II. The Blazing Fire of Xola

For the next year I was called to play with and attend to the Prince and the Princess quite often. The Princess was still kind to me and we grew closer and closer each day, her giving me dolls and other gifts at times. The Prince only gave me looks of disdain and pride. He was cruel to me and had me whipped almost everyday for a variety of crimes that would, under normal circumstances, not be considered crimes. These included not letting him defeat me in each and every game, not bowing adequately enough and just generally because he disliked me.
Either way, my life was going better than it had before the Princess had decided I was an excellent friend for her. 
After a few weeks of being sent to play with her she had a change of mind regarding our activity.
“Jex, I am going to teach you to read and to write. Can you at all?”
“Only my name and country, my lady. They did not teach me much else during my training.”
‘OK.” She called a slave over. “Please could you fetch my tutor?”
“My apologies, my lady, but your tutor has a day off today.”
“Very well,” she answered, considering a moment. “Please ask my brother to come instead.”
There was a flash of fear in the slave’s eyes, then he bowed. “Yes, my lady.”
He left and Cherina turned to me. “I am fetching my brother as I shall have to beg him for his own tutor. He shall not allow me to simply take it.”
This was something I greatly liked about the Princess. She explained everything to me, as if she were worried I might not understand.
The slave returned a few minutes later. “My most sincere apologies, your Highness. The Princess requested I fetch you.”
Raxikolys did not look pleased and pushed him to one side. “I do not take orders from slaves, I give them orders.” He took a seat and kicked the slave. “I was having a manicure. Fetch my slave girl so she may finish the job.”
The slave nodded. “As your Highness wishes.”
He turned his attention back to Cherina. “What did you want? You know that as the Imperial Crown Prince my needs are to come before yours. Before anyone’s.”
“Of course, but may I please use one of your tutors for the day?”
The Prince’s disdainful gaze travelled down to me. “Not for your dirty slave friend.”
“Please, Raxikolys. I am begging you. I simply want to give him the privilege of being able to read and to write, and you do have the best tutors in Xola.” Cherina gave him a small smile, hoping to charm him into agreeing.
“It is exactly for this reason that you are not to have him. They are Xola’s preeminent tutors and so are not to be wasted on...that.” He noticed his slave girl at the door and waved her in to finish his nails. “Besides, they’re much too advanced for some slave. My tutors do require some intelligence in their student.”
“Raxikolys! Why have you become so selfish? You used to be so much kinder to me and to the slaves.” His sister pushed me over to him gently. “They do everything you wish for you and you do not do anything in return. Surely you could be even a little thankful?”
“You expect me to be thankful that they do their jobs? They do not get punished if they do as they’re told. They may consider that thanks enough.” He shifted a little in his seat. “And they are kept fed, clean and clothed with a place to sleep. They do not need to learn to read or write or how to count or speak Old Artecreagan. Father does not spend thousands of Lestra so that you may educate the slaves.”
“But-”
“Silence! Do not speak over me. Father buys the slaves so that they may help you, Cherina. They do as you say when you require assistance and in return they are ensured a home. Or would you rather they were sent to the Erian markets? Or even the slums?”
I shivered a little. The Prince had a point. The Erian Empire was the single most feared place in all of Artecreage. Children from each and every country were told to behave or they would be sent to Eria to be taught a lesson. There was no security, no form of law enforcement, simply one ruler who made each and every rule and made sure that every one of his commands was followed. Some people said he was a madman, others said that he was simply not old enough to rule. Once or twice it had simply been said that he was an incompetent fool, but not one of those people was ever heard from again.
Slaves had it the worst in Eria. They were worked too hard, and they had no hope of ever being freed by their masters. The only escape was death, and that often came soon, out of years of daily torture.
Cherina shook her head. “No, Raxikolys. But I just want them to be able to have a future if they were ever freed. Couldn’t you let him at least just try to learn, and I swear if he can’t then I’ll return the tutor to you.”
