Free Kings of Morning by Paul Kearney

suppose you didn’t.’ Kouros’s face slumped in a kind of sadness, but only for a moment. It clenched again almost instantly into its lines of habitual anger. He thrashed his way out of the cushion and kicked it across the smooth marble of the floor.
    ‘When I am King, they will queue before my throne to befriend me,’ he said. ‘They will kneel, every one of them, and beg for my favour. Mother, I want Rakhsar to kneel before me ere he dies.’
    ‘Don’t be absurd, Kouros.’
    His face spasmed, then he drew himself up. ‘No – of course – you’re right.’ He turned away. ‘I must go. Thank you – thank you, mother.’
    ‘Have you no kiss for me?’
    ‘Yes – yes, all right.’ He leaned over her like a blue thundercloud and let his lips touch her chalk-hued cheek. She touched his face. ‘You are not as other men, Kouros. You must be larger than that.’
    ‘I know. I have always known.’ He turned, one fist knotted in his robe, then halted. ‘And Roshana. Must she also –’
    ‘Roshana must share her brother’s fate. You know this. Were she to marry some high noble, that man would be in a position to make a claim for the throne, however specious. We have been over this, Kouros.’
    He nodded. ‘Goodbye, mother.’
    ‘Call on me this evening. We shall have more to discuss.’
    His shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, mother,’ he said, and walked away looking somehow defeated, a shambling mountain.
     
     
    I T WAS NOT far, as a raven might fly, from the Queen’s seat at the heart of the harem to Roshana’s apartments. Even on foot, a swift-striding man might cover the space in under an hour, if the Honai were to give him free passage. But it was a great distance in terms of palace politics. One might almost say it was insurmountable.
    The twins who were the issue of Ashurnan’s first love were generously housed in a tall, free-standing complex several stories high, whose balustrades were formed by the living limbs of gashran trees, native to the sheerest slopes of the eastern Magron. Here, they sprouted from gaps in the massive stone blocks of the structure, and they had been trained over centuries of wiring and pruning to make of their growth an adjunct to the architect’s vision. The Gashran was an interwoven complexity of stone and living timber, and had been given over to the lesser princes of Asur’s line for time out of mind.
    Not for nothing was it set apart from the rest of the palace. Honai patrolled its grounds night and day and questioned or escorted anyone who ventured close; a Great King must needs keep an eye on the doings of his offspring, both high and low. The Gashran was not a prison – it was beautiful, luxuriously appointed, a palace in itself – but it was a monitored place.
    Rakhsar and Roshana had lived within the bark and stone of its bewildering arrangements for all of their lives.
    Roshana stood now in her own chambers, looking down at the sleeping boy in the bed before her with her komis drawn up around her nose. Above it, her eyes were bright amaranthine lights.
    ‘Will he live, Barzam?’
    The tall Kefre bowed behind her. ‘Yes, lady. He is young, and he has the strength of the undercity in him. I have seen many of his kind recover from far worse.’
    ‘You will attend to him every day, Barzam.’
    The Kefre spread his spatulate hands. ‘Lady, with all due respect, is that really necessary? This is but a hufsan slave, a creature of the –’
    ‘You will do as I ask, or I will find a physician who will.’
    ‘Of course, lady. I am wholly at your command.’
    ‘Thank you, Barzam. If you have any further instructions for the staff, you may leave them with the steward on your way out.’
    Wordless, unseen, the tall Kefre bowed behind her and left noiselessly.
    On the other side of the heavy door he was brought up short. Rakhsar grinned at him and clapped him on the arm like an old comrade. ‘Barzam! She has you physicking her new pet, has she?’
    ‘She seems