The New King's Nephew

         The coup that overthrew the Curio family’s rule lasted two days and nights. On the morning of the first day Marus, the Doxe d’Vignio – a title granted to him by the King Alexo Curio – lead the rebels into the Capitol city just as the sunlight softly illuminated the crest of the Palace. Armed with rifle, pistol, and sword, the rebels fought the royal Gendarmes and city guards with lead and steel in the streets under a clear sky with brutal summer sun through the hottest of the day. The residents of the Capitol escaped the streets, locked their homes and shops and concealed themselves inside their most hidden places praying for mercy and deliverance for they had never known such violence.
The sun slowly arced over the sky and mingled its heat with the stench of burnt powder and death that found and filled every street and alley in its path through the city. The shouts of men,  cries of children, cracks of guns, and clash of steel was all there was to hear in the Capitol for an entire day until the sun sank low toward the evening and the city guards finally broke and ran to hide in their homes and protect their children. Knowing that to continue the fight in the open streets was futile with their numbers so dwindled, the remaining Gendarmes retreated through smoking alleys and abandoned markets making their way back to the Palace where the royal family was kept safe. There they planned to wait and hold back the rebel fighters until help could come.

         The sun set on the first day of the rebellion and the gunfire ceased. The Palace was silent that night. One would think the place dead and abandoned as each splendid window sat in static darkness, not even the most humble, flickering candle placed on a sill to give a breath of solace to the humid night. And while the silhouette of the Palace sat above the city set against the glittering dome of night, the rebels flooded the docks, climbed the watch towers, and breached the homes securing the capitol for themselves.
         
         On the morning of the second day the fighting began again as soon as the light was enough for the first rebel soldier to aim a shot at the embroidered front windows of the Palace facade. The Palace became a fortress. Gendarmes fired their guns from balconies and windows and rebels fired back from the streets of the Plaza below. The rebels fashioned grenades with oil-filled pots and bottles to throw at the windows. The Gendarmes filled buckets with water from the Palace well to put out the fires threatening to burn them out of their last bastion of defense.
         
         Marus ordered tools from a sawyer’s workshop taken, and with ropes and saws a band of rebels tore a wooden beam from the largest warehouse in the city to use as a ram against the Palace gate. The men soaked their sweat and blood-stained clothes in bitter seawater and covered the dry wood of their ram with the sanguinary mire of their rags before marching it before the Palace. They fixed bayonets on their rifles—useful tools once the gate had given. It would give, and the worst would come before the end.
The whole day again heard nothing but the sounds of men and firearms blended into a terrible cacophony. The rebels charged the front gate of the Palace as many times as strength would allow, hoisting the soaked battering ram in raw hands while stepping over the bodies of their dead and wounded scattered before the Palace, and the Gendarmerie drove them back each time. The fanatic shouts of charging rebels and desperate cries of fallen soldiers echoed into the chambers of the royal family, who silently waited for the fighting to stop. It would only cease when the sun set and the city was dark again.
         
         It was that second night when the royal family realized that no help was coming to deliver them. Even if there was, the last of their soldiers who were not succumbing to wounds sleeplessly counted their last bullets and measures of powder hoping that it might be just enough to protect the Palace for one more day. That was the night that King Alexo and his oldest son lead those of the royal family trapped in the Palace out of their home in secret and under cover of night. They divided themselves so as to avoid capture – the queen and young ones with Alexo, the older ones with the prince and his siblings. They travelled slowly and carefully through the dark for the whole night while the soldiers unblinkingly waited for the next day’s fighting.

         Doxe Marus d’Vignio had anticipated King Alexo. Having fighters to spare, he set watches at the inn nestled in the middle of a town within sight of the capitol. He had known the keepers of this inn to be great supporters of Alexo, and perhaps the first refuge Alexo and his family would seek beyond the city’s bounds. Marus’ watchmen waited anxiously while they listened for the fighting in the Capitol throughout the day and itched the fatigue from their eyes while King Alexo’s family crept out of the city at night.
The watchmen had waited passing around cheap bottles of wine taken from a nearby farmhouse to pass the time as the two days stretched. The drink only made them more restless for action. When Alexo and his family, cloaked in robes colored like the faint grayness of the early morning, emerged from the dark alleys of the town and approached the inn in the dawning sunlight, their soldier guardsmen were killed without ceremony by the waiting rebels and the family taken captive.
         
         The Gendarmes who remained in the Palace that night saw the sun rising.  Bullets and gunpowder loaded into their rifles, they prayed for their souls and their king before the rebels would surely break the gate and end the battle for the Palace. But the rebels did not charge. Even when the sun had fully broken from the horizon and the ocean to the west turned from gray to blue in the light despite the approaching shroud of mountainous storm clouds over the sea, The Palace plaza and streets below were quiet while the rebels gathered in the Plaza square. The growing sound of murmurs from the crowd reached the Palace through the breeze from the ocean. The Gendarmes peered out of their windows and squinted at the new sunlight to watch the rebel soldiers massing below. 

