by Eric Ugland
“You okay?” I asked.
“Your release was off,” she replied. “Again. Third square to the left.”
I went through the whole rigamarole, aim, breath, check feet, check grip—
Get hit in the face.
“Faster,” she said.
I clenched my teeth, but did it all faster. Aim, release.
The arrow hit the target, just not the square she’d wanted.
Whack. She hit me.
It continued in that manner, every time I did something she didn’t like, there’d be some sort of physical retaliation, and she wasn’t pulling her hits. My only thought was that, perhaps, she had heard about my regenerative abilities and somehow came to the conclusion I didn’t feel pain either. But that wasn’t true. It hurt. It started to really get to me, and I had to take big breaths so I didn’t whack her back.
Just when I was about to snap, I shot three arrows in the exact spot Saivoer had ordered. Either that satisfied her, or she’d finally worked out her anger, and she stood up.
“We are done, your grace,” she said, and walked off without a second look back at me.
I watched her walk away, and I unstrung my bow almost mechanically. For the most part, I’d enjoyed learning to shoot with her, up until our last bit of practice. I didn’t really mind that she had a brusque straightforward personality. In some ways, it was refreshing. But this new Saivoer was not pleasant. I shook my head, hoping she’d get her shit together, then I grabbed the strings and arrows, and cleaned up the archery range. Part of being the trainee, I figured. Plus, it was an almost relaxing moment of rote manual labor. By the end of it, when the range was back to new, I was tired, and smarting, and only had getting beaten up by Carpophorus to look forward to, which meant I needed to come up with a good way to get out of that particular party.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the learning aspect of training. The pain, not so much, but I suppose that was just the manner in which people in Vuldranni felt was best to teach. Or I’d had the shit luck of getting two sadists for teachers, and putting me in pain was the reason they’d agreed to teach me. Either way, pain. Yay.
I went to the cantina and grabbed a large piece of meat, taking it back outside and munching on it while I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, enjoying the sunshine. I overheard two voices, young women chatting together, laughing, and a little idea flitted into my, lesbihonest, meathead. There was a singular individual amongst all of those currently in Coggeshall to whom I could speak to and no one would dare interrupt me or try and beat me up. A certain young woman who was currently making small talk with one of her attendants.
I pushed off the wall, and I popped the last bite of meat into my mouth. I strolled across the grounds, and stepped into her path. She, and her attendant, came to a quick stop, and I saw a flash of anger zip across her face, because she immediately recognized me. I could sense an undercurrent of anxiety going on with her, but she was doing a particularly good job at hiding it.
The princess looked up at me, and then let her gaze travel all the way down to my mis-matched boots before coming back up to the tangled strawberry blonde hair hanging past my shoulders.
“Duke Coggeshall,” she said softly.
“Highness,” I replied.
“I have been meaning to speak with you,” she said, still softly. It was hard to hear her, and though I was super tempted to lean in, I kinda felt that a dude of my size doing that might be a little imposing.
“Might this be something we do, say, now?”
“I would like that, yes.”
“So this a we-should-talk-in-private thing?”
“Is there privacy in Coggeshall? We all seem to be living on top of each other, and I cannot imagine a time when I had true privacy in the capital.”
“Well, we’re different than the capital. Lack of indoor plumbing, for one.”
“There are not many sewers here, that is true,” she replied, just a hint of a smile around the corners of her mouth.
“I could kick Nikolai out of his office, or we could go to the Treasury. Or, you know, we could go stand on the wall. At least there we could see if anyone is eavesdropping. Your choice.”
She looked from the wall to the mountain and back.
“I was told you have your own quarters.”
“Yeah, they’re up there,” I said, pointing to the windows cut out of the rock well above us. “It’s just kinda cold with the wind and the snow and whatnot. And, you know, stairs.”
“Ah.”
There was something there, something she wanted to say but didn’t have the guts for. She wanted to talk to me in private, in my own quarters… Oh. It took a minute. I mean, I could have been adding a rather large amount of unsaid context, but it wasn’t far from the realm of possibility that she was engaged in some form of seduction.
‘How about the wall?” I said, starting to walk, figuring she’d continue along with me.
“Excellent,” she replied, sounding not at all happy with that suggestion.
We walked right by Carpophorus, who bowed reverently at the princess, and scowled at me while holding a large wooden sword. I gave him a big ol’ smile right back, as he cut through the air. Perhaps I hadn’t through through my attempt at skipping murder-Montana-time; my afternoon was going to hurt.
We climbed the stairs to the wall, and the guards gave us some space. I noticed the princess held back ever so much, looking out across the open field with more than a little fear. There wasn’t much to see: five hundred or so yards of dead grass and mud, with the occasional splotch of snow tucked into a shady spot. Beyond that, tall trees and dark forest. The weather was moving from mostly sun to mostly clouds, but the cold westerly winds seemed to be on a midday break.
