1 II

That morning, which was going to be decisive for better or for worse in the future sequence of events of Roland the Good children's lives, the royal wizard had been nervous and antsy. He felt he had something to do, he didn't know exactly what: a half-formed thought, a deed yet to accomplish… there was something rolling around in the back of his mind and the nervous energy it created hadn't let him rest for days. His natural instinct for evil was nudging at him like a thorn on his side and finally Flagg thought he understood what it was trying to tell him when he witnessed for the umpteenth time the favouritism the king displayed for his son.

One of the happiest day in the life of the unhappy princess had been when her father taught her to use the bow and to shoot arrows. One day, her bored old father had took her to the shooting range, put in her hand a bow and taught her how to pull the bow-string, to aim and hit the target. They spent the whole day in something the king excelled, perhaps the only thing, and that his daughter who hated to study and to exercise any sport, has discovered came to her naturally, as breathing. Nobody told the king that arching wasn't an activity fitting for a girl since the bow was a weapon. Just as nobody said it to the princess and therefore she had kept on training in only thing she discovered she did better than Peter.

That ill-fated week, her brother had been out hunting with their father and he had managed to kill with a lucky shot a big stag. His proud father had described the episode loudly during dinner and the following day at breakfast and then at lunch causing to turn red in embarrassment his son and green with envy his daughter who would never have the opportunity to show she was a better aim because, as a girl, she was forbidden from taking part in the hunts.

Tamara got up from the table mid-lunch but her father, busy praising his son, didn't even notice it. Flagg instead did, as he did noticed the expression of disgust and suppressed rage on the princess' face and his natural instinct for evil, that had bothered him for a while, jabbed at him furiously.

That same evening, when the princess failed to show herself at the dinner table, he went to her, finding the girl laying in her bed, still dressed and staring at the ceiling blankly, her complexion pale and the red eyes of someone who had cried bitter and desperate tears.

The sorcerer sat at her side and for the first time he realized how casually the princess treated him. No young lady, and at twelve the princess was nearly a teenager, should let a man not her relative be alone with her in her bedroom, sit on her bed and be so near as to touch her. Tamara instead was not only not alarmed by it, but treated the matter as it was ordinary, as if the impropriety of their behaviour never came to her mind.

- How are you, Tamara? You didn't come to dinner. Are you not hungry?

- No, I'm not. To be truthful I have a slight stomach-ache.

The little girl rolled on her side to face the sorcerer, folding herself around his bent knee like an affection-seeking kitten wanting to be petted by its owner.

Flagg placed his palm on her brow, as if to check her temperature.

- It doesn't seem like you're running a fever. But I could give you a potion to settle your upset stomach, if you want.

She shook her head, pressing her brow against the sorcerer's knee.

- Do you know what I think? I think you don't need a potion but something to cheer you up. Would you like it Tammy? Would you like to see something extraordinary? I could show you something I'm the only one to know, share it with you. It will be our secret, only ours. What do you say?

Tamara sat up, showing her interest.

- What kind of secret?

- One about your father. Well?

At the word "father" her eyes shone and she nodded enthusiastically her agreement.

- Yes, I want to see it.

- Then come with me.

He lead her outside her room and down the stairs used by the servants, through corridors the princess rarely used and came to a stop at a corridor that looked like all the others but that was special.

- Do you know where we are, Tamara?

- I think so: we passed the laundry-room, right?

He nodded under his hood.

- Would you be able to find your way back here?

- Of course.

She exclaimed.

- Good. Now watch closely and take a great care never to be seen by anybody. Is it clear? Nobody!

She nodded dutifully.

- Fourth stone from the bottom after the chipped one. Quickly: press it!

The princess did as she was told and watched open-mouthed the wall opening up like a door. Flagg pushed her inside impatiently, closing the passage behind his back and making everything go dark. Tamara, mindful of another episode that had seen as main characters the sorcerer and the tower bats, huddle up, covering her hair with her arms and choking back a scream. The sorcerer sneered quietly, lit up a blue flame with his index finger and then whispered to her.

- Don't worry, there are no ugly pests here. We are the only living beings in this passage, I assure you there are not even spiders.

