Of Kings and Griffins, Chapter 1
The Great King’s body lay on an ebony bier. The golden sun disk adorning his white robe gleamed in the light from oil lamps, at odds with the pallor of his face. As Great King, Muwatti had ruled with a shrewd and measured governance. Tesha’s gaze slipped from the dead man to the brooding figure who stood at the head of the bier, arms crossed. This untried son would soon take the throne. She pulled her infant closer and pressed her arm against her husband, Hattu. Would the unwavering trust shared between Muwatti, the Great King, and Hattu, his brother, continue with this new ruler?
Muwatti had died only that morning, but already death pinched the skin covering his cheekbones and hollowed his eye sockets, the decay sped along by the illness that had racked his body. His aquiline nose, so like Hattu’s, stood out more sharply in death than in life. Tesha shivered at the resemblance. Despite the incense that burned in braziers, she choked on the odor of rot that seeped toward her. Tesha felt as if she balanced on loose stones that would give way at the slightest shift of her weight.
The Great King’s power of life and death passed now to this young man—the old promises and reliance, the conferring of Hattu’s kingdom, all those grants of authority held between brothers, had scattered with Muwatti’s final breath.
Tesha looked outward at the crowd gathered around the bier, the extended royal family as well as priests and priestesses, and then back to her husband’s face. “Take care of us, goddess,” she murmured. They needed all the protection Ishana would provide.
Hattu turned from the corpse to his wife and the baby daughter she cradled against her shoulder. The grief in his eyes softened, and for a moment joy in their child shone through. Comfort in sorrow. So it hadn’t been a mistake to keep Arinnel with her. Tesha had been nursing her baby when a servant alerted her it was time for this essential funeral rite, the first step as Muwatti’s soul became a god.
Tesha kept her baby close and refused to use a wet nurse because Arinnel’s magic needed nurture and guarding. Magic was forbidden except among the healing priestesses, who did it by learning, not the strange inborn power that Arinnel showed even from the womb.
After Tesha had revealed her own powers by saving the empire’s army from a Paskan sorcerer, Tesha and Hattu had come to an uneasy agreement with Muwatti. For generations, Great Kings had executed sorcerers. So Tesha was not that, but rather a priestess with extraordinary but goddess-granted magic to use only in Hattu’s and her kingdom in the northern part of the empire—and only against Paskans.
Arinnel didn’t fit into this compromise, and they’d hidden her latent abilities, waiting for a time that had not come—a secret they’d keep tighter now with so much uncertainty under Muwatti’s heir.
Even dead, Muwatti would remain the Great King for a few more days. Welcomed into the divine realm above, he would provide his heir with the power to serve as the bridge to the gods. If he did not become a god, if these rites failed, the reign of the next king would be doomed from the start, the continuity broken.
Tesha glanced past the circular hearth at the center of the room to the throne room’s huge double doors. They remained closed.
She whispered to Hattu, “Why don’t the priests bring the sacrifice?” The Great King’s body lay waiting. His soul required sustaining blood. Immediately.
Hattu clenched his jaw as he scanned the sprawling room where the family and gathered priests and priestesses had fallen into subdued silence. “They are failing my brother. They must hurry now, or the other rites will be futile.”
Tesha strained to hear the approach, but no sounds interrupted the room’s rising dread.
Tesha adjusted Arinnel in her arms. Her child stayed quiet when she could look around, especially in a room where the tension weighted the air like a threatening storm. Even the room itself was amiss. Despite the majesty of the frescoes of gods and goddesses in procession flanking the throne, the grand space had an unfinished feel. The facing wall held nothing but bare plaster. Muwatti had ruled from this new southern capital for less than a year before marching his armies to fight Egarya, and a lingering illness had undermined his health on that expedition. Since his return, there had been no construction. The world came here to serve the most powerful king of all, but they came to an unfinished attempt at grandeur. The true success of Muwatti’s reign would be similarly thwarted if this delay did not end now.
Urhi, Muwatti’s seventeen-year-old son, stood transfixed over his father’s body, his white knuckles visible against his crossed arms. Streaks of tears showed on his rounded cheeks, and redness rimmed his dazed eyes. Tesha did not doubt his grief or the weight he must feel sinking onto his shoulders. The empty throne he would have to fill rose behind the bier on a stepped dais, the red marble seat supported by two standing bulls carved of polished black basalt.
Kantuz, the Healer of Ishana, whom Tesha would assist in the funeral rite, stood off to one side in her pleated brown gown, her stiff posture signaling her concern. Tesha nodded to her; the older woman returned the acknowledgment and then reverted her gaze to the doors.