         The royal Curio family was presented in the main street of the Plaza now filled with rebel fighters jeering and cursing their helpless enemies. The King’s son had been struck in his face and blood ran from his nose, but Alexo himself was untouched. His eyes were expressionless, looking at patterns of tiles in the Plaza street as if they wearied him. The queen trailed behind holding the younger ones close to her attempting to comfort their cries and fearful faces. The prince glared at the fighters around him with piercing anger, but the king simply stopped when the men securing him held him in place before the Palace.

         Marus would not look at him when he emerged from the crowd and the fighters cheered, instantly making way for him as he approached the royal family. Even as Marus walked to the prince and offered him a clean cloth with which to wipe the blood from his face, he would not look at Alexo’s. The prince wordlessly refused the cloth and instead spit in Marus’ face leaving dark specks of red across his cheek and brow. The men watched and some grew angry, but Marus’ only reaction was to blink. He turned away and toward the Palace replacing the cloth in his pocket.

         Marus addressed the Gendarmes. He declared his victory and demanded that those last soldiers prepared to die in their king’s Palace surrender themselves and the Palace to him and his company of fighters. Marus stood in front of the Palace gate letting his final declaration hang in the air and waited never taking his eyes off of the wooden gate even when mountainous storm clouds coming from the west over the sea and brilliantly illuminated by the sun began to rain on the Capitol.

         The remaining royal Gendarmes opened the gate of the Palace and came out unarmed.  Marus ordered them seized and bound.
Having done this, Marus then turned to the king. Now looking Alexo in the eye, he walked to him and stood before him as if the two had happened upon each other in the Palace garden. With all the dignity of a lordly servant of the King, Marus said, “These men have killed my soldiers and stand to oppose our cause, but you see I am merciful and lack cruelty. I am no true ruler of a country yet, but this is how I will rule our people in your place, Alexo. I have learned one thing, though, in my time serving as Doxe d’Vignio and our army’s general, and that is that a ruler must be one part kind and one part merciful only for every two parts wrathful and just.” Marus wiped the blood and rain from his face with the sleeve of his coat and turned from Alexo never to look at him again. There in the Plaza, Doxe Marus d’Vignio ordered the public execution of King Alexo and his successors and announced to the Capitol his new rule over the kingdom.




A distance north of the Capitol, the Lady d’Vignio received this final word of the rebellion from a messenger sent to the Vignio estate.
The estate was far from any city. The town in the valley below had fewer people than livestock kept by the countryside farmers and knew of the rebellion’s bloodshed only at the tail-end of rumors and hearsay told by wandering traders. But the wildest of all the stories seemed confirmed when the messenger dressed in the courtly attire of the capitol rode through the town toward the estate d’Vignio itself. The horse’s hooves impressed deeply on the soft, wet ground made muddy by days of raining only recently stopped. Showers of water and earth sprayed behind the messenger as he pushed his horse to a gallop through the streets. While the horse’s legs were lathered in mud crusting into dirt, the messenger’s silver and pale-blue clothing was untouched by soil, trailing gracefully behind him in the wind and angelically blooming in the sunlight. The workers and traders of the town square hushed their conversation to a whisper as the messenger passed, and those walking the street rushed to be out of his way as he made no hint of slowing his mount for anyone.

         When the messenger came, Lady d’Vignio was on the estate grounds reclining on the crude bed place made for her beneath the only willow tree on the estate.  She rested there in the shade each day for most of the daylight hours, feeling greatly compelled to walk the grounds or to visit the courtyard and its flowers. But her fatigue kept her beneath the willow, and she often needed the help of her older sister or a servant to move from the manor to her resting place. The physician had told her that, considering her illness and the season, it would be best to spend her daytime hours on the grounds and out of the heat of the estate’s manor. That was the first suggestion of his she thought she could live with, she had said, especially following the rain that had lasted over two days in Vigio. The air was cool and fresh, soothed by the rushing of the nearby creek’s high water.

         Most days she would ask her young nephew, Iano, the son of her older sister living with her on the estate d’Vignio, to sit with her under the tree. He was happy to sit with her as she wished. They would not speak much and often the Lady would fall asleep, but Iano didn’t mind. Both he and the Lady were content to watch the swaying branches and shifting shadows and look west toward the haze of the distant ocean. Sometimes Iano would bring papers and his pastels to the willow and draw while the Lady rested. He drew only the things he saw in his mind, never the sliver of stream that ran near the willow or the grounds of the estate or the animals that scurried in the trees and grass, and the Lady would ask to see them, if she was awake. She would look at them wearily and hardly comment but with a weak smile in her lips and eyes then closed them both again to rest.

         Before the messenger arrived, Iano sat in the grass beside the Lady’s bed. He bent over his papers and purposefully drew a mess of images – a ship, a horse, a castle. None were so ambitious, but he only meant to translate the pictures in his mind. She didn’t speak when she reached out her hand, palm upward, towards her nephew and he placed his papers there. He waited patiently. The swaying willow branches and rippling sunlight took his thoughts until the Lady spoke.
“What an imagination you have, Iano.” She said in a breath. Iano smiled and the Lady smiled too. Taking back his papers he thought of more things to draw that might make the Lady smile again, though she often smiled regardless.
         
