This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to both sexual and violent behaviour, along with expressions of physical affection. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived onto any other site without the direct consent of the author.
I never know how well-received these chapters are. The only clues I get are in emails from readers. Do you like the story? Hate it? Think Evendal should take a vow of silence? Hope I have written other works? Let me know and I'll let you know.
I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
A big thanks and namarie to Rob and all his editing. His absence will become obvious. This short chapter also marks the end of the quotations being exclusively from Hamlet.
42 Dost Thou Hear?
Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish her election,
S'hath sealed thee for herself,...
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, lines 64-67
After a moment's pause, the King braced himself and asked, "What do you hazard moved me to defy you?" He imbued the query with nothing weightier than light curiosity.
Expecting a verbal thunderstorm, Karondeo looked up from his fingers, startled by the weak zephyr of self-deprecation. "I do not grasp your sense."
"I am not some fanciful creature, some construct knowing only virtuous impulses and abounding in courage. And so far you have defined a Prince much more frangible than I am now. Certainly too incomplete a man to champion 'personal honour' over you, my most vital stanchion then. What kept me from capitulating, from acceding to your sheepherder's assault?"
Karondeo stared at the air off to his lower right side as he considered.
"Fear," he concluded softly. "And an unhealthy measure of spite."
Ierwbae alone registered puzzlement, mystified that anyone would ascribe bitterness to the friend and liege he knew.
Evendal accepted the brand without quibble. "Fear. Of the Altans?"
Karondeo snorted. "Hardly! You played the good servant so well; you frustrated those who wanted their Sheikh dead, those who wanted you both dead, and those who wanted your position. No. Dread of she who was aspersed this day."
As Evendal's expression seemed to invite it, Karondeo elaborated. "Sometimes I thought it a child's terror, reflexive and mindless. But sometimes, from hints you provided, I saw a fear well-founded. Just so did I try to warn you of the Wise Counsellor -- and of what I knew of the Beast -- but they did not claim your concern to the extent that the faux-Dowager did."
The King shook his head, as if in disagreement. "And the spite?" he asked, and then answered himself. "Onkira again, my dead father, and the nobles within my circuit here."
"'Twas my guess. The spectre of your late father or of your... late foster-mother, guaranteed a failure of calm on your part, and much pacing or meandering ashore. You would get most upset, most chill and haughty in manner, when I spoke of us returning to Osedys or of your duty to your people. You insisted 'If Osedys needs me so, they can seek me out.'" Karondeo's mimicry conveyed bitter frustration with verve.
"The gentles of Alta knew my lineage?"
"As I understood the matter, you had been most prodigal with that intelligence when first you appeared."
"Did Osedys ever accost me in Alta?"
"Not while I knew of you."
"How strange," His Majesty mused. "Any witness could have sent a missive downriver and up the coast. You recall all this rather thoroughly?"
Karondeo nodded. "I have considered our last hour together repeatedly, hoping to find any other cause for losing you than my own single-mindedness(266). This resulted in my ruminating over earlier moments and bells spent with you. And then ruminating over you yet some more... over a bit of the hard."
Evendal grimaced in empathy. "You sound most penitent but am I to expect further assays of bias? Further attempts at coercion from you?"
"The purpose for which I whored no longer needs my efforts." The young seaman waved his arms about, indicating the changes Evendal had already effected.
Evendal scowled, noting the self-denigration. "Causes are as easily acquired as burrs from a field and deserve the same attention." He let his disquiet show in a suddenly chill and grave demeanour. "You resorted to purblind tactics, not content with my free choice. Where is the essential respect in that? To treat me as an instrument for you to play on?"
"Now you know why I feared that I might have abused you beyond what you could forgive. Have I?"
The King did not answer immediately. "Had we thorough discourse on the chance of returning to the Thronelands?"
"Yes, in our fashion."
"And to what end?"
"You found no entertainment in the proposal, claiming the plans I fed you fought against the stomach of your better sense."
Gimlet-eyed, Evendal probed. "What purpose did you admit to, then, for our returning?"
Karondeo responded with an almost mournful calm. "Not the one that truly fuelled my insistence. I wrapped myself in the raiment of character, believing my own plea for the weal of the city to be the lands-end of my motive."
"So neither of us gave the other honesty enough. You could not comprehend my fear of my foster-mother. The depth of my reluctance to return to what was, for me, a more demoralising life, frustrated you. I did not know, or gave no weight to, your fear for your family. And whether with or against my will, I yet abandoned you."
It did not escape Karondeo that his question had yet to be answered. "Just know that I am, in all verity, penitent. Only time and change -- and your permissive will -- may allow me to show how repentant," he proffered.
