The Savage War

by Esther Wallace

  His twinkling eyes furnished her with an image of a bunch of boys howling in hilarity at another boy’s flight. Finding herself laughing, Valoretta choked it back, asking, “Did you learn from her?”

  “No, I like to say my family knew the craft before Matalaide came into existence. My grandfather knew it, my father, and naturally my mother knew it. I was… four or five when I started learning.” Arnacin nodded toward the harbor where his ship bobbed on the gentle waves. “We made our sails from scratch. I remember sitting outside, working on one, and Matalaide telling us she would need to poison us or her entire job would be at stake.”

  “Nice lady, Matalaide,” Valoretta commented.

  “She’s simply an old humbug. We can take almost nothing she says as truth, until she’s harping on someone about something they’re not doing to her standards.”

  “The harping sounds like a distinguishing trait of your village,” the princess could not help but tease. Whether he caught on to her jibe about him, she couldn’t tell, as slowly his smile slipped away while he continued to stare at his ship. Sadly, she whispered knowingly, “You miss them, don’t you?” Obstinately, Arnacin turned his gaze back to the hills in the distance, but she knew anyway.

  “What is on your mind, Arnacin?” she softly pressed.

  Sighing, the islander turned back inside. Companionably, the princess stayed by his side listening to the soft sound of their feet over the flagstone corridor.

  “Is Carpason dead?” Arnacin finally inquired.

  “They brought back his body slightly over a week ago,” Valoretta confessed, dropping her gaze to the floor. “He doesn’t speak about it, but I can tell our lord’s loss has devastated Father. It’s how he listens to his councilors without cutting them off halfway through and how slow he is to make any decisions. He has also seemed twice as impatient for your recovery since then.”

  Arnacin simply snorted and, for a moment, they continued in silence. “It feels strange when I think about it,” the islander again broke the stillness with a whisper. “I guess most of my disbelief is because I wasn’t there to see it happen, but he didn’t deserve it. He was the most honorable man here.”

  Studying her friend, the princess reminded, “You told me we all deserve death.”

  “Some more than others, I think,” the islander shrugged, glancing at her.

  “Someone agreed that you didn’t deserve it, at least,” Valoretta commented, slipping her hand in his. “For now, anyway,” she added with a small, teasing laugh.

  Returning her smile, he gently squeezed her hand back.

  When Valoretta returned to her room, she took no notice of her nurse’s hysterical reproaches. Instead, she settled herself against the wall, smiling out the window toward nothing. She felt blessed and pleasantly devoid of thought or care. In fact, it took her a second to realize that Sara had moved over to the window and begun squinting through it, as if searching for something, before glancing from the princess to the window and back again. “Is something wrong, Sara?” Valoretta wondered—solely out of politeness, since she had long been of the opinion that anything that troubled her nurse was not troublesome in the slightest.

  “What do you find so interesting, My Lady?” Sara asked, suspicion dripping from her tone.

  Shifting more comfortably against the wall, Valoretta choked back her laugh. “Nothing, Sara,” she whispered in distant joy. “Can I not just feel happy and completely at peace? It’s a beautiful spring day and the birds are singing out there—if you would just leave the keep every once in a while—and the flowers are so fragrant.” Drifting off into a reverie, she added, “And it’s such a soothing relief to know that Arnacin is better.”

  Sara jumped like someone had slapped her, but her eyes narrowed as she pressed, “Did you see him today?”

  “Why, yes,” the princess replied bemusedly.

  “And was he… handsome?” The tone was one of disgust.

  “Sara,” Valoretta laughed, “only you would ask that, as if good looks are a crime. I haven’t even thought of it…” Her tone shifted once again as she did think about it. “But, yes, he is—very, isn’t he? It isn’t something that’s changed, though. He always has been.”

  “Your father take heed, child! Do you even realize what you are doing?” It was a charge—a scream of fury—and yet Valoretta felt entirely immune to it.