         Iano saw the messenger approaching from across the grounds, the silver and blue dazzling in the afternoon. By now the Lady had fallen asleep and Iano didn’t want to wake her, but he didn’t know what to say to this messenger from the Capitol, as this is obviously what he was. He pressed lightly on the Lady’s shoulder and whispered to her telling her that another man had come to speak with her. Her eyes opened half way and took several moments before they showed understanding. She pushed herself up to see the man approaching then turned to Iano telling him he should be away for a while. She would call him back when everything had been sorted.
         
         He was told to leave each time a messenger approached the Lady on the grounds and spent some time finding other things with which to occupy himself before being called back to the manor in the evening. He never knew what news the messengers brought other than that they always had word from his uncle – the master of the estate, Doxe d’Vignio, and husband to Lady d’Vignio. He would rarely ask the Lady what message was brought. When he did the Lady would answer “Your uncle Marus will continue to be gone from us for a while. He still forgets that I am his wife and that he also keeps your mother’s husband from home too. But we’ll still keep his estate for him. He will return with your father one day and find his home again.”

         Iano didn’t know what to think of the messengers who came, and he knew less of how to address or speak to one. Most would ignore him. They were men of status, and the only claim that Iano or his parents had to nobility was through his aunt’s marriage to Doxe Marus. Some messengers were more kind hearted men and would graciously praise the Lady d’Vignio and her husband for taking into their estate the Lady’s sister and her family. These messengers would often talk kindly and humbly with Iano, though Iano would rarely know what to say in return and feel strange that these men would address him almost as a superior. The kind ones understood his shyness and learned to keep their conversation short, though Iano would often avoid all messengers regardless unless his mother called him over to speak to the ones with whom she often talked. The Lady would tease her sister about this saying that her nephew, being his age, would get more benefit from playing on the grounds than from listening to old people talking about the world and its politics.
 
         On this day he walked down to the stream that passed through the estate. It had many rocks that suck out from the shallow water and against which the water bubbled and gurgled as it found its way down the stream. Following the rain, the water was high and many of the rocks had disappeared beneath it, but Iano had been old enough to jump from one rock to another for some time. He knew which of the stones were true, holding against the force of his landing after each leap and holding his weight as he balanced and searched for the next stepping-stone whereas the others shifted or sunk beneath dousing his feet in cold water. He followed the stream and its rocks until the Lady and messenger were out of sight.

         He stopped at a large boulder sitting perfectly between each of the stream’s banks. There he could balance with both feet and crouch leaning forward on one hand to look within the water. The water was clear, and he could easily see the mud and pebbles warped by the light of the ever-moving water, but that was often all there was to see. The stream was normally low and narrow making  the odd crayfish swimming with the current a rarity to find. Iano reached down with his free hand and dipped the tips of his fingers into the water. The water folded around them as they did around the rocks, and the tiny paths of disturbed water that followed behind his fingers looked as if he was scratching four twisted scars into the surface of the water. He took his fingers from the water and the scars instantly washed away.
He reached down again to dip his whole hand beneath the stream’s surface but held himself and looked up when he heard a noise. It was a strange, high-pitched whine coming from the bank of the stream. Iano understood when he saw on the bank about ten steps from him down the stream a brown and gray furred cat. Its long body was still save its tail slowly swishing from side to side behind it. Its eyes were wide and fixed on Iano forcing him to blink as he looked back. The cat cried again and its ears twitched backward for a moment as if unsure whether the boy was alone and that the sounds of the long grass on the stream’s bank brushing against itself weren’t masking the approach of another.

         Iano stood on his boulder and carefully measured a leap to the bank, which he took after a moment. The cat’s muscles visibly tensed and its eyes widened to an unblinking glare at Iano. He began to take a step toward the cat but hesitated looking back into the cat’s large eyes. Instead he squatted on his knees and held out a hand palm-down. The cat’s eyes shifted, looking from Iano’s face to his hand to the stretch of bank between them.

         The cat’s shoulders and legs relaxed before it slowly walked toward patiently crouching Iano, pausing every few steps to silently smell the air and scan the stream and banks again with its eyes. Stopping in front of him, the cat leaned forward on its paws reaching out its neck as far as it could to gingerly sniff the tips of Iano’s fingers.
At that moment, a servant walking down to the stream called Iano’s name. The cat’s head shot up and its ears perked before it quickly turned and trotted back into the thick, long grass that grew beside the stream. Finding Iano still crouching on the stream’s bank, the servant told him that the Lady d’Vignio had asked to see him again and that he should go to see her at once.

         Iano jumped back across the stream and retraced his steps until he saw the shady willow tree. The Lady and the messenger were watching him from behind the veil of branches.  He walked back to the willow, and the Lady waited until Iano had come beneath the tree’s canopy before speaking. She was still lying in her makeshift bed and the messenger stood close by. She didn’t ask Iano to sit beside her.

“Iano, you know this man is a messenger from the Capitol, yes?”

Iano nodded.

“And you know that he was sent by my husband who has been gone from here for some months campaigning for his cause and is in the Capitol now?” she continued.

Iano looked from one to the other.

“Iano. My husband – your uncle, Marus – led his army of soldiers to fight for two days in the Capitol and has now been made our new king.”

The Lady’s last sentence seemed to take the most energy from her as she closed her eyes again. After a moment she opened her mouth to continue but was cut off by the messenger unnerved by the silence. Iano recognized him as the youngest of the kind messengers.