Internally wincing in empathy, Evendal allowed, "I hope I have conveyed that will and willingness."
When the King made no other response, and permitted no one's gesture or look to draw him into further discourse, Ierwbae yet dared an enquiry. "Penitence? Repentance? What distinguishes them, Your Majesty? And in what way does it matter?"
"Penitence is like unto regret, Guard Ierwbae. A person penitent may feel dismay at his exposed fault, but does not necessarily feel sufficient compunction to do anything of relevant redress. Or of lasting redress or change." The King's glowing eyes, which had dimmed as he continued asking questions, brightened with the Guard's query. That critical gaze and illumination speared Ierwbae.
Karondeo explicated further, his own dark gaze fixed pointedly on Evendal. "A repentant deliberately relinquishes his dearest offending fault or want, employing will, sinew, intent, and critical faculties as necessary. Not just once but at every chance. Eschewing false pride, the repentant even begs the active goodwill of his fellows to add their own to his failing strength or unheeded better wisdom."
Aldul blurted out, "'A Presentment for Princes'?" He then raised a placatory hand, regretting his outburst. Karondeo yet nodded confirmation of the source of his words.
Thinking to reassure someone -- whether himself or his King, he could not tell with certainty -- Ierwbae interjected, "Your Majesty is where you belong, serving in the way -- and accepting the service -- you were born to and trained for. I suspect that Master Karondeo would now be hard pressed to resist giving that respect."
Evendal did not need the quirking of Aldul's lips in response to know that Ierwbae spoke out of his own fancies. "That is a fair thought," the King allowed. "But Karondeo confessing his proclivity and marking it as his enemy is a more dependable safeguard than simple awe for Our royal office. The fault is his, to detain and execute, or liberate and nurture, as he chooses. Besides, I refuse to sit in judgment on a planting, a campaign of duplicity, that bore no fruit. I would rather be the guardian of his heart, not the arbiter of it."
Ierwbae looked away, a seedling weakness weeded from the garden of his delusions.
A lull ensued, not heavy, but hardly empty. Tired from the weather, his endeavours, and the previously unrelenting pace of events, Evendal let the warmth of the room's hearths -- and the opportunity to merely sit -- provide him a measure of relaxation. The quiet governed for a time, as he signalled with a finger or a glance against when Ierwbae or Edrionwytt sought to fill it. Secured in his sling and by his father's left arm, a drowsing and replete Kri-estaul squirmed to get more comfortable against Evendal's yet bony chest. With immediate company quieted and surrounding table talk providing a balm of presence he had not known a need for, the boy finally settled.
Karondeo moved to grip the King's right hand. When the Guard at Evendal's right interposed her body, the irritated King waved her back. The seaman's warm touch distracted Evendal, summoning an ache in his chest. Though again rendered self-conscious, Karondeo claimed his goal and then strove to speak. "Repeatedly, as I waited and searched for you, I wondered. I could find no convincing reason..." He stopped, caught and released three deep breaths, and started again.
"You exercise talents and powers not advertised in generations. You have wrested your birthright from ravening wolves to sit at ease on a throne clearly yours. You have secured a future for yourself, your heir, and our home, and have encompassed yourself with friends and viziers you can depend on. You cannot be threatened, hurt or moved, you'll never be hungry, shelterless, or lonely. I, however, am the son of a pirate of regrettable lineage, and abandoned my father to the Consulship because I was too cowardly to treat with him honestly..."
After granting Karondeo his hand, and with no premeditation, Evendal found himself inclining toward his animated companion -- and Karondeo toward him -- until only a cubit of table separated them. This did not satisfy Karondeo, who abruptly stood and noisily dragged his chair toward the table corner. "How is it you esteem me?" he demanded. "For what?"
"I would say 'how could I not?' but that sounds flippant. Karondeo, my 'Royal Family' was a well-constructed lie founded on betrayals. It was a krater made out of fishing net and could hold nothing wholesome. Not love, not compassion, not caring. Nothing of respect for any person, estate, or state. As a result, I know more about the plutocracy in Donnath-luin than I do about acting the spouse or father."
Having reclaimed Evendal's hand, Karondeo absently rubbed his calloused thumb over the King's knuckles.
"Those accomplishments you listed do not provide comfort." The King glanced down fleetingly. "Naught of solace. Or the strength to endure. They cannot incite happiness or allow room for joy. But you and Kri-estaul do. You and my son can. The two of you know what can help any heart thrive, regardless of estate or talents. I am only a man. And nearly all my current ambitions cannot be aided or accomplished using those talents and powers."