  “I know. Standing here, doing nothing, and I shirked my duties this morning. I detest all those lady-like qualities, though. I needed a break from being a dutiful beauty all week. Can’t I learn something useful, Sara? I’m not even supposed to use my skill of sewing, so what’s the point? Am I just something to look at?”

  Sara simply stood, her face a furious white. “You are supposed to be a lady! As he is supposed to be leaving! What type of nonsense has he put in your head?”

  “Nothing,” Valoretta snapped after she stood for a second in stunned silence. “I should ask what nobles have stuffed in everyone else’s heads. If you are speaking about Arnacin, I resent that completely. Why is it that he alone treats me as a person, not some moving statue? Let me tell you something, Sara, so that from now on we understand each other—if I were not the heir to this kingdom, if I were simply a princess or a king’s bride, I would commit suicide sooner than live that meaningless life. Do you understand?”

  For a minute, Sara was stunned speechless before she spluttered, “It is you who needs to learn something, Valoretta, because someday you are going to be a king’s wife. There is purpose and a gift in such. For now, we’ll start over. I hear you like reading. Then I challenge you, for your own sake, to study proper political behavior and the work that goes with it. It takes more than you give it credit.”

  As the nurse started to leave, Valoretta dropped angrily onto the window bench. Sara wheeled back. “Ease down, My Lady!” With that, the door snapped shut behind her.

  Ordered to remain off his ship for another week on pain of being drugged for another three weeks and having nothing to do until such time as the king called for him, Arnacin slipped off to the dockside taverns.

  A view of Mira from the sea was of cheery cream-plastered buildings with brick-red colored shingles and lots of tiny chimneys rising up the hill to the castle at the top. The first buildings seen, however, were the taverns. These were marked in the plaster with their names above the doorways, and often with boasts of their finest foods and drinks inscribed where they might otherwise have windows.

  The shadows that caught in those recesses often made it look like they did have windows from a distance, but the taverns on Mira were always without, at least on the first floor. Some of the taverns farther back into the city possessed two, or sometimes three, floors and once above the noise and smell of the streets, they cut windows into their walls.

  The dockside taverns, however, seemed quite proud without.

  “For now, I haven’t been moved any…” The islander looked up at the familiar voice and, as he did, the knight who had been conversing quietly with a comrade outside a tavern dropped silent as he spotted the islander. “Arnacin,” Sir Hadwin inclined, little warmth in his beaten tone. “It’s a blessing to see you alive and about. How’s your shoulder?”

  Refusing to discuss it, the islander simply gave a half-nod of acknowledgment before stating, “I’m actually surprised to find you living yourself. I figured that if you had escaped our attack, you would have rejoined Lord Carpason’s troop.”

  “Oh, I was there,” the Tarmlin knight sighed. “The savages simply watched us walk away after…”

  “They allowed you to leave without attack afterward?” Hadwin’s knight companion exclaimed. “They’ve only ever attacked harder whenever we achieve a victory.”

  “It was out of respect, I’m sure,” Hadwin whispered, as if the words were wrenched out of him. “I saw their nods as we passed, their eyes straying to where we had… to my lord’s body.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell. Arnacin turned his gaze back from his sh
ip, asking, “Was it another search party or a village raid?”

  “Oh, Arnacin, you know as well as I those routine things could never fell my lord. We demolished your village, the one you were after.”

  Paling, the islander demanded in stunned disbelief, “In the mountains?” Choking on his wine, Hadwin’s companion excused himself, chortling as he left.

  His expression that of strained patience as he watched the other knight’s retreating back, Hadwin admitted, “Yes, in the mountains. Between the map you made for him last winter and a few of us who have been up there repeatedly with you, we attacked everyone who remained in that camp. We still were able to dispatch twenty-eight of the mediums.”

  “It was suicide,” Arnacin stated coldly, feeling the wrath of an overprotective friend. “He knew that. What would make him drag a whole troop up to a camp on high alert, a snare from the start, simply to… die?”

