Episode 127: Eavesdropping (Girik)

Girik had three problems.

Problem one: He was desperately in love with his wife Drella, and that hadn’t changed in more than seven hundred years of marriage. It wasn’t much of a problem, but he liked to include her in his mental lists.

Problem two: Their son Telek was an idiot.
Problem three: He had an ambitious and slightly neurotic brother.

While everyone else in the kingdom went about their daily lives, Aliks played a complex game of chess against the world. In his game, he was both the king and the person controlling the pieces.

This was a problem because in reality, Girik was king, and the god Maelchor controlled the pieces.

Today, Girik sat on the portico behind a screen and sipped his cacaotl drink. It was brewed to perfection – his steward knew his tastes well.

On the other side of the screen, only a few feet from Girik, Enny waited for Aliks to meet her. She wore all the jewelry he’d given her over the past few days, and an aphrodisiac perfume that Drella knew of.

Enny played a dangerous game tonight, with both of their kingdoms on the playing board.

“Good afternoon,” Enny said. Aliks must have arrived. He wore padded leather shoes that allowed him to sneak around the palace more easily.

“Thank you for your generous gifts,” Enny continued.

“Do you enjoy them?” Aliks asked.

Girik could hear the eagerness in his brother’s voice, the hunger for a power that only Enny could give him.

“I do,” Enny said. Her footsteps sounded on the stone; she, at least, wore nice audible shoes that let Girik know she had stepped closer to where he guessed Aliks stood. “I considered your offer, and I believe courting is a good idea.”

“I thought you would change your mind,” Aliks said, triumphant. “Hoped. We can do good things together. Help our kingdoms grow into more than what they are.”

Help my kingdom become yours, Girik thought.

He had a good friend in Enny. He hoped that faith wasn’t misplaced, but she could just as easily be playing him and Drella, as playing Aliks. She had a cold side that made him wary. He’d known enough cold queens in his life that he maintained a respectful emotional distance from Enny. They were colleagues, allies; nothing more.

“I agree,” Enny told Aliks. Her voice softened. “How would you like to progress through the courtship?”

“Quickly?” Aliks asked. Greedily, he meant. “How would you like to? I’m open to whatever feels comfortable to you.”

“We could see how it goes,” Enny suggested. There was a shuffling sound – Girik suspected Aliks had stepped closer to Enny this time.

“We could,” Aliks agreed.

He’d pulled away a little, with his eagerness. This wasn’t going to work.

“Would you like another date?” Aliks asked her in a clipped and distant tone.

“What would you enjoy?” Enny tried; still acting, but some of that coldness showed through in her inflection. She needed to be more careful than that, but Girik knew this wasn’t her area of expertise. Animals that weren’t fairies, she understood without a problem. Fairies, she struggled with. Especially those that weren’t pixies.

“There’s the Maelvish dinner next week,” Aliks suggested.

Interesting. That was public, and religious. Not likely to lead to sex, which meant Aliks was wary.

“Next week,” Enny agreed. “I will see you there.”

“I look forward to it,” Aliks said.

There was a silence, and then Enny appeared on Girik’s side of the screen. Aliks must have left in his silent shoes.

“Maelvish, then,” Enny said, needlessly. She joined him at the table and he poured her some cacaotl from the stewing pot.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked her.

He and Drella had discussed their misgivings about this endlessly, and come each time to the same conclusion: this might be their only chance to stop Aliks without a battle. Lives saved, with only Enny at risk, and it was a risk she was willing to take for them…

That, alone, was enough to solidify their alliance for centuries to come.

“Almost a week is slower than I expected,” she said. He sensed an unexpected worry in her tone and thought about her date with Telek.

It was possible she needed Aliks to assume that a baby was his.

Girik’s second problem was getting more annoying by the second.

“I’m sure,” Enny added. “Are you uncertain?”

He took a sip of his cacaotl and tried not to think too hard about Enny and Telek as a couple.

“Be careful,” he warned. “Aliks is looking for you to suspect something. You can’t go from rejection to trying to seduce him overnight.”

He knew Enny already knew this, but talking about that was easier than talking about Telek.

“I noticed,” she said dryly. “He almost said no.” She took a sip of her drink.

He laughed. “You should have let him,” he joked.

Telek. He wondered what it was about Enny that appealed to him. Telek was soft around the edges, and genuine; smart, with a subtle and shy playful side he didn’t usually let show.

It was like a dandelion puff dating a chainsaw. Girik didn’t get it.

He didn’t have to get it, as long as it worked for Enny and Telek.

“I should have,” Enny agreed, “but now he will go slower than he planned. Slow works better for me.”

“It’s safer for you,” Girik said. Slower would buy time, possibly other opportunities, a way to avoid this altogether. Slower also put Telek in more danger, however, if Aliks got any idea of what was going on. “Telek made it to Mel’s?” he asked.

“He did,” she confirmed. Her voice lowered and she cast her eyes down toward her drink. “And I can’t move too slowly.”

Ah, he’d been right on that point then.

He wasn’t certain, but he was nearly certain, that Telek had been a virgin until this week.

Chainsaw.

“We’ll do what we can to keep you safe,” he assured her. “Telek is warning Nell.”

Everything the Dragons were involved in was safer and more secure. No one in Keshmar wanted the Dells for enemies, which they would be if Aliks deposed him and Drella and took over.

“I hope so,” she said with a long exhale.

“Let us know what you need,” he urged, “and keep us updated. The dinner is public, but it can’t all be.”

“How does the public view him?” she asked. “Do you know what percentage of people and royalty he holds?”

“Avid supporters, only about eight percent,” Girik explained. It was embarrassing, asking another ruler to help him solve this problem of his brother; admitting that Aliks had any sort of support base within the borders of his own kingdom. “But he sways them on little topics, enough to get backing.”

“Alright,” she said.

He wondered if she knew she’d picked up that little habitual phrase from Konrad.

Most of them had assumed that at some point, Enny and Konrad would have children together as Enny and Drey had done for centuries. Nell, Enny’s husband, liked to have his own husbands father the children, heirs by proxy.

Einin’s conception and birth had been a shock to everyone. Nell, fathering his own heir. It was the last thing anyone expected, and Girik didn’t know what to make of it, or what to make of her interest in Telek.

“I’ll keep you updated on the gifts,” she promised him.

“We’ll find some excuses to check on Telek,” he promised. “With the divorce, we can justify more visits.”

She nodded her head and drank the last of her cacaotl. “And I’ll be attending the festival tomorrow with Einin.”

“Have a good time, Enny,” he said.

He watched as she left.

He wondered, in a tired sort of way that wished Drella had been here with him, whether Aliks had listened to their conversation or whether Enny had been honest with him.

There wasn’t any way to know, except time and trust.

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