[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Faroz calmed the pounding of his heart with an effort of will. Now that the Ring was once more pressed against his body, he felt the rage and anxiety that had seized him like a madness flow from him as wine from a broken vessel. Not wine, he corrected himself, like filthy water from a ditch. What have I done? He gazed upon his wife, and saw the one person in his world upon whom he had depended through all the trials of rule, and he saw the rage and pain in her expression. Her arm hung by her side like a broken thing, raw and raging with her suppressed fury. Faroz felt shame for what he had done, and he found it difficult to meet her eyes. He reached out to her with his own hand, but the Queen flinched away. Faroz felt the rebuke of her gesture, and his shame only grew. “I am sorry, my wife,” he said, using a more tender tone to her than any he had used in years. “I do not know what came over me.” Liar, you do know, you know well what it was… “I have already said that it has been a taxing day. It would appear that it was more taxing than I thought.” He passed his hand before his eyes and seemed to sag. “I grow tired, lady.”

“Perhaps his majesty should seek his bed then.” Bekah’s words were as jagged stones, cold and unyielding.

“It is not the fatigue of this day, lady. I fear that I begin to feel the weight of the crown more heavily. Perhaps it is the talk of naming my heir, or perhaps it is just the years of having been King, but I find myself more and more contemplating the rest of my life with…” he searched for a word.

“With what, my lord?” Bekah asked, curious despite her hurt and her rage.

“With I know not what,” he ended quickly, his attention once more reverting to his wife. “I am selfish, selfish and cruel. I have hurt you and all I can think of are my own troubles. Sit, my wife, please I beg you, and let me send for doctors to see to your hurt.”

“No Khamul,” she replied. “It would be best if no-one knew of this…incident. Should word go forth of this…attack,” he could see how she struggled to say the word, as though it gave a new reality to what had just happened, “think of how it would be received by our children, or by my brother. I will say that I fell upon the stairs to my apartments.” Saying so, she moved to place her clothes over the arm so as to hide the violence done to it, but she had difficulty doing so for the hurt. Faroz moved to help her, but she once more moved away from him, her eyes blazing, and she completed the task, painfully, on her own.

Faroz felt moved to try once more. “Please, my wife, accept my apologies and give me forgiveness. I have never raised my hand to you before, and I swear now by Rhais and Rae that never shall I do so again.” Unless. . . “Never,” he said aloud, as though speaking to someone else. “And may the vengeance of the gods come upon me should I break this vow.”

Bekah remained impassive and impenetrable. Bowing formally she said only, “I accept the apology of the King, and for my part I swear that I shall seek neither retribution nor revenge for his act. But now,” she added quickly, as though to forestall any further conversation, “may I have your permission to depart, lord? For I would like to return to my apartments and call the physicians after my accident.”

Faroz simply nodded dumbly, and watched his wife depart. Almost as soon as she had gone the Chamberlain entered the room, a little too quickly. His face was unreadable, but Faroz wondered if perhaps he had seen what had transpired. Jarult’s expression betrayed nothing, however, as he announced that Priest Tarkan was in the outer room, waiting to speak with the King. Faroz hid the look of distaste that he felt beneath his skin and bid the Priest be allowed to enter. Jarult bowed and departed once more to fetch the Priest in. When Tarkan arrived at the far end of the Hall he bowed to the King, who had resumed his place atop the dais, and scurried forward.

“Welcome my brother,” Faroz began formally. “What is it that brings you to the Palace?” Tarkan smiled nervously and licked his lips before starting. He was not an impressive figure, for all that he was the bastard son of the former King. Despite their close connection, Faroz knew little of Tarkan, but what he did know was less than satisfactory. He was an ambitious, yet strangely apathetic man, who kept more or less to himself, indulging, no doubt, in such schemes as he could for his advancement, and yet never moving openly with them. It was not without a certain amount of irony, then, that Faroz looked upon the man.

For though the Priest knew it not, Tarkan was the rightful King of Pashtia.