thalas-Enthia without first asking my approval—”
The senator halted in midword, the speech he had been rehearsing all the way up the stairs driven clean from his head. He had expected to find his puppet lying limp on the floor, tangled in his own strings. Instead, the puppet was walking out the door.
“I convened the Senate because I am king,” said Gilthas, brushing past the senator. “I did not consult you, Senator, for the same reason. I am king.”
Palthainon stared, began to burble and sputter. “What— What— Your Majesty! Where are you going? We must discuss this.”
Gilthas paid no attention. He continued out the door, slammed it shut behind him. The speech he had written so carefully lay on the desk. After all, he would speak the words from his heart.
Palthainon stared after him, confounded. Needing someone to blame, he rounded on Marshal Medan. “This is your doing, Marshal. You put the fool boy up to this. What are you plotting, Medan? What is going on?”
The Marshal was amused. “This is none of my doing, Senator. Gilthas is king, as he says, and he has been king for many years. Longer than you realize apparently. As for what is going on”— Medan shrugged—”I suggest you ask His Majesty. He may deign to tell you.”