byEvery night Khalil played the lute for his king, and feared what the growing gray void behind the king’s wet eyes meant. When the chamber guard in their useless red finery appeared at his door, Khalil knew the king had finally slipped into that deep slumber that came with such an illness.
The grim-faced men forced Khalil to hold out his hands so they could bind them with rough ropes, and they laughed when he winced as they pulled the knots so tight, he no longer felt his fingers.
They kicked him down the long stone walls, past the portraits of the king’s unamused ancestors in their furs, or fine gowns, or riding down foxes with their baying hounds.
“You filthy creature,” the chamber guard men spat as they dragged Khalil down the dark, dank passages where the shadows shrank back from t
