Episode 186: InTarragation (Konrad)

The day had the feel of a thing which was never going to conclude or in any way resolve itself.

It had begun early, with no one to run the festival. Repeatedly. The wedding between Acheron and Spence, which manifested itself into a secret wedding between Konrad and Nell, everyone at the festival seemed oblivious to. Nim and Soren’s absence would be noted eventually, if it had not yet. Weston’s rejuvenation was another change, unexpected, that carried an array of implications which fanned into the future. This attempted kidnapping, the attack, the man and boy locked in the cell…

Something in Konrad hungered for an end to it all. Not the day, but the work. Cecily nudged his mind, prodding him onward. Today was not much of a victory for her. Spence and Acheron had captured the enemy, if it could be considered a capture at all. The remaining enemies had escaped, just beyond Konrad’s reach as they ever were.

And the man before him, made blue-grey by the camera he watched…

Konrad could recall a time when that man was as young as, perhaps younger than, the boy in the cell with him now. Konrad taught him play swords, carved wooden sticks which hurt well enough on their own but not enough to maim or injure.

The plan, so long ago, was for Meldrick to leave with his children. It was cold, in a way, but Konrad needed to be with the assets that could turn the tide of the war, and those assets were Aadya and Drey. Meldrick fled during the ensuing confusion, with as many of his children as he could muster.

Without Tarragon.

Now, before them, the consequences.

The boy without a head was healed now. Konrad had watched the healing, administered by Spence, in silence. He watched Tarragon kneel by the boy’s side and apologize, watched the boy angle his body away, heard Tarragon’s repeated explanation.

It wasn’t for the camera. Something about the set of Tarragon’s shoulders told Konrad the man expected this day to be his last alive. Tarragon longed for a forgiveness the boy was incapable of offering.

Both would see differently, once they met the queen and king.

Before that, Konrad cared to assess things.

He entered the cell in silence, as Spence had done, and closed the door behind him. Tarragon would not run, but the boy was likely to.

He sat, and Tarragon moved himself from the boy’s bedside to the chair opposite Konrad at the table.

“Hello, again,” Tarragon said without inflection.

Konrad set his hands on the table. Often, if he worked his hands it distracted a prisoner’s eyes and gave easier access to the mind, so he interlaced and began drumming them in a gentle tattoo against the table.

Tarragon’s eyes fixed on Konrad’s face.

“We were unable to capture Ionia or any of your other children,” Konrad began.

There was something there – a flicker of amusement tinged with fear – when he spoke Ionia’s name. Tarragon knew and concealed something. Ionia…he wondered what it could be.

“As I anticipated,” Tarragon said. He had a sticky, meticulous voice. The same build as Acheron, many of the same mannerisms. And yet he cared for women, as Acheron cared for men.

The difference intrigued Konrad.

“We’ll need everything you can provide about her,” Konrad prodded. “Her movements, your children, her allies…”

Still nothing. The man’s mind was a trap. Perhaps Nell, in the hall, made better success. But no, when he brushed Nell’s mind he found as much frustration as he felt.

“And what do I get?” Tarragon asked.

This, at least, would yield some indication of his character: “What would you like?” Konrad asked.

Years ago, Tarragon rescued baby manszhets, little creatures with long feet for hopping and long tails for balancing. The babies had lost their mother and Tarragon nurtured them on his own and kept them in a mesh-lined habitat he’d built for them in his room.

Had he lost his protective nature? His softness?

“I want my children safe, unless they directly try to harm you,” Tarragon listed. “I want Annatto,” he nodded towards the boy, who lay facing away from him on the bed, “protected and educated. And, I want to die: Camilla will want the bond broken. Also,” he stood and rounded the table toward Konrad.

A threat? Konrad thought it unlikely, but his muscles tensed for action.

Tarragon lifted the leg of his pants to reveal a series of tattoos on the interior of his calf. “Ionia’s spell went wrong. Ten.”

It took a moment, and some mind-grazing, for comprehension to settle in Konrad’s mind. Ten babies grew inside Camilla.

Zero would help her.

“Camilla is in safe hands,” Konrad assured him. “The decision to break the elixir will be between you and Camilla.” He waited until Tarragon reclaimed his seat. “In exchange, you will rescind all claim to the Salamander throne. Abdicate on behalf of yourself and your children.”

A flare of angry thoughts broke loose from the boy – Annatto’s – mind: Hurt, anger, a desire to kill them all. The image of Konrad and Tarragon splayed on the ground, tied and helpless, while Annatto stood over them, coursed through Annatto’s mind.