"Ambitions?"
Evendal smirked in fleeting amusement at Karondeo's mock ignorance. "You ken my meaning. And spoke wisely just now in appealing to Ir's demesne: 'Time and Change.' We can but rely on our own wills for any future concord."
He huffed, and smirked again in reflection. "Did you take note? Like some noblewoman's birds of ornament have we sung to each other, the same song emerging from different throats... 'I abused your trust. Forgive.' So let us agree -- when you ask of me my royal absolution I'll ask of you my liege's clemency. And thus will each of us equip the other for whatever travail the upcoming day may yield."
"I abused your trust, Malismogh. Forgive? "
Evendal declined his head in royal pardon. "I abused your trust, Karh, and will continue to test it. Forgive?"
The solid man nodded, relieved that his beloved acknowledged the inevitability. "I absolve you now."
They grinned at each other, yet with grave sincerity between them.
Karondeo glanced about. "Unless you wish a detailing of our days in Alta, an invoking of the man you no longer are, I feel no further need for this pretence toward sequestered speech." He wafted his free hand, encompassing their undermanned table. "My apologies for making a ship out of a cluster of kelp, demanding your segregation to so little purpose."
The King twisted his arm so that he briefly clasped Karondeo's hand and kept him from pushing his chair back. "We are not quite finished here. First, I am not indifferent to the stubbornness you employed for my sake. After I disappeared, you could have berthed permanently at Kwo-eda or Donnath-luin. You could have persisted -- against your better sense -- in blaming the Altans for my vanishing and destroyed yourself in a fusillade of abnegation against them. Had you wanted me solely for my authorities, as a means of rescuing the father you left in peril, you would have accounted my absence an unfortunate escape and returned to him without me, as your felt guilt compelled you."
Unacknowledged, Evendal now petted the back of Karondeo's hand, a feather-light touch. "What you did was wait for me. In an agony of inward-directed sarcasm, and with no hint of my survival, you ignored all else and waited for me."
"One glass away from absinthe!" Karondeo derided, referring to that often lethal concoction considered the 'choice of fools.'
The King was having none of the denigration. "But in relating my assumption and what passed afterward you have been telling me what mattered most to you; that your guilt and despair over your father, though holding the prior claim and strong enough to direct some of your actions undetected, was not your paramount concern. I was.
"Secondly, I would leave you in no doubt as to how much... I wish I remembered us," Evendal mourned, suddenly awkward. "Did we hoard and spend much time together?"
"Yes," Karondeo asserted, black eyes glinting. "The only distress between us was the wound I kept reopening: my ambition for returning home. All other troubles flowed from the Altanmoot; they ensured life was no idyll for us."
Evendal nodded. "Amnesia is a blessing(267). I have no memory of our dissension and am unaware of any residuum of worry or fury from it. Likewise, I hold no discrete memories of our union or affections though I..." He did not complete the statement, but declined his head to stare down at a dozing Kri-estaul.
"So why do you nourish our reunion? What is it that you do recall?"
"No complete memories. Just previously quiescent thought cycles(268) and impulses." The King lifted his glowing gaze to his questioner and clarified almost desperately. "I find myself the one wishing for fewer attendants, just to rest my head in your lap without disturbance. Like some Arkeddan body-servant, I have thought about caressing your back and legs until you relax under my hands."
Karondeo swallowed a couple of times before asking, "And what repetitions meander through you?"
M'Alismogh's voice did not submit to his command any more readily than Karondeo's had. "A cycle of endearments. 'My sweet,' 'my heart,' 'Karh-talek,' 'chel-Karondeo.' Unoriginal but irrepressible."
Evendal opened his eyes, not aware when he had closed them, to catch a complicitous glance pass between a weary Metthendoenn and a damp-faced Ierwbae. His own ear pressed tackily against Karondeo's, but he did not move it. His shoulder and forearm likewise rested flush against the salt-speckled mariner. The seaman smelled resolutely of old urine -- Evendal disgustedly thanked the Moonchild as it was her scent -- and he was sure that he smelt the same.
"Can we just stay right here like this for a few fortnights?" Karondeo murmured.
Evendal grinned at an image -- of servants featherdusting them off from time to time -- and muttered a retort. "Only until Kri-estaul got bored or our arms lost strength."
"Do you think he will come to love me at all? In all verity?"
And Evendal knew two vital things: One, Karondeo saw no impediment to their love, harboured no resentments of his unintended ill-usage this past season. Two, he himself would have to make allowance for times when Karondeo presumed that the weight and mortar of their past together was there for them both. Or was Karondeo's question a deliberate gesture to reassure his lover? If so, the blithe delivery of it succeeded in doing so.
