Iyedraeka and Martiveht had been there on the dais, of course, and they came down from it as the room relaxed into general cacophony. No one felt that they could leave, and a strange energy infected the banquet, as if everyone had swallowed poison and become feverish. Guards came and took Laesehn Jahnadee’s body away. His wife followed it, but not before she filled a wine goblet, which she clutched protectively as she passed from the hall. Duke Khuldara knelt and helped Laesehn’s successor from the floor. That groveling man was settled in his diaphanous robes in the very place at the high table where his brother had died. His wife was plucked from the Jahnadee table and brought to sit beside him. They were very pale and very quiet as the festivities resumed.

  “Captain,” Iyedraeka said, “I cannot stay here.”

  I nodded. We had barely slept the night before, had eaten little until a few hours ago, and had experienced too many dire things. Having informed me of my duties, the princess was turning to the high table to make her excuses to the duke. I glanced at Vaenahma, who read my expression and went to requisition a platter of food from a passing servant. Martiveht stood beside me, silent and stoic, until we were free to leave the hall.

  The two women knew the way to the chambers they had been given. We certainly didn’t. Vaenahma was hampered by the tray of food, but I kept my hand on the pommel of my sword. I breathed easier when we made it to sleeping chamber’s door, but I made the other three stay out in the hall while I went inside and searched it. There was little to find. Two four poster beds and a red fainting couch. A table in the middle of the room with lighted candles and a wash basin on it. A fireplace with a series of decorative figurines on the mantle. Casement windows that looked across the river and some rather inartistic tapestries with nothing behind them except stone walls. I went back into the hall and pronounced the room safe.

  The women drifted into it. I took up my position beside the door, and Vaenahma came and stood in front of me with the tray of food so that I could eat something. I had just popped a poppy-seed roll into my mouth when Martiveht stuck her head out.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Guarding the door.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Bring the food in. Eat at the table.”

  “Someone needs to stand guard.”

  “Come in and eat. We’ll lock the door.”

  “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Captain,” Iyedraeka called from inside the room, “please come in.”

  Vaenahma shrugged and the platter bobbed up and down in their hands. We went into the room.

  Iyedraeka looked very beautiful with her face lit by flickering candlelight. The candles warmed the eggshell blue of her robes and glittered off of the silver thread. Vaenahma placed the platter on the table and I bolted the door behind us. Iyedraeka took a drumstick from the platter and held it uncertainly. Martiveht pulled out a chair and made her sit. She made us all sit. For a moment we sat in silence. Then we began to eat.

  Halfway through the meal, Iyedraeka began to cry. Some people are made ugly by crying, but she seemed warmed by it. Her crying was decorative. The lines of her tears seemed to echo the threads on her dress, reflecting the candlelight in the same way. We ate and pretended not to notice. But I couldn’t help glancing at her. She let the tears flow down her face without drying them.

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  After awhile Martiveht said, “We are all very tired. We need to sleep.”

  I nodded and stood, wiping my hands on the tablecloth to get the grease off. I went to the door.

  “Captain, where are you going?” Martiveht asked.

  “To stand guard,” I said.

  “Don’t be foolish. You’ve had less rest than we have.”

  I looked at Vaenahma. “We’re the Garrison of the Courtly Palaces. What’s left of it. We have to stand guard.”

  “Captain, the door is locked and barred. Besides, we’ll feel safer if you’re in the room with us.”

  Vaenahma raised an eyebrow at me. It made me very uncomfortable. I have been guarding noble personages my entire life. I had never once slept in a room with them. It’s true that I had camped beside them, but four walls and a fireplace made it feel different somehow.

  “You’ll need to prepare for bed,” I said stiffly.

  “I’m so tired that I can’t think about brushing my hair,” Iyedraeka said. “Besides, we had baths before the banquet.”

  “And if you need to…attend to the necessaries in the middle of the night?”

  “We will do so discreetly,” Martiveht said. “Really, Captain, you’re being ridiculous.”

  I hesitated. Vaenahma went to the window and looked out. After a moment I joined them. I heard water splashing in the room behind us, the two women attending to whatever ablutions they felt they had to make. I tried to ignore the noises, and the more intimate and embarrassing sound of one of them urinating into a chamber pot.

  “Do you see the old chain tower across the way?” I said to Vaenahma, to cover the noise.

  They looked. “That ruin with the sanmatra tree growing out of it?”

  “They used to string a great chain across the river, back when Nhadtereyba was little more than a pirate den. This castle began as the chain house.”

  “They controlled both sides of the river?”

  I shrugged. “It was before there were kings and little kingdoms here. Boats went freely back and forth across the river. A single bandit crew could control both sides. The good people of Rahasabahst were always sending expeditions north to try to clear them out, in those days.”

  “And the watch tower on that hill above the ruins?” Vaenahma asked.

  “No doubt full of the King of Pahyangoeda’s soldiers.”

  “Why did they abandon the chain tower?”

  “You mean why aren’t there two castles facing each other across the river? That part of Pahyangoeda is known to be haunted.”

  Vaenahma laughed. “Everywhere is haunted.”

  “Not like those woods. I assure you, the soldiers in that watch tower don’t sleep well at night.”

  “It’s not a haunting,” Martiveht said behind us.

  “It’s not?” I asked, not turning around.

  “Not as we know them, captain. What happened there is more eerie and upsetting than a haunting. But it is not a good story to tell before resting.”

  “Don’t tell it, Martiveht,” Iyedraeka’s voice came, sleepy and muffled, as if she were speaking into a pillow.

  I heard the swish of fabric and then Martiveht said, “You can turn around now. We are tucked in and our modesty is not in danger.”

  They were both in the same bed, which left the second bed for Vaenahma and me. I was surprised by the fact that Vaenahma snored. Their breath was also quite bad. I lay on my side and listened to the sounds of the castle as I drifted toward sleep. I could hear voices calling in the courtyard, and laughter from the hall. From the window I could hear the river, and I let it lull me softly.

  When I woke the next morning sunlight was streaming in through the open window. It was strong and hot and it alarmed me. I sat up. “What time is it?” I asked.

  Vaenahma was standing beside the fireplace. They turned and looked at me. “Just past noon.”

  I scrambled out of the sheets. “But we’ll be late!”

  “For what?” Martiveht asked from the table, where she was toasting some bread on the candle flame.

  “The flotilla, of course! They were leaving at first light.”

  “They have left,” Vaenahma said. “They left hours ago.”

  Iyedraeka was sitting on the other bed, reading a small book and tangling her fingers in her hair. She raised her head and caught my wild look and gave a little laugh. “Captain!” she chided me. “You didn’t think they’d let us go south into battle?”

  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2026

  The Beggar of Taokeihla

  from The Smallest Form of Scholarship by Daetruf Reetak