A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,36

the world in one hand and his kingdom in the other.

“Let there be no more secrets between us, child,” Esmir said, her eyes taking me in with such fullness that I had to resist covering myself. “My sons have only followed my bidding. Now let us talk in earnest, you and I.”

With a nearly imperceptible motion of her head, Esmir dismissed her sons and their advisor from the tent as she continued to watch me. Eldrazz, Eglanna, and Kannafen gathered themselves quickly and left. I found I could not move and only later wondered why I did not stop them.

Esmir smiled with an easy grace. “I know you weary of deceptions, General, but I did not know who we would find at the end of our journey and I wanted to know them, so to speak, before I put my people in their hands.”

She slipped a glittering ring onto her hand and regarded me again.

“Perhaps we can have some wine before we begin,” she said, reaching calmly into her basket. “No matter is so great that it cannot be improved with wine.”

***** ***** *****

My mother died after lingering for weeks, injured and incoherent. Her carriage was crossing the Ivy Bridge at Turning Down when the great stones gave way, dashing her and her entourage against the stony waters below.

I was six, but I can remember my father hovering over her bed as she muttered in her sleep. I would ask my father what she said, but he would yell for me to leave the room. Eric was seventeen and hung outside in the hall. He would hold me when my father chased me out.

“What is she saying?” I would ask him.

“She’s singing our names,” he said, stroking my hair, “singing so she’ll get well.”

Kollus was a toddler, still laughing with his nanny, still singing his own nonsensical songs in the palace yards, still playing in the ivy of Turning Down.

When he came to rule the southern provinces, Kollus had a great block of marble hauled to the new bridge at Turning Down and carved a beautiful statue of my mother reaching down to release a blossom on the water. The woman is tall and kind and lowers the blossom with the tenderness of a child.

Kollus, of course, was too young to remember our mother’s face, but the woman he had carved was so elegant, so compassionate in her countenance, in that hovering poise over the burbling waters, that now when I think of my mother, all I can think of is that marble lady so gently dropping flowers among laughing waters and shattered stone.

More than marble, Esmir, queenly and quiet, held her wine glass like a flower and studied me from across the tent. I held her gaze for as long as I could stand and finally excused myself to send messages to Eric and my father. As I wrote the hurried messages for my riders, they watched me, their eyes unsettled at my unsteady hand and furrowed brow.

As I scratched out each letter, I could still feel Esmir’s influence, a power that lay somewhat in the grand manner with which treated the world, but more so in her refusal to acknowledge any opposition to her will. It seemed she held some secret knowledge that reality was at her beck and call, and her will and desires would manifest themselves given enough time.

As I approached my tent, I found myself hesitant to reenter, hesitant to confront the servant-turned-monarch holding court within. Only by reinvigorating my own anger at the Kullobrini intrusion could I shake off Esmir’s powerful presence and begin refocusing on removing the dark-skinned people from our shores. I was still outside my tent when Gonnaban appeared around a corner.

“You’ve heard everything so far?” I asked.

“Aye, ma’am,” Gonnaban said. “They’re a cunning breed and think through things in layers like. But our duties haven’t changed. Do you allow an army to land on your sovereign soil? Does a story of woe mean we give over to their every demand and we forget their every deception? And more than forget, we forgive?”

“Why don’t you join me inside?” I asked. “I could do with a level head beside me.”

“She’s a lot to take,” Gonnaban said, “judging by how those two princes and that old fellow scurried out of there.”

The air carried the scent of some soldier’s late supper, the spiced bacon my father loved when at war. I inhaled deeply and thought of him preparing it for us at Turning Down,