“He told me to inform his family that he must look to many affairs of state before he will be able to return and tell your mother and aunt the news of the battle himself. Then he will return to the Palace with his queen. He sent his regards to you.”

“Please,” the Lady interrupted him, “you may leave now. Thank you, and tell the master servant to let my sister know I will speak to her when she comes back.” The messenger bowed and left returning to the manor. The Lady looked at Iano in a way he’d never seen before as the messenger left. She then told him to sit down beside her. He sat in the grass on the same spot he sat every time he was with his aunt.
“Iano, you know your father has traveled from here with my husband on many of his occasions to leave?”

Iano nodded again.

“You are still young. I don’t expect you’ll fully understand everything that has happened for a while, but you must know that your father was very loyal to my husband. Marus and your father thought of each other as blood brothers since we took you and him and your mother into our estate. Marus made him an officer in my husband’s company of fighters and he was with Marus in the Capitol when they fought to overthrow the king.” The Lady still looked at Iano in the strange new way. The specks of sunlight that came though the willow canopy drifted over her face. “He was killed in the battle. This is what the messenger said. I am sorry, Iano.” She sighed slowly. She kept looking at him and studied his face; fatigue surrounded her eyes even more so than usual. She opened her arms and told him to come. Iano rested his head on her chest while she held him and spoke into his hair. “Your father was a good brave man. I am glad you knew him before this. He deserves a son who knew him and will grow to be like him. Too many fathers have had that taken from them. You’ll learn about all of this someday, and when you do I hope you will not blame Marus. Please don’t blame your uncle for this.”

         

Iano’s mother returned to the estate that evening and the master servant promptly told her that her sister the Lady had asked to see her. The Lady had retired to the drawing room of the manor by this time; there is where she told Iano’s mother of the victory in the Capitol and her husband’s death. Iano’s mother didn’t reply to the news. She stood silently for a moment before leaving her sister alone in the drawing room and going to the quarters that she and her husband kept in the manor. The Lady knew, even if she could still walk up the main staircase unassisted, that it was best to not follow her, so she stayed in the drawing room. She stayed and watched the light outside the window turn from orange to red, then blue.
         
         The manor was quiet that night. The breeze from the sea in the distance had slowed and the estate’s four servants had decided to retire early. The Lady did not sleep for a long time. The deep rhythm of the drawing room clock kept her mind awake until the grounds disappeared in darkness and all that could be seen from the drawing room window was the black silhouetted horizon beneath the clear, dark blue sky.
         
         It was then that the Lady thought of Iano again. He had not come back to the manor that evening. She knew that her sister was not likely to look for him tonight. Her restlessness gave her the energy to lift herself from the chair and slowly walk to the kitchen from which she took one of the servant’s iron lanterns. Lighting it, she stepped out of the kitchen’s back door onto the grounds. Even if she had the strength to call Iano’s name, she didn’t need to.

         She walked barefoot across the grounds holding the lantern with one hand and the shawl wrapped around herself with the other. The grass was thick and cool in the night, cushioning the dull pain in her feet and whispering a soothing breeze up from the earth. Crickets hiding from the lantern light in the forest of grass stopped their chirping for a few moments as she walked by, but, once sure they were in no danger threatened by the wisp of a woman passing, they rejoined the others in drowning out any moment of silence in the still night. The flutter of a pair of moths racing toward the lantern crept on her from behind, the quickness of their beating making her slow footsteps seem absurd.

         She continued forward until the drooping branches of the willow tree became a shimmering curtain of dim, fire-golden strands in the lantern light. She pushed them aside with the lantern and saw Iano on the ground resting on his side among the roots.
         
         The Lady didn’t speak to him. She sat down behind him and watched the subtle, rhythmic movement of his back as he breathed. She placed the lantern in the grass beside her causing another nearby cricket hidden in the grass to stop his chirping, though one wouldn’t notice for all the creatures in the willow and the nearby stream chirping and croaking without pause. She reached out her achy hand to place on Iano’s shoulder. He didn’t move, but she knew he was awake.

“Iano, I want to tell you a story.” She said, “Your mother hasn’t told you this, and, I don’t think she will now, so I want to tell you. It isn’t very long, don’t worry. Do you want to hear a story, Iano?”

There was nothing for a moment, then he nodded his head, ruffling the grass and his hair together. She sighed and continued, “Your mother and I were the only children in our family. Our father made musical instruments and ran his own shop in the city while our mother was a seamstress making beautiful clothes for our kingdom’s nobility. They had the money to send us to school, even when we were very young. I disliked school very much – all rules and punishment with nasty teachers and children, but your mother was the older, more responsible one. She loved school with its books and learning. She was embarrassed by it though, whenever I would make fun of her, especially when I joked about the schoolmaster’s handsome son who she also took a liking to.” The Lady placed her hand in Iano’s dark hair, gently smoothing it. The nearby cricket joined its chirping with the other night sounds again. “It’s no wonder she did. He was so sharp wasn’t he, learning the sciences of plants and animals in the university. Who knows what they would talk about when he walked her down to the lake outside the city. He obviously took a liking to her quickly, and his father took a liking to our family’s success. They had a modest ceremony when they finally were married, even though we had the means for a far more impressive occasion. Not ones for showing off, your parents. But it wasn’t long before they had you, and your father didn’t have many qualms about showing off his son.” The Lady looked up at the pale darkness of the grounds. “We were all very fortunate back then, weren’t we. I suppose that’s about when Marus found me as well.”
         
