Forbidden letters, p.19
Forbidden Letters, page 19
part #0.50 of Men of the North Series
Tina lowered her voice. “Careful. You don’t want anyone to report you for improper communication.”
“Very funny.”
When they didn’t smile back at me, my laughter died and my lips disappeared in a single flat line. “Don’t tell me that the Council went through with the communication law?”
“You didn’t know? It was on the News. There’s directions on WiseShare.”
“No, I didn’t know!” I looked around as if everyone in the restaurant might be taking notes on my every word. “And I can’t say bonkers anymore?”
Tina looked to Amber. “I don’t know, can she?”
“I’m not sure either. The list of offensive words is so long.”
Running my hands through my hair I felt like I was suffocating. “Excuse me, but I need some fresh air.”
I got up and walked outside the restaurant, where I looked up at the gray December sky. Now, it was a given that Tyton could never be happy here. He would get reported the moment he opened his mouth.
Looking down the street, I saw two men biking while talking. They looked pretty with their red lips and braided hair. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but one of them laughed out loud.
These men were nothing like Tyton, and he could never fit in as one of them. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I stood in limbo feeling too changed to fully belong here with the direction my country was taking.
The men noticed me crying and their brakes squeaked when they came to a halt. “Are you hurt? What’s wrong?” the tallest of them asked with concern on his pretty face.
I didn’t try to hide my tears; instead a question burst from me like I was some kind of rambling idiot, “Are you happy living here?”
“What do you mean?” They exchanged confused glances.
“Do you ever wonder if you’d be happier living in the Northlands?”
“What is she talking about?” the shorter man asked his friend as his hands went to check on his hair and make-up.
“I don’t know.” The taller of the two got off his bike to place an arm around me. “Do you have a friend we can call for you? You seem a little stressed out, dear.”
“My friends are inside.” I sniffled and used my sleeve to dry my eyes.
“Okay, do you want us to take you to them?”
I shook my head but he insisted and walked me to the entrance of the café. Before the door closed behind me, I heard his shorter friend call out to him:
“What did she mean about our wanting to live in the Northlands? Do you think she was hinting that we looked uncombed and savage?”
“I hope not.”
Their quiet chatter faded as I went back to my friends.
As soon as Tina saw me, she got up from the table to hug me. “Sweetie, I can’t believe you didn’t know about the proper communication law. Are you afraid for your book? Is that why you ran out?”
“Yeah,” I lied because telling them that I loved a man who swore all the time wouldn’t do.
“Oh, I’m sure readers will love your book. Romance might be a tiny genre, but that gives you the chance to do well in it. I’ll read it if that helps.”
“Thank you, Tina. It might be the only copy that gets downloaded.”
Sitting back down, I sipped from my now cold tea while trying to hide the heavy sadness that made it hard to breathe. Tina and Amber were some of my best friends, but still I didn’t feel like I could tell them about Tyton, or even Wilma for that matter.
While growing up, I’d asked my nana many times why we lived in such a rural area and she had repeated over and over that being alone and feeling lonely are two different things. She had insisted that it was possible to feel lonely while surrounded by people, but I’d never understood the significance of that until this moment. I couldn’t trust my friends with my secrets, and it made me feel like there was a physical barrier between us.
Tyton had been a bright spot of healing light in a pitch-dark time in my life. To hear Ebony talk about Nmen as demons and for my two best friends to worry about petty stuff like saying the wrong words made me feel lost among my own people.
For twenty-eight years I’d thought of us Motlanders as open-minded, educated, and kind-hearted. Now I wasn’t so sure. I longed to talk to Tyton or read more of his fearless chapters that always made my heart beat faster. He wasn’t afraid of offending others and he liked to provoke. I used to see those as faults in him but the more I reflected on it, the more I realized that they were some of the most refreshing and liberating qualities about him.
Tina touched my arm. “I’m going to get some cake. Do you want anything?”
I shook my head with a polite smile, but in my head a loud voice boomed. Yes, I want Tyton.
CHAPTER 29
Cut Off
Tyton
I’d been on edge ever since Devina’d moved away. She had warned me this would happen, but the pain of being cut off was still gnawing at me every time I thought about it, which was all the fucking time.
I missed her letters with our daily discussions about the story line in the book and the cultural differences between Northlanders and Motlanders. It was entertaining to me how little she understood about us Nmen, and all our correspondence had made me reflect on things that I always took for granted.
She had assumed that I’d be angry with her for moving away and she was right. She had left me powerless on this side of the wall with no way to reach her. Even though all her arguments about why we could never be together were valid, I wasn’t ready to accept it.
Devina was the most spectacular woman I’d ever met and living the rest of my life without any contact with her was not an option for me. That’s why, after reading her goodbye, I’d roared out my despair, crumpled up her letter, and known one thing for sure: on December 30th when she would be back one last time to close up her house, I’d be waiting on her doorstep!
Without her daily letters it felt like a part of me had been amputated. Several times a day, I stopped what I was doing and looked in the direction of the wall. It was always the same strong pull to see if by some miracle a letter was waiting for me. Ten days had gone by with my checking at least three times a day. Nothing!
