Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LXIII

"We can conquer the world, but we cannot conquer the weather," noted King Mizmeam, woefully, as he considered the losses at sea.

"The world is the weather, my lord."

Coulema Galina stood pensive at the king's side as he made this remark. The king listened but didn't hear it. The other assembled men said little either, each waiting for the king to further express his own thoughts on the glaring catastrophe. He had few to speak however, and sieved his own mind for answers, as if he alone was in the room.

"The strange woman," asked Galina, "Has she been detained."

"We have her in the dungeons."

"She'll be executed?"

The king stood large as the question of punishment arose, and though he knew his answer he doubted himself internally.

"Eventually," he declared, "..but first Maleeva wants her to attend the prince. Just in case she can help him."

"And if she does?"

"She won't ..she's just a common conjurer. She shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the boy, but Maleeva is desperate, and I cannot blame her for hoping."

Galina paused before asking the next question, staring at the wine in his cup as if searching for self-assurance. He already knew the answer, but wanted to press the conversation to a further destination, and could see no clearer route. Yet, he worried that the king would feel the measure of his intention. As he gently swirled the cloudy red wine it made him think of blood and death. He moved his lips with a minor dread.

"So, if she is just a fortune-telling trickster, why detain her?"

The king was quick and certain with his response.

"Because of the effect she's having on the kingdom ..the slaves, the peasantry, the soldiers. Their wives ..their whores. We can't have a population fearing magic more than the rule of law. Just because she hasn't swindled me, doesn't mean she can't swindle the world outside."

"But perhaps she has a point," touched Galina, tepidly, "The weather grows grim. The days are strange."

"Not you too," laughed Mizmeam, the laughter giving him a momentary uptick in mood. "You only prove my purpose. If you and Maleeva have fell for these false charms, heaven knows how hoodwinked the common people will be. I should've had her executed the minute she stepped foot here. For all I know she's a Tunidan plant, sent here for that very purpose."

Coulema Galina gulped his bloody drink, his Tunidan stomach feeling an instinctive relief that the king hadn't turned an accusing eye on him as well, as he condemned the preternatural woman. As he noted this relief though he felt a guilt in his bones, and in his mind. Here he stood, now a pliant servant of a foreign sovereign, as the world fell apart at the seams. A pleasant drink in his hand. His stomach more fearful for his own life than for the fate of his home kingdom. He remembered his master, the King of Tunid, and wondered how he was now faring in this great struggle. Likewise, the boy-prince, Estorie, that he'd left on Brynnyfirdia. He looked down at the light, but secure chains around his feet, and felt a disappointment in himself. Along with a disappointment that Mizeam had dismissed the ominous signs of nature so blithely.

"We are in a great war," he thought, prosaically, "..and I am soldier."