Respectant

by Florian Armaselu

“You must be mistaken. Codrin is in Severin and he disbanded his army a month ago.”

  “He is in Peyris, and they have taken the city in the name of Cleyre, the Duchess of Peyris.”

  “Cleyre is nowhere near Peyris.” Octavian’s voice lost some of its confidence.

  “Look, Sage,” Dolen snapped, “I don’t care who’s been telling you fairy stories. Codrin is in Peyris. I can bring you six men who saw him. They all fought in Poenari, where you sent us to die.”

  “Dolen,” Sandro said sharply. “I trust you , but watch your tone. We have to tell Albert. Would you return to Amiuns?” He looked at Octavian and Reymont.

  “We will stay here for a few more days. We will need a tent. Send a courier to Albert.” How could this have happened? Octavian stood up and left the place in a hurry. He wandered through the camp until he found the tent he was looking for.

  “Clewin, we need to talk,” Octavian said, his voice low. “I have an important mission for you. Very important. No one but the two of us should know what we discuss here. You have the full backing of the Circle, and I promise you a Seigneury when all this ends.”

  Chapter 19 – Codrin / Cleyre

  As was customary for the nomination ceremony, Peyris Council gathered in the Inner Council Room. There were fewer people than usual. The Secretary, the second Secretary and the new Spatar were missing. Nicolas, the previous Spatar, Paulus, the third Secretary, the Vistier, Costa and a few other councilors were there. There were guests too: Codrin, Vlaicu and Phillip, Devan’s son. Before the assembled councilors and guests, Cleyre accepted the scepter of the Duchy and raised it above her head.

  “From now on, Peyris stands on my shoulders,” Cleyre spoke the ancient words, and became the new Duchess of Peyris. “Things could be better,” she sighed.

  “Things can always be better,” Codrin laughed, “But you will be a better ruler than Albert. Nicolas and Costa will defend Peyris. There is not much for us to do, and we should be able to leave in two days. I have my own challenge to solve now.” I hope I still have enough time, winter is coming. He looked at Cleyre, and their eyes met. “In these strange times, perhaps Peyris needs a Duke too.”

  Nicolas and the councilors around the table breathed a collective sigh of relief – Codrin would be the new Duke. The only man who looked unhappy was Costa, but he was strong enough to keep his feelings hidden, and no one was looking at him anyway. Logically, he understood that it was the best solution for Peyris, but heart and mind do not always agree.

  “Have you someone in mind?” Why is he...? Slightly irritated, Cleyre withdrew behind her tired blue eyes. She would have liked to postpone the decision, at least for a few days, and it was her decision to make, but she did not want to contradict Codrin in public. Cleyre owed him too much, and she liked him, even when she loved another man. After everything that happened, his proposal was unavoidable. He will make a strong Duke.

  “I might have, but it’s not for me to decide.” Codrin smiled apologetically, making some people around the table a little confused and perhaps worried.

  “Let’s see what you have in mind.” Cleyre gave a piece of paper to Codrin, who wrote down a name. Tense, she took the paper back, and raised her eyebrows, breathing deeply, before she read it. “Well,” she said, and her eyes crinkled with mirth, “it seems that we are thinking the same thing, not for the first time.” She moved her chair closer to the corner and to Codrin. “Costa, could you please place another chair here?” She gestured toward the empty space on her left.

  Despite his wounds, both physical and mental, Costa stood up and brought a chair, then made to leave.

  “Do you think he will agree?” Cleyre asked, and gave the piece of paper to Costa. A wave of tension went around the table, and the councilors exchanged confused looks.

  Costa took the paper. Why is she doing this to me? The last thing I want is to announce her marriage to Codrin. Why did she asked me if he would accept? Perhaps it’s not Codrin. Then who...? He looked quizzically at her, though whether in agreement, disagreement, or some refined irony, no one around the table could tell. He suppressed a sigh and forced himself to read. It did not take long. He moistened his lips.

  “Costa?” Cleyre asked.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, he will accept.”

  Cleyre smiled and nodded at the empty chair. Moving slowly, Costa sat, and she placed her hand over his.