As the moments dragged on, Tesha swayed in a soothing rhythm for the child. Her heavy skirts swung against her legs. She wore the red robe of Ishana’s priestesses to mark her role in this ceremony as holy practitioner rather than a queen. Although unfamiliar to each other as priestesses, she and Kantuz shared equal authority in the divine rites. As queen, Tesha also held equal command with Hattu in the Upper Lands. That familiar cooperation was far more comfortable than her provisional arrangement with Kantuz. Tradition and law granted her power in the running of their kingdom, but most kings ignored their queens despite that.
The wait extended, and whispered conversations sprang up, gradually increasing in volume as the assembled crowd grew ever more anxious. It felt unseemly, but until the rite could begin, talking soothed the alarm that oppressed the room.
Tesha looked toward the double doors. No movement. She released a long breath and rolled her shoulders. What were the priests thinking?
She turned to her husband. His brother’s death had devastated him. His broad shoulders stooped—so unlike his usual strong posture—causing his tunic to sag and rumpling the gold embroidery on its fine black wool.
“I’m so sorry, my love.” Tesha leaned her head against his shoulder.
Hattu kissed the top of her head and then brushed his daughter’s cheek. “I keep remembering the days right after our father died. We were so close. Muwatti and I needed each other.”
Tesha pulled Hattu away from those nearest and whispered, “We’ll have to hope Urhi thinks he needs you. He looks it.”
“I’ll mentor him. He’ll become a good leader with time.”
“If he’ll let you.” Tesha barely breathed the words.
“I vowed to Muwatti. I’ll support Urhi.”
“Yes, Muwatti trapped you into that.” They’d argued about this before. She should drop it, but after Muwatti’s maneuvering, Hattu had no choice but to back Urhi, even if Hattu had to act against his own interests. Urhi’s behavior was hardly reassuring. He acted dismissive toward Hattu when his uncle initiated conversations, as if he knew better, a boy who’d never governed nor led an army. Hattu was an honorable man who would hold to his promise to his brother, but what if Urhi wasn’t as honorable?
Hattu whispered, “He needs my experience. Who else has successfully commanded the empire’s army against its greatest enemies?”
Urhi would be as likely to view that experience as a threat. They didn’t know him well enough to judge. That was the problem—Hattu had no previous relationship with the young man.
She should agree and give comfort, but instead she couldn’t stop herself from asking what worried her most, “What if he doesn’t trust you’ll hold true to your vow? Muwatti told him you would, but it’s revealing that your brother felt the need to say it—and he knew Urhi.”
“I’ll build the relationship.”
That was impracticable from their own capital of Alpara, a journey of more than a moon’s cycle from this southern city. “If he returns to Hattusa,” Tesha said. The old capital was only a couple days journey from their palace in Alpara.
Hattu drew his brows together. “Yes, of course. If he returns north, I can spend much of my time in Hattusa at his side. You do a fine job of ruling our kingdom.” Hattu’s compliment was meant to end this argument. “This raw city has never been right.”
“Muwatti should never have uprooted the ancestors and our gods. Angry gods are more dangerous than Paskans. But Urhi won’t want to abandon the city his father chose.”
Hattu shrugged. “If I build trust with him, he will.”
Tesha glanced over her shoulder. “Or he’ll listen to the counsel of less threatening advisors and order the three of us conveniently murdered.”
Hattu jerked backward. “Hush. That will not happen. I’ll win him over. It will be as it was between Muwatti and me.”
Tesha stroked Arinnel’s soft hair, relieved to see no telltale light glowing from her body as a sign of magic. “When you were imprisoned under false accusations of sorcery and only I believed in you, you feared Muwatti would order your execution.”
“But he didn’t.”
“I helped him see the truth.”
“Help Urhi see where his best interests lie—with me.” Hattu’s gaze went to Urhi.
The Grand Votary of the Stormgod, head priest of the capital’s temple, approached the crown prince and leaned close to say something while his hand waved Urhi away from the area around the head of the bier. Urhi stiffened, and instead of moving, he widened his stance and raised a fist. Tesha turned to Hattu, and they both stepped closer to the prince.
“I won’t. He was my father, and I will stand here. I am the Great King now.”
“You will soon be our Great King, but not yet. I understand your sadness and the desire to be close to him,” the Grand Votary said, keeping his voice low, “but for now the priests must stand nearest our Great King.” He gently pressed Urhi’s shoulder.
“How dare you.” The crown prince’s voice carried and drew others’ attention. Hattu’s mouth turned down.
“I mean no disrespect. You may stand right over there.” The votary pointed past the far end of the bier where the rest of the royal family clustered. “For the sake of your father’s soul, make room for the sacrifice we must perform. You are not trained as a priest, so it is proper at this grief-ridden time for me to explain how it must be. Your father’s soul is trapped in his dead body. We must provide a strengthening shelter for his soul until it can reside in its permanent home once he has become a god. As Great King, your father’s soul can do what no ordinary man’s soul can—vanquish the hold of the gods below. But if we fail to offer the blood sacrifice, he will not escape that husk and join the gods to intercede on your behalf. That will be the undoing of your reign before it begins.”
