The Dicephal

“The King insists, my lady, he has much to consider and does not wish to interrupt your slumber. Please, after you.”

Counsellor Jerethan wiped the sweat from his overactive brow and hustled Queen Imsin of Dracwell into her warm, firelit room. This was the fourth time this week he had been required to convince the naive young Queen that the King had business to attend to. Thankfully, she was not as sharp nor as experienced in dealing with philandering oafs as the previous Queen to start asking questions. Not yet, anyway. 

“Please wish my King good tidings, Counsellor, I will be waiting for him” the Queen meekly offered with a polite smile. She elegantly pulled back the many bed covers and slipped her legs in. 

“Of course my lady, but please do not wait too long, our King is weighed with so many burdens these days and a beautiful Queen like ours needs her rest.” 

They exchanged more polite smiles and, with that, Jerethan flamboyantly bowed and backed out of the door, being sure to lock it from the outside. 

Muttering and cursing under his breath, Jerethan shuffled along the cold, firelit corridor, his long white hair bouncing with him as he moved. Two hulking armored men appeared to be engaged in a staring competition with each other as they guarded a small stone archway. Jerethan shimmied past them and hurried down a long winding stone staircase lit by more candles mounted along the walls. By the bottom of them his hips ached and his back screamed in agony. He again wiped at his sweat-soaked brow with the sleeve of his baggy white tunic, cursing the King and his lascivious ways.

He arrived at a thick wooden door, stopping to give his old back and hips a rub. He momentarily dreamed of continuing on to his own room to a warmly drawn bath and a comforting bed. Instead, he knocked once and entered.

“Counsellor!” announced the King. “It’s about time! I thought you had decided to lay down with my young Queen yourself!”

King Orithal Gwen of Dracwell stood naked in the corner of the room. His face was framed by candle light giving it a beaming, warm glow. That glow may also have had something to do with the goblet he sloshed around in his right hand and the empty containers of wine which decorated the many surfaces of the room. In his left hand he gripped the curly blond hair of a young woman who Jerethan could not rightfully place at that exact moment. This because he was only presented with the back of her head, her long back and her naked rear end. Although he’d seen many in his time as the King’s Counsellor, he was not yet at the point of being able to identify the town whores simply by their bobbing heads and their bare arses, although given the King’s insatiable appetite, it likely wouldn’t be long before he could add it to his list of talents. 

“Of course not, my Lord” said Jerethan, forcing a smile whilst averting his eyes from both the King and his companion. “Will there be anything else you need from me this evening? I would very much like to draw a bath for my old bones if not.”

The King, distracted by the blonde woman, closed his eyes and chuckled something about bones which Jerethan didn’t catch. However, it was clear from his dismissive gestures that his Counsellor would not be needed again tonight. Jerethan bowed and backed out of the room, attempting to maintain eye contact with the stone floor. He locked the door from the outside and shuffled off to salvation in the form of lukewarm water and a large tin bath. 

The King, drunk and satisfied, lay back on his bed beckoning a 2nd woman over to him. The blonde had been discarded and was now asleep on her side next to him. The young dark haired woman slowly climbed herself on top of the King and allowed him to slide inside her. 

After a minute or two her moans became blood curdling screams. The King, eyes shut, lost in lust, laughed excitedly as he thrust faster and harder. He ran his fingers from her mouth down her chin onto her neck. His fingers suddenly felt warm and slippery landing in a loose, wet part of her neck. He lazily prized his eyes open and recoiled at the thick dark blood flowing down her breasts and pooling on his stomach. Aghast, he bucked her off him and made to get up off the bed until he felt sharp cold steel against his neck. 

“Gently now” whispered a voice from behind him. “Gently.”

The King stuttered and yelped a number of empty threats before relaxing in the strangers grip, the steel of the knife drawing a trickle of blood from his neck. “Who are you? what do you want?” asked the King in a surprisingly steady voice. It seemed the young woman’s bloody new neck hole and the subsequent surprise interruption of their tryst had succeeded in sobering him up somewhat. His eyes shifted around enough to see the blonde woman gagged and tied up by her hands and legs at the side of the bed. 

“Eyes forward.” said the stranger. 

“Who am I? I am a ghost, my Lord. A specter. I am the creaking in your floorboards, the tapping on your windows in the dark. I’m your conscious, interrupting your royal slumber.” 

“I’m happenstance.” 

“Circumstance.” 

“Inevitability.” 

“I, King Orithal, am vengeance.” 

King Orithal laughed. A little at first then louder and louder until the knife at his throat was tightened, the King choked on his breath. “You’re vengeance are you?” he said with a wry smile.  “And who, do tell, sent you my Lord of Vengeance?”

“I’ll do you better than that” whispered the stranger. He loosened the knife and spun the King round to face him. 

The man was only slightly taller than the King, middle aged, somewhere around the 30’s. He had a rough beard covering most of his face with short hair on his head. He took a step back from the King and gestured with the knife for him to put on his garments. The King did so, with his hands raised and sat down on the bed. 

“I am an Assassin, my Lord. A paid hand. I was contracted to kill you, which I intend to do. Unless…” he trailed off. 

“Unless what?!” demanded the King.

“Unless you wish to better my payment, of course.”

The King’s eyebrows knitted together, meeting in the middle of his face. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are, savage?” he spat.  “Clearly you know how to handle a knife but are you missing your faculties? I’ve seen your face, you fool, you’ll be hanging by the morning at my command!”

The man sheathed his knife and smiled at the King. “My Lord” the man said, shaking his head. “I expected your arrogance may not allow you to parlay, but it seems ungentlemanly to not give you the choice. I do not wish to put you down with a tortured soul, therefore I will give you the truth before you are put to rest. I was contracted by your wife. Your sweet, naive, young Queen. She gave me the detail of where you would be and who you would be with. It seems she was not so meek as you thought. Your philandering will be the death of you, King Orithal. By the authority of Queen Jocelyn Gwen of Dracwell, I sentence you to death.”

The King opened his mouth to protest but as he did a large blade plunged through his throat from the back of his head, splitting his adams apple, covering the man before him in a spatter of warm blood. He smirked, wiping at the blood with the back of his palm.

The blonde woman on the floor screamed behind her gag as the two strangers disappeared through the open window, out into the cold dark night.