         The Lady looked down at Iano. He did nothing but lie on his side slowly breathing. “But that’s a story for another time.” She took off her shawl and draped it over him smoothing it across his body. She stood up slowly “Rest here, Iano, and say hello to the sunrise for me. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one.” Standing, she lifted the burning lamp and looked beyond the yellow glow of the flame at the estate grounds illuminated only by the stars and a faint moon sitting close to the horizon. She brought the lamp to her face and blew out the flame. Placing the lamp on the ground, she laid down beside Iano draping one arm around him to hold him as she fell quickly into sleep.



For days following the message relaying Marus’ victory, Iano’s mother was hardly seen out of her quarters and Iano would rarely come back into the manor from the grounds. The servants didn’t seem bothered by taking on the extra work of caring for the Lady while her sister seemed unwilling, shutting herself indoors. The Lady made sure their effort was as light as possible. She wasn’t a total invalid, she told the younger and stronger of the two man servants who offered to carry her to her bed place on the grounds. He insisted then that he would bring her a midday meal, she agreed it would be very nice.

         Often Iano would disappear for long portions of the day and not come when called to the manor in the afternoon. The servants would offer to go look for him, but the Lady would tell them to leave him be. He never failed to return before nightfall. Watching from the willow, she could sometimes see him by himself off at the far side of the estate, his head gently bobbing above the tall grasses in the distance beyond the stream or his figure appearing between the trunks of the thick growth of trees to the east. The Lady took note of the spots he liked to walk or to stay and occupy himself with whatever distraction held his attention. He would often come back by way of the stream, jumping from rock to boulder expertly avoiding the trickle of water in which they sat. And when he did stay near the manor, the Lady was glad that Iano would still sit with her beneath the willow and draw with his pastels.
         
         “You speak very little, Iano.” She said to him on the fourth day since the last messenger. He looked up at her from his paper and opened his mouth after a moment as if to prove her wrong. He didn’t. She laughed a little laugh, “This is good. Since my marriage to Marus I haven’t known many people whose love for their own voice didn’t drown out the prospect of listening to any other. There are so few lords in our kingdom you would think one wouldn’t need to swell his chest and boom his voice so loud across our little halls and palaces to feel distinguished enough for the satisfaction of his ego.” She stopped for a moment, looking at her manor before resting her head and unfocusing her eyes on the canopy of leaves and branches. “Maybe because our state is so small they think that together they can make our little part of the world sound as important as they wish it was.” She turned her head on her pillow towards Iano. He looked up at her and saw her eyes were lightly closed as she talked. “But you only listen, little one. If meekness is a virtue our lords are taught to despise in each other then it’s curious that my station might bring you to lordship someday.” She brought a hand up to her face to rub her eyes. Resting her fingertips on her forehead, she breathed a sigh, “Oh my station. It’s hard to remember that my husband is the new king, and I’m the queen, of all things. Do I look like a queen to you, Iano?” She opened her eyes now, looking at him, “No, I’m a pale, weak creature being cared for by her older sister and sitting on a lawn waiting for her husband the king to finish playing soldiers.”

         Her eyes lingered on Iano. “Though I do wish you could tell me what’s in your little heart now.” She reached out her thin arm over the side of her bed and Iano handed her the drawing he had finished as she spoke. It was the only one he had done that day. She held it in front of her face and gazed at it with the same strange face Iano saw three days before. She lowered it to her lap, wearily closing her eyes, “I have been aged too much. Your little soul is still too small, or too big. I’m sure you’ll let me know one way or the other someday.” She held the picture to her chest and stopped for a moment, “You find all sorts of little worlds, don’t you, when you’re out there on the grounds? We had wondered if we should find a playmate for you sometime ago, but when I see you out there, I think it’s alright.” She lifted the picture, looking at it again with half-closed eyes, “You can see all sorts of things no one else could ever think of. Though I am very glad you have those pastels. You get to share a bit of your imagination with me, even if it’s too much for me to see.” She looked down at Iano and laughed at his expression, “Am I rambling too much, Iano? I’m sorry. Here, let me rest for a bit. Take this and draw me another. Draw me one of those worlds you see in your mind.”
         
         Iano took the drawing from the Lady and looked at it, though he couldn’t tell what his own face looked like as he considered the drawing. It was an unnamed fantastical animal with wings and great claws and a long curling tail that framed its physique, one that he had drawn before and showed to the Lady. He slid it beneath the other papers he had brought, though the other papers remained blank. He began another drawing on the next fresh page. As he began, he heard soft footsteps in the grass beneath the breeze. He looked up and saw a messenger approaching. He looked at the Lady, her eyes had opened a bit. He waited for her to ask that he leave, but she didn’t.

“Good morning, sir.” The Lady greeted the messenger. He responded with a lower bow than Iano had ever seen a messenger from the Capitol give. “You have met my nephew, Iano, I assume?”

“I have. Good morning, sir.” This messenger had never bowed to Iano before, but on this occasion he did, though it was not near as humble as his bow to the Lady. Iano stood and bowed in return. “I do not want to take up your time, your highness. I know you are busy recovering from your illness and I should not keep you from rest.”

