At Faith's End

by Chris Galford

  He had never met the man, or even heard the name, but he was grateful for the attempt to spare his dignity. With an “o” of remembrance, he feigned knowledge.

  “Yes, of course. Urtz. A good man and…” He mouthed at the air, trying to sort out the right term. “Devout?” His wife’s smile, at least, told him he had guessed that correctly.

  Mauritz developed a sudden interest in picking at a scab. “Well in hand. Truth be told, they have not gotten along in many a year. Portir banished him from court when he was but his father’s boy. A drinker in youth, you see. Dueled another lordling one night. Killed him. Caused a bit of a scandal in its day. The court paid the family off, and the boy was sent home. But the point is, neither ever forgave the other the offense.”

  From outside, Leopold caught the rattle of mailed boots—of marching men, set to purpose. It drew him off. Boards creaked. Voices swam the air in low murmurs. He imagined a sword rattled in its sheath.

  It was a common enough sound in the castle, but his mind wandered, and he entertained the notion—however brief—that these would be the men to carry him off, to carry him to a similar fate as his uncle. Towers were very tall after all, with plenty of prisons in the sky for heads both noble and divine. Regicide was a crime most heinous, and kinslayer as well—but who was there to second guess, especially when it was not death they wrought? There were no crimes against imprisoning unlawful men—and it was generally the usurper that made the justifications.

  Of every man, he knew, on some level he had to ask the same question: are you Mauritz’s man, or the crown’s?

  If only he had his own men. Alas, he came into his crown but a humble priest, with only Bertold at his side. In the eyes of the Church, prelates were but priests after all, and no man of Assal’s cloth was permitted such dominance over men. Of course, the Church itself wielded a rather sizable army, but this was for the almost exclusive use of the Patriarch—for the good of the Faith, naturally. This didn’t even mention the princes and their armies.

  Leopold could count on them, if push came to shove. But there was a difference between having an army and having an army at hand. Many miles separated Anscharde from Ravonno. Swords-in-theory did him little good if he was dead-in-fact.

  Then again, there were the palace guards—but these were admittedly for show. Men knew and respected the soldiers of the crown for the authority they represented, not for any particular martial skill. Bodyguards at best, illusions of bodyguards more accurately.

  Even ignoring that, they were much reduced in number since his father’s absconding of them into his futile efforts in Effise.

  And where had that gotten him? An army barely 200 strong, that’s where.

  What Leopold really wanted was to call upon his brother’s men, but as his wife continually reminded him, what was his brother’s was not necessarily his own. Soldiers followed generals, or they followed coin. Joseph had drawn upon both sympathies. Leopold could boast neither. At court, Portir controlled the revenue—among hundreds of other scheming nobles with private funds—and Mauritz remained the only general. He had also been the man closest to Joseph before his death. It was Joseph, after all, that had beckoned Mauritz to Anscharde.

  Ostensibly, Leopold’s older brother had hoped to bolster his own position with fresh troops—and inevitably left Leopold’s own more precarious. His heart fell to think it. Even in death, his family could spite him.

  No, Joseph’s men were as good as Mauritz’s men. And a sizeable addition, at that.

  “Praise be that even in the darkest corners, Assal will find some light.”

  Mauritz raised his cup to that and tipped it to the both of them. “Praise be,” he repeated.

  At the least, Mauritz was devout. It was a small thing, but it was something.

  “Will this affect my husband’s coronation?”

  “Our coronation,” Leopold corrected with a gentle smile.

  “In two octaves the crown will rest upon your head. Mark my words, at that.”

  “And shall we have an empress to grace the event?”

  “My lady?”

  “An empress. Your men sent for this Cullick and his brood, did they not? Along with the Empress Dowager? I would have them at our ascendance.” Ersili’s eyes twinkled, bright and cruel and innocent all at once. “For their blessing.”

  For the first time that day, Mauritz appeared perturbed. His feet shuffled uncomfortably against his chair, and he turned his attention briefly to his apple, from which he took another bite, using the action to cover his uncertainty. “In honesty, I should think not.”