  Looking at the islander with pity, the knight breathed, “None of us were dragged, Arnacin. Each and every one of us volunteered to be there. He clearly stated that he would take no one unless they wished to go.”

  “Wh…” Arnacin ran through all the five questions, and still found no words to finish his utterance of incredulity.

  “Do you not understand, Arnacin? We did it for Mira, for you and your honor, and half of us, for Lord Carpason. Tarmlin would never allow him to go without his troops behind him, and the rest… knights and soldiers like Firth, Duke Cestmir’s troops that he once gave you, and so on—they, like my lord, could not live while your honor and wisdom were in question. Whatever flaws you have, Arnacin…”

  Shaking his head, the knight bit back whatever words he was about to express and slipped back into the tavern. Paralyzed, Arnacin continued to stand there.

  By late afternoon, the king had still not called for the islander and a restless, bored and irate Arnacin decided to start retraining his shoulder to its earlier strength. He knew better than to instantly push his shoulder for all it was worth, and so he used his own bow since he had found that his island’s bows had an easier draw than the Mirans’. He had grown up believing that, once treated, wood bent almost as easily as softened metal from the fire. On Mira, he had often found the opposite, depending on the range of the bow.

  Even with his own bow, he dared not actually use his right arm to draw back, and so continued practicing as a Miran. As he pulled his string toward his left shoulder, however, it was as if a new sun burst into life inside his right one. The world reeled onto its side and as the ground rammed into Arnacin’s shoulder, he heard a scream of pain. If it was his own, he could not tell, and some distant part of him, the part that was still conscious, was glad of that.

  When full consciousness returned to him, he found himself in his own bed, Gagandep leaning over him, holding ice to the exposed shoulder. The sound of rustling cloth told him without needing to look that a large audience stood against the walls. “Gagandep,” Arnacin breathed in surprise.

  Smiling fondly, the native explained, “Once wounds are largely internal, I know more than most and so am called on frequently. Under the circumstances, the swelling in your shoulder is hiding all its information, so we shall simply need to wait. In the meantime, you should rest.”

  “No. Wait,” Arnacin protested, throwing his left arm up to stop the native from uncorking a flask. When the healer paused, he asked without taking his gaze off the potential threat, “Will I be any use to you as I am, Your Majesty?”

  A couple of heartbeats passed in which the room appeared to buzz with silent surprise at his knowledge that Miro was among the audience.

  It was not the king who answered, however, as a well-known voice growled, “Our king can find uses for a man with one leg in sword fights. He can find uses for you if you’re bedridden for the rest of your life.”

  Despite his slight smile, the islander persisted, “I thought it wasn’t protocol for anyone to answer for a king.”

  “Unless he’s not present.”

  Finally turning to the audience and meeting Miro’s wary gaze with a sly grin, Arnacin quipped, “Every inhale, exhale, movement and rustle sounds too much like you for me to be fooled.” Arnacin did not admit that he was surprised to see Sara among the many physicians and the king’s high councilor, Memphis, against the door with arms folded.

  “Unless you become mute, son of Bozzic,” Miro answered, “you need not fear tarnishing your honor.”

  Still grinning at the display of the islander’s savage-like senses, Gagandep gently requested, “Sire, there will be a better time to discuss this. Currently, I cannot think there is anything you can discover by remaining.”

  Nodding, the king commanded everyone except the native out, yet he did not move until Gagandep promised, as if repeating himself, “I would not harm Arnacin if all of Mira depended on it. Nor will I speak of his injuries to anyone outside this keep.” It was both a commitment of loyalty and a lack of it. All the same, the king accepted it and left.