“What’s up?” I asked, leaning against the wall.
“You are rather informal, Duke Coggeshall.”
“Yeah, it’s a problem, isn’t it? I just can’t seem to shake the habit.”
“I like it. Refreshing.”
“Only feels that way for a little while. You’ll get over me pretty quick.”
She raised an eyebrow and pursed her plump lips. The princess had a different way about her than anyone else I’d met in Vuldranni, and that moment, her skin was close to perfect, her hair was well done, her eyebrows would probably be considered on fleek. I didn’t see a single scar on her, anywhere. I wondered if her almost perfect appearance had something to do with a sheltered upbringing. If she looked so good because she’d never missed a meal, or fought a monster.
I think she was about to say something, but thought better of it. Instead she just looked out over the open area some more.
“Was there something specific you wanted?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Or more that there is something I wish to discuss with you.”
The guards seemed to realize why we were on the wall, and had chosen to take new positions a discrete distance from the two of us. No one else had approached closer to the wall, but I noticed Carpophorus was chatting with the young woman who’d been accompanying the princess. The young woman, for her part, was sneaking glances at us on the regular. Seemed like Carpophorus had picked up on the princess’s desire for privacy and was helping us out.
“Seems like we’ve got a moment to chat without anyone overhearing us,” I said.
“What do you know about why I am here?” She asked.
I glanced her way. She was staring right back at me. It was a pretty intense stare, her big blue eyes boring into me as if she was about to do some sort of magic. The act of being a young girl was gone; she was serious now.
“Beyond you being the potential heir to the throne?” I asked. “Very little. I heard you tried to give the throne up.”
“I did. It was not something I was keen on inheriting.”
“But now?”
“Now I see I made a rather large mistake.”
“You want to be Emperor?”
“I have no idea what the Empire needs,” she said finally. “Nor what the Emperor is able to do. It was a process hidden from me as I grew up. My father was as much a stranger to me as I am to you. I was not prepared for ruling — I was prepared for a political marriage.”
“One, I’m hearing a lot of excuses, princess. No one can possibly know what being the Emperor is truly like. There’s only one Emperor at a time, and unless you’re the Emperor, you just don’t know. And two, that’s not what I’ve heard about you and the Emperor.”
“You are new to the Empire,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “At least as far as I have heard. For that reason, I will forgive you for speaking so bluntly of topics you know little about.”
“Is the topic you?”
“Yes.”
“Princess, I know people. I’ve known a lot of people in my life. Good people, bad people, young people, old people, poor people, rich people, happy, sad, glad, mad, craven, suicidal, psychopaths, sociopaths, and homeopaths. I’ve known all kinds. I’ve been fucked over and done the fucking over. I’ve killed people, saved people, and left people to horrible fates. People might be the only thing I know well. So, yeah, I don’t know you, but I can hear what’s behind the shit you’re spewing.”
“I spew shit? Do you know to whom you speak, Duke of Coggeshall?”
“Sure. A young woman who’s scared because she’s on her own for the first time.”
Once again, she looked away from me, this time over at Coggeshall.
“Maybe I am scared,” she said softly.
“Being scared is never the problem,” I said, excited I could pull a trite quote out and sound like I was a genius. “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the triumph over it.”
She seemed to take that in for a moment, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed.
“You continue to surprise me, Duke Coggeshall. It is one reason I am willing to speak to you. To trust you. But your newness to my empire means you lack the grasp of our history that you should. Do you know of the Carchedon?”
“I’ve heard of them. Nearby assholes, tend to invade us a bit, then we invade them a bit?”
“They have long been our adversaries, but we are just distant enough that an all-out war with them has never been possible. Sadly, our conflict with Carchedon never ends. We throw our sons and daughters to slaughter, doing little more than fertilizing fields with our blood. My father had his own plan to end the war.”
“You.”
“Me. I was to wed the Hospodar’s son. My father and the Hospodar had communicated in secret, and a deal was struck. I was betrothed without my knowledge. The Hospodar was much like my father, a man who cared about his people. But his son was different. A capricious and cruel young man, if just the nicer stories told are remotely true. I was unwilling. And ultimately, my betrothed wanted war. He killed his father to make sure the wedding could not be completed, and took the throne.”
“Sounds like a good husband.”
“He is a more a monster than any I have ever met or seen.”
“But you were left without a gig.”
“You mean like a role? More or less. I was not overly disappointed but ultimately, I find I am not prepared for the situation that has resulted. I thought my father would be alive much longer than…” she trailed off.
“Than he was,” I finished for her.
She nodded.
“My uncle’s desires were no secret,” she continued. “But my father believed it would amount to nothing. He thought his brother was all talk, that when push came to shove, Valamir would remember family. He was convinced there were bigger threats to the Empire than Valamir.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea. He never entrusted me with any of his theories. About anything, really. He had decided who I was before even I knew it — I was just a pawn to be used to placate some other ruler.”