  Leopold leaned forward. “Surely we are not to be troubled by one irksome count, grace? What manner of man should defy royal edict?”

  “A smart man, I should think.”

  “Are you mere tribesmen, to so brook dissent? The man is a cretin,” Ersili snapped.

  “And no more the fool for it. He has the people’s ears, fertile soil beneath his feet, and a good many blades in hand. Only a fool would disregard him.”

  The word set a ringing in Leopold’s own ears. A sheepish glance turned from Mauritz to his wife. Her fingers spread against the table, thin and pale and violent, but her voice, when it came, lacked even the slightest hint of venom.

  “And what would you propose, then?”

  “Propose?” Mauritz shrugged. “I propose we continue acting as though we are the ignorant noblemen we are, and carve out his throat when he makes his move.” There was the barest trace of whimsy to the elderly soldier’s tone.

  Sellswords, Leopold decided. They needed to hire sellswords. Mauritz said it himself: they had the coin now, didn’t they?

  But then, only a fool would surrender such bounty. He watched his uncle in a new and increasingly wary light. Soldiers could be bought, certainly. But who was to say the wild general couldn’t simply buy them out from under him again?

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Until Othmann returns our soldiers from Effise, we can do no more. Do not concern yourself with such small matters.”

  It seemed as good a time as any. With an exaggerated effort, Leopold drew back his chair and sauntered to his feet. In accordance with protocol, Mauritz bowed his head to him, though Ersili kept her gaze flat. Leopold took her hand in his regardless, kissing each knuckle tenderly before addressing his uncle.

  “Then I leave it in your capable hands, uncle. Let Ersili assist you in any arrangements you need—and it shall fall to her to go over poor Portir’s ledgers. I trust you do not mind?”

  There was a flicker of annoyance in the old man’s eyes. “Without offense, highness, perhaps you might share with me your dear heart’s qualifications for such things? I find numbers often lie beyond our women’s…rather delicate sensibilities.”

  Leopold opened his mouth to speak, but Ersili cut him off. “I have managed my father’s estate since I was nine years old, my lord. I served as chequer to the coin for Prince Massimo, of our fair south’s northern principality. And I dare say I can count the threads upon your tunic and find spare thread enough to feed a small town’s hungry bellies for a year.

  “Let us not speak of qualifications, lord.” She gave Leopold’s hand a squeeze, only to let it drop thereafter. “I suggest we speak of inheritance.”

  With a smile and a nod to his dear and writhing uncle, Leopold gladly turned and left them to their ledgers.

  War was a nasty business. As were politics, religion, and the hard northern cuisine.

  There was but one recourse for Leopold to take from it all while his wife battled on his behalf, and it awaited him in the throne room. Even as the guardsmen pressed open the heavy-plated doors, his ears burned to the squeal of his preferred name: “Papa!” On instinct, his arms dropped with his knees, and the emperor-to-be became all too human for an instant.

  Fiore threw herself into his arms with abandon, her tiny hands tugging at the loose skin of his face. She was a portly little thing, and he winced at the thought that soon he
might not be able to pick her up at all, but he was still a man of middle years, strong and proud as any knight, and for the moment, he lifted her high.

  “Ani said I’m not a princess, papa! Is that true?”

  Anatole skulked just beyond, scuffing a shoe against the cobbles and very pointedly not looking at either his sister or his father. Fiore turned back to stick her tongue out at him. She was ever the proud child, and at just six years, spiritedly curious, while her brother—well, too old now, perhaps, to envision himself a knight—had long since settled for the jester’s role.

  In response to his daughter’s tongue, Leopold gave one of her long pig tails a hearty tug, until she had bent back far enough for their eyes to meet anew. She giggled.

  “And you believe everything your brother tells you, sweetling?”

  She tottered. “No…”

  By which, of course, she meant yes.

  “Good. Because he takes far too much after his papa to be honest.” Balancing his daughter on one arm, the Emperor crooked a free finger toward his son. The boy’s eyes flickered, and lowered, and he only reluctantly sloughed forward. “What do you have to say for yourself, my boy?”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  “I never said you were. I simply said you weren’t honest.” The boy’s face scrunched in confusion, and Leopold laughed.

