Stations of the Tower - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sithar expected to wait anxiously over the next ten days. It was a typical reaction in a marriage proposal for a family to mourn for five days over the loss of one child. Then celebrate for five days at the prospect of a new marriage, and the coming of age from a child to an adult for the expectant bride or groom. Yet, he was not entirely surprised when Kierien the solder, a cavalry captain in Sithars own guard, came into the palace, escorted by the seneschal, dragging Ki'a by her arm. Her face was red where he had slapped her, and her sleeve was torn away where he had inspected the tattoo.

The seneschal saw them to the princes private rooms and bowed out, and Kierien stopped abruptly. He was a tall man, for his race, and powerfully built from years of drills and ceremonies in heavy armor. He bore the tattoo of a Hussar captain upon his cheek, and as an ultimate badge of trust, he was allowed to bear the kukri that the elder prince had gifted him with upon his promotion to captain. It was a deadly weapon in the hands of a novice. An expert, such as Kierien, could kill a man at twenty paces with this weapon. And none were allowed weapons in the presence of the princes. None. Even emissaries from far away countries had to sacrifice their decorative weapons when they stayed in the palace. Kierien was highly decorated, given his status of captain, and his house within the palace. But still, he was just a captain.

"My prince." He said out loud, dropping to one knee, planting his right fist on the floor at the foot of the carpet the prince stood upon, and dragging Ki'a down as well. She was still flushed and nervous from their encounter that morning, and looked up at Sithar once, pleading with her eyes, before joining her father upon the ground in a slump, barely able to stand for the whipping he had given her.

"My daughter came to me this day with lies. She left from her work and came to her mother and I, bearing a false Heart tattoo and a love bite on her neck and professing that the crown prince, your lordship himself, wished to court her. I whipped her for the crime, and have brought her to you for punishment, as is proper."

He did not rise, nor look up. Once he had finished what he had to say, he fell silent, and Ki'a, fearing the worst, sobbed there on the floor. But what Sithar said forced his loyal captain to breach etiquette and look up at his prince, shock on his face.

"Indeed she did, Captain. Please, rise, so we may discuss the courtship. And Ki'a, my love, rise, you never need kneel before me again. Indeed, once we are wed, it is I who shall kneel before you." Kierien sat back on his heels in shock, watching as Sithar aided Ki'a to her feet and steered her towards a soft divan, where he saw her carefully seated, then rang a bell for a healer. "Please, Captain, we are to be family soon, you and yours will become of the blood in twelve days time, if we can settle on a marriage between myself and Ki'a. Rise." Kierien rose to his feet and the prince gestured for him to join him at a table, seated in a chair as equals, allowing him to step onto the carpet as if he were one of noble blood.

Kierien rose, and quickly removed his riding boots, placing them in the teak box set aside for just that reason, and joined his prince at the table. As they spoke, a healer came in, a slight woman with an eastern complexion, and a tilt to her eyes that spoke of intelligence and kindness, and saw Ki'a out and to an adjoining room. It was not proper for a father to see his daughter out of her clothes, or for a husband before she was his wife. She helped Ki'a strip and then had her lie upon a padded table, where she dressed the red, slightly bleeding lash marks on her backside. They had been made with her fathers horse crop, and they had stung like lines of fire.

Once she was done there, the woman helped her to dress in a clean garment, and to stand, then saw her back in to the divan where she could observe her father and Sithar speaking of a dowry, and a title, for her hand. Her father was just speaking.

"It is the decision of Ki'a if she wishes to marry you. My daughter has a heart and mind of her own, and no amount of dowry could equal her, and no title you could bestow could ever equal her worth to me. We haven't much. A few barrels of water for our house, which were given in pay, as well as a half-dozen horses. That is all. The very home that I keep, the possessions therein are nothing to a one such as you."

Sithar nodded and stroked his chin. For his age, he was no fool. He saw love in Ki'a and knew that they would bear a happy, strong family. And most important, he loved her with all his heart. "My dear captain. A dowry is of the least importance. It is my right, as husband, to waive the right of dowry, and accept only your daughters' hand, and your blessing, as dowry. Your water is yours, earned by right of rank and combat, and your horses are yours, raised, as all horses are in this land, from colts. And as for titles. As the father of my wife, you would be a lord Captain, with a hundred horses more, rooms here in the central palace itself, if not within the princes tower itself, and a mark of the Blood upon yourself and your wife." He gestured to where his own mark of the blood rested, exposed for all to see, on his left breast just over his heart.

"But as you say, it is the decision of Ki'a to wed, or to refuse. And I say this, were she to refuse..." Ki'as' breath caught in her chest at his pause, knowing that the wrath of the blood was all consuming. It was the right of the prince to take her by force, and to have her father exiled, or worse, sent west into the desert, with just her mother, and no water, or even clothes. They would be dead in a day. "If she were to refuse, I swear upon the mark I bear." With this he placed his hand over his heart and the mark of the Blood there. "That it shall be as if nothing were changed. The Heart tattoo shall fade from her arm and I shall return to my rooms in the tower. Naught shall have changed."

He had sworn a blood oath. If he were to break it, the tattoo on his chest would turn to poison and soak into his heart, killing him. Kierien looked from the prince, to his only daughter, his only child. It was for her to decide.

