The Ardoon King Page 75

  Chapter 73: The Queen Elizabeth II

  The following day, Ben approached the door of Fiela’s new “girl cave” wearing his frumpy tweed jacket and jeans, a stack of books under one arm. He stopped and leaned against his walking cane as he knocked. A moment later, Fiela opened the door, Thal standing next to her.

  “Book delivery,” he said with an awkward smile.

  “You’re late,” replied Thal, who crossed her arms and leaned against the jamb. She wore a blue, sleeveless dress that stopped at mid-thigh. Her shiny black hair was down and flowed over her shoulders. It smelled of peaches. “I hope you don’t expect a tip.”

  “No ma’am. Just happy to have a job.”

  “Hi, Mutu!” exclaimed Fiela. “Come in!”

  Ben limped into the room, his cane at his side. “How are you two settling in?”

  “Very well,” said Fiela, making a point of locking the door behind her. She was wearing a tank top and shorts and glistened with sweat. “I just finished working out and was about to clean up. Would you mind just talking to Thal for a few minutes?”

  Ben could hear the water running in the adjacent bathroom. “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Thanks,” she said, kissing the man on the cheek and glancing at the other woman. “Ten minutes, Thal. I’m sorry, Mutu.”

  “I understand, Fiela.”

  When the girl closed the bathroom door behind her, Ben chuckled. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “She’s never been a very good liar,” agreed Thal. “She’s been working out for two hours, waiting on you. She didn’t start the water until you knocked. She knows you and I haven’t had an opportunity to talk privately since we returned to Steepleguard.”

  “A simple and effective plan.”

  “For ten minutes, yes. Anything more than that would raise eyebrows.”

  “I know,” said the man, nodding. “So how’s it going?”

  “Well enough,” replied Thal, motioning the man to put the books on nearby table. “I’ve not been pleased with Fiela’s sense of home decor. But the suite is four times larger than my old room, which allows for diversity. This half is mine, the other half hers.”

  Ben scanned the suite, which had, until days ago, been Persipia’s bedroom. She had since been moved up to the Queen’s Suite, at Lilian’s request. It was one of the consort’s rewards for fighting off the usurper, Porazo, and other unspecified acts of valor.

  When Fiela had taken over the room, it was dubbed the “Queen Elizabeth II” by the housekeepers. This was inaccurate on several levels, the most basic being that Fiela’s sleeping quarters remained the King’s Suite. Still, it was reserved for Fiela’s use, so the staff treated it as they would treat any other royal quarters.

  Thal’s half of the room looked much like Ben’s study, lined with bookshelves, maps, star charts, and framed diplomas. An oriental rug ran between the bookshelves and a queen-sized bed on the far wall. Fiela’s half of the room looked like an armory. Guns, knives, ammo magazines, and scopes were on display in metal cases attached to the walls. A large exercise mat overlaid her section of the floor. A punching bag dangled from the reinforced ceiling.

  There were three panoramic windows that provided a view of Steepleguard’s courtyard and the surrounding mountains. One of them had a telescope in front of it. The air in the room smelled of incense and gun lubricant. It was not a good mix.

  “When are the dreaded ‘negotiations?’” asked Ben.

  Thal shuddered. The man had no idea how serious the negotiations of her parole were. He had been given a very glossy version of the events that would unfold by Fiela and Lilian, who passed the entire event off as “a Nisirtu formality.” Thal encouraged this, because she, like the other women, didn’t want the man to interfere.

  “In one week,” she said, managing a smile.

  “You’ll be staying here after that?’”

  “I hope to. As my ‘parole officer,’ Lady Persipia decides where I stay – or where I go, for that matter. But she’s very busy as Steepleguard’s administrator and I think I’d just be a ball and chain. Staying here will give me more time to mentor Fiela. If Lady Persipia will agree to it, I hope to stay here, yes.”

  Ben nodded, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He extended it to the woman. “Here’s the schedule I’m proposing for the tablet studies.”

  Thal took the schedule but didn’t look at it. “I can’t agree to anything right now. Not until the terms of my parole are decided. But I will give this to Persipia.” She paused. “I will be escorted, of course.”

  Ben grimaced. “We have a chaperone. Incredible.”

  Thal shook her head. “I’ll have a chaperone, not you.”

  “Whatever.” Ben poked at the floor with his cane. “I still feel like a teenager. I feel like just being here, talking to you alone, is crime.”

  “It is,” Thal said. “You mustn’t come back her after today.”

  Ben sighed and checked his watch. “Nine minutes.”

  The woman took a step away from him. She scratched at an elbow and said, “Ben, this is my last opportunity to explain a few things to you in person. About my situation. I owe you that.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything, Thal. You’ve been done a great injustice. We both have.”

  The woman put her arms behind her back and looked at Ben apologetically. “Are you very angry? About the writs?”

  Ben nodded. “Yes, and not just with you. Fiela and Lilian, too. They basically said, ‘Sign this or Thal will be killed.’ Then they gave me this long speech about the crime of adultery, eugenics and the destruction of gene pools, Lily subversives, and so many other things that my head was spinning. If you hadn’t been there and agreed to everything they’d said, I’d have never signed. I saw how scared you were. I believed them. And you.”