The princess looked around and saw with her own eyes the lack of bats. They were inside a narrow room, covered in wood panels and she could hear her father dogs barking somewhere under them. The sorcerer pushed his hood back to show his brow and his black eyes shone red in the light of his summoned flame. His pallid face was nearly demoniac and everybody else would for sure had run for their life at that sight, food for future nightmares. But not Tamara. She had grown used to Flagg's look, in fact he had accustomed her to him gradually for years until his unnatural presence resulted natural for her. Even if something in the back of her mind was withdrawing in horror, she felt at ease with him, like someone who had become friendly with the monster under their bed. The sorcerer snuffed the light out, sinking them back into the darkness and then, placing his hand between her shoulder blades, he nudged her forward to the end of the secret room where suddenly two points of light appeared. The princess got on her toes to look through them and was amazed by what she saw. Looking through the peepholes she could see her father warming his old bones in front of the fire. He was in his private sitting room, where he kept the stuff heads of his hunting trophies. A delighted smile blossomed on the princess' face. Spying is a very bad thing, but if one of you ever did it, you will recognize the pleasure Tamara felt in staying near her beloved father without incurring in the risk of being rejected and berated for it.

Flagg encircled her waist with his arm, holding her up propped against his chest as she spied the king. He bent his head to whisper in her hear, tickling her cheek with his breath.

- You have to be very careful when you come here. Spying is bad manner but spying a king is a capital crime. You'll have to always, always check nobody is nearby before using the secret passage. If you have a light remember to put it out before opening the peepholes: your father may be half blind but he could become suspicious seeing a light coming from behind the wall. And last but not least, should you be discovered…

The sorcerer hold on her tightly, so much it hurt.

- … you will say you find about this passage by chance and by your own. If you say my name you'll regret it. Is it clear?

- Y-yes!

She choked out, breathless.

- Good.

He relaxed his grip, letting Tamara put back her feet on the ground and then he closed the peepholes. However he didn't pull away from her and for a moment he stood perfectly still as that nervous energy suddenly took hold of him, driving him to do something that surprised even him and that he would later never be able to explain to himself fully.

He turned the princess around, gripping her by her shoulders and pushing her against the wood wall. In the darkness he bent down and kissed her on the lips. It wasn't a lustful kiss, far from it. He just pressed his own thin lips against hers. He could have done much more, because she let out a surprised gasp, opening her mouth to him, but he didn't. He just pressed his lips to hers and his body to the body of the girl, crushing her against the wall for the duration of four breaths. It is impossible to describe how Tamara felt for those four breaths. The wood panel scratching her back, the wizard's hands gripping her shoulders like talons, his hard and unnaturally hot body, his thin lips pressed against her own, his nose brushing her cheek and the chemical and spicy smell that she would for the rest of her life connect to kisses, Flagg and small dark places.

He retired slowly, keeping her at arm's length and inspecting her expression to infer her reaction to his action. Tamara couldn't see him in the dark but he could see her: her eyes were lidded, her head tilted back and her breath laboured. Her knees were weak and she would have crumpled if it wasn't for him keeping her upright. She looked like a seduced girl kissed by her lover and awaiting a second kiss. He let go of her shoulders gingerly when he felt sure she would not keel over and gently lead her to the secret passage door, guiding her hand to the opening mechanism. Then he took her back to her bedroom, supporting her as she leant on him. They didn't exchange a word.

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Flagg was once again sitting on his armchair, in his dungeon, and was trying to analyse what had just transpired. He was staring ahead, chin rested over his joined hands, perfectly still.

He couldn't understand why he had assaulted the princess. He immediately discarded a possible sexual attraction: the girl's undeveloped body bore no appeal to him. Flagg wasn't the kind of man who indulges in the pleasures of the flesh. His passions took him to other, darker places. He did know the depravities laying in that way: a long, long time ago he had been on the employment of a warlord. The man had had a crowd of wives and an army of concubines and he derived a sick pleasure in giving to Flagg, who at that time had had a different name, the ones he got bored or dissatisfied with. The wizard had catered to his king's whims abusing and damaging those women so much that they would ask for a merciful death rather than be gifted to him.

It wasn't either the flattery of the besotted look she sent his way: such a feeling annoyed him greatly. When he had been young and his years counted less than a century, he had been the object of a little serving wrench's stupid infatuation. He didn't remembered her name, nor her face but her terrified eyes as he choked her life out of her were still in his memory. It hadn't been his first murder, but the one that had given him the most satisfaction at that time. The only moment of pleasure she gave him had been as he snuffed out her young life.

