“We would never support him,” Hothgaard growled. “The man’s a fool.”
“No,” Tar Nev countered, “ambitious, but no fool.”
“Fool or not,” Gwaynn said. “It’s time to end the terror of Sinis.”
The meeting slowly broke up with the unspoken promise that the crowning of Gwaynn as the High King would be kept secret for two days when the ceremony would be performed. It was opportunistic that both King Marc and Queen Ramona Toranado would be guests at the upcoming nuptials and therefore would be present for the crowning as well. Of course, King Weldon Palmerrio would also be on hand and that only left the Rhondono and the Deutzani without a presence.
‘It will be enough,’ Gwaynn thought as he made his way back to his room in a daze. He felt slightly manipulated and wondered ruefully if Tar Nev had planned this from the very beginning. Gwaynn shook his head with wonder. He wouldn’t put it past his old master. The room was shuttered and dark, and he entered quietly. He needed to be alone to think and a dark room suited him at the moment.
“You’re back already?” Samantha asked a little groggily.
“Yes…I woke you. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“No stay…I can’t sleep anyway,” she insisted and struggled to a sitting position on the bed. “I need to be up and around or the people of Massi will think their queen a laggard.”
“Their High Queen,” Gwaynn corrected her.
“Open the shutters will you,” she replied. “Light would be…what did you say?” She stopped talking and was looking at him as he pulled open one shutter and let in the light of the morning sky. Her red hair was tousled but her eyes were now alert with no sign of sleepiness. He went to her and nuzzled her neck.
“You will make a glorious High Queen,” he said and placed a hand on her naked thigh then ran it up under her nightdress and caressed her stomach.
“High Queen?” she asked.
Gwaynn nodded. “High Queen.”
“Oh my.”
XIX
When Tar Nacht finally landed on the shores of the King’s Island it was with a sense of triumph and expectation, but now two days later he was beginning to wonder if perhaps the move was premature. King Caiman Mastoc was indeed dead; the rumors were confirmed by his spies in Parma, the Cassinni Capital. It was ironic that the spies Cassinni tried so hard to keep from its lands were the very people responsible for saving the life of their King. Nacht smiled. Life was full of little ironies, like the fact that good High Queen Audra, though young, was far from easy to control. It didn’t help that she was in a rage over the death of her husband. She was grief stricken about Caiman, whose death followed so closely on the heels of her father’s and brother’s.
‘And let’s not even mention the untimely deaths of Nigel and Anya.’ Nacht thought with a grin. He suspected, but could not prove that the diminutive Queen was behind the pair of accidents to Caiman’s older brood.
Nacht was impressed. Audra, it seemed was a young woman after his own heart, ruthless and deadly. But Audra was also proving to be very strong minded, and in her grief she demanded revenge against all her enemies. The list was long and included the Cassinni, the Toranado but most of all the Massi and Prince Gwaynn.
Of course, he counseled patience. The lands of the Massi had become a very dark, very black hole. Nacht had heard nothing from his Executioners in Massi and there were nearly a half dozen of them fighting with the Palmerrio army. To make matters worse, there’d been no news from the Temple Knights for over three weeks, a fact that helped embolden Nacht to move on the King’s Island and push for the position of Weapons Master to the Queen. That she accepted so readily surprised him and demonstrated her own growing alarm at the lack of news coming out of Massi, that she allowed him to bring a large support force revealed the full extent of her fear.
The risk was immense, but the chance to occupy the King’s Island without resistance was too great an opportunity to pass up. There were now over a dozen Tars of Sinis on the King’s Island plus over thirty high ranking acolytes, plus nearly three hundred heavy support troops. The Isle of Light was all but abandoned, with only one minor Tar and a few hundred support personnel. Nacht no longer had any real desire for the island, if they held it so much the better, but it no longer was of much importance. The Travelers were severely weakened and might not survive the coming years. If Queen Audra had her way they would quickly be eradicated, but Nacht would rather the Travelers be under his control. He would think of a way…if he had time to consolidate his hold on power.
At the moment, standing on the large balcony that led from his rooms, Nacht looked out over the great city of the High King and then to the sea beyond. It was very late, but he could not sleep. He was risking everything and knew it, but he did so with a large amount of satisfaction. He was growing old and his skills as Tar were diminishing. It was only a matter of time before he, as High Tar, would be challenged by some young, talented upstart. He thought it might have been the Tarina de Baard but she’d proven weaker than expected. But it was coming; he knew it. Everyone on Sinis knew it. His days of power were growing short, so why not risk everything; after all it would soon not be his in any case. Nacht smiled inwardly as a strong gust of wind pushed through the night and ruffled his thin shirt. If he could no longer control Sinis, then perhaps he could command the entire Inland Sea, the possible rewards were worth the gamble. And if he lost, well then let the young bastards go about building a new kingdom of Executioners. That would not be his problem. Allies were his problem, at the moment he and Queen Audra needed them desperately. King Donnis of the Rhondono continued to pledge his support but as yet no army had sailed from the land. This morning, Nacht urged the Queen to contact Prince Keel Palmerrio and inquire about any additional troops he could give the High King and his father.
Keel had been reticent at first but in the end he agreed to place two thousand more troops at their disposal to aid the Knights and his father. Both Nacht and Audra were elated by the news, but were also ignorant to the fact that the Palmerrio army occupying Toranado was on the march, returning home on Weldon’s orders. The commanding General of the disgraced army had the misfortune to tell Prince Keel that his father was captured and would be ransomed…the first demand being that all Palmerrio troops must leave Toranado, and so they were trudging across enemy land and coming home.
Keel was loyal to his father and would do anything to help secure his release. He would make no major move that might endanger his father…like sending an army against the enemy that now held him. Thus he gave Audra and Nacht two thousand troops even though he would soon have over twenty thousand at his disposal.
‘But what of the Temple Knights?’ Nacht wondered, his eyes drawn to a bright flash of lighting in the distance. A storm was coming but in the darkness he could not see it. The Knights were the key to everything. When they were finally victorious over the pesky Massi, would they accept the Tars of Sinis on the King’s Island? That was the real question…the real key. But it was one that Nacht himself could not answer…at least not at the moment.
ǂ
The ceremony to crown Gwaynn High King took nearly everyone by surprise, including Lonogan Bock who stood openmouthed as together the High Tarina Nystrom and Captain Hothgaard placed the crown on Gwaynn Massi’s head. The ceremony was filled with enough pomp to compensate for the lack of any real grandeur and was held fittingly on the Plateau between the two wooden bailey forts. Already General Bock had builders working on the plans for a new stone castle, but its completion was many, many years in the future. For Gwaynn, as well as for most of the Massi people, the day went by in a blur of excitement and wonder. The questions for Massi were many, the most prevalent being, who would now rule over the country. The High King ruled over the entirety of the Inland Sea and thus it would be a severe conflict of interest for the same man to rule over any of the Families lands. For a thousand years the High King ruled over all, but the King’s Island was the only real land under his direct control.