The next five days were spent in mourning for Ki'as' family. And the five after that in celebration. She was to wed the prince on the tide of autumn, the longest day of the year and the shortest night. The Elder prince, the Sithars' father, had decreed that a week of feasting would mark the occasion, one month to the day from his sons sixteenth birthday, and that all in the city would cease work for that single day. For Sithar, it was indeed ten long days of anticipation. A delegation arrived from the Southland, darker of skin and eye than those of the valley, they were considered barbarians by many, but they brought gifts for the couple to wed. Ten concubines for the prince, and ten handmaidens for the bride. All were politely refused, as was the custom in the Southlands. The ten concubines were the daughters of the King of the Southlands, and the handmaidens were his nieces. All were of his blood. Not would have changed had they been accepted, but honor would have been lost on both sides.

For that ten days, the princes tower was off limits to all save the servants that decorated it. And the prince, Sithar, would spend the last two days in fasting and meditation, clearing his mind and his body for the bride that awaited him at the top of the long climb up the great Princes tower. It would be an hour to walk them all, one hundred forty four thousand steps, one, it was said, for each day of the reign of the first prince in the great palace. As that was nearly four hundred years, it was doubtful to all that it was the truth. But it was tradition for the groom to walk the stairs, and not take the lift, as the bride would. And the day arrived faster than Sithar had expected. Nervous, his hunger gnawed at his inside as he waited, naked, for the judgment of the fathers to come upon him.

It was the duty of his father to try and make him doubt his love for Ki'a, and the duty of her father to beg from him the truth. From there, he would pass the ten temptations, naked and alone, and if he succeeded tat, then he would be allowed to ascend the steps of the tower, all one hundred forty four thousand, and join his bride, two witnesses, and three priests, at the top of the tower. Both Sithar and Ki'a would be naked, and there the ceremony would copy the mark of his house, the sunburst on his forehead, and the mark of the blood, the tattoo over his heart, to her. It would also create the wedding tattoos that would adorn their hips. He could not slow or stop in his ascent of the tower, or he would have to start over in ten days time, when he had been properly cleansed and had a chance to fast again.

Then the time was upon him. The north door to his room opened and in came his father. Nearly as tall as Kierien, the Elder prince strode up to Sithar and slapped him, knocking him from his feet and standing over him.

"How dare you soil the name and dignity of our house by wedding a common girl! The name of Kirashe has been handed down from father to son since time immemorial. I demand that you cease this at once and send that slip of a girl and her family west, into the Mohaine, and end this foolishness at once." His father, Anshar Kirashe, knew full well that even if he ended the marriage that he could no more send them into the desert than he could go himself. The tattoo would poison him and kill him within the first hour. But it was part of the ritual.

Sithar pushed himself to his feet and tried to force past his father to the door left open at his back. His father took him by his arms and cast him down. "Renounce! I demand it as your father and the warden of this lad, the elder prince and the protector of this people, renounce or I will stip the name of Kirashe from you myslef and cast you into the desert, with no water and no clothes, to die before the sun crests the noon."

Sithar did not climb to his feet, he jumped to them. "I will not. Stike me down if you must, take from me all my water, all my titles and land, all my horses and clothes. But I will marry her. If I have to go over you to do it, I will marry Ki'a." There was such fierce determination in his face and his stance that his father embraced him.

"Go then, and marry her with my blessing the house of Kirashe grows stronger this day, may our enemies beware." He turned then and left by the north door, closing it behind him and locking it. Sithar turned and faced the south, even as it opened. There stood Kierien, in full battle regalia. The silver line of a Lord Captain now graced his face, he commended a battalion of men and had a hundred horses and hundred barrels of water in his name, and not even the elder prince could strip them away without the support of the Consulate.

"Do you love her, truly?" He was fearsome in his riding leathers. A powerful man of nearly six feet and more than a hundred stone. Powerful and imposing, as a good soldier was in those days. "Is what you feel for my daughter the truth? Or do you merely desire her flesh? Tell me, or I shall see your guts this day." And while Sithar knew it was all part of the ritual, seeing an experienced man in armor. Bearing the ten ornamental blades of his station, and knowing he was not only experienced with them, but also possibly acting to protect his young, innocent, lovely daughter. It was another thing entirely to see as he bared the two swords of war across his back, holding them to each side, as he would atop his horse and in combat. Knowing this man, despite his station as a servant to the Tower and the princes that ruled from it, could and would cut him to bits in an instant if he was given the proper provocation.

Sithar knelt, baring his chest and his throat to Kierien. "If you do not believe me true, then let your blade taste my flesh, and naught shall befall you. All that you have gained you shall keep, and all you have kept shall be yours. And your daughter shall be free of me and you may give her all that was mine." His arms out to the sides, he looked Kierien in the eyes, unflinching and brave, his chest and throat a waiting sheath for several feet of expertly crafted steel.

Kierien sheathed the blades with an expert snap of his arms and turned, striding from the room and closing the door behind him, locking it as he went. All that remained now was the east door, beyond it, the stairs up the tower. But first. The ten Temptations.

Continued in Chapter 3