Raxikolys considered. “Perhaps. But you’ll have to have my least favourite and you’ll have to have him tomorrow. Father says I have to have lessons this afternoon. I was rather hoping to take a massage but he insisted I take a break from my slave girl.”
“Thank you, Raxikolys.”
And so I was taught to read and to write. Though the Prince may have objected to my learning, he freely allowed me the use of his tutor, who, despite my low intelligence, taught me well. I was soon able to write short phrases, and to read the simplest of words. Eventually the Princess proceeded to lend me some of her less lengthy novels, and I was able to read the whole book with no trouble at all.
It was one day as I was finishing one of the latest books she had allowed me when I felt I had finished cleaning the Prince’s bedroom to its full extent that his Highness came to ask about my lessons.
I finally finished my polishing of one of the platinum and black diamond posts on the four poster and took a seat nearby to read the final pages of the novel. I was still not too advanced in reading and had to do so out loud. Engrossed as I was in the book, I did not hear the steady footsteps coming up behind me.
“Slave! Kneel.”
I did as I was told immediately because I knew that voice and it was not one I wished to disappoint. In my haste I managed to drop the book.
He stormed over to me and held out his hand. “The book, slave.”
I reached out and handed the book to him. He snatched it away and flicked through quickly. “My sister gave you a book? How...generous. I would not waste my good books on a worthless slave like yourself. They were imported from Alari and I shall not allow a detestable servant to touch them.” Raxikolys found himself a comfortable reclining position on his bed. “You can read?”
“Only a little, your Highness.”
“Hmm…” He threw the book down before me and ordered: “Then prove it and read to me, slave.”
Despite not being good at reading yet, I did as I was bid and read. The Prince had lived the decadent life of a pampered and spoilt little brat because he’d been told that one day he would become the most powerful ruler in all Artecreage. As such, he had a horrendous temper if he was not given everything he wanted the moment he wanted it.

 

* * *

The Emperor of Xola died a year later. He drank a wine containing a particular type of fig which caused his death. The nation mourned for the several weeks which led up to the coronation of the newest Xolan ruler.
The other slaves and I had a lot of work to do. We were to shine the walls and floor of the large hall where the coronations all took place. It was a beautiful hall with large windows and billowing banners with the Xolan coat of arms on them. There were marble seats that had to be polished and royal boxes for all the foreign diplomats that needed to be cleaned.
Chike himself was sent to clean the Crown Jewels. He did so everyday for endless hours, paranoid about his work. He was barely ever around now and when he was he was nervous and difficult to be around. He took to shouting if you interrupted him from his duties, refusing to speak most of the time.
A few days before the coronation Princess Cherina sent for me. She wore a thin silvery dress and sat on the window sill. “My brother will be Emperor in a couple of days. He is not ready for these responsibilities. He will make reckless decisions and act on impulse because he has spent his life living on impulse.”
I was confused as to why I had been called to speak with her. “My lady, I am sure his Highness shall make an excellent ruler. He has had lessons regarding each and every aspect of ruling.”
Cherina stood again and walked across the room. “No...he has had lessons, but he did not care for them. Raxikolys was less concerned with lessons than he was with pleasure. He is unprepared. I am going to ask a favor of you. It is not an order, and you are not obliged to do it.”
I nodded. The Princess may only have been twelve, but she spoke with the voice of an adult and years of pain only someone who had always been second in life were hidden in her words.
“I am going to convince my brother to have you as one of his personal slaves. It will be a difficult job, and I apologise for that, but what I need you to do most of all, Jex, is make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Already he has brought back three of Ros I’s laws, none of which will do any good to the people of Xola.”
I wondered whether I should speak, but she continued without me, staring at the wall opposite her.