  Thal nodded. “We were telling you the truth, Ben. That’s why I wasn’t lowered from the Anzu until you signed the parole order.”

  “You didn’t tell me everything, though. You didn’t explain this dominion nonsense, for example.”

  “If we had, you wouldn’t have signed.”

  “Not agreed to make you a slave?” The man tilted his head to one side and pretended to mull that ever. “Yeah, you know what? You’re right.”

  “I’m hardly a slave, Ben,” the woman replied. It felt like a lie because it was. “I’m just on permanent parole.”

  “Yeah, but why, exactly?”

  “To punish me for doing a great evil and to ensure I never cause trouble again.”

  Ben threw up his hands. “What evil? You haven’t done anything! You don’t deserve to be punished! You should be reward for everything you’ve done for me. For the so-called ‘kingdom.’”

  Thal shrugged and waxed philosophical. “I count myself blessed, in a way. It was rumors of my affair with you that justified this punishment. Had there been evidence I would have fared far worse. Fiela wouldn’t have been able to save me.” She drew a line across the floor with one toe. “There wasn’t any evidence, but perhaps someday there would have been.”

  She gave the king a knowing look.

  The man looked at her, then the bathroom door, which was still closed. In a voice that was just above a whisper, he said, “I’m not even married. Not really. So how could I have an affair?”

  “By Nisirtu standards, you’re very married. That is the standard that applies.”

  “There’s got to be a way out of this, Thal.”

  “No,” replied the woman earnestly. “Not once in our five-thousand-year history has a Dominus Writ ever been undone. They are exceedingly rare. Nisirtu almost never relinquish power over anything or anyone. Especially not kings. Having forfeited your power over me, you cannot regain it. It like trying to undo an execution. You might as well attempt to rewrite the laws of physics because gravity irritates you. I’m beholden only to Lady Persipia now, and she is neither king nor queen, and so cannot issue her own wr
it. She couldn’t get rid of me if she wanted to. I’m the proverbial white elephant in many ways.”

  “It’s bullshit.” mumbled Ben. “Another stupid Nisirtu power game. I don’t care about the rules. I’ll tell everyone here that your punishment is suspended and this domination thing revoked or else I’ll quit. They can find another king.”

  Thal shook her head. “There are people under your roof who would love to see you quit, not because they dislike you, but because it would create a power vacuum. There are Lilies, Ordunas, Ardoons, and even a few anarchists who are eager to see a change in the status quo. Saying you’d quit would only incentivize such people to kill me.”

  Ben raised his hands helplessly to his sides. “What the hell am I supposed to do then?”

  “Nothing. This is not a ‘game.’ You signed the writs of my probation and Lady Persipia’s dominion, and as I said, you were correct to do so. Even hinting that you will try to revoke them would be disastrous. You’d look like a fool, because you intentionally forfeited the right to revoke them when you signed.”

  “It wasn’t intentional!”

  “You must never say that, Ben. It would ruin your credibility. Remember that power is the only Nisirtu currency. We do not use money. As king, you are wealthy beyond measure because you dispense power, the only thing anyone here wants. If you appear willing to recall some power you have granted to one of your subjects because of misgivings, your currency will collapse. Nobody will trust you. All of your writs will be viewed as worthless. You will find yourself unable to ‘pay’ or ‘reward’ anyone. No noble will trust your grants of authority over territories, or resources, or Peth. The writ of probation that keeps me alive will be seen as folly, and I will be killed.”

  As the man moodily ruminated over her words, she said, “Do you care for me, Ben?”

  The man didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Then keep me alive. Do not be foolish. Promise me you will not try to undo what you have done. Trust me, I do not want this. In fact, of all the things that I might choose to endure in this world, this is second to the last on my list. Yet the item at the bottom of the list scares me even more.”

  Ben inspected the back of his hands as if examining a map.

  “Promise me, Ben. Promise you won’t do anything foolish.”

  The man nodded once, unable to meet the woman’s gaze.

  “Thank you.” She waited a beat. Then, in a voice that was barely a whisper, she said, “I dreamt of you, you know. While you were gone. It was a wonderful dream. It was very real. I remember that feeling. The realness of it.” She searched the man’s eyes. “Have you ever had a dream like that?”

  “Yeah,” Ben replied. “I have.”

  Thal gave a sad smile. “The funny thing is, I don’t recall the dream at all. What happened in it, that is. That’s for the best, don’t you think?”

  When Ben didn’t respond, she turned sideways and motioned towards the door. “You better go. You’ve been here too long already.”

  Ben nodded. He planted his cane, stood and moved toward the hallway.

  As Thal opened the door, he nodded at the locket around her neck. “You still wear it?”

  Thal reached down, and popped the locket open. Inside was a tiny black and white photo of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. “I’ll always wear it. It reminds me of what I was, before the world died. And what I might have been, had it not.”

  Ben stepped into the hallway and turned, but the door was already closing behind him. Thal was gone.

  He stood there until the door was locked, and walked away.