“Don’t worry. One can only rest so much and I do like to know what is going on in the world and with my husband. Is he still dealing with his matters of state? He must have made quite a mess in the Capitol with his rebellion if he can’t spare time for the two day travel from there to here.”

“You are correct, your highness. There are still many issues to deal with before your newly established royal house can rule the kingdom with stability, but I have been sent to tell you that he promises to return in less than a fortnight to bring you back to the Palace and present you to the lords and people as their new queen. He asks that you only have a little more patience with him.” The messenger stopped, but the Lady didn’t speak. He continued “The King has also asked me to inquire as to your health.”

“If the King wants to know about my health then he can come here and see for himself.” She said wearily, but no less bitterly than she meant. The three were silent again for a moment. “I’m sorry. Tell Marus that I am no better or worse than the last time he heard, though it would at least do my heart good to have him back at the estate.” The messenger nodded. “Was there anything else you had to tell us?”
         
         He cleared his throat before speaking, “Pertaining to the death in the family, the King has arranged for the body of your sister’s husband to be brought to the estate for a burial as soon as possible. Everything will be taken care of, you and your servants will not need to worry about anything. Should I call on your sister and let her know of the arrangements?”

“Will he be buried on the estate?”

“Yes, my lady, those are the arrangements. Should I tell your sister?”

“No, I will do that. Thank you, you may be dismissed now.” The servant bowed low again and left. The Lady watched him as he walked away, her nostrils flared while she breathed slowly and without expression. Breathing out and resting her head on her pillow, she turned her head to Iano. “At least your father is coming back home. He’s coming back to find peace, though, isn’t he. I don’t imagine that Marus will bring any of that with him when he returns, but maybe he can find some here too.” Iano’s pastels softly scratched at the paper as he drew. The Lady watched, though the lines meant nothing to her, the premature scrawling of an image fully formed in the mind of the artist and yet unmade for the beholder.
         
She shifted herself carefully in her bed to face Iano, adjusting the pillow as a final touch, “Would you have liked a playmate, Iano?”

He looked up at her from his drawing and shrugged, turning back to his work.
         
         The Lady continued, “Well, it wouldn’t make a difference either way. No time for playmates on the estate, I’m afraid. But maybe it won’t be long before there is.” She turned to lie on her back, “Last time I saw the Palace I was just a city girl barely learning what it meant to be a woman, but it certainly looked big, big enough for lots of playmates for you to visit. And I’m still quite young, I suppose. All things considered. Aren’t I Iano?” He looked up at her and smiled as he did when he was unsure of what to say. The Lady laughed again, “Maybe I am getting old. I don’t know when to stop my rambling so the younger ones can get on with their fun. Alright then, little Iano. You go back to your drawing. Show me when you’ve finished another, please.”
         
         There was a small floral courtyard in front of the estate’s manor. Iano went there to continue his drawing after the Lady had fallen into a deep sleep. He flattened his papers on the cobblestones next to the old fountain centerpiece. It had become more of a birdbath as it was hardly larger than one and the only water ever found in it was the rainwater that pooled in its single basin. It had never spewed water in Iano’s time at the estate. The silent fountain emphasized the humble stillness of the place. The only sounds were the scratching of Iano’s pastels and the breeze brushing across flower petals. Iano stayed there until the leather-faced gardener came to treat his plants. Iano gathered his things and greeted him before entering the manor from the courtyard entrance. The gardener stretched a kindly smile and bowed to Iano.
         
         The inside of the manor was not any more splendid than the courtyard. The place was kept by four servants who would often run out of useful things to do after preparing the days meals and would then walk to the nearby town to buy various things for the manor’s maintenance or spend their stipend on personal affects or trade the news of the Lady’s health and the Doxe’s campaigns for snippets of the town’s gossip. The sofa placed next to a large window in the front room was deeply faded and beginning to wear, but it was the only place inside the manor where Iano would spread out his papers and continue his drawing. He drew there for the rest of the day undisturbed in an empty house.
         


The body of Iano’s father arrived at the estate two days later. That morning Iano had gone out to the grounds with a book that his mother asked him to read. He looked at the willow, but the Lady wasn’t there. He sat in the shade of the branches anyway and began to read. The book was a crumbling, creaking history text written by the scholars of powerful neighboring countries and kingdoms in a strange old language that Iano had been expected to learn. He could only pick out parts of sentences; most eluded him entirely, and he soon gave up.  He closed the book and looked at its cover. It was a deep red and embroidered with silver strands that wound around the edges. He traced them with his finger finding all the different paths that crossed and twisted on the leather.
         
         After some time, Iano had still seen no sign of the Lady or any servants helping her to the willow so he stood up and made his way around to the side of the estate where the small entrance to the kitchen was. He pulled the faded wooden door open and entered the kitchen where at least one of the servants usually could be found at any time. In the kitchen was the youngest of the servants – an attractive young woman who would simply help with whatever the other older servants were doing. With her was a young man from town whom Iano had seen approach the estate before but had never seen in the halls. The young servant looked embarrassed; the young man added fear. Iano had come to ask when the Lady would be outside that day, but he silently fumbled with the words.
“Good morning, master Iano,” the young servant said. “Did you need something?”
         
