Chapter 1424: The final decision(2)

Her wrath was a black, fathomless sea, and she rode the crest of every swell like a war galley bearing down for the ram.

Her chest heaved as the waves swelled , and fell when they sinked , fixing the man who had conjured the gale with eyes that could have peeled the skin from his bones.

She struck him again. And again.

"Allowed? Allowed?!" she shrieked, the heavy oak doors of the bedchamber shuddering on their bolts.

The room was barred from the inside, but Alpheo harbored no comforting illusions, her screams would carry clear through the timber, echoing down the stone gallery for every guard and maid to savor and gossip about, ranging from her founding out about a lover or him promising the hand of their girl to a beggar.

The King ducked his chin into the crook of his elbow as another open-handed blow cracked against his brow. It struck hard against the temple bone; from the sharp, choked hiss she let out, he knew her palm ached far more than his skull.

"My son? My only boy!" she cried, pacing like a caged panther before wheeling back to strike him once more. "Alone in a den of godless savages and heathen butchers? What fever has rotted your brain, Alpheo? Can I not enjoy one single moon without you setting fire to everything I love?!"

Another slap lashed across his cheek, snapping his head to the side.

And she still knows nothing of what is to follow the progress, Alpheo thought grimly, tasting a drop of copper on his lip. He was in no tearing hurry to impart that particular piece of joy.

"It was the boy’s own design,Jasmine," the King pleaded, raising two calloused palms in surrender.

She made a sound like choking

"He is a child! He barely knows how to scrape the porridge from his bowl, let alone govern his own life, that is why the gods gave him a mother and a father! And you would deliver him into the hands of unbaptized monsters who scalp corpses and hang ears from their belts? Not a year ago you allowed him to march into a butcher’s war. A war, Alpheo! A lad of thirteen summers! If you crave his death so desperately, why not take your dagger and slit his throat yourself, you heartless bastard!"

He stepped forward, murmuring soft, placating words, but it was like whispering sweet reason to an avalanche. Her panic was unraveling into pure, wild hysteria; she began pacing in frantic circles, wringing her pale hands as though Basil had already been carved into pieces and served upon a silver charger.

"They will make him feast on human flesh," she sobbed, swinging wildly between unbridled rage and frantic, breathless mourning. She jabbed a trembling, ringed finger straight at his chest. "Those heathens will force him to eat raw man-meat and wash it down with blood, and you’ll expect him to smile and beg for seconds! No! He will not!"

She repeated the last words so many times, till it lost all meaning.

"You will put an end to this madness. You will march into his solar this instant and tell him the progress is postponed until he is a man grown. And when he comes of age, you will stall again, next winter, the year after, next decade! You will swear it to me, Alpheo, or so help me the Weaver, our son will celebrate his nameday as an orphan of a father!"

For a fleeting second, the King contemplated total, shameful capitulation. The coronation was barely three sennights away;he had more to do than excuse the boy’s decision. Why in the five hells was he bleeding in his own bedchamber, defending an audacious piece of statecraft he hadn’t even drafted himself?

Even if the boy’s stroke is magnificent, he thought, an involuntary, approving twitch touching the corner of his lips.

It was a fatal error. Seeing the ghost of a smile upon his face, her rage flared into white heat. She lunged, her nails raking for his eyes.

Alpheo slipped the strike, ducked beneath her arm, and spun behind her with the fluid grace of an old brawler. In a single motion, he locked his arms around her waist, pinning her elbows flat against her ribs and trapping her tight against his chest.

"Let me go!" she snarled, thrashing violently against his grip, throwing her head back to drive her skull into his nose. "Unhand me, you treacherous bastard! Let me go!"

"Jasmine breathe," he murmured into her dark curls, tightening his hold just enough to neutralize her thrashing without bruising her ribs. "Listen to me. Just breathe."

She fought with everything she had, her slippers scuffing violently across the Azanian rugs, hissing and cursing every god in the heavens. But the iron band of his arms held fast, unyielding as a fortress wall. Slowly, the frenzied strength began to bleed from her limbs, her frantic heaving turning into ragged, weeping gasps.

Gradually, her head sagged back against his breast, her shoulders slumping in exhausted defeat. She let him hold her.

Alpheo leaned his head down, resting his chin gently upon the curve of her shoulder, his scarred ear hid behind her black locks. Though they were of remarkably similar height, the posture required him to stoop slightly, burying his nose into the sweet, familiar scent of lavender and crushed rosewater that clung to the nape of her neck.

