The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas Read Free Book Online Page A

be the new speaker, not me. That was the arrangement. I-I would have inherited my father’s throne, not my cousin Sirion. I would have been a king. I was going to m-marry Aliphera. Did you know that?’
    Aliphera? Shezira shook herself. She hadn’t the first idea what Hyram was talking about. Did he even know what he was saying? She got up. ‘You are drunk. Let us talk in the morning instead.’
    ‘It had to be one of us, but everyone liked A-Antros better, didn’t they. Except you. And Aliphera.’ He looked at her suddenly. ‘I never quite worked out whether y-you had Antros killed or whether it really was an accident.’
    She slapped him. He staggered back and fell over. ‘You are too drunk, Hyram. You forget yourself.’
    Hyram wiped his face and picked himself slowly to his feet. ‘You liked Aliphera too.’
    ‘I respected her.’
    ‘Well I l-liked her. I was going to marry her once. But then . . .’ His face grew distant. For a moment Shezira thought Hyram was simply going to fall asleep in front of her. ‘Things happened. It would have b-been a good match, though. She was always the sensible one from that lot in the south. If I had married her, I’d have to have made her s-speaker after me, though, wouldn’t I? And that wasn’t the arrangement. S-So I did what I was supposed to do. I will honour the p-pact. That’s what you c-came here to ask, isn’t it?’
    Shezira sighed. ‘I came here to pay my respects to the Speaker of the Realms. I did not expect to find myself in a midnight tryst with a drunkard.’
    Hyram peered at her. ‘Promise m-me something.’
    ‘Promise you what?’
    ‘Promise m-me the truth. Tell me one thing, and I will p-promise that you will have this palace after me.’
    ‘I am not, by habit, a liar, Hyram.’
    ‘When Antros died, w-was it you who cut his harness?’
    Shezira clenched her fists. ‘Everyone who was there saw what happened. We were hunting snappers, as we often do. When we saw the pack, several of the dragons dived. His went with them. He always wore his harness too loose, and on that day, he wore it much too loose. He fell. He shouldn’t have, but he did, and it wasn’t the first time either. For some reason, his legbreaker rope was too long. It caught him all right, but he ended up hanging underneath his dragon. He was dragged along the ground and through the trees for about a mile before we could make his mount come to ground. I’ve never seen a dragon so agitated. Antros was dead when we reached him. It all happened in front of a dozen witnesses. No one pushed him and no one cut his harness.’
    Hyram gave her a reproachful look. ‘You n-never liked him, though.’
    ‘Oh, I was young and he was well into his middle years!’ Shezira stamped her foot. ‘He was going to be the next speaker one day. He’d already had one wife and she hadn’t given him any children. That’s what he wanted me for. Heirs. I was a dutiful wife, Hyram, and he was a dutiful husband. I was in awe of him. I didn’t have time to like him.’ She sighed. ‘It might have been a little different if I’d given him a son, but all I gave him were daughters, one after another. He never even saw Lystra.’
    ‘Hmmm.’ Hyram suddenly sat down. He sounded sad. ‘No sons for Antros, no s-sons for me. The end of our line.’
    ‘You can still sire sons.’
    The speaker looked up at her, shaking. Shezira couldn’t tell whether he was laughing or sobbing. ‘L-Look at me, woman. Who would have me? Would you have me? You should have done. By rights, you sh-should have. After Antros was gone, you should have married me in his p-place.’
    Shezira sighed. ‘Yes. But my childbearing ended with Lystra, as you were so keen to point out.’ She looked down at Hyram and shook her head. Not the man she remembered. Not the man she wanted to remember. The old Hyram had reminded her of her dead husband. This one . . . She didn’t know whether to despise him or pity him. She turned away.