         The young man interrupted, “Well… I probably should go then, if you’ll excuse me, of course, your, um, lordship.” Iano took a moment before realizing he was being addressed. The young man looked at him with wide eyes. He took half an awkward step towards the door before jerking it back and making an odd coughing sound and scratching under his chin. Iano tentatively nodded to the young man. “Right. Thank you, then.” He said before leaving, awkwardly making his way around Iano to the door leading to the grounds, constantly apologizing as Iano moved out of his way. The young servant laughed after he had gone.
         
         “Well, now I know who to bring along into town if there are any men I want to scare away. I’m sorry, master Iano. Was there something I could do for you? You must be hungry. I’ll put together a snack of some bread and cheese with a glass of milk. Does that sound nice?” Iano shook his head and began to apologize for having startled her company, but the young servant shook her head back at him. “Don’t worry. I was going to send him away soon. He thinks he can come here whenever he wants while the Doxe is gone. But I suppose he’s not the Doxe anymore, is he.” She sat down on a stool beside the long wooden table standing in the middle of the kitchen. She leaned across the table to draw a large basket toward herself. Opening the top, she peeked in. She smiled at Iano, “It looks like the gardener gathered some more strawberries, I’m sure the others won’t mind us eating a few. It’ll help with the heat, anyhow.” She patted the top of the stool next to her. A couple years earlier, Iano would have had to climb the stool to sit in it. Now he comfortably hoisted himself up to the seat.

         Iano reached into the basket feeling for a plump strawberry and pulled one out by its tuft of tiny leaves. Bringing it to his mouth, he bit half way through the middle sucking at the juices seeping from the skin. Watching Iano as she let him take the first bite, the young servant did the same. Biting into hers, the strawberry burst spraying clear red liquid on her chin and nose. Laughing at herself, she wiped her face clean with her wrist.

“I don’t make much of a lady do I,” she said. Wiping her face clean and swallowing the bit of berry she had managed to bite off, she looked at Iano, her face full of fantasy. Resting her elbow on the table and chin in her palm, she stirred the strawberries in the basket with her free hand. “How it must feel being the nephew of the new king. You’ll meet all sorts of doxes and doxessas and generals and explorers, won’t you, and I don’t imagine I’ll go anywhere but here.” She picked another strawberry from the basket, this one small and pale, and turned it between her fingers, lazily watching its faint dotted patterns spin. “We were talking, me and the others, that since your aunt will be going off to be the new queen, it’ll be your family that takes on lordship of Vignio, won’t it, since someone has to take over this place with her and Doxe Marus gone. You’ll be a real doxe yourself one day, little Iano. Doxe Iano d’Vignio. How about that?”

         Iano heard the odd coughing sound again behind him. He turned back to the door and saw the young man standing there looking very small. The young servant looked back to the kitchen table and saw a burlap bag and cloth hat sitting on the far end. “Oh goodness.” She said and stood up, walking across to gather both and throw them to him. He barely caught his things. “You wouldn’t have come back on a dare if it was just the hat now would you?” He smiled awkwardly for a second. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh at that or not.

“Well, yes, I’d be in a lot of trouble if I didn’t have this.” He lifted the bag. “Though I really should get out of here since it looks like you have some important company coming.”

“Does it?” The servant said.

“Well, there are some soldiers with a big carriage coming down the road. I could ask if you’d like, but I’m pretty sure they’re meaning to come here.”
         
         

The body of Iano’s father was brought from the Capitol in a splendid carriage with an escort of four mounted Gendarmes. Iano recognized the soldiers as they came up the road leading to the estate. They were four of Marus’ retainers who kept land in the countryside without the town and often visited the estate d’Vignio to have drinks with Marus and Iano’s father. Their emerald green Royal Gendarme uniforms had Marus’ coat of arms, a pale blue circular shield with the profile of a beautiful red stag, sewn to the chest. They stopped with the carriage before the main entrance of the estate.
         
         When one of the servants came to let the Lady know that the carriage was approaching, she insisted on meeting it herself. Her sister helped her up from her chambers where she had stayed that morning to the front doors of the estate. Marus’ Gendarmes bowed low to the sisters. The Lady nodded to them and they stood upright again. Another man came out from the carriage and bowed to the Lady as well before addressing her.
         
         “Your highness, we’ve come here with the remains of your brother-in-law. The king sends his condolences to you and your sister and ensures you both that, though he cannot attend the services himself, he thought of this man as his brother and honors his passing to the highest degree.” He bowed his head waiting for the Lady or her sister to reply. Neither did. The Lady only kept holding herself up on her sister’s arm, so he continued. “All of the arrangements for the burial have been made and we are prepared to have the rites performed when all the household members have been gathered and are ready to begin.”
         
The Lady looked to her sister and nephew who were now at each of her sides. “We are all the members of this household, Sir, and we have been waiting for your arrival today. We may begin.”

“Of course, your highness.” The four Gendarmes dismounted and took the coffin from its place in the carriage to the grounds.
         