“My brother has grown up with all his needs taken care of. He has no knowledge of what it is to be considered second in all that you do. He was always the important one in the eyes of our Father. He did not need to beg for things because he already had everything within his grasp.” She collected herself and shook her head. “Raxikolys is not ready. I know this for sure. His upbringing has prevented him from having a proper grasp on the true workings of the world. He shall continue to assume that he will be favoured, and this will not do him well.”
“I would be willing to do as my lady asks.”
She smiled at me. “I shall ask a slave girl to convince him. Thank you.” And then she hugged me. Perhaps, had I been younger, I would have had feelings for her, but even so there was still a sense of happiness inside me.
That day I worked hard and well, and soon all the preparations were finished. There was less than a week until the great event started.

* * *

The Xolan coronations were always considered the grandest and the best out of all Artecreage. There were five feasts, each with over a hundred courses, spread out over as many days. Once the final feast ended there was a great party for all the guests. The only person who was not to attend these celebrations was the Imperial Crown Prince himself.
He was not to take part in any celebrations, instead he was to spend the week preparing for the coronation in every way possible. He was only to start becoming a part of things once the feasts were over.
The coronation was the next part. The Prince was to be clothed in Xolan Royal Dress and would be paraded down the main street of the Capital City with a large procession of people behind him, both officials and family. Once he entered the hall there would be fanfare, he would be seated on the Coronation Throne and given each of the Crown Jewels before the final piece, the Crown would be placed on his head and he would become Emperor.
Once this was over, there would be a final feast in which the less personal coronation gifts were given and the foreign dignitaries were all to greet the new Emperor. The more personal gifts were given whenever foreign dignitaries achieved an audience with the Emperor during the week. This was a much rarer occurrence.
As a slave, I was not to attend any celebrations. I was to serve food and drink at the feasts and help to clean once they were over. At the end of the third feast Raxikolys summoned me.
He was reclining on a plush purple sofa with his favourite slave girl, the one named Leiye. She was combing his hair with a pearl comb and running her fingers through it. “Leiye tells me you would make an excellent personal slave. As she herself is an excellent slave girl I rather agree with her judgement. I believe last year I considered you for my cortege, am I correct?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
“No, I am to be Emperor. The appropriate term is therefore “Your Majesty”. You shall apologise, I take it?”
“Yes, of course, your High...your Majesty. My most sincere apologies in regards to your title.”
Raxikolys nodded. “I shall not need you much, so you shall return to your usual slave duties as instructed by your slavekeeper. When I do need you, however, I shall call you. Perhaps a slave girl shall come for you. Now, leave, I am rather occupied at this moment.”
“Thank you, your Majesty.”
I bowed and let him be. Chike found me immediately and handed me some cleaning supplies. “Jex, get back to work. The Coronation is to be the greatest event in all of Artecreage at the moment, and every detail needs to be perfect.”
Personally I didn’t really want to have to clean anymore but Chike was insistent. He knew that Raxikolys was not patient and disliked anything remotely below his standards, and these standards were very, very high.
I was tired from spending the day attending to dignitaries and foreign royals. There were so many, and I barely knew the names of any, though I had been trained for several weeks on the names of each and every royal. I was nervous when I spoke to them. Each country had different customs regarding how to treat their royalty, and I found it hard to remember when to bow or kneel and the appropriate way to address them.
Somehow I managed to drag myself to the Coronation Hall and began to clean the place again. A slave girl approached me.
“Jex, is it?” she asked.
I was not normally permitted to speak with other slaves whilst I was working, but I turned to her anyway. “Yes.”
“Excellent. His Majesty was somewhat pleased by your acceptance of the role. He has therefore decided that you may be given the rest of the Coronation Week off from any work. Your slavekeeper shall be informed, of course, and you shall spend the rest of the week attending to his Majesty.”
“Of course. Should I prepare in any way?”
“No,” the slave girl answered. She looked at my straggly blonde hair extending down to just under my chin. “Perhaps you should cut and comb your hair. Your assistance will not be required until tomorrow at the High Sun. His Majesty is allowing you to return to your sleeping chamber until then. He would like you to rest until then. Another slave shall complete your work for you.”