  “Aren’t those the same?”

  “If it were, I suppose we should all be liars, in which case, we are quite damned, and you’ve nothing to worry about.”

  Alarm dug Fiore’s fingers tighter into the crook of his neck. “We’re damned, papa?” Her little arms quivered, and she snuggled deeper against him. Sighing, Leopold bounced her slightly as he shook his head at Anatole—a look of man to man, which spoke of battles lost. The boy mimicked his sigh, his shaggy blond mane making his own gesture somewhat lighter in character. He grinned like a fool, a fool-boy, and it stirred Leopold’s heart.

  They were both as such: blond angels, neither yet a decade’s turn upon the earth. Both loved him unconditionally, in the manner only children could muster. Both obeyed him unquestioningly, and took his words to heart. All this, when neither looked at all like him.

  Sometimes, one had to marvel at how the heart could overcome the blood. Another man’s flesh and blood could be every bit one’s own children if only the heart made room for them, as Leopold’s had. They were, he tried to tell himself, his only vice.

  But then again, that simply wouldn’t have been true. At the least, the other vices complimented them nicely.

  “Princess, papa is a joking man. It is a gift the Lord did bless me with.”

  Fiore’s arms crossed in impudent fury, and her lips pouted at the notion that someone—anyone—would cross her with half-truths. “It was not funny.”

  He prodded her button nose with one chubby finger. “No, I suppose it wasn’t. Forgive me?”

  “Maybe…”

  The tone promised a cost. What’s more: he already knew he would pay it. He always paid it. Children were, after all, as close a thing to the divine as one could come. Or the demonic. Though Leopold reckoned he could probably name a half dozen members of his own family to put any child’s tantrum to shame.

  Gathering his daughter in his arms, Leopold began to lope and loop his way toward the throne, Anatole trailing the sounds of their laughter and conspiracy.

  Beyond that sound, there was nothing in the room to give it note. Without the courtiers and councilors, the place might as well have been a tomb. It was short, with none of the pomp of the southern courts—a plain room of few tapestries, little light, and only two chairs. These at least struck one with an imperial bearing—a necessary offering of the mother and father of the Empire. The white-cloaked Imperial Guardsmen he had left to watch the children remained at the base of these, little more than ornaments for the room. They stepped aside for them.

  “Eventide…” Leopold meant to add their names in passing, but for the life of him, he could not remember them. The only Ravonnen among them had died with his father. “…I trust all goes well?” he added awkwardly instead.

  “Aye, highness.”

  “Your Highness,” the second man greeted him. “Lord Heinrich was about, looking for you.”

  Leopold paused atop the last step of the dais, turning awkwardly with his daughter on his knee. “And what, pray tell, did my brother want of me?”

  “I—”

  “Uncle Heinrich smells of cows!” Fiore bellowed overtop of the guard. “And I hate his face.”

  He raised an eyebrow and turned it on Anatole. “Is that so?”

  The boy grinned again. “It is a rather ugly face.”

  Leopold smirked into his hand. “And while I will neither confirm nor deny that, sweetling, let us never again say it aloud, shall we? Hm? As you will, ser.”

  “He said something of Lord Portir…”

  “And offered us sweets to tell him more,” Anatole said with no small measure of disgust. “I told him we should spy for nothing less than a horse apiece.”

  Leopold looked on his son with disbelief. The boy only shrugged. “He didn’t seem to think it much of a deal. He was gone before I could tell him what color I wanted.”

  “White! I want a white horse!” Fiore clapped her hands together excitedly. “We shall be as the wind!”

  The guardsman coughed pointedly. “He should like to speak with you before the day is out, Your Highness.”

  “As would they all, I’m sure. When you find my wife about, do tell her. She shall endeavor to mend this. Meanwhile we, I do believe,” Leopold said, switching to a slightly higher scale as he addressed his still excited daughter, “should have a date with the court menagerie.”