  “Costa will be my husband,” Cleyre said, “and the Duke consort, helping me to rule Peyris. We will arrange the wedding today. I hope that Codrin will be our guest of honor.” We will wed tomorrow. I never thought I would have three weddings in just a few months. The other two were... Forget about them.

  Feeling he had been cheated, Nicolas frowned at Codrin, who nodded to assure him. They had talked about Cleyre’s marriage just before the meeting, and Codrin assured him that he will handle everything.

  “That was the easy part. We now need a military council,” Codrin said.

  “Paulus,” Cleyre gestured toward the third Secretary, “from now one you are the Secretary of Peyris. Nicolas, you are the Spatar of Peyris again. You can thank me after we defeat Albert.” She laughed lightly when they bowed to her, and that chased all the tiredness from her eyes. “You need to cancel my marriage to Veres. No,” she frowned, “you must invalidate it, Paulus; I did not agree in the church. They married me against my will, and they shamed Fate. Ask the Bishop to invalidate it and to unfrock the priest who married me against my will. Then ask for the Bishop’s resignation. Mateus will take his place.” She frowned, pondering if she had missed anything. “Bring them in,” she said to the only page in the room, and in the general silence, Vlad, Boldur, Valer and Knight Emich entered the room. “So,” she glanced at Codrin.

  “Albert is more a nuisance than a threat.”

  When Codrin nodded discreetly, Vlad said, “There have been some desertions from Albert’s camp. Around fifty men. They happened before it was known that we had taken Peyris. I am expecting the rate to grow, but perhaps Nicolas can say more about this. Our scouts saw them leaving Albert’s convoy on the road to Amiuns, and we can only guess their reason.”

  “Albert had two thousand soldiers,” Nicolas said, thoughtfully, “six hundred of them here. Four hundred are ours now. I have started negotiations with the Knights Endris and Clewin, who still consider Albert their Duke. They are camped halfway between here and Amiuns. We will know more in a few days. I doubt that Albert wants to move against us. He will prefer to remain in Amiuns.”

  “It’s not what Albert wants; it’s what Reymont wants.” Cleyre frowned, a glint of white teeth pressing into a lower lip gone thin.

  “Reymont belongs to the past now. I don’t know why he convinced Albert to leave Peyris, but it suited us.”

  “That’s a bit of a mystery,” Codrin agreed, looking at Nicolas, and his brows drew down in thought. “I don’t like this kind of mystery in general, but this one is driven by the Circle, and it may burn us later. Octavian is there too, and he is as intelligent as he is deceitful. Perhaps we will know more tomorrow.”

  “Do you really have to leave?”

  “Yes, Nicolas, I must claim some blood debts, and time is short. Don’t worry, I will not ask you for help. You have enough problems here.”

  “Maybe if you postpone it for a few days, we will know more and be able to give you some soldiers,” Cleyre said.

  “Everyone knows now that I am here, and that I did not disband my army in Severin. That was to be my advantage. Unfortunately. But today is not a day to worry. We have a wedding to celebrate.”

  “In the evening, we will have a small party for our friends from Severin and Deva.” Cleyre smiled and looked around the table. The meeting was now closed.

  “Codrin, please stay,” Cleyre said when most people had left. She nodded to Costa, who nodded back and left them alone. “How did you know about Costa? I hid my feelings for a long time, to prote
ct him from my brothers and from Albert.”

  “I had no Vision, if that’s what you mean, perhaps an intuition, the kind of thing people with the Light have from time to time. I apologize for forcing it on you, but it was urgent, and I did not have time to talk with you. Peyris needs stability, and some people have put pressure on me to marry you. They wanted to propose it just now.”

  “Nicolas, I suppose. He appreciates you and fears for my future. You know,” Cleyre said and laced her arms around his neck, “we are a strange couple. A couple that almost happened.”

  Codrin arched his brows. Then he smiled. “True. If it weren’t for Saliné, I would have asked for your hand. You are a wonderful woman, Cleyre.” If I lose Saliné, there is no way to turn things back. I must find her.