I nodded and handed the cleaning supplies back to her. This was, well, there weren’t any words other than ‘pleasant’ or ‘exciting’ to describe the situation. Preparing for a Xolan coronation was always the hardest part of any slave’s life, and I was getting a free pass out of it.
Chike did not speak to me when I returned to the slave chambers. He simply gave me a nod and let me go. I wondered momentarily whether or not he would still be my slavekeeper after today or if I would be handed to another, more superior, and possibly crueler, slavekeeper.

* * *

The next day came fast. I barely had time to dress myself before a slave girl appeared to take me away.
“Hello,” she said to me, in much more civil a way than I would have expected. “His Majesty would like you washed up before you begin your new duties.” She took me by the arm and led me away with her. “My name is Hessa. I shall come to fetch you each High Sun or whenever you are required.”
“I see…”
I supposed I was glad it was slave girl that had been sent to fetch me. Recently, the slave girls were being treated to much better living conditions than the other slaves, which kept them in a much better temper.
Hessa led me to the room I had come to recognize as the place where slaves were prepared for their duties. Another slave girl came over and cut and washed my hair for me. 
She smiled. “His Majesty prefers clean slaves.”
“I would assume so,” I answered, recalling the many, many times I had been chastised by the Prince in the past for not being a clean slave. “His Majesty has high standards. Are you sure I am capable of meeting them?”
“Of course you are capable, Jex. His Majesty would not have chosen you if you were not.” She finished her work and gave me another smile. “There. His Majesty should be pleased by this haircut. It shall probably dry soon enough, thanks to this heat. You may go and speak with his Majesty in a few minutes. He is very strict on rules of etiquette, however, so I have supplied a slave girl to teach you how to behave. Simply as a precaution.”
And so I continued to be herded around the room until I was stopped in front of another slave girl. She looked much more stern than the others and looked me over. “You look clean enough. His Majesty should approve. Now then, in accordance with the rules of etiquette you are not to look him in the eyes, or at all in the face unless he allows it. You will stay kneeling and only speak if requested to or spoken to first. Understood?”
I nodded.
“Good. You may go now.”
I was sent away to the future Emperor’s chambers for what must have been the millionth time in the past year. It looked the same as it always had, with its dark marble walls and crystal windows.
“Ah, new slave. Excellent. Come here.” I turned in the direction of this voice. It came from the Prince’s dressing room. I walked in nervously and kneeled.
“You know, I haven’t had a new slave in a while. I might have forgotten how to treat them...kindly. Look at me, slave!” He took hold of my chin roughly and raised my head to look at him.
He was trying so hard to speak in the voice of an adult and yet his face was still only that of a fifteen year old boy with such little experience in the eyes it was a wonder he was at all capable of controlling an empire himself.
A look of disapproval appeared on his face and then switched to a smirk as he let go and walked back to the slave girls who were dressing him. “Do you know what my dear friend the Erian Emperor gave me for a coronation gift?”
I shook my head. “No, your Majesty.” I was not sure I wanted to know. The Erian Emperor, Risel I, was known to be the best friend of our Imperial Crown Prince Raxikolys. I had had many nightmares thanks to his numerous visits to Xola, and there had been times when I was almost required to attend to Prince Raxikolys on his own trips to Eria.
Raxikolys called a slave boy over and ordered him to fetch the gift. Upon the boy’s return he uncased it and handed the receptacle back to him. “This,” he said, holding it up, “is an Erian whip. But this is a whip of a rather special kind. It has thirty three tails, each with eleven knots, and it has silver, platinum and diamond inlaid in the knots. There is only one in all Artecreage and it is this one you see before you.”
I stared at the whip. It was, perhaps, the most frightening weapon I had ever seen. I did not wish to ever cross anyone wielding a whip like that, not even to simply disagree on their choice of clothing.
