A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1 (10 page)

Chapter 12

Ailana

In the winter, I was given the King’s
cloak to mend after his horse had stepped upon the hem and torn it out.  While
I was repairing this unfortunate occurrence, I was asked to change the buttons
from gold to black. 

“He means to melt and sell the gold,” the
Head Seamstress reported.  “Our treasury is so empty.  Even as a lad, poor
Mikal was never good with counting sums.”  This was followed by a series of
clucks that the old woman made with her tongue.  “Back in the Empress Sara’s
day, Mikal’s father, Duke Thunk had quite the grasp on our finances.  Not only
could they wear their fancy gold buttons, but every Sunday was a special dinner
just for palace staff.  I remember the desserts.  Always, there were enormous,
fancy cakes, and fountains that poured chocolate like water.”

I liked the black buttons, even more so
than the gold, but I did not argue with the Head Seamstress, who was always right. 
The buttons were made from onyx, soft and shiny and as smooth as pearls.  They
were cool to my touch, as soothing as water upon my fingers. 

I lingered over this task, sewing each
button with extraordinary care for it was the King who would touch these after
me.  Then, I hemmed his cape with a precision that even my grandmother would
envy, letting the heavy waves of soft cashmere keep me warm.

The winter was wicked, as bad as any had
ever been with great storms blowing upon us from the ocean.  It snowed heavily
for weeks, and when that stopped, it rained just as hard.  The river flooded
the city streets as the sea did the same to the courtyard of the palace.

With the floods, those so unfortunate to
be living upon the streets, were swept off in the waters like specks of dirt. 
My old companions in the parks were washed away, never more to be seen. 

“And not missed, I tell you,” the Head
Seamstress cackled.  “Better they be gone.”

In the spring, the waters receded and for
a while, the city looked clean, although there was an undercurrent of fear even
within the safety of the palace gates.

“Duke Korelesk is angry,” the Head
Seamstress declared, biting off a thread she had used to repair a fine lady’s
dress.  The lady was the wife of the late Duke of Turko, and some said she was
at the palace to romance the King.  “The King let so many die, even though I
say good riddance.  Korelesk would have done nothing different, but he uses it
to gain political points.”

“Why?” I asked, threading my own needle to
repair a workman’s trousers.  The King’s fine clothes needed nothing these
days.  Either he never wore them, or the dowager Duchess Turko was repairing
them herself.

“Korelesk sees himself as king.  If our
Mikal does not wake from his malaise and raise a hand against his enemies,
we’ll be sewing for Korelesk and his bastard offspring.”

Korelesk himself was a bastard, his claim
to the throne dating back to an illegitimate prince from centuries prior.  None
of that would matter though.  If Mikal died and Korelesk seized the throne,
there would be no one to challenge Korelesk’s new rule of law. 

“Except for the new Duke of Turko, that
odd alien fellow, whatever he is, and the Duke of Kildoo, who is an ancient,
elderly man.  Oh, what a state we are in!”  The Head Seamstress declared, “It
was so much better during the Empress Sara’s days, and before that, during the
time of the Great Emperor, her grandfather.”

I would have liked to tell my mistress how
much she sounded like my grandmother and how it irritated me in the same way. 
But, I didn’t.  It was spring and the flowers were in bloom.  Each morning I
awoke in my shared bed to the music of birds chirping. 

I didn’t care about Korelesk or even our
King Mikal.  I cared only for myself and the attention of young men who would
follow me about the courtyard, or approach me in the restaurants where I
dined. 

The fountain had been turned off since the
autumn, since that night when I was joined upon a bench by a gentleman, who
smoked a cigarette.  Not once since then had I seen him, but neither did I
care. 

Still, I loved to stroll the city streets,
and the palace grounds, especially when the daylight lasted well into the
evening.  Gentlemen and their lessers would sidle to my side and bow politely,
inquiring if I might be joined.  Whether or not I consented, they’d remark upon
the weather, or my lovely dress, or the brilliant golden color of my hair. 
Always, they asked my name and only rarely would I answer.  Yet, they followed
me as if I had a train.