  “And without Costa, I would have wanted you to ask me.” With a mischievous smile, she pulled him closer and kissed him. Codrin swallowed his surprise and, embracing her tightly, answered her. “That was just so we know what we’ve lost,” Cleyre said after they recovered their breath. “It was the last day we could do it. Tomorrow, I will be a married woman. Again. But this is the only marriage that counts. Thank you, Codrin. Without you things would have been much worse for me.”

  “Peyris is in good hands again.”

  “Let’s hope you that are right. Where do you want to go from here?” They were still embraced, her head on his shoulder, and she was playing absently with his hair, but once the passion of that one kiss had passed, they felt like brother and sister. It was a strange feeling that neither could explain, but they enjoyed it nevertheless. For Codrin it was also a reminder of better times, when his twin sister Ioana, Saliné or Vio embraced him the same way, a long time ago. For Cleyre it was something new, untested and even more valuable. Her brothers were always eager to beat her, not to embrace her.

  “Arad.”

  “You want to free Jara.”

  “Yes, I owe her that.”

  “You are a kind man, Codrin of Arenia. The toughest man I know, but kind. And...” she said hesitantly, “there is something new. You’ve changed since we last met.”

  “We are almost one year older, and bad things have happened, to both of us.”

  “It’s not that. I can feel when someone has the Light. There is something new in you, a different sort of power.”

  “The Blue Light. I have both the White and the Blue Light.”

  Cleyre leaned her head back from his shoulder. “Are you a Seer?”

  “Yes. I did not ask for it, but it came to me a month ago. Only you and Vlad knows about it.”

  “Can he feel it too?”

  “No,” Codrin laughed, “but otherwise it was difficult to explain to him how I knew where Ferko or you were in the Nest, and some other things. How do you know about the Seer?”

  “Dochia told me, and looking back, I think she knew about you becoming the Seer of the Realm. I’m glad to know such an important man. But all I can offer you is a small party.”

  “Without your help, I wouldn’t have been what I am now. Each of us has a role to play in life. And it’s for us to decide how to play it,” he said and caressed her face as she disengaged from him.

  “Codrin,” she said gently, “even without a Vision, my feeling is that you and Saliné will be together. But not this year.”

  There were not many people in the room. Cleyre had invited Codrin, his captains and Phillip, Devan’s son, and from Peyris only Costa, Nicolas, Paulus, the Vistier and Emich were present. The party started early, and it was not going to last long. There were preparations for the tomorrow’s wedding to make. They were still at war, so everything would be simple and unfussy. Nicolas wanted her to postpone the wedding, to make it one fit for a Duchess. For him was a political issue, but Cleyre and Costa wanted Codrin to be present, and the Spatar no longer insisted. The party was stalling; none of them was really in a good mood. Tiredness was taking its toll. Amid the quiet conversations, some noise came from the antechamber.

  “You can’t go in,” a guard protested. “They are having a party in there.”

  “It will end now,” a gravelly voice said, and the door opened with a bang.

  A large Mounte entered, followed by the still protesting guards. He towered over anyone else in the room, except Boldur, but few men were larger than the Mounte Chieftain. Remembering he had seen the man before, with Vlad, Nicolas frowned, not knowing how to react, while Codrin and his men recognized their scout squad leader. In general, his scouts were small men – they needed to pass unobserved; but, at times, there was a need for strong men, able to climb where the horses or weaker men could not go. Codrin used them mostly in the mountains, and the scout had come from the White Salt Mountains.

  “I told him,” the guard complained, keeping his distance from the large Mounte.

  “My scouts have a free pass when something important has happened. Tell me, Jamet,” Codrin said, knowing that he would not have entered without a good reason.

  “Lenard of Dorna is coming this way with six hundred soldiers. He will be here tomorrow evening.”

  “Thank you, Jamet,” Codrin said, nodding to Vlad, who filled a glass of wine and gave it to the scout.

  Jamet raised the glass toward Cleyre, saying, “Salut,” and drank the glass in one shot. He turned abruptly and left the room, followed by Vlad.

  “My kin was a bit overwhelmed by your presence, Lady Cleyre,” Boldur said, and bowed. “We don’t see Duchesses often in our mountains, and such a beautiful Duchess, never. I apologize if he offended you.”