Urhi did move away from the bier. Tesha released the breath she held. Another example of Urhi’s rudeness. There had been too many during these terrible final days of Muwatti’s life. The taut lines that bulged up Hattu’s neck relaxed. Would Urhi have listened to either her or Hattu?
An ox’s bellowing sounded through the double doors. Finally. Two servants pulled the doors open and then flattened themselves against the walls as a gigantic black bull plunged into the hall. Tesha stifled a scream. Other screeches erupted around her. Eight bare-chested priests in short leather kilts strained to hold the beast. Four at the front held ropes attached by a leather harness to the bull’s chest. The other four priests drew back on ropes bound by a leather band around its haunches.
The crowd skittered backward, leaving a far wider space than had been laid out for the ceremony. Tesha rushed with them and pressed Arinnel tight against her chest. Hattu stepped between her and the panicked ox as the priests guided the beast around the circular hearth and toward the bier.
The bull’s coat shone from the purification bathing, and they’d gilded its horns as was proper, but the leafy garlands around its massive chest swung wildly as it fought against its fate. Tesha gasped at the terrifying omen. A willing sacrifice meant the gods listened and granted.
A terrible misjudgment. The animal’s magnificence had deceived the priests into thinking it was suitable to provide temporary shelter and strength for the Great King’s soul. The ox surged against the ropes. The priests braced their feet, bending their knees to leverage the ropes tighter. The bull swung his horns in deadly arcs, fighting the restraints. The priests kept out of reach, balancing their taut hold against the opposing pressure from each side as they guided the ox toward the bier and the grand silver basin at the head of it.
Suddenly, the wily beast lunged its massive weight to one side and the priests struggling there. It overpowered the balance and dragged with it the opposing four priests. With a flash of gold, the bull’s horn pierced the chest of the foremost man, ripping into the bare flesh above his leather kilt. The bull lifted the shrieking man, skewered on its horn, and tossed him to one side. The priest’s body sprawled limp on the ground, his innards leaking from the crimson gash.
Screams rang around Tesha. She shrank back, clutching Arinnel but never taking her eyes off the slashing animal. Then she cried out in horror as Hattu leapt forward. Her baby stiffened in her arms.
Hattu dove under the ox’s swaying horns to grab the dropped rope. He rolled and then came upright, yanking the rope tight. The other priests regained their holds, and together they prevented the bull from charging and forced it into stillness.
Tesha’s breath returned to her. Ishana be with him.
At Hattu’s yelled command, two servants dragged the wounded man out of danger, though he may have already been dead.
After the wails from the crowd, the big room fell eerily silent, and the bull’s heaving snorts sounded terrifyingly loud. Tesha pressed her lips onto the top of Arinnel’s head. The baby’s eyes were wide open, fixed on her father, and she gave off a muted glow. Tesha ducked down so that her red veil covered the dangerous evidence of her daughter’s magic. What had the infant done? Had she protected her father somehow? Not by any magic Tesha understood. Tesha clutched the swaddled baby against her chest as if that pressure could still the out-of-control pounding of her own heart.
From across the room, the Healer of Ishana aimed her attention at them. Tesha looked away. Returning her gaze would only draw more notice. Instead, Tesha beckoned to Epa, the servant she’d brought from Alpara, whom she trusted to care for Arinnel when it was necessary.
The old woman perched the baby on her shoulder, lifting her shawl over the child with a nod to Tesha. She patted the infant’s back soothingly. “I’ll take her to your rooms, Queen Tesha.”
Tesha murmured her thanks and glanced up. The Healer of Ishana had turned her attention to the bull and the wiry little man making cooing noises as he stepped closer to the heaving ox. It was Kety. The Egaryan slave had started as Hattu’s groom, but now he served as the most unlikely royal bodyguard and Tesha’s friend. Kety held his hand out with a bright red apple. Only Kety would have had handy an ox’s favorite treat. He claimed none of his powers with animals involved magic, but that was hard to believe watching him calm frightened creatures.
Tesha tensed as Kety came into range of those horns, but she saw the wild, senseless fight die in the ox’s eyes. Kety was telling the bull what a fine fellow he was, how much he’d love a crispy, sweet apple. From raging monster to lolling tongue. Kety patted its shiny black shoulder as it crunched the fruit, and he nudged it forward with his hip at its foreleg. Slowly they progressed toward the bier and the basin made of silver, the metal of purity, that would contain the ox’s blood.