"Perhaps not as a father, but I see no avenue by which he can avoid it."
"Blood and swash! To hear your voice again! And talking the way you do."
"How am I so singular a jackdaw?" M'Alismogh controlled his tone before it went up the register out of a sudden levity.
Karondeo's pleasure was unfeigned, and precious. The hands started flailing about. "Not so much the Thronelander flatness in your speech, but the solidity of your answers. Another person, some crewmember who knew me since I was a seal cub, would have just said 'Yes, of course he will, you fool! We all do.' But you give me an anchor. Answers I can guide a ship by. Always have. You give me... considered truth."
Evendal did not quite know what to respond. "I myself need it so much, I presume its lack for all."
"Errrr." Karondeo carefully twitched his shoulder, a movement Evendal correctly read as a signal to sit up. The seaman turned soft, tired eyes on the King and the Heir. "There is so much you do not say plainly. But offtimes your choice of words yet reveals. Do you know how much I wish I could have been fostered with you? That cocatris(269) would not have laid a twisted hand or word on you! I'd have made that sure.
"If the images that my fancy tiles even come close to what he faced," Karondeo pointed a digit at Kri-estaul, "that child has the only father who could possibly bequeath him a contented manhood."
Evendal sat flummoxed. In two breaths Karondeo had responded to the sad undercurrent in the King's apologia, voiced a longstanding compassionate awareness of the nature of Evendal's most personal wound - an injury Evendal had, apparently, never admitted of to him -- and confirmed his support of a life together for them purposed toward healing the Heir Evendal had chosen.
Rightly interpreting his man's stunned expression, Karondeo shrugged. "I have had time to..." He flailed his hands about briefly in frustration. "I have had time to recapitulate those moments wherein I thought you callous, indifferent -- when I wrongly thought I had suspended my judgement sufficiently to know what passed in your mind. I quit wallowing in anger over the cold still silence you would affect, and finally thought to ask why it was so impenetrable. And in that time it dawned on me how deep your constraints went. How terrified and confused you must have stayed when I had thought you at ease.
"Do not fret about how different you are from those before you, those after or those around you, beloved. Were you not, I would have no haven I could trust, nor would your son. Nor would your kingdom. Simple as that."
Recovered, Evendal looked askance. "So my lambency does not give you pause? Nor the spate of -- for you -- new companions? Family? Nor their place in my affections?"
"I make no unconsidered sweeping pronouncements." Karondeo's hands waved briefly over his head, but his left hand quickly returned to grip the King's. "That much have I learned from you. These your effects might come to trouble me, or they might not."
"My effects?"
"The glow. That you can hear my more tiresome ruminations. Companions are effects as well, you know; they testify to your station, your mettle, and the ruthlessness of your care. 'Tis true for every leader and the satellites they draw. In that, again I say, time and tide will provide my proving. But my will is all for what serves your health best."
M'Alismogh smirked absently as Karondeo's last truth repeated itself in his head, demanding notice. He heard a vow, a pledge being given him. He heard a demanding and uncomfortable reciprocity being asked of him.
He heard an unconditioned declaration and offer of love.
"Did we ever talk about how our days together might eventuate were I to reclaim the Throne?"
Karondeo shook his head. "You would not." He paused as though to add more, then shifted direction. "But I thought on it often, sometimes as mere fancies, sometimes granting it serious consideration."
"You did?"
The seaman grinned fondly. "Evendal, I ever wanted you as whole and hale as you could manage." In Karondeo's mind that included his beloved taking up the alienating mantle of his singular estate.
"What did you discern from your considerations?"
"What was there to distinguish? I was not equipped to advise a king. May not be still. But the range of studies involved had me ready to outrace a porpoise for eagerness."
"You sought to expand the scope of your competencies? Did I even note this? Or remark on it?"
"Only to encourage me. You sought out booksellers and scriveners. You had no notion as to the purpose guiding my course. Familiar with my inveterate curiosity, you thought only to nurture it."
"That familiarity is washed away," Evendal reminded. "Deal generously with me while I reacquaint myself. If I do not treat with you as you deserve, bare it straightly to my ear."
"I do not suffer in silence. And you have but to direct me. Should a task outpace me, I'll not keep mum, lest any failure compound itself."
"Likewise," Evendal iterated, "if you ever doubt your welcome or use, do not hesitate to attack the self-same ear. Well do I know...'while the grass grows, the horse starves.'"
Softly, Karondeo chided, "I have employment should I feel I grow musty here."