He stayed there, motionless in the quiet room, holding the storm in his arms until the trembling finally ceased.

"He is my boy," Jasmine whispered, the ferocious squall finally breaking into a dull, shuddering ache. "I barely just got him back from the mud and the blood."

"You know I love the lad," Alpheo murmured, his breath warm against her dark hair. "You know that him and little Rosalind are the only two souls under the Five Gods I hold dearer than my own hide and yours"

She gave a small, defeated hum of assent, leaning her weight against his breast.

"He is nearly a man grown, Jasmine," he said gently. He braced his arms, half-expecting another frantic thrash, but the sea remained placid. He pressed on. "And the cold truth of it is... I approve of his design. It was no foolish whim of a green boy playing at lords. It is sound statecraft."

"How can throwing himself into a den of butchery ever be sound?" she asked, her voice hushed, choked with unshed tears. "He is a child. He does not know where he is treading."

"He knows better than most greybeards that swear loyalty to us" Alpheo said, letting his chin rest gently in the crook of her shoulder. "Oizen may have bent the knee and kissed the hem of our banners, but our hold upon the river is held together by spit and iron. We are conquerors, Jasmine. We carry no ancient bloodline in their valleys; we hold their castles purely by right of conquest. And that makes for a poor right. Herculia is the very same."

She frowned, shifting slightly in his embrace. ’’They haven’t done anything...’’

"Ten years of silence a means little to nothing," the King continued, his voice dropping into that low, rasping cadence that had outmaneuvered half the courts of the world. "In their shuttered halls, over heavy wine, those proud lord still spit and name us usurpers. The moment my horse stumbles, they will be the first pack snapping at our heels. For a decade I have stuffed their mouths with Yarzat gold, but gold is a plaster on a rotting limb. We must weave ourselves into their very marrow.

Marching the legions through their streets can compel their necks to bend, but it will never secure the realm. Basil is the thread we need. It is vital that our boy is seen. He must ride beneath their portcullises, sleep in their keeps, feast at their tables, and bind their heirs to his side with shared cups and common laughter. When the crown drops onto his head, a civil war is the very least he must reckon with, and he will need every sword he can call by its true name. I know that and he knows. And the mountain clans are no different."

"I cannot stomach them," she shuddered, pressing her cheek back against his collar. "They are wild, godless butchers."

"Aye, they are. They are not like Torghan’s folk, they carry the raw stench of the high crags and fresh blood. But it was that very butchery that broke the League’s back at the Ford. They know neither lords nor princes; they follow only the chieftains they raise on shields, and right now those chieftains have sworn to pay our tithes and bleed in our van for our wars.

Yet they harbor no love for Yarzat. Not yet. In the war, they simply tasted the fat of our fields and the sweetness of our orchard fruits. They crossed the water not out of reverence for the throne, but for the dream of a hearth where their babes do not freeze before their first winter.

They are masters of the axe, the spear, and the short bow; they are born trackers and ruthless hunters. We need their iron, Jasmine. But far more than their iron, we need their devotion. And Basil will forge that chain."

"How?" she asked, her voice barely louder than the tallow dripping from the sconce. "What can one boy do among thousands of wild men?"

"Parchments and royal edicts will buy us nothing, for they cannot read a single word and not understand title," Alpheo said . "Basil will ride straight into their camps beneath an open sky. He will break their coarse bread, taste their bitter salt, and drink their ale. He will shower their chiefs with silver torcs and fine steel, and take their crude gifts with an open smile. He will sit by their great fires, roar at their guttural songs, and praise the iron in their sons and the beauty of their daughters and the bravery of their warriors.

In all their lore, those clans have known only a single man mighty enough to unite them under a crown and that lasted only a generation. To have the true prince of the realm step into their mud, sit upon a log as an honored guest, and share the roasted meats of the high court... it will do them great honor.When the day comes they will fight for us’’

’’Why beg what is owed?’’ She asked.

’’It is one thing to give because you are forced and another because you are willing.’’ he replied. ’’And when the gods finally reach down to take you and me," Alpheo whispered, his lips brushing the crown of her head, "and our son must don the heavy gold and hold the realm alone... if Oizen dares step out of line, hundreds roaring axemen will drown the rebellion in blood while Basil marches south at the head of an army.

Today there are barely thirteen hundred in the valley. In five winters, the river-fork will be crawling with their kin. And when the great storm breaks, they will not bleed for a name that means little, nor for a gilded throne in the capital, they will march into the fire for the young prince who drank their ale, wrestled their champions ,laughed and sang their fathers’ war-chants beneath the stars."