         There were some gravesites not far from the estate manor. They made a small collection of ancient looking mausoleums covered in relief patterns worn by the rain. Iano had been told they were memorials of an old family that governed Vignio before their Kingdom came to be. He watched the faded images of men, horses, and soldiers framed with curving floral designs that stretched over the stone while the Gendarmes and family and servants gathered around the new grave that was made among the old. He rarely went to the gravesites himself. He found them too sad.
         
         The coffin was too elaborate, too rich and beautiful. It surely was the body of a king or emperor kept inside, not the remains of Iano’s father, a man who would be only the son of a rich merchant family had his wife not been the sister of Doxe Marus’ bride. His body must have been buried in a simple wooden casket beneath a modest stone somewhere else in the kingdom, not here among the crypts of ancient lords. This is why Iano didn’t cry while the coffin was lowered into the grave. He began when dirt was thrown again and again onto the beautiful wood and crumbled into dust that slowly filled the grave with darkness.

         He stopped watching and looked above to all the living present. The Lady, his mother, four servants standing behind, and four Gendarmes filling the grave, a scar cut out of the earth. This was fitting. Once the extravagance of the casket was obscured by the dry, grassless soil, the ceremony was made simple again. No longer had it the pomp of a great lord’s passing, but was reduced to the quiet humility of a merchant son’s death washed ashore in the foam at the edge of an empire.

         Iano looked from the grave above everyone else’s eyes at the dark clouds that had grown over the ocean and moved quickly across the land. The trees and grass in the distance stirred restlessly as the clouds rolled above them, and soon a blast of cool air rushed between the members of the funeral and stung the wetness of Iano’s cheeks.
         
         The Gendarmes worked faster to finish their task, but the grave was not yet filled when the rain came. The servants looked to the Lady who grew weaker in the wet cold, losing her grip on her sister’s arm. The determination in her face to stay and see the grave filled was resolute though the servants insisted that she let them take her back to the manor. After nearly falling from a sudden rush of wind she gave in, and while the rain-moistened soil finished burying the coffin she allowed herself to be carried back to the manor. Iano followed behind and tried to shield his face from the gusting wind and whipping rain that kept growing in strength while more potent clouds came above them and the sky in the east disappeared. The thunder started when the Lady was finally brought to the front entrance.
         
         They came quickly into the manor. The pale Lady could no longer stand on her own, so the older of the two female servants lifted her in her arms and told the young servant whom Iano had seen in the kitchen to follow her upstairs and find dry towels. Iano’s mother stopped her saying that she would get the towels and instructed the young servant to start the fireplace next to Iano’s worn sofa in the drawing room. In a moment, Iano was left alone and unsure of what to do. He shook the wet hair out of his eyes and went to the front window whose view was warped with the now terrible downpour of rain. The four Gendarmes shouted out to each other over the strengthening gusts of wind and rushed to their horses to unfasten them from the carriage. The horses were frightened and cried furiously as the lightning strikes and explosions of thunder came closer. They reared their front legs and twisted their heads in confusion while the Gendarmes tried to pull them to shelter.
         
         A new blast of wind from the storm caused a branch to come loose from a tree in front of the manor and rattle against the window and startle Iano back to the center of the room. He realized that it had become very dark when he saw the dim yellow light of a lantern shining down from the halls upstairs that was only washed out by the flash of white light from a lightning bolt in the west. Iano walked up the stairs to the second floor and began to hear voices beneath the rolls of thunder.  The yellow light shifted and shadows slid across the walls as the lantern was carried from room to room. Servants rushed by the top of the staircase where Iano seated himself two steps from the top and didn’t notice him as he peeked down the hall through the open door of the Lady’s chambers. She laid on a bed with her darkened eyes closed and the rest of her face pale with glistening moisture. The warm light of the lantern that now sat beside the bed couldn’t make her look any less sickly.
         
         The young servant saw Iano on the stairs and went to him, “Master Iano, we’re taking care of the Lady right now. You don’t need to worry about her. Let me take you to your room. The storm won’t go on like this for much longer and you’ll be able to get some rest.” She took Iano’s hand and he stood up from the stairs.

         They walked away from the light of the lantern toward the place in the manor where Iano’s room and bed were kept next to his mother’s chambers. The servant opened the door to the room. It was almost pitch black, but the servant straightened Iano’s bed and told him to come lay down on it. He did, and the young servant sat at the foot. The sigh she breathed was lost in the rolling thunder of the storm. “There’s nothing to worry about, little Iano. The storm will go away soon. You aren’t scared, are you?” He shook his head. She could barely see him, but she knew. “No, you wouldn’t be frightened. You know that a storm is nothing to be scared of. And the thunder and lightning will be gone soon too. Then you’ll be able to get some rest, just like your aunt. Tomorrow morning you’ll both be well rested and back to normal. You aren’t worried about your aunt, are you?” He didn’t respond. Her eyes now adjusted to the light, the young servant could see the silhouette of Iano’s face resting on his pillow. She reached out, smoothing the clumps of wet hair from his forehead. “Well, you don’t need to be scared for her either. We’re going to send word for the doctor and the Doxe, and soon Master Marus will come back and the Lady will be his new queen and you and your mother will be the new lords here, little Iano. That’s a nice thing to think about now, isn’t it? I don’t want you to be frightened for the Lady tonight and I want you to be a brave boy like you always are. Won’t you do that for me, Iano?”

He nodded and said, “I will, it’s alright.”