During a night of the golden moons, when
the sky shone with a color that some said was the same as my hair, there was a
chill to the air despite being well into the spring.  I was standing and
admiring the scent of a new white rose, leaning into the bush, my nose perfectly
positioned to inhale the blossom’s delicate fragrance, when someone bumped
squarely into me, knocking me ajar.  I fell upon the rosebush, becoming
entangled in its thorns, whereupon I tore my wrap and scratched both hands and
face.

“I beg your pardon!” a man cried.  “I am
so sorry for what I have done.  I confess, I was not paying attention to where
I was walking.”  He reached for my arm, which I immediately pushed away. 

However, in attempting to brush him off, I
caught my sleeve upon his cuff and in the ensuing awkward effort to untangle
ourselves, I tore off his button.  Once free, he bowed politely, and then,
hurried away upon the path, while I swore profusely in the language of the
motherland.  That was until I looked upon the button in my hand, or rather ran
my fingers across its smooth and shiny surface.

“Kari-fa!” I said aloud, for the King’s
black onyx button shimmered like the golden moonlight overhead.

I kept the button, although I told no one,
storing it in my purse among with my coins.  It wasn’t worth much, but when I
gazed upon it I always laughed, for it reminded me of how I fell into a
rosebush at the behest of the King.

During the summer months, I began to see a
young man.  We met on the palace steps one balmy evening, both returning from
the old city at the same time.  Lioter had been raised in the palace, as his
father was a confidant to the king.  In fact, all of his grandfathers, dating
back to the one who served the Great Emperor, made a living of whispering into
the King's ear.  

“In whose ear shall you whisper?” I asked,
on our third date, when Lioter took me to a pub near my old university campus. 

Initially, I had been hesitant to return,
afraid to see again my learned former companions.  I dressed overly well for
that evening, wearing my most expensive outfit from a high-fashion shop and
clinging tightly to Lioter's arm for he looked quite grand. 

Speaking with the refined, noble accent of
one who lived in a palace apartment which faced the sea, Lioter smiled at me
and raised his glass of beer.

“I shall whisper into the ear of the next
king,” he declared.  “To Marko Korelesk, who shall succeed our own hapless, but
beloved, Mikal, when he passes from this world to the next.”

“How can you be so certain that either
event shall come to pass?” the gentleman resting upon the barstool next to
Lioter interrupted our conversation.  “Mikal may be hapless, but at last check,
he seemed quite healthy.”

“I beg to differ, sir,” my date replied,
swiveling around so that his back was to me.  “Have you seen Mikal lately?  His
looks are dreadful.  He hangs his head like a lost dog, his shoulders bent
already in defeat.  I have heard his voice never raises above a mumble, and
when he speaks, his words are barely comprehensible.  My lord, Duke Marko
Korelesk, on the other hand, brims with energy and good health.”

“Is that so?” the gentleman replied,
sipping his own glass and staring reflectively in the mirror.  I glanced around
Lioter, but could see nothing of his neighbor's features, for the gentleman was
wearing a dark cloak and large hat.  However, his voice was vaguely familiar,
and at first, I believed him to be a professor that I had known.  “How come you
to know so well of either man, young friend?”

Lioter smiled and leaned back upon his
stool, already having swallowed more beer than he should.  He proceeded to wax
eloquently of the esteemed positions of his forbears, as well as his own
efforts to insinuate himself in the service of Duke Marko. 

“I am already a good friend of the Duke's
Chief of Staff,” Lioter bragged, “Even though I am an under-under secretary to
the King.”

“So, you are a spy of sorts,” the
gentleman concluded, while I decided that Lioter's revelation to this stranger
was a bit imprudent.

