the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (snow like ashes txt) 📕

man with balding hair and never left without a feather and a pergament. Viltor’s thin gaze mirrored his looks and Milfred, well he spoke little, when he did his remarks were salty and mean.
The woman tied to the chair was unique. She was the only messenger since three years of constant attack who had ever been caught and she didn’t even protest. These messengers all fit the same description and were working now in eleven nations, except in Nocturania, and everyone had a story to tell about meeting one. Legend had it they were all the same people. Forest gypsies. Warriors from Callenia. The twilight people that mothers warned their children about, whose queens were supposed to live in tree houses no one alive had ever met.
The door opened and Belinda strode in, the door crashing against the wall behind her. Ulfaas ducked his head and walked in and then came the shorter Mormidar who right away walked to the twins, then kissed his queen, who reacted little if at all and fixed her eyes even harder on Nina Ray. Marcus and Philip came on either side of Belinda. The guards closed the door and positioned themselves on either side of the girl.
Belinda circled her, looked at her from right to left, from left to right, from below and above and then stopped about two meters away, the ten torches in the room casting a dancing light onto the stone floors and walls and bounced onto her face.
“Who are you?” She finally asked.
“A messenger, what else…” Nina said.
“Who do you work for? Look at me when I speak!”
Nina smiled, cocking her head. “Sister!” Belinda stepped back. The woman’s eyes were so blue they seemed transparent. “Why this anger? Am I not allowed to roam the countryside?”
Belinda walked to the scribe and his podium. Julius Cretan, who had been standing like a statue through all this gazed in fear. She took the cape off the podium and threw it at her. “And this? This is the same cape that hundreds of witnesses have seen all over Medatlantia. It bears our insignia!” She pointed at the wall behind her. “We don’t make capes like this. No one does, except the ones that are worn by the attackers.” She looked at the naked arm. There was a tattoo there. A dragon with seven crosses speared into its body. “I believe you people call that a bular tattoo. That mark is only a legend, since no one has ever seen it, until now.”
She leaned down, rested her hands on the armrests, crushing Nina’s arms and breathed in her face. “The proof is all there and your kind has thousands of innocent lives on your conscience.” Nina smiled. “Against my father’s will I have come here today because my mind told me I had to, your name appearing in nightmares since I was ten. So if you do not tell me where you are from, I shall flog you and drown you, in that order. Who are you?”
Nina kept smiling. “My mount is black and my Christian name is Nina Ray.” Those words accompanied an evil grin that told Belinda that she knew what that name meant, knew the agony of waking up in cold sweats in a dungeon with rats on your face. Knew how it was to be told in dreams the Apocalypse was near. Every night being told that one day a meeting with a messenger would kick off the horsemen of evil. She knew. But how?
“This?” She looked at the cape. “I wear this because it looks nice. I had no idea it was your insignia. Do you want it?”
Belinda slapped her across the face. “Cats battle cats. Women are allowed to smack each other. If I were a man, I couldn’t count on such luck.” She grabbed her face and took off her scarf with her other hand, then handed it to Philip. Her hair was intact beside one lock that hung down and dangled before her right eye. She could see into this woman’s mind. She had killed hundreds, including babies, mothers, grandparents, a horse. “Who are you?” Nina smiled. The silence spoke volumes. “Philip?”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Wax!”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Philip took out a large wax candle from his bag and lit it on one of the torches. He brought to Belinda. “Hold her head up!” Marcus did as he was told. “We will start with the forehead and go to the nose. Who are you?”
Queen Silvia was now not ice anymore. The twins shifted their feet. Nina tried to smile, although her face was squeezed. Belinda dropped four drops of hot wax on her forehead. “Speak!” There was no answer. She lowered the candle to the nose and dropped a few drops; Marcus held back her head to an impossible position, which almost cracked her ribs. The woman was sweating, but wouldn’t speak. There were red spots on her forehead and nose. “Open her mouth, Marcus!” Gritted teeth made it hard to open it, but with Philip’s help it was possible. The three Great Danes tried to remain calm. Belinda dropped wax into her mouth and Nina gagged, her tongue swollen. “Will you speak, Bitch?”
Nina managed to spit at Belinda, who slapped her again and put the cancel into her mouth, burning her tongue. Nina screamed, freed her foot and kicked Marcus in the shinbone. Philip pressed her head against the back of the chair and the guards tied her foot back onto the chair. Belinda took a few steps back, held the flickering candle in front of her face. “Who sent you?”
Nina shook her head. Belinda walked up to her and held the candle under her chin. Nina screamed. Belinda stepped back. “Who are you?” There was still no answer. She held the candle in her left hand and slapped Nina with her right. Blood trickled out of her nose. She slapped her again. This time she opened a wound above her left eye. She slapped her again. This time she screamed. “Who sent you, God damn it?”