  “He did what he needed to do. Codrin is right that we should waive the rules for emergencies, however important the party. Well, we have all the soldiers here,” she said, seeing Vlad returning. “We will switch from party to war council. We can still drink.”

  “Vlad,” Codrin asked, “is Jamet sure that Dornan is coming here and not going toward Amiuns?”

  “There is a crossroads ahead of them with a branch that goes north, but it’s not the shortest road from Dorna to Amiuns. They would have been there already, using the other road.”

  “Maybe they have heard that we took Peyris,” Nicolas said.

  “Two days ago, our scouts encircled the city completely. No couriers came out, and no one went in. Dolen was able to sneak out, with his escort, because they outnumbered our scouts north of Peyris five to one. We did not engage them, but a scout squad followed them north, and none of them left the troop. Dornan can’t know.”

  “I don’t like this.” Codrin raised his glass against a candle, looking into the sparkling ruby of the wine.

  “You mean that there is no apparent reason for his presence here.” Cleyre looked at him, trying to understand his worry.

  “Yes, that is a good way to say it. There is no apparent reason, but there clearly is one, of course. Dornan is an old fox, and we need to solve this riddle.”

  “He has only six hundred soldiers,” Nicolas said.

  “That’s part of the riddle. Cleyre, we need a map of Peyris.”

  “Let’s take the wine and go to the Council Room,” Cleyre said, nodding at the pages. “Its walls are filled with maps.”

  The room was close, and it did not take them long to move, followed by the pages carrying the wine. They scattered inside, thinking thoughts that were not pleasant. Codrin stopped in front of the map of northern Frankis, at a distance from where he could see all of it without effort. His eyes strayed over Peyris, over Dorna, Arad and the three Seigneuries in the north. His gaze hovered over Loxburg. Then he closed his eyes, and Cleyre could see his demeanor change.

  He is using the powers of the Seer. Cleyre discerned some small changes in the way she could feel him.

  She was right, but after a while, Codrin gave up. He knew that his power was limited to less than two miles, but he had to try. Having no more tricks up his sleeve, he looked at the map again.

  “There are three possibilities,” he said after a while. “One, Dornan felt the need to see the beauty o
f Peyris, and came to the wedding without an invitation.” His eyebrow arched, he looked at Cleyre, who smiled wryly, and there was laughter in the room. They are less tense now, he thought. “Second, he is here to help Albert, or third, he is here to attack Albert. Nothing we now know tells us which it is. Why help Albert when Cleyre has only eight hundred soldiers? That makes sense only if there is another threat we don’t know about. If he came against Albert, Dornan has too few soldiers to win a battle or to take Peyris. That means there is another threat, someone working with him. There is only one person who can fill both shoes: Loxburg. That doesn’t mean that others are not involved, but nothing can move without Loxburg. He has the numbers.”

  “You just spoiled my wedding,” Cleyre said, but she was smiling. She did not feel like smiling, but she was able to pull some smiles from the others.

  “There is nothing more we can do now, so we can indulge more of your wine.” Codrin sipped from his glass. This will delay me, but I can’t leave until things are clear.

  It was morning again when Vlad requested a meeting. In the corridor leading to the Inner Council Room, he briefed Codrin, who frowned deeply. In the room, he let Vlad reveal what the scouts had found out.

  “Lenard and his six hundred men will be here late in the evening, but that is not our main headache. Yesterday, Loxburg crossed the eastern border. In three days, he will be here with more than four thousand soldiers. They are moving slowly, as he has a thousand infantry with halberds and long spears. They carry the black eagle banner of Litvonia.”

  “I never heard of Litvonia interfering in Frankis before.” Cleyre racked her brains but could find nothing.

  “There is always a first time.” Vlad was half in the room and half in the house where he was born in Litvonia. “We could visit them too.”

  “Vlad is pining,” Codrin laughed. “He was born in Litvonia. One thousand soldiers were not sent for territorial gain. They are here to help Loxburg. Perhaps they are paid mercenaries, as they are all infantry.”

  “Albert still has fifteen hundred soldiers,” Nicolas said, thoughtfully, “but I don’t think he will join Loxburg. Even his little brain can work out that Loxburg wants the Duchy for himself.”