“I don’t want to make light of your situation,” I said, “because it sucks. I know what it means to lose a parent. Or both. But, at the same time, it’s given you the chance to pivot your path to whatever you want it to be. That’s huge. Most of these people here,” I gestured to Coggeshall behind me, “they were born into what their life is going to be. Farmers, soldiers, miners, regardless of what they actually want. You get to choose. You want to be the Empress? Take it. All you have to do it say yes, and there’s no way the Senate can stop you—”
“What if I cannot pass the test?”
“Then, once again, you’re letting fear dictate your life, Princess. You aren’t making your own choices.”
“And if I choose to give up the throne?”
“I don’t know. You can be a farmer. Or a soldier.”
“Or a miner?” She asked with a smile.
“Sure. Make candles. Hunt monsters. Weave baskets. You can do most anything.”
She was quiet for a moment, as if she was actually absorbing what I’d just told her.
“Do you trust your men?” She asked, out of the blue.
“Sure,” I said.
“Do you know what they intend?”
“When, and where?”
“For you.”
“As far as I know, we’re just trying to make a safe home for people. A place to weather the storms of the Empire and beyond.”
She laughed a little, a harsher sort of chuckle than I’d heard from her so far.
“What?” I asked.
“You are either innocent or stupid,” she answered.
“Probably a mix of the two,” I replied, doing my best to let the insult slide off.
“There is a reason I am here—”
“You mean other than you’d be killed if you were anywhere else?”
“You do not see it?”
“Not yet,” I replied, genuinely confused with where she was taking things.
She looked me over, nodded to her self, then looked back across the open field once again.
“I know being blunt is your thing, but I find it quite a challenge to be so, a lifetime in court has taught me to speak around any topic of import. Because gods-forbid a child should speak his or her mind on a topic to be left for adults. I am still thought of as a child, and those around me seek to yet do what my father could not.”
“Aren’t you still a child?”
“I am old enough to be wed — is that not the act of an adult?”
“You’ve got me there. But how old are you?”
She sighed, and though she’d turned away from me, I’d swear she was pouting.
“I am twenty-two,” she finally admitted.
Definitely not a child then, I thought.
I had the feeling there was more to this story than she was letting on. From what Cleeve and Nikolai had told me, the Emperor was no fool. He’d had a pretty clear picture of the enemies out to get him, and he seemed to value his people as, well, people. I just didn’t see his own daughter being ignored in the way she was describing. The princess may have been engaged in a marriage intended to become a political alliance, but if everyone treated her as a child even though she was in her twenties—
“They expect us to marry,” the princess said suddenly.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, startled out of my reverie.
“I am here to fall in love with you, and I assume you are either to do the same or to realize the positional benefits of marrying the Emperor’s daughter, so that you may take the throne instead of me.”
“Uh, who’s plan is this?”
“Nikolai, Wian, my father, and whomever else is involved.”
My brain clicked and whirred as that plan ran through, and not much seemed to line up.
“Let’s just say that is their plan,” I said as my brain clicked and whirred as I thought about that idea as a real plan. “Which, I
’m not saying I’m convinced it is, but if it were, I don’t see how that benefits either one of us. We’d still be stuck here, prevented from going to the capital so we could, what, vote me in as emperor? And your father’s votes only count for you, not me, so you can’t exactly transfer those over. Not to mention, I have zero desire to govern. If anything, I’d like to pass off some of the responsibilities I already have so I might engage in more leisurely pursuits.”
“You are not doing a great job wooing a princess by saying you’d prefer to be lazier.”
“Oddly enough, my desire to woo the princess is right about even with my desire to be emperor.”
She tilted her head and squinted, as if she was trying to see through me.
“You are lying,” she announced after a moment.
“Hey, princess, you believe what you want to believe,” I said. “But let’s not bring more poop into this shit storm. We have enough problems to deal with right now. You want to be Empress some day? Great. Super. Awesomesauce. If that’s the case, though, you gotta start pushing yourself to be more involved with the people. Help them. Boost morale. You want to be a miner or something else? Learn a trade. Now is not the time for romance, okay?”
Her face was a cute mixture of disbelief, frustration, and confusion.
“What if what I want is romance?” she asked, her eyes staring into mine.
“Oh, would you look at the time,” I said, “have to run. Good talk. Great talk, even. Always available if you want to chat some more. Have a lovely day.”
I stepped off the wall and dropped the thirty some-odd feet to the ground. Immature, sure, but it did a great job in ending our conversation. A conversation which had actually made me look forward to my time with Carpophorus, though when I heard the laughter coming from the top of the wall, I felt a bit worried.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I made it twenty feet before Carpophorus came blazing out of nowhere, sword held high for a massive overhand chop. I got my arm up, acting mostly on instinct. I heard a sharp crack as the wooden sword slammed against my forearm. The wood snapped, and the top half of the blade spun off.