Perhaps with Tamara it had been a power trip: he had pushed his authority over her to its limits and the princess, instead of rebel and run, become soft and pliable under him. She hadn't been afraid but nearly exited by a contact that should have filled her with dread. She was really his, totally controlled by him: he could have had her on that floor if he so desired and it had been clear to both of them. She had, figuratively speaking, give up the fight, rolled on her back showing her belly and yielded to his will.

§§§

A couple of years passed since that kiss and they had never spoken about it. Tamara, at first, had awaited with a mixture of fear and hope for him to approach her again but nothing happened. Sometimes his eyes would linger on her lips and now he touched her more easily, placing a hand on her shoulder or caressing her head or, rarely and only when they were alone, wrapping an arm around her waist but without ever pressing her to himself. His behaviour had been the one of a friend, sometime an affectionate friend, but he never showed any peculiar interest in her and the princess would start to think she fainted in that passage dreaming everything up. But then he would look at her intensely, brushing her shoulder or hair, and her heart would beat madly in her chest and he would shoot her a look and she knew he was thinking about the kiss.

I said Flagg's behaviour was overly friendly only when they were alone and nobody could see them but somebody saw them: Peter. The young prince, a grown boy by then, had always found suspicious his father's sorcerer and therefore he tried to always being informed of his whereabouts. That day however he was looking for his sister and finding her in the company of such a dark person filled him with alarm.

The castle gardens were huge, the wives of the Delain kings had found in it an outlet for the boredom their role as the ruling kings' wives relegate them. They had increased continually the gardens until they become a real park. Each of them had added something following their personal taste or the fashion of the year therefore the gardens had well trimmed hedges and linear flowerbeds, little woods with secluded fountains to delight the guests with water plays, stone gardens and even a maze. One of those queens had planted her own little horror garden with poisonous plants that she dried and dusted to administer to her rivals and lovers. She had lived between Flagg's previous visit to Delain and the current one and so he had not meet her but he had appreciated very much that little corner of hell and brought it back to life with loving care after years of neglect. He was there with Tamara that day, when Peter saw them together.

The prince wanted to speak with his sister about the oncoming birthday of their father and the gift they could get him together and a guard told him she had been seen in the gardens, going in the fountains' garden direction. He looked for her there, without finding her, and so he started to walk about aimlessly, by chance seeing his sister in the sorcerer's company taking a stroll in the stone garden. They then headed to an abandoned part of the park and the prince managed to follow them unseen because of the wood wildness. He pursued them to a meadow he had never before being to and that had many flowerbeds filled with plants unknown to Peter. What struck him unfavourably was the unusual behaviour of the sorcerer: Flagg had threw back a little the hood he always kept low on his face, was gesticulating lively as he talked and was smiling to his attentive watcher. Tamara was looking up to him with open admiration and followed his every gesture and when he put his arm around her shoulders she clung to his cloak in some kind of hug. Then they bent on a flower.

Peter was observing them from behind: his sister kneeling on the ground and the sorcerer at her side, his arm on her back as he caressed her hair and then her shoulder nearly absent-mindedly while he explained her who-knows-what. Their bodies were so close that their sides were pressed against each other. Peter had a surge of repugnance in the face of such familiarity. How could his sister bear to have that man so near? His hands on her? The sorcerer bent his face to whisper in her ear and Peter had the crazy presentiment he would kiss her but he didn't. The couple got up and moved to another plant, resuming their conversation. The act repeated itself more than once before they left the garden, walking side by side so close they kept bumping into each other, the wizard's hand between the princess shoulders to guide her on the way home. Peter stayed still, letting a lot of time pass before following them and he used that time to think. He never realized how much time his sister were spending with Flagg: when they were in the same room they barely exchanged words, usually about the girl's studies. What made the boy sick in the stomach had been the easy manner the sorcerer treated the princess, the intimacy surrounding them: Peter had reached an age when he was starting to look with interest to the members of the opposite sex and had recognized their behaviour as similar to the one of a couple involved in a courtship. It filled him with disgust, not only because she was his little sister but because he was Flagg and that strange creature one could barely call a human being could not be interested in that way in her, he mustn't. It was more than a matter of age difference, the sorcerer had served his grandmother. More than a matter of impropriety, their social standings were incompatible. It was above all an instinctive horror that sized him: like watching a wolf being nice with a shy lamb as it waited for the right moment to strike and devour it. It was unnatural.

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