By now, it felt torturous to get my hopes up only to have them crushed over and over again.
With my head bowed and my chest tight from missing Devina, I was walking back from another unsuccessful visit to the border when shouting voices and the sound of glass splintering made me stop for a split second before I set off into a full sprint.
Inside the house, I saw Frederick smashing another glass against the wall while screaming.
My dad looked just as agitated as Frederick and my mom sat on the couch bent over with her hands in her hair while Starr was rubbing her back.
“What’s going on?”
Fredericks’s nostrils were flaring when he turned to me. Holding up a hand he gestured that he was too amped-up to speak.
“What the fuck is going on?” I repeated, and this time Starr answered me with tears dripping down her cheeks. “It’s King Jeremiah.” Her eyes fell to a ripped-up letter on the floor.
I picked it up and put it together to read it.
Starr’s voice broke, “It came today. I already talked to Marni, Claire, and Wilma. They all got the same letter.”
“But what does it mean?”
Frederick sneered out loud, “It means the sick fucker has decided he wants a wife and every husband of a beautiful young woman is in danger.”
My eyebrows drew close together as I read the letter again. “He’s saying that he claims the right to marry a woman should she become a widow.”
My mom’s crying intensified.
“But that’s not how it works,” I exclaimed and looked to my dad. “A widow has the right to choose her own husband.”
“Since when did King Jeremiah let laws stop him from getting his way?”
My mom lifted her head. “No woman in her right mind would ever choose him. He’s mentally unstable and his breath alone is enough to make people keep a distance.”
Frederick paced the floor. “Did you see how he ogled Starr at the tournament? If he decides he wants her, I’m a dead man.”
My dad stood with his feet spread and his arms crossed. “It was the same with Claire and Wilma. He wants a young wife so he can have an heir.”
“Then he should have fucking competed in a tournament when he was younger,” Frederick stopped and growled while I fisted my hands.
“No woman deserves to be forced into marriage. I would rather die than marry him.” Starr kept rubbing my mom’s back.
I wasn’t married myself, but this affected my whole family. Holding out the pieces of the letter, I looked to my brother. “Did you talk to anyone about it?”
Frederick gave a short nod. “The others are on their way.”
Within the next hour the house filled up, with my three sisters and their husbands adding their voices to the speculations that within a year King Jeremiah would arrange for a beautiful young woman to become a widow.
“We have to fight this.” Emmerson was livid. “We all know that he’ll go after Wilma with her being a new bride and not yet a mother.”
“No. I’ll kick him before I let him touch me,” Wilma declared.
“Claire isn’t a mother either.” My eyes went to my sister, who stood pressed up against her husband, Lucas. “You and Wilma would be his obvious choice.”
Claire paled. “You think he’ll kill Lucas to get to me?”
Lucas gave a low sneer. “Let him try. I can defend myself. Jeremiah is no match for me.”
Frederick snorted. “Don’t be a fool. He’s not stupid enough to go up against any of us man to man. He’s sneaky and he’ll make it look like an accident.”
I propped my hands under my armpits. “Not if he has an accident first.”
There was a moment of silence in the room and then Emmerson lifted his chin. “Keep talking.”
Over the next hours we plotted the death of our king. Our best chance was at one of the upcoming Christmas parties where he would be eating and getting drunk.
“You men won’t get any weapons past the security, but I can smuggle in a dagger under my skirt,” Marni offered.
“What about poison? I could have some in my bra,” Wilma added.
“Whoa, we’re not leaving it to you women to protect us!” Emmerson frowned.
“None of you are killing the king. I am!”
The room went quiet and they all stared at me.
“You sure, Tyton?” Henry asked. “If anything goes wrong, you’re dead.”
Despite the pressure in my chest, I nodded. “You women are too valuable and I’m the only single man in this room. If anything goes wrong and I die, I won’t be leaving a widow for him to prey on. It has to be me!”
My father, Henry, Lucas, and Emmerson all bowed their heads to me and Frederick grabbed my shoulder. “You won’t be alone. We’ll help you.”
“Yes, whatever you need,” Marni added.
“As long as you distract his guards like we talked about; I’ll need the time to get close to him.”
CHAPTER 30
Killing a King
Tyton
The annual Christmas party at the royal palace was an affair with tight security. Our family had a prominent place in society, which put us on the guest list, but we weren’t close to the king and were seated in the other end of the large banquet hall.
The plan was simple. We would wait for the king to get drunk and start bragging like he did every year. Once he began wandering through the room to make sure we all heard him boast, I would challenge him to a drinking contest and hand him a glass with beer that was poisoned.
If it worked, I would have ended the tyranny of our worthless king.
If it failed, I would be executed.
Marni’s original plan to smuggle in a dagger under her skirt had been shot down by us men. The previous years, women had been exempted from walking through security scanners like us men, but rumors were that King Jeremiah was getting more paranoid.