Blood trickled down across her eye, leaving her partially blinded. Belinda started sobbing, Nina smiled. She turned to the door, scared at her own heartlessness. Facing the door she started speaking, slowly turning to face here again as she went on.
“Your name was foretold to me in a dungeon ten years ago. It was told that you would initiate a chain reaction of destruction. Your name has become synonymous with evil not only because I dreamt it, but because the morning after the first time I dreamt about you my Aunt Lucinda told me about you, as well.” She took one step closer to her. “I know that you are trained to stand fear and pain and torture, but I am trained to rule. Who sent you?”
Belinda leaned down again, watching the blood drop onto her bosom. “But if you think this is bad, how about being tied to a rack at age ten?” Belinda grabbed her by the face. “Who sent you?” She hit her across the face and Nina began drooling.
Nina Ray spoke. “A messenger is what I am. My chieftain has one herself” There was a pause.
“Is that all?” Belinda hissed. “Your chieftain has a chieftain herself? You are what?”
”A messenger. Someone who just delivers something from someone else.” ”Are you a forest gypsy?” Nina’s eye was clotted. She hit her again. “Answer my question, bitch? Who sent you?”
Ulfaas walked up and told Belinda to calm down. Belinda held up a hand and the Great Danes pulled him back. The young scribe wrote down everything and Julius Cretan sneered at it all. On the other side the four Hispanics tried to keep calm. Silvia shook her head and Mormidar realized he had never seen Belinda this way. She was almost like a man in her fury. He calmed down the twins with a whisper.
Nina looked up with her one free eye. The look startled Belinda who managed not to move. “I was sent here to be caught.” The assembled looked at eachother, startled. “We forest gypsies never get caught.” There was hatred and pride here. “I deliberately was caught because my queen wanted it. Dying for your queen is an honour. I will not tell you much. But I am a messenger.”
Belinda held out her hand and Marcus gave her the candle back. Mormidar protested. “Let me do this.” Belinda held out her hand. He shook his head. “I have a right.” Belinda sighed and gave way, giving Marcus back the burning candle. She stood against the wall and kept still. He walked up to Nina.
“If you are a messenger, what was your assignment?”
Nina looked at this short but obviously smart man. She smiled. “My queen bids me and I do.”
“Who is your queen? What did your queen bid you do?”
”She bid me get caught.”
“Why?” Ulfaas walked up and with him Belinda. The three regal royals standing around her, Nina shook her head. She tossed her hair, letting the lock that had been hanging down disappear from her eye, and thereby tossed some of the blood upon Philip, who stepped back.
“There is nothing you can do.”
“I can do quite a lot. What was your assignment?”
”To get caught. I was supposed to let myself be trapped. To tell you this in person, your highness.”
Belinda hit her, really hard this time, across the head with such a force that a wound opened on her forehead and thick blood trickling down across her cheek.
“How did you know the troop was going to be there? My messenger Theo told me yesterday that the troop was on their way by coincidence on that road. Who are you?”
Nina smiled at their idiocy. “The army knows about us. That is their trade.” Blood dropped all across her face now. “I knew there was an army camp nearby, so I hid undercover for weeks knowing fully well that the army has a tendency to let many go at once to let another take over. I simply followed them at an appropriate distance and then trick rode in front of their horses.”
Belinda took her by the shoulders and slapped her again.
“You have appeared in my dreams since I was ten.”
Nina gave her a smile, biting her lip and shaking her head.
Belinda gave her an icy look and spat in her face.
”Your Highness, please calm down.” Belinda stood up erect, but did not move back an inch. Julius Cretan walked up, followed by the scribe. “Do you take orders from the forest queen only?”
“Yes.” The old man spoke slowly, like a drunken snail if a drunken snail could speak. “So what we know so far is that you are a gypsy trick rider who had orders from the queen to get caught here. But why?”
“I know nothing else and will say nothing else.”
“What was your purpose with the attacks?”
Nina smiled and shook her head. She was not going to speak.
“What is your plan?” Nina gazed coldly at Belinda.
“Marcus.” Marcus walked up to her. “Have you brought the tools?” He nodded. Julius protested. “Please, your highness.”
”Mr. Cretan,” Belinda cried with a cool gaze. “Who has the authority in this country?”
Cretan nodded and raised his hands, backing away, followed by the scribe who did the same. “We shall wait outside until you decide to tell us who lies behind this conspiracy, while Marcus convinces you to share with us what you know.”
The entourage left for the Hall while Marcus and Philip were left with the two guards and the scribe to convince Nina to tell them her secrets.