All that Evendal heard confirmed what he felt: Karondeo had no desire to live as a King's shadow or consort or hanger-on. He captained the Swan Song, and clearly expected he would continue to. Alekrond acknowledged him heir to all authorities and capital held prior to his marriage. And Karondeo fully intended, as part of his commitment to his Malismogh, to secure a public Royal Counsellor's post.
All three ambitions required merit, not just favour or blood for their winning and sustenance. But then merit was part of how officers obtained posts in Alekrond's realm: by election based on the confidence of the entire crew. A candidate had to be competent, but also acceptable to the assemblage he served. This empowering by plebiscite seemed chancy to Evendal; a mercurial popularity could win out against wit and courage. He wondered also, now that Alekrond had two offspring, how easily would the elder find apportioning authority when the time came? Melianth was not likely to relinquish advantage to anyone but her own unborn child.
He saw no reason to divulge any of these thoughts to Karondeo; the man had to have entertained them himself. Instead he nodded and carefully warned the intrepid seaman. "And I will leave that to your discretion for as long as you let me. Appearances to the contrary, I do not suffer people for their weaknesses but for their strengths. You demonstrate many."
Evendal would have been content with Karondeo as a private, personal counsellor. Once, fitfully over the course of a year, Lord Menam had suffered a bemused and sullen Prince Evendal as his 'damnable ballast.' Maybe for a sennight every season, the Prince had accompanied the King to nearly every public and private fete, conclave, diet, and 'quiet little talk.' Someone whom Menam heeded had insisted such proximity could educate the Prince as nothing written could. And Evendal had indeed learned.
His father had had a small cabal of 'counsellors,' who had told him many things that his public Consulship chose not to. Some of that intelligence had been ear-tickling. Some had been inveterate pomposity that Menam pretended to treat with all gravity, only to later acknowledge it as this or that friend spinning fleets of good fortune out of the kelp of well-meant fancy. Some had been timely and frighteningly astute. Without deviation, all had been delivered in grave and sodden tones after consuming the contents of several bottles of port and beer.
The last was not a convention Evendal intended to perpetuate, but if this day's discussions were any indication, Karondeo would be valuable. He was implacable, passionate and expressive, but slow to anger. His perception nonpareil. He enumerated facts, along with the cogent commonplaces of his understanding, without prejudice, for Evendal to accept or counter. Were the King to admit no pleasure in his company and bid him go back to Swan Song, Karondeo would reluctantly honour his request; he would hurt plainly and openly but without thought to any emotional manipulation or to causing a public imbroglio.
The King felt no compulsion to banish him. He knew he had been smiling or grinning with uncharacteristic frequency since Karondeo said 'You are my Malismogh.' The man's grin drew his eye. The proclivity to touch Karondeo, to no other purpose than the strange combination of thrill and calm it imparted, was insidious. The depth and challenge of Karondeo's voiced thought delighted him, though it had -- so far -- evoked an occasional look of puzzlement or surprise from Aldul and Ierwbae. In the younger seaman they clearly anticipated an acuity limited by the bounds of ambition -- much like they presumed in Alekrond.
Both presumptions were in error.
The King took a deep breath, seemingly the first since he got up last night. He felt excited and relaxed in the same moment. He felt scared. What did he know from loving, or even courting, an adult? As a responsible ruler, the realm's 'ring-giver,' he dared not pass out baubles at whim; the worth of every such favour got evaluated and gossiped over. And his reciting anything like a lyric to a beloved could be deadly. But Karondeo made his choice clear: He chose 'Malismogh' in whatever trappings or mould the man filled. And Evendal, gazing into dancing sloe-black eyes, made the same choice: Kri-estaul would, with help, grow up and grow away into his own life. But Evendal was not about to let Karondeo do the same.
Distracted, the King stared down on the restless form pressed to his left. Sleeping, Kri-estaul's mouth moved though his expression remained serene. And Evendal decided that, in different ways, he and his son both tasted phantom gingerbread.
He wanted more.
---------------------------------------------------------- (266) Actual approximate translation is, 'than my fish-ness.' The most commonly used word for fish with a Hramal suffix indicating 'an abstract of,' referring to the all-but-suicidal instinctual behaviour of fish during spawning season.
(267) ~Puorkuld: blessing, consecrated gift/equivocal gift. To Hramal preconceptions, the phrase 'a mixed blessing' is almost a redundancy.
(268) Having no deistic underpinnings, Evendal uses terms common to musical guilds to point to what he means.
(269) Or crocodile. A beast that weeps after eating a man. http://www.bestiary.ca/beasts/beast146.htm