The Poisoned Throne

Chapter 9

Raynor

Sybil was laughing when Raynor entered the nursery. She was hovering above the cradle, watching their son play with the fingers of her hand. For a few moments, she stayed like that, unaware of Raynor’s presence. Her hair, newly bleached, had a bronze gleam in the afternoon sun, and her blue eyes were as bright and pale as the Hi’taabnese summer sky.

Then, she looked at him and gasped with surprise. “Raynor,” she said, a smile appearing as she straightened herself. “You scared me.”

He smiled and kissed her forehead when she walked to him. “How is Raphael?”

“Happy,” she said. “You are going to meet Shid-al?”

He nodded. “I wonder what it is that he wants,” he said. “From what I’ve heard, he’s grown weak since we last saw him.”

She put her hand on his arm in a soothing gesture. “He’s very sick.”

“I know, I know, but he just seemed so… well.”

Sybil stood up on her toes and kissed him on his cheek. “You should go.”

When he arrived at Kadir’s palace almost half an hour later, he was welcomed by a grave-looking servant, who led him to his master’s chambers. The wives, who usually greeted friends, were praying day and night for their husband’s health, he explained.

The room in which Kadir lay was dark, and the air was thick with incense and the smell of sickness and sweat. His usually large form had shrunk a little, and a lot of his usual vitality was gone. Raynor new from his previous visits that he no longer laughed in the booming, powerful way he once had, and that his voice sometimes shook with the effort of speaking. His eyes still sometimes held humor in them, but they no longer gleamed with mirth as they had. They now revealed the knowledge that he could and he would die - something Raynor realized he had known all along, but only just realized.

“Raynor!” Kadir exclaimed, trying and failing to reach his former vigor. He coughed, and Raynor thought he saw droplets of blood.

He sat beside him. “My dear friend, how are you?”

“Dying and bored, but otherwise all good. And you?”

Raynor smiled, ashamed that it was a smile of sympathy and not amusement. “I’m good.”

“And your son? And wife?”

“Both good,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Kadir said. “Listen, I need to talk to you. Please, sit down.”

Raynor pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down. “What is it?”

Kadir shifted, obviously feeling rather uncomfortable. “I’ll die soon. That’s not hard to guess, and it’s not hard to guess that I won’t be having any sons before leaving this world, either. Even if my talika gives birth to a son, he’ll be too young. That means my kingdom will be no man’s land again, left for anarchy and certainly war. And my wives will be left without anyone to protect them.”

Raynor looked down at his folded hands. This was the harsh reality in Hi’taab; if a man died, his property - and that included his women and daughters, who were considered nothing more than that - were left for the man who got their quickest, or the man who killed the ones who came before him.

“I’ll take care of your wives and daughters,” Raynor promised. “I’ll take them to Tibera, if that is needed, but no harm will come to them.”

Kadir smiled. “I have a better plan.”

When, an hour later, Raynor returned to his palazzo, he was met by Sybil in the entrance hall. She instantly noticed his pale complexion and look of confusion.