Myrl had sent Milo for a platter of food and some tea. The wait had been very brief before the guardsman returned at a quick trot with a selection of sliced fruits, several fine cheeses, along with some kind of soft cheese with lemon, pepper, and garlic that Donk had been including in most light meal platters for him of late, honey butter, and thin slices of several kinds of toasted breads.
The man also returned with a retainer who carried a chair and a small table. The woman looked nervous. Myrl’s ring told him the servant was afraid. He couldn’t decide if she was leary of being in the dungeons, or if she was scared of being around “the King,” or, and he hated himself for thinking like this, but might she be thinking the guard had tricked into carrying down these items might have just been an elaborate ruse to get her down here for darker reasons.
He made a point of asking after her welfare as she set up the campaign table and chair. “Thank you, madam. Please, know that your king appreciates you, and your help here today.” He spoke softly, and tried to make his voice as kind as he could make it sound.
Her answers at the outset all sounded like high-pitched squeaks. If her eyes got any wider, he might be afraid they might fall from her face, and make an independent break for freedom. Not an unusual suspicion to have, in a dungeon, Myrl thought. That is a perfectly normal image for my mind to conjure… WELL done mind…
Her mood began to change as he spoke with her, thanking her for her efforts on his behalf. As she finished the setup of the small table and chair, she became, according to the ring, very “golden,” and slightly …”buttery smooth”...?
…that can’t be right… Myrl simply smiled at the woman, as she bowed, and made her way back down the hall to wherever staff went when they weren’t “here.” He knew that would cover a lot of metaphorical ground, but he had other issues to wrestle with at the moment.
“Thank you Milo,” he said to his guard as he sat. And then he turned back to the cell, to raise his teacup to Mormahrick, who in turn raised his wooden cup to his king with a slight bow of his head.
“Maester Feesin, I have to ask, and I hope you won't mind as I need to clear this all up. Did you intend to kill me? Or were you planning to kill your father?”
From the other side of the ornate steel bars, Mormahrick paused his sipping of the tea he had, and stared at the king. He placed the cup slowly down on the table beside his overstuffed chair, and carefully shifted his cast encumbered leg where it rested on another, shorter and very heavily built table.
“Sire, If I were to answer either question, how would you ever know the truth of the matter? At what point in your belief of whatever answers I give will you start to wonder whether or not I had lied to you? Will you then regret having my head removed? Or, if you believe my innocence today, will a day come when you realize I may have lied to you to gain my parole, and on that day send people to make sure I never threaten your life again?”
The heavyset young man in the cell smiled sadly down at his hand where they sat folded upon his lap. Through his ring, Myrl could feel a nauseating mix of uncertainty and sadness, but not a trace of deception. Whatever position the younger Feesin might be trying to take with this stalling tactic, he was not lying, nor planning to do so. At least not as far as Myrl could determine through the ring he wore.
Setting down his own cup of tea, Myrl paused to gather his thoughts before he decided to not only meet truth with lies, but to use a lie to draw out the truths he needed. “Maester Feesin, you may know, or at least strongly suspect, from the events of the day of my coronation that I have Talent? Well, I am. And I have been since my childhood.”
He left those simple statements of truth act as the opening for a greater lie he planned to tell.
The thickset man in the pretty cell startled at the admission. Most talents who didn’t practice openly jealously guarded their Talented status, as well as the nature of their Talents. One lived longer when one’s enemies didn’t know what one would do, as the saying sometimes meandered. And it was an incautious fool who attacked a swordmaster with only a rock. “Your majesty! I… I…” With that, he trailed off, and Myrl jumped on the opening.
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“My Talents are, I have been told, quite varied. Most of those of us who are lucky enough to survive becoming Talents in the first place usually follow one or two, maybe three major paths.” He paused for a moment to let these basic truths sink in. “Mormahrick, I can sense deception.”
And there it was, the lie. A small lie, certainly, but what he needed was a reason for the younger son of Baron Feesin to trust that Myrl would know if he was being lied to. Misdirecting Mormahrick to think this was one of his Talents, rather than the use of a family artifact was a small lie. But, he didn’t want anyone aside from his closest advisors to know about “the ring.”
“Now, as a man who has earned the title of Maester, you may be well aware that anyone who is honestly ignorant of the truth may speak nonsense with great sincerity, but, here we have a straightforward question, and a simple set of possible answers. If you answer me, I will know if you are lying. It isn’t simple, but that is the most simple way I might express it to you here and now.”
Myrl had been reading the personal journals of the kings and queens who had gone before him. Many of the past rulers of Rhiada had leaned heavily upon a set of inherited artifacts to kelp them be better. His father had written about the ring, and the formal crown, and the Scepter of State for that matter. All three of these items did something that allowed the sitting monarch to rule with authority and assurance. Myrl hadn’t found out what the Crown nor the Scepter allowed him to do yet… but he didn’t want anyone else to know about them aside from those few who Myrl trusted with his very life.
He looked steadily at Mormahrick. “Please, tell me. Did you intend to kill me when you picked up that sword?”
“No. I saw you back away from my idiot of a father after you had beaten him. I had hoped you would have killed him. He was a bully, and a monster. But after a moment of seeing you fight him, everyone in that hall knew he was doomed. We were all counting on your winning, Sire. We wanted to see you crush him… I knew, everyone there knew he would have killed you if he had gotten the chance. Even when Faiste was helping tie the bindings on his fists, he kept badgering us to slip him a small dagger… as if either of us carried a small dagger that no one would notice him with as you two fought. RIDICULOUS! ASININE! And then you won… it was effortless for you.”
He sobbed a moment before continuing. “It was so easy for you. You made it look like seeing the difference between a lion and a back alley cur. Then, you surprised everyone. When you chose to not kill him, when I realized that my freedom…” He swallowed heavily, and gasped as he tried to hold back tears, his cheeks reddening further. “... and my sister’s freedom had just been taken from us. I… I panicked. To my ongoing shame. The shame my father would daily say I brought to Our House… I proved him right. I thought about the bruises he has always left on me. The bruises he always leaves on Annaisyla… and I panicked, and I was mad, and I just reacted. I just lashed out at all of it. I had my brother’s dueling sword in the case, and I just thought… I could be free. We, my brother, my sister and I could all just… be free of that horrible man.”
The ring on his finger hummed with anger.
It fairly buzzed with sadness, and misery.
And it slowly pulsed with sincerity.
But, he noted, it did not itch with the feeling of lies.
Myrl stood, and took a step closer to the barred door. He watched the inmate try to hold back tears, as the little man sat hunched over in memories of his father. Myrl wondered if his own parents could live up to his six year old’s memories of them. Would they have been so missed? So beloved if he had grown up with them?
While he could not say for certain, his memories of his parents were from the perspective of a very young child, but Myrl doubted either of his parents would have ever acted toward him as Akek Feesin had to his children. It was something to think about. Well… something ELSE to think about… the list of things I need to consider will never get shorter… he thought.
“Thank you for speaking with me today, Mormahrick. And thank you for your honesty. I will consider this. I will need to intercede on your behalf with the High Jurus. Please let the guards know if you need anything. I will leave instructions for them to contact me if you need me.”
With that, Myrl turned from the door, and motioned for his guards to follow. This was just one stop he had needed to make in these lower halls, though he would admit later to Ashe, Elbana, and Donk that he had not actually meant to attend to this duty today.
As he walked past the elder Feesin’s door, the man’s wheezy ranting could still be heard coming from behind it, without stopping he reached out a hand and erased the word “Baron” from the slate.