Chapter 5

After the rain stopped, Katherine the Great crawled out of the log and decided to review her choices. Being just outside Quamth, she could stay there for the remainder of the wet season. She could also try to travel during that time and reach Homet before the judge there reached a verdict and sent the stranger into exile somewhere unreachable. Another choice would be to get back to Cosynth and find Alexander, but the only cheap way to get there, for she had run out of money, was through the Starsha forest, and those mountains were hell in the wet season. A very cold, wet, messy hell, she laughed to herself. She had to find a guide for that but she knew where she could and Katherine realized that she really needed to find Alexander. It might be nice to spend more time with another female, she thought, and so she gathered her mare and headed for the caves where the Dryads lived.
Back at Cosynth, Poe was questioning Alexander who had been brought in very late the night before.
“Where is she, and what news have you brought me from Quamth, boy?” he asked.
“As far as I know, sir, she’s still at Quamth, sir, and there is no new news from there. Everything is peaceful, sir, but I’d like to think that she took shelter somewhere in Starsha, sir.”
“Quiet boy! How dare you tell me what you think! I am the one to think around here, not you!” Poe roared at Alexander while passing a barely perceptible wink. It was all for appearances of course. Poe loved Alexander like a son and never really got mad at him. Katherine’s name was never spoken between them, it was the rule between those who knew that it would not be said so she would never be found out.
It was very odd how Katherine came to power. She entered the kingdom at Graplet Falls where there was known to be a portal and so it was guarded with King’s men. She was found and taken to Cosynth to see and be seen by King Paul and to receive his ruling. All strangers who could not say where they were from were to be taken to Homet as standard procedure, so that was all Kind Paul could tell her. If the monks there thought one was simply insane then they could be banished to a mine, but if one was sane then that person would be sent to exile on some remote part of the Isle. After some time they ruled her sane and exiled her to a point northeast of Plagrath. At the time, Plagrath was only a small fishing village, with no idea that they would become the center for evil on the Ruby Isle. If they had known, things might have been much different. Before departing to “Katherine’s Hovel”, she came upon a white mare in the stables at Homet. Nobody knew how it got there or why it was needed since the Isle of Jobe was so small, and so they let her have it.
While riding the distance to her new home, Katherine was intercepted by the royal caravan carrying the king to see the newly discovered mines in the mountains of Meno. She slipped into the camp that night and asked to see the king. There was some trouble getting that request fulfilled, but eventually she got in. She had only been in the kingdom for a short while but she had learned from the monks on Homet that the king was not in good health and had been squandering his fortune on passerby’s who had said something profound. Before she went in to his tent, she was approached by the man who was to become her regent, Poe. It was the first time she had seen him, but not the last. He whispered the words in her ear:
“Do not be jealous of what you do not have, rather be jealous of what you had but lost and can not gain back.” Then he disappeared.
Katherine entered the pavilion to the sound of her name being dreadfully mispronounced. “Tha Lahdee Cat-her-nah, yah han-ass,” said the trumpeter. She walked in and sat down on the ground in front of King Paul, a gesture of submission.
“Your Highness,” started Katherine.
“Um, yes dear, do tell me a bit about yourself, perhaps a small story to humor an old man,” the King said slowly and with a smile.
Katherine was not phased. She nodded and began a tale that she had not remembered for a while, but would remember for that moment. She didn’t even know what she really was doing there, but she figured she ought to give him something.

The Puppy
When I was a young girl, I was given a book to draw in and color the pictures of. Things like that are common where I come from, though I know that they aren’t where you come from. I loved to color in the black and white outlines, the simple drawings I liked to color the best. I had colored most of the pictures when I came across one that I hadn’t seen before, the picture of a puppy. To my young eyes, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I agonized for days and days over whether or not to color it and run the risk of ruining it, but more eventful was the question of what to name it. I was in love with that puppy, its innocent face, always and forever the same. I thought of names like Edgar, Otie, Ben, Daniel, Allan, even Rainbow, never doubting that it could be female, but nothing, in my mind, could come to describing my heavenly beast. I decided that if it was possible, coloring my puppy might actually make it even lovelier. And being so perfect, it could not hurt it. So I picked out the most perfectly beautiful brown color, and I set about to rubbing the color between the lines. Being the child that I was, the color job did not turn out as I had imagined. Needless to say, it was smeared and messy, and I was almost in tears to see what a mess I had made of my puppy. I ran to my mother, who simply took the picture and said, “Perfect things never last unless in the hands of god.” I suppose it helped, but I still couldn’t look at the puppy, at what I had done. I loved it still, but because I loved it, I could not bear to keep it. My mother might still have it, but I haven’t seen it since that fateful day. I still think about it sometimes. That’s about all.

Once finished, she sat back. The old King nodded and asked her where she was headed and why; she told him the story of all that also. He agreed that she had looked familiar.
When she left late that night, she was ten times richer. The old king had put into writing her assassin to the throne once he was gone. He told her his story, how he was looking for someone like her, full of wisdom and a history but how he wanted to give the other people something too. That’s why he was giving his money away. He praised her story this way and then her courage, but how he got that from the story she didn’t know. He told her the history of the land, so she would not be unprepared when she acceded the throne. She would never sit on the throne though, and he stressed this to her. She would have to pick a figure-head, perhaps someone she had seen or met that night. She told him of what Poe had said, but didn’t know his name, and the King called him in. They agreed that he was trustworthy and could be the regent. She left the next morning after promising not to abuse her privilege and to stay in exile until he died. It was the last time she saw the nice King Paul.
* * * * * * *
Back at home, the great Katherine welcomed her brother. He was on crutches, but was as bright and cheery as ever, and she loved him all the more for it. That in itself cheered her up. She wouldn’t see Socratina ‘till Monday, and that was good. She wasn’t sure that she could handle any more of talking to people and being social. She didn’t know what to make of the way she had gone off angry. Like she said before, it was a weekend and she shouldn’t have to worry.
To be continued....
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