Twelve hundred and twenty years previously.


    The seneschal approached Kel Télsarràs as he stood at attention in the great foyer of Castle Barso.


    "Her Majesty awaits."


    Two sentries, the First Warden''s own confidants, opened the double brass doors to the grand salon where Rhoethella''s spent her day poring over blueprints and designs for several officialdom endeavors.


    She dressed in trousers, brown thonged sandals, and a bandage wrapped around her breast where her wound was still healing. With a scooped rod in hand, Queen Rhoethella squatted on folded terry cloth over a box garden—six yards by four yards in its size.


    "Come here, my dear Tél!"


    Her mood had turned to a rare, spritely verve he had not witnessed in a good season. The invisible hand of Hope graced her eyes.


    Inside the box garden were thousands of tiny worms festering under a sheet of silk that appeared to be made of spun platinum.


    "Give me your naked hand, Sieur," Queen Rhoethella commanded.


    He wore gloves of black velvet strewn with gold-colored silk that matched his cape, shirt of white silk, leather vest, pants, and boots of mamba skin. A thin rapier sheathed at his belt. It was his urban uniform. City wear as opposed to battlefield wear. He removed his glove as she had commanded him. Rhoethella stroked his palm with her thumb. The heat of goosebumps rose along his back and shoulders. His heartbeat rose.


    For you, my love, I would give my life ever so lightly. Were the words King Izsolt commanded him to tell the woman who now sat by his side as his last message to his wife. Kel Télsarràs thought the same, and he was glad to be sworn to it.


    Rhoethella plucked a silkworm from the garden plot; she placed the squirming critter in Kel Télsarràs'' palm. It was small, the width of a mite but five times the length of one. It looked more like a crawling bracelet made of lapis lazuli than anything living. This specimen was from Niaggotte where settlers who survived the decimations of the far east now made home.


    He watched its little blue jaws curl up and then suddenly twist around and bite him.


    The veteran of a dozen campaigns squealed aloud. Its bite felt strongly venomous.


    "Be sure to pluck it off before it begins to bore," Rhoethella suggested sweetly.


    She swiped her raven hair to the side. Her elven ears meekly folded inward as they tended to do when she made mischief. Cruel humor was renowned of Haute Elven womankind. Rhoethella was no different, but she also seemed all the more human for her tells born of those elven traits.


    She noticed the miffed brow on her knight, and she gave his shoulder a gentle clasp. Her voice turned more serious.


    "I need you to feel that for yourself. Do you know the gravity of what your queen has in mind?"


    She stood up and bid Sieur Télsarràs to follow her.


    "I don''t understand, your majesty."


    She clasped her hands into his, and her maroon-brown eyes stared into his own.


    "To do what I am to do, understand what we face. I would not even contemplate a measure so extreme but for five dukes conspiring for my ouster, an attempt on my life, Izdun''s armies at my borders, his intelligencers spread out across the land sowing discord and ready to reclaim the Suüd, and put it back in chains."


    "What are you saying, milady?"


    "I need you to travel to Dreíz, the City of Buzzards, and secure an elixir for me. I''ve had it verified: a daimon-djinn-possessed medicine man has acquired it. He will exchange the elixir for a full exorcism of the daimon djinn from his person. You will escort three priests to the city and protect them from any harm."


    Sieur Kel Télsarràs protested. "I am sworn to protect you, your majesty. I cannot protect them and you as well."


    Her smile reached both horizons. "You will secure my long-term reign if you do this for me, Sieur. I''ll make a vow to you in turn, dear Tél. I will not leave Castle Barso until your return. I will host a garrison of fifty of your most loyal men to complement the royal guard. Will that suffice to ease your worry?"


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    How could he protest?


    "Yes, my lady, yes."


    Sieur Kel Télsarràs spent most of the first day dressed urbanely, leaning against the schooner''s foremast with arms folded as he studied the waves in front of them. Sun and wind spray bothered him none; neither did the rise and fall of the ship against the ruddy waves burden him. High Priest Abicore, however, praying shrilly for his God to cure him of the dry heaves and vomit fits and dysentery, bothered the knight quite a bit.


    We set this man against a daimon-djinn?


    Sieur Télsarràs brought a set of chance bones to idle away time with his men and the sailors, but the waves made it impossible to make sport of it. The first evening, the captain invited him to play a game of strategy on the aft-deck perch.


    Télsarràs humored the man for an eve beneath torch and starshine, but as the captain compared maneuvers on the board with the actions of admirals of renown, the knight thought the analogies insipid. Battles never went according to plan. Too many factors determine success for one man to claim his actions dictated the outcome. It was like rolling a thousand chance bones and claiming the outcome was yours to command.


