Last King of Kings

Chapter 44: The boundary between life and death

Once Rostam left, Yazdegerd was, once again, left alone. He got used to being alone already. He stayed for a while, trying to reorganize his mind. Lately, his mind often wandered off into the not fully explored boundaries of his mind. While he wanted to concentrate on the religious issue at hand till it's full solution, he often caught himself thinking about irrelevant things. Lately, he's been thinking about his soon-to-be Shahanshahbanu, the Byzantine princess Roxane. He never saw her, yet his brain imagined her rough appearance based on the description King Jabalah gave him. And he was thinking about her. Perhaps he was interested? Perhaps he just was intrigued by how she'll look like? Or if they'll actually see each other eye to eye. He wasn't sure why exactly he sometimes thought about her. Not like it mattered to him, not at the moment at least. In the future - perhaps.

He decided to go for a walk in order to clear his head. Although he couldn't go farther than the palace court without a proper guard, it didn't bother him. Palace courtyard was comparable to a market. There were a lot of people, both poor and rich and as long as you had a good enough reason, status or money, you would be probably let in. Probably. And so, Yazdegerd went on a stroll around the palace, it's gardens and courtyard. He put on his formal crown, that wasn't as heavy and uncomfortable as the ceremonial one, basically a lite version of it, and left the room. He walked down the corridor, before finally arriving into a big hall that was meant for ceremonies and other social events. From there, it was only a short corridor further. Then he walked to a big door, which guards standing on duty opened for him while greeting him with the formal "My Shahanshah, may he be immortal." Yazdegerd just smiled and went through the door, only to hear them slowly closing behind him. Security was tight in the palace, surely thanks to Jalinus, as Yazdegerd could see a lot of soldiers in the courtyard. But apart from the soldiers, a lot of court members or servants also had their business in the court. It was a long time since Yazdegerd visited any place where larger number of people gathered. As soon as he came close to anyone, close enough for them to recognize who they're dealing with, he was met with the usual "My Shahanshah, may he be immortal." It's not like he wanted to talk with anyone, so often just smiled and waved them off, but since he was without any military escort, people assumed they were free to talk to him, and immediately used it. Most of them were of lesser nobility or richer merchants, so they wanted to take and hold any opportunity they would get at social promotion. And although Yazdegerd's engagement with Byzantine princess was made official, people like these were still offering him their daughters, nieces, sisters, granddaughters and god knows who else to take as a concubine. While having multiple wives or concubines wasn't abnormal at the time, especially not for those of higher standing, but Yazdegerd wasn't sure what to make of it. He wasn't even married yet, but he was already being offered countless of girls as a concubines or other wives. He already talked about this with Farrukhzad and Rostam. Neither of them had concubines or other wives, but that was apparently mainly due to their social status. What Yazdegerd thought of that was that their level of nobility wasn't high enough for people to be so desperate to offer their family members as concubines, but if they were of higher standing, they'd gladly accept. In this matter, he agreed with Jalinus more. Jalinus, being Christian, was against polygamy and himself wanted to have a monogamic relationship. But then again, Yazdegerd simply lacked any experience to actually decide. Maybe once he'll actually be with a woman, perhaps than he'll be able to decide.

He never knew what to think of the people offering him their daughters, sisters and such as concubines. He wasn't so na?ve as to think they liked him as a ruler and were showing their appreciation this way. It was clear they did it only for political purposes. But perhaps they, at least some of them, tried it as a way to secure the girls a better life. Perhaps. Nothing was black and white, but Yazdegerd thought that the world would be much easier to comprehend if it was. But if the world was black and white, what would happen to the other colours? Suddenly, the idea of a world, where good and evil is easily distinguishable seemed so scary.