  “Will there be horses?” Fiore asked.

  “Oh, sweetling, nothing so mundane. There are plenty of those afoot in these very halls. But what is your position on two-headed gryphons?”

  Chapter 8

  By the time they pulled the two men from one another’s throats, Rurik was sporting a swollen lip, and one of the brawlers had earned himself a broken arm. Even so, it took three other soldiers to separate them, and these spent plenty of time eying the crowd as well, for fear some other rabble-rouser would get it in his head to join the squabble. Thankfully today such was not to be the case.

  “And what was this one about,” Berric said, sidling up in the aftermath of the departing men’s shouts.

  Rurik wiped a spot of blood from his chin, then tried to sort that out for himself. “Idiocy,” he offered.

  “A great deal of that going around.”

  This was the sixth such fight in an octave. At least this incident lacked a blade. In the last fight, one man had poked the other in the ribs with a dagger. He had bled like a speared boar, ostensibly over a spot of the watered down swill they still passed as wine. Then, it had been Rurik’s duty to hang the man with the knife. That made two. Two dead over less wine than it would take to make a child tipsy.

  Rurik’s role—as confidante for Tessel—was becoming increasingly devoted to policing the unruly. It was a heavy task considering the fact that they were all unruly. In a time when the leather off one’s shoes was becoming viewed as an all-too viable alternative to the grumblings of one’s belly, hunger was turning braggarts into outright swine.

  The camp’s followers were leaving every day. Even reports that many trains of the departed were attacked by Prince Leszek’s raiding parties did little to stymie this. Raiders could only rob or kill. It was widely viewed as a much sounder alternative to the slow wasting of starvation. As the cost of the ones that remained increased, however, the soldiers were increasingly set upon their flight as well—save for the whores, of course.

  With spring, the army was sifting further and further out from itself, rather than coalesce. Though it reduced the strain on supplies, it was also leaving them increasingly open at a time that Tessel seemed to be growing more and more paranoid of the world around him.

  Plucking a skin of t
he ratswill from his own pack, Rurik stomached a swig, wincing as it ran between raw gums. In the time it took him to look up again, another onlooker had sidled into their midst, though this one held himself carefully apart from the rest, and looked straight at him. Boderoy’s patient smile captured him.

  “Well what is it,” Rurik snapped at Tessel’s attendant.

  “Ser Tessel wants a word. Marching orders, I take it.”

  That, at least, did something to lighten his mood. “About damned time.”

  Berric patted him earnestly on the shoulder. “Go, my friend. I’ll wipe this down.”

  Rurik was only too content to let Berric do so. With a token show of reluctance, he thanked his friend and headed for the town proper, Boderoy leading.

  Few wandered the lanes as freely as he anymore. Perimeters seemed to have sprung up as much around clumps of tents and wafting pennants as the more solid wooden structures of the camp’s edges. Suspicious eyes turned inward, and no one went any longer without their steel. Even Rurik was no longer allowed to move without the protection of his station—men that followed him still, their pikes and bright attire making him feel more a peacock than a shade.

  A hundred camps in one. That was what their grand army of the Empire had been reduced to. With the abrupt departure of Marshall Othmann, and the consequential refusal of Tessel to meet with any of the nobles and their representatives, the camp had been polarized. As it was, Leszek and the Effisians wouldn’t need to harry their trains. If simply left to their own devices long enough, they would likely tear themselves apart.

  Yet even in this, Rurik walked a singular path. Noble men scowled at his passing. Ivon would not spare a word with him. The common men were no better. Each viewed him as a traitor to the other. Like a half-breed. A Lamara.

  The thought of it pulled him toward the Eagles’ company, but though his steps were swift, they were never swift enough. The true Lamara no longer awaited him. Essa was never there. A few times he had caught the scant passing of her shadow at his approach, but this was as close as he had ever gotten. These days if it wasn’t Gorjes men, it was the little bear’s all-too-knowing stare that greeted his trouble. Something had turned Roswitte’s surly glares upon him.