As the night progressed, the voices of the two hundred people in the room grew louder. Music played and men were erupting in drunken laughter here and there.
Our king was surrounded by his supporters during dinner but as anticipated he grew tired of their company and began shouting to people at other tables, lifting his glass and drinking like there was gold on the bottom of his glass.
We watched him push up from his chair and scream profanities at random people.
“Here he comes,” Frederick whispered.
According to plan, I’d pretended to drink heavily and acted drunk for the last hour. “I’m ready,” I slurred, keeping in character.
With King Jeremiah attracting attention, no one saw me slip the powder in a jug of beer.
Raising my beer in the air, I shouted across the hall to Jeremiah. “Oi, you think you’re so good at drinking… Come prove it.”
His skin was reddish and his forehead sweaty, which made his thin hair stick to his forehead in a peculiar fashion. Swaying a bit, he watched me and lifted his chin with a frown. “Tyton Green.”
I made a stunt of almost tripping when I got up from the bench I was seated at. “I have to take a piss, but before I go why don’t you come here and show us how good of a drinker you are?” My speech was slurred and as planned, my dad and Frederick reached out to reel me in, shushing me. I batted their hands away. “It’s fiiine! He’s a man. I’m a man. We drink beer.”
People had gone silent around us, watching our king as he staggered toward us. “You think you can down your beer faster than me?”
“I know I can.” I hiccupped and used my hand to support myself against Frederick. “I can fucking take on all of you.” My finger pointed to the entire room and men began to laugh.
“Tyton, sit down!” my dad hissed.
“Are you game or not?”
Frederick took the jug with poisoned beer and filled his own glass. Just as he lifted it to his mouth, I reached for it and handed it to Jeremiah. “Get ready to lose!”
I didn’t wait for him to accept but lifted my glass and just as I’d hoped for, he took the bait and drank.
It was like the man had no gag reflex and just swallowed the content in one go.
“Bloody hell,” I exclaimed when he finished before me. Jeremiah gave a loud burp but then his facial color changed from red to pale white and his cheeks bobbed out.
I glanced at Marni, who had supplied the poison from her friend who was married to a pharmacist. It was supposed to be a slow-working poison but Jeremiah looked like he was going to be sick.
Frederick pulled me back just as a projectile of vomit spewed from Jeremiah.
“What the fuck?” Some drunken men laughed and joked that he couldn’t hold it in, but Jeremiah was a proud man and took offense.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. The beer was stale and tasted like shit.” Lifting his hand, he pointed at my table. “You people pissed in my beer.”
“No!”
Some of his security came over and pressing his almost empty glass into the chest of his guard, Jeremiah dried his mouth and ordered, “Take this to Bernard. Tell him to test it. If I drank piss someone is going to die!”
I swallowed hard. “I assure you that’s not necessary.”
“You laughed at me.” His eyes narrowed as he swayed back and forth while pointing with uncoordinated movements. “All of you laughed and no one laughs at me.”
“Your highness, we never laughed,” my father tried to say, but the room had gone silent and a filthy stink from King Jeremiah’s vomit made a few women turn their heads with disgust.
“Arrest them!” Turning on his heels, Jeremiah swayed as he walked back to his own table while shouting over his shoulder. “Arrest every man at that table. I won’t be ridiculed in my own house.”
Like a group of killer bees, armed guards surrounded our table. Squaring my chest, I stepped in front of my mom to form a wall with my dad. Around us Emmerson, Lucas, Frederick, and Henry did the same.”
“Don’t fight back. We are unarmed and outnumbered. If they shoot, they might hit one of our women,” my dad said loud enough for all of us to hear it.
Still, I elbowed the guard who pushed at me. With a hand to his bloody nose, he raised his gun to point it at my head, sneering, “Move motherfucker.”
Henry and my dad moved forward with their hands up, while Lucas, Frederick, and Emmerson fought back like me. We all knew that if Bernard, Jeremiah’s personal doctor, tested the content of the glass he’d find something much worse than urine.
Jeremiah’s captain who had been at the high table and was drunk himself, waved his gun around and fired a shot against the ceiling. “Move or I’ll decorate the walls with your brains.” Screaming at his guards he gestured to the door. “Just get the filthy traitors out of here.”
As we were pushed out of the room, Jeremiah sneered one last thing. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of your women.”
Being locked up in a small cell with the others gave me too much time to worry.
We were hungry and on edge.
Six protectors unable to protect our women were like an explosive bomb of violence waiting to happen, and twice a fight broke out between Lucas and Emmerson. It took Frederick, Henry, my dad and I to separate them.
When the captain finally turned up, he only spoke to us through a square hole in the door.
“Where are our wives?” Frederick asked.
The captain looked amused by our misery. “Your wives are here in the palace. The king is entertaining them.”
“Can we see them?”
“Yes. On New Year’s Eve you’ll see them.”
“That’s in eleven days. Is he going to keep us here for eleven days?” Henry’s voice was full of disbelief. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s the king’s order.”
“Will we at least get something to eat and drink? It’s been two days and we’ve had nothing.”