  Trembling as he turned back to the unavoidable drugs, Arnacin admitted, “I’m afraid it may never work, Gagandep. If it is as painful as this at the slightest strain…”

  “Shh…” the native soothed, gripping the islander’s left arm in comfort. “You have no patience, Arnacin. A wound like yours will take months to heal before we can even know if you can return to work, yet you try within the first day you are allowed on your legs. Wait six months and then we’ll try again.”

  “Gagandep,” Arnacin persisted, as if his life depended on it, “I can’t not know for six months—”

  Again the native hushed him, holding the flask to the islander’s lips. “Drink now. When I can figure out if you did any real harm to yourself, you may wake.” With little choice but to submit, the last thing Arnacin heard was Gagandep’s low chuckle, “To think Miro trusts me with every other man, but when it comes to his foreigner, he commands a roomful of witnesses to be present. And he can’t even trust them without his own presence.”

  Chapter 15

  The Councilor’s War

  AFTER THREE DAYS OF WAITING, the king finally called for Arnacin and the islander found himself closeted with the king and his high councilor. There, Memphis was given the responsibility of updating Arnacin on all the generals’ reports, those who were present in the capital and who remained in the field.

  In that report, the islander also learned what happened to his troop. Firth was discharged from service and moved back with his family, and the Tarmlin troop had been given to Hadwin. The rest of Arnacin’s men had dispersed back to their original commanders. When Memphis was finished, the islander remained silent until the king softly asked him, “Do you have any comments, Arnacin?”

  “Only one, Your Majesty, and you may do with it as you see fit.” Glancing at Memphis, he seemed to brace himself before stating, “With all due respect, I cannot understand why anyone has never thought to suggest that you organize your armies to scour certain areas, one in one place and another in another, and thereby cover your boundaries from one end to the other.”

  He ignored Memphis’s glare as he continued, still looking at the map on the table, “Your generals have long tried doing it themselves, yet they never know where anyone is and therefore can only organize their own troops, often guaranteeing that they are simply searching a place just combed.”

  “Indeed,” Miro muttered, himself glancing toward Memphis, who turned a furious shade of red at the look. “If that is all, Arnacin, you may leave.”

  Bowing, the islander departed, meeting the high councilor’s glare in challenge before disappearing.

  When it was time for Arnacin to once again fall under the swordmaster’s training, the first thing the older man did was take him to Mira’s bathhouse. “I thought Mirans didn’t know how to swim,” the islander commented when told where they were going.

  “Most of the ruling nobilities don’t. There is nowhere they deem safe enough to learn. The bathhouse is open to anyone with the coin, which goes
straight into the royal treasury, and even with the private section only for Mirans, too many others—ambassadors, richer merchants, and sailors alike—use the place.

  “For that reason, we must not say anything of importance while there. The chance for spies is too great.”

  Arnacin nodded in solemn understanding. Yanking the islander’s hood over his black head, the swordmaster led the way.

  Situated in the center of the city, the marble bathhouse rose across the street from Mira’s university. The steps of these buildings were the second most popular spot for meeting, outside of the market on the pier itself. Arnacin had only passed the bathhouse once or twice, however, in his year and a half of dwelling there. Despite the rare marble, he had never taken any interest in it while passing. Stepping inside behind the swordmaster, however, he nearly froze in wonder.

  The outside stone both hid and supported crystal walls that danced with the light and flickered in various ethereal colors from the moving reflections of people and water inside. Light pouring through the uncovered roof of the same material flickered across faces, softening them almost to an angel-like appearance.

  “Observe the wealth of Mira, but do not stop moving,” the swordmaster hissed from beside him. “This is still public grounds.”

  After paying the keeper on duty, the swordmaster clunked his way across the dancing, blue marble floor to a physically identical room. This place, however, was quieter, with only a few Mirans using their break time to either swim or soothe aching muscles in the hot water.

  In his crisp, no-nonsense manner, the swordmaster quickly outlined his rehabilitation plan. They spent the rest of the evening beneath that otherworldly light, which danced across the long shirt Arnacin wore in the water to hide the massive scar over his shoulder.