He left the courtyard after a while of unwillingly chatting with the courtiers. He headed towards the palace gardens, large, even enormous complex of greenery used by everyone in the palace that had the permission. Those people included him, Rostam, Farrukhzad, Jalinus, Bahman, Andarzaghr, and, lately, Bashir with the boy. One would think if so many people were using it, it had to be noisy. But that is far from truth. Firstly, they would have all go into the gardens to leisure at the same time, which was highly unlikely. And even if, the gardens were so big they wouldn't even notice anyone was there with them. Yes, they wouldn't. Yazdegerd entered the gardens, quietly, as if trying to stalk someone. He headed towards the centre, where he had a favourite place he visited when feeling like taking a breather. He went further and further in, heading towards that favourite place of his. Then, suddenly, from behind a tree, he noticed a person. Fully covered in black, the person was standing there with his back to Yazdegerd, doing something with his hands. Yazdegerd got scared. He didn't recognize the person, and he didn't think that would change were the person to turn around. Yazdegerd was also sceptic about the idea that the person could be a servant, since no servant in the palace he knew of wore such black clothing, neither should any servant have a quiver attached to his back. No, that wasn't anyone from the palace, nor was that anyone Yazdegerd should be staying close to. Since the palace was unsupervised for a long time before Yazdegerd "returned," the gardens weren't taken care of also for a long time. And they didn't have enough time to cut everything down, so the centre was still a bit overgrown. That was why Yazdegerd liked it, due to it's inaccessibility. But it looked like someone else shared his tastes. Yazdegerd decided to back off and report the person to Jalinus. But once he took a step back, the person turned around, looking right on Yazdegerd. That revealed the arrow he had in his hand, covering it with some fluid. Presumably poison. The other arrows were almost certainly covered in the same fluid, and so was the dagger at his belt. Yazdegerd became visibly scared and began to run away. At the same time, the person pulled out a bow, put the arrow in the chord, pulled back, and fired. He missed, thank god. Yazdegerd perfectly understood the situation, but it still felt surreal. That man was almost certainly sent to kill him. But how did he recognize him? The answer soon struck Yazdegerd. Right now, he really regretted wearing that formal crown. As he was running, the person fired another arrow, missing again. Possibly thinking this is his great chance, he started chasing Yazdegerd across the garden. He clearly knew it here, since he was following Yazdegerd with ease, even closing the distance with him. Yazdegerd didn't know what to do, and, maybe due to the direness of the situation, only one thing he could do came to his mind. Scream for help.

"HELP! ASSASSIN! YOUR SHAHANSHAH IS BEING ASSAULTED! IT'S AN ASSASSIN!"

Although he had a sabre with him, Yazdegerd was never taught in any advanced swordsmanship, and he wasn't confident he could take a professionally trained assassin. And so he ran and ran, sometimes an arrow flew dangerously close by him. But eventually, still running and screaming his lungs out, he reached the entrance into the palace complex. But no one was waiting for him. Did no one hear his screams? The assassin was quickly closing the distance. Yazdegerd entered the complex and the assassin followed him. That was his mistake. Well, perhaps his mistake was trying to murder Yazdegerd in the first place. As he followed Yazdegerd into the palace, he ran inside the corridor where his body met the spears of the darigan. He basically ran right into the spear wall, which he didn't see from behind the door of course. The velocity of his run made it so he impaled himself on the spears of Shahanshah's bodyguard. Yazdegerd lied further away on the floor with Jalinus kneeling beside him. He heard his voice, apparently, and prepared this trap of sorts, so the murderer would be caught quickly.

"My Shahanshah, may he be immortal, are you alright?"

Jalinus showed clear signs of worry, but Yazdegerd was too shocked to even answer. He still couldn't process it. This was the first time anyone ever tried to assassinate him. And that was a lot to swallow. And while Yazdegerd had his own worries and his own trauma to deal with, Jalinus couldn't help but think. How did the assassin get here, into the palace? They should investigate the gardens. Perhaps he was hiding there for a long time? Since the gardens were not taken care of, the centre was an overgrown mess. It wouldn't be strange if anyone managed to hide there, even for a month. He wasn't sure, but of one thing he was sure. That he failed as a hazarbed.