    Yet, Télsarràs gave no fret. The captain was good enough company for an evening''s grog companion, so he never voiced his skeptical disposition.


    The next day he stood at his post, eyes scanning the distance, hoping to catch sight of a black flag-bearing mast hoisted in a course set upon the schooner to challenge them. A good bloody fight was what his men needed. He had picked five stalwart sons of curs too coarse and boot shit dredged to walk the fine halls of his sworn Lady''s castle to accompany him as his platoon of dragoon-meers.


    He promised them adventure, and he strongly preferred they take their aggression out on pirates, bandits, highwaymen, and monstrosities of the wild and weird rather than on the abiding subjects of his queen. Without an occurrence such as a bloody fight, they would prove to be a chore to keep in line.


    Without warning, High Priest Abicore shrill screech contested the calm gray silence of the mid-morning air, interrupting the flow of the knight''s stark thought.


    "Oh, ye, Lord of Days," the ardent muttered. "How those creatures cavort!"


    Sieur Télsarràs cast his eyes narrowly at the soft fellow with the pearlescent nails fluttering in the air as the ardent wrung the front of his smock. Then he followed the priest''s gaze, across the water, as the knight heard the siren''s sweet, beckoning melody.


    Several grayish-blue ladies accompanied by a trio of dolphins rode a sweep of waves that curved in supernatural folds into one another, forming a vortex and counter-vortex designed to stabilize any ship that came near.


    For the sirens with their lovely finned ankles and the dancing dolphins, the waves formed a carousel where the sirens could show off their wares. The nude forms danced with one another, rode the backs of dolphins, raised their breasts playfully, and spread their thighs for the sailors to see how their loins gleamed azure wet in the sunlight and scarlet in the dark of the hollow.


    One sailor who stood beside Télsaràs gawked at the display with a dumbfounded smile.


    "Prettier than a salmon''s scaly sheen, would you agree?" The sailor asked him.


    "Most assuredly, the women of the sea foster the most alluring of illusions," Sieur Télsarràs responded.


    Abicore who stood on the knight''s other side, wrung his hands and stammered his jaw. He looked as if he may vomit yet again.


    "Dear Lord of Days, we are to be beguiled down to Dom Daniel to our eternal doom," the priests cried.


    "Padre," Sieur Télsarràs asked. "I am not familiar with matters of clergy. Do you belong to a sect that requires abstinence?"


    The ardent''s shoulders stirred up, defensively. Sieur Télsarràs gathered that the tone of his voice must have been more harsh than he intended. Behind them, a commotion broke out. Excited voices of young sailors and dragoon-meers floated around them. Their feet scurrying and pounding about the deck''s board work.


    "Get the baiter''s chest," one sailor called out to those below deck.


    "What is that?" the priest turned to Sieur Télsarràs and asked.


    Has the man ever in his life strayed from the cloister?


    "On near every ship that travels the Great Mooring and her sister seas, a baiter''s chest is kept for just this chance encounter. The sirens prostitute themselves for trinkets, gemstones, candied pork, dried fruit, and soured sherry."


    High Priest Abicore watched the sailors dive in and swim out to the wave carousel with a forearm draped across his forehead.


    "Oh, mercy, Lord of Days … This is all becoming so lascivious!"


    "Quite so," Sieur Télsarràs answered. He pressed the priest on his elbow sympathetically. "Come down galley to my quarters. I have a rare brandy if you have grown as tired of grog as I have. You are not required to abstain from strong drink, are you?"


    Abicore smiled sheepishly. "Thankfully, no. I do believe I could use that drink, Sieur."


    Down in his quarters, Sieur Télsarràs pushed the chest with his personals out from beneath his bunk so the priest could sit comfortably. He leaned up against his bunk, and he filled his pipe with variedel leaves to share as well.


    "In truth, Padre, I''m elated the sirens showed up when they did. You may have noticed that my consort on this venture is of a rougher sort.


    "I love all the men under my command, but some men need near-strident oversight. The sirens are good for morale. Almost as good as a bloody fight with loot to be sorted."


    He handed the priests the lit pipe. The Knight could tell from how Abicore sipped and sniffed at the rare brandy he was a connoisseur. Likely a distiller, himself.


    "If you will pardon the intrusion on your personal affairs, good sir Warden Télsarràs. Why do you not indulge in the… festivities?"


    "I am sworn to the Queen."


    "How is that different than my oath in regard to abstinence?"


    The knight shrugged as he sipped.


    "For her year of mourning, I suppose, not at all. Afterwards, I am expected to be her consort either for the entirety of my life or until she chooses another and releases me from my duty."


    The priest smiled. "I suppose there are worse fates for a man."


    They clinked mugs and chuckled together.


    "I suppose there are," Sieur Télsarràs agreed.