Konrad resisted the smile that played at his lips. He admired the boy’s tenacity nearly as much as he was amused by the boy’s poor knowledge of strategy and his cluelessness about what he would do once he had all the control.

He was angry and undisciplined, but Konrad sensed an underlying desire to be loved. He would be butter in Aadya’s hands, most likely. If not, there were others who might serve as his adoptive parents. Spence had endured a rough start to his adulthood; perhaps Zero and Indigo would take Annatto on.

Konrad and Nell made a habit of taking in difficult teenage boys, but Konrad wouldn’t subject the current set, Jarl and Callum, to Annatto’s disgust with homosexuality.

Someone else, someone who could see the potential within the boy…

“I will not abdicate,” Tarragon announced, an interruption both to the silence and to Konrad’s line of thought.

If only it could be simple, just once. “What prevents it?”

“I refuse to take away the protection of my children,” Tarragon declared.

Annatto’s anger surged a second time. He did not like being Tarragon’s’ son. Abhorred it, as it happened.

Tarragon must not understand the security provided by being his mother’s son. “The protection will remain if you abdicate,” he assured him. Dragon would remain, where Salamander fell. They would need only offer loyalty to Aadya.

He would not suggest it now. Tarragon was unlikely to offer loyalty to anyone he hadn’t vetted himself.

“Am I a threat if I sign a treaty with this kingdom, in the old language?” Tarragon countered. His shoulders had tightened more, as he realized he was negotiating his future, as he realized he would have a future.

“As a Salamander,” Konrad explained, “you are at risk. Ionia never would have kept you.”

Two flickers of insight, over Salamander and Ionia. Nell had gotten them too: Tarragon was an ascended king, prepared to attack the Dells. Not a Salamander king, a Dragon in his own right.

The selkies were up to something. Meldrick…

And the same flicker about Ionia. Something was not what it seemed. Meldrick was not what he seemed to be.

Konrad would watch and wait. Meldrick was at least as skilled at concealing thoughts as Tarragon, if not better.

“I could be an asset this way,” Tarragon negotiated.

“We would need to trust one another,” Konrad said. And Meldrick would need some careful, distant examination to sort what, precisely, had occurred when Meldrick evacuated the Lower Dell palace years ago. What, precisely, had occurred when he returned to kill Titania.

It was time for Konrad to retire. Hand Talise (soon, he suspected) and Corban the kingdom. Fall into the background of unimportant, where he could observe Meldrick more carefully. With a more astute and direct focus.

“You can learn,” Tarragon joked.

Tarragon, the boy who lost everything, and yet somehow he was here. And Zach was here, as Rhyss. The parallel was impossible to ignore.

Rhyss seemed to be alright, if a bit stubborn. He might have tended that way anyway, by virtue of being Zero’s son.

Tarragon…what would he become. “Can you?” Konrad mused.

“It was implied,” Tarragon joked. “You’ve lost your wit.”

Retirement. A lie which centered around Meldrick. The attack, the training which Talise needed, the remarriage to Nell.

His life was rocks in the tumbler of his mind, searching for answers. “Perhaps I never had it.” He needed to sort how to make the retirement appear unrelated. Drinking. He’d promised Zero a night out as brothers in law. Drinking, poor planning. Nell would know what he was up to, but Zero would not. He would see it as evidence that stepping down was the right action for the moment.

“I’ll have Indigo draw up a treaty, which you may review,” he offered to Tarragon. He hadn’t treated with an enemy since the war. It felt as he imagined a creaky, unused joint might.

“I will be thorough,” Tarragon assured.

How thorough could he be? Konrad had no way of being sure what education he’d received during the course of his imprisonment. “Would you like a dictionary?” he offered. Perhaps a translator would be better, though he suspected Tarragon liked to be alone with his thoughts.

“An attack without understanding your enemy is nothing more than wasted energy,” Tarragon challenged.

Attack?

Tarragon would learn to relax, in time. “You misjudge my intent,” Konrad said, simply. He stood. “Let us know if there is anything you need.”

“I will compile a list for you.”

Konrad was uncertain whether it was his intent to answer the questions about Ionia, as a list, or whether he meant to list things he needed. Either way, Konrad passed him a paper and a fine calligraphy pen.

Tarragon wrote in the same neat script possessed by Drey and Meldrick. An old-fashioned, eclectic style Konrad suspected had been taught to them by Titania.

It was time to investigate the past.

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