“I suppose so,” Lioter chuckled, and waved
for another glass.  “You seem intelligent, sir, and your accents speaks of
noble lineage.  If you would like, I could introduce you to the Duke's
service.  I require only a tiny recompense for this favor, which undoubtedly as
a man of obvious high blood, you shall reap a great benefit from this
acquaintance.  Perhaps, when King Marko sits the throne, you shall be a Lord
Advisor.”

The stranger laughed wholeheartedly,
setting down his cup.  Rising to his feet, he tossed three coins upon the
counter.

“You assume that I am not of the nobility
already?”

“If you were, why would you be wasting
your time and precious coins on this dreadful beer?”  Lioter shook his glass. 
“You would be drinking the finest brews at the Imperial Palace, where the pubs
are much nicer than this.”

“Indeed,” the stranger replied.  “But,
this pub is far more entertaining.  Look how I have had the good fortune to
become acquainted with you and the lovely lady sitting by your side.  For the
pleasure of your company, allow me to pay for your beer.”  Then, he tipped his
head to me and began to walk away. 

“Ha!” Lioter declared.  “We are in luck.” 

“No, we aren't,” I replied, for my blood
had suddenly gone cold.

As the stranger departed the busy pub, I
realized who he was.  I recognized the cloak, for it was my own handiwork upon
the hem, and the shiny onyx buttons, which graced his cuffs, matched the lost
one in my pocket.

Lioter was executed three days later,
after a rapid trial for treason and a sentencing at the behest of the King.  I
was spared, although I knew not why.  I returned to work and I slept in my
shared bed, but I did not walk the gardens or wander the city alone.  I was
afraid.  Someone was following me. 

Each time I turned my neck, I spied a
shadow in the corner of my eye.  After a week unable to sleep and jumping at
every sound, I was summoned into the King's office by a guardsman.

“Oh my!  What is that about, I wonder?”
the Head Seamstress muttered, as I rose from my sewing table to follow the
guard.

He escorted me into the Big House, the
building in which the King resided, and guided me up a marble staircase to a
heavy, ornate door.  From there, I was admitted into an office, followed by
another where I sat in a plush leather chair and waited for an hour. 

By the time I was granted entrance into
the King's inner sanctum, I was ready to faint from both fear and exhaustion,
but I didn't.  I held my back straight and my head high as I walked in.  After
all, my grandmother had been a Royal Seamstress to his mother.

King Mikal sat behind an immense and
elegant wooden desk upon which were piled stacks of papers.  Behind him were
windows gazing out at the sea.  To my left was a fireplace with an immense
stone hearth.  Directly in front of the fire, a man was reclining on a sofa. 
He smiled while raising a glass of amber wine as if in toast to me.  Dutifully,
I curtseyed firstly to the King and then, the gentleman.

“Ailana,” the King said.  “Ailana of Farku
in the Duchy of Korelesk, from the tiny Karupta ghetto, upriver from the sea.”

I raised my eyes to his face and
recognized the gentleman from the fountain bench, nearly a year past.

“Pleased to meet you, Ailana of Farku,”
the nobleman from the sofa declared, tipping back his head and swallowing the
liquid from his cup.  “Come closer so I may see you.  From this distance, you
are quite pretty, but your name bespeaks a Karut, which personally, I don't
favor.”

I looked again to the King, who nodded and
bid me cross the floor.

“You don't realize what you miss, Marko,”
the King replied, rising to pour his own glass.  “And, I believe your blood of
the motherland is even less diluted than mine.”

Marko, Duke Korelesk, laughed heartily and
smiled, bringing his cup again to his lips.  I found him repulsive, his
overbearing stomach which nestled like a large ball upon his hips, and his
jowls which swung from side to side as he moved his mouth.  His hair was long
and thin, and although, I assumed his hygiene was well kept, his tresses
appeared unwashed, and direly in need of a cut and style.  Only the Duke’s eyes
were interesting, for they were so light as to almost be devoid of color, but
now they judged me harshly with no pleasure.