The Prince must have seen the look of utter alarm on my face because he laughed. “You would not want to get hit by this whip, so behave yourself.” He turned back to the slave girls again. “I am dressed well enough. Make me comfortable.”
She smiled and came up close to him, running pale hands down his chest. He relaxed a little and closed his eyes momentarily. “Such good slave girls…slave, are you aware of how many I have?”
“No, your Majesty.”
“Almost a hundred now. They are so useful.”
“I am sure, your Majesty.”
“You will clean my chambers and later attend to me in the garden. That will be all for now.”
So I did. I cleaned the rooms and after I went to the garden where the Prince had me kneel beside him and hold up a platter of delicious foods for him to eat whilst he lay back on a sofa in his typical fashion with one or two of the slave girls resting on his lap.
And so began my new life as a personal slave to the Emperor of Xola. He was crueler to me than he used to be. Perhaps his new position as Emperor had affected him enough that he believed he was permitted to be even crueler to me. Though, in reality, the amount of power he now had over the slaves was little more than he used to. The Imperial Crown Prince of Xola was the second most powerful person in the Empire, surpassing even the Empress.
The Xolan Empress, Sase IV, had been a rather cold woman to most of us, although she had had some kindness. This kindness had mostly been directed towards her only son, and then mostly because of the death of her first child. This had left her ridden with guilt and she had shut herself away from the world for several years. It was only at the birth of the second Prince two years later that she opened herself to the public eye once more and then it was only for a short while before she retreated to take quiet care of her son for the three years before her daughter was born.
Sase was not so concerned by the welfare of Princess Cherina, in fact, it was obviously she cared for her less than she cared for Raxikolys, although this was justified by the fact that the entire fate of our Empire rested on his young shoulders. It was an unfortunate occasion when she was killed.
On the 1073rd Splitting Day, Prince Raxikolys’ 15th birthday, and there were many celebrations in the cities. The main celebrations, of course, went on in the capital, Rixen, where there were a great many feasts and dances. These were to celebrate the passing of Summer into Winter, but also the birthday of the Empire’s Imperial Crown Prince and were therefore much larger than usual.
It was during a procession that it happened. A Caradalian assassin, whose name is still unknown to the state, even after he was caught and killed, had shot her with a revolutionary new weapon that his country had created. They called it a ‘Fire Striker’. No one was particularly sure how it worked, but since Caradalia was the centre of military strategy in the whole of Artecreage no one really questioned it.
The assassin had been hidden in the crowds, unnoticeable due to the large number of people filling the streets. The Empress had been wearing her finest red gown, silk, and the colour of blood although still the most beautiful dress I had seen her wear yet. She often wore such gorgeous dresses but this was certainly the best of them all. I remember the day the designer had brought it for her. She’d needed a new gown for one of the annual balls held in our neighboring country of Raemi. They had brought her several designs but the one she had preferred had been designed by Rykol, one of the greatest designers here, and her personal favourite.
She had loved the gown so much that she had not worn it for the ball but waited for the birthday of her darling son to show off her new gown. The only irony was that she wore that gown as she was shot and that the blood from her wounds flowed down and mixed into the red silk of the dress.
The people of Xola did as custom dictated and began to mourn her passing for the remainder of the year, until Summer came again. It had been a sad day, and it would always remain as such.
They had not been aiming for the Empress, but for the Prince. Every assassin in Artecreage would have aimed for Raxikolys, as the most important person in all Artecreage at the moment, but his mother protected him with even her last breath. And so he remained unscathed and she dead.
That had been a sad day for all of Xola. We had not expected our Empress to die so young, for she was young, only about to turn thirty five. She had been married to the Emperor Keysil I at the age of twelve, and he was only perhaps eighteen, a marriage arranged by their parents. It had been a relatively happier marriage than most political marriages were, but many had disliked the new Empress. And so each day my fear that they would dislike their new Emperor grew stronger.