“Of course,” the princess shrugged. “It’s a nasty bit of superstition, but the so-called prophets were all of the same family and, according to legend, they burned every child’s eyes at birth in order for them to inherit the gods’ messages. If they could see, they wouldn’t be able to.”
Arnacin stared back at her in horror and disgust, and she pressed, “Why?”
“He wasn’t blind today,” the islander said in that flat way of his, causing the princess to stiffen. “In short, his message was that Mira will fall while a place near my home strengthens, unless…” Running his fingers along the windowsill, Arnacin quietly finished, “unless the Black Phantom conquers all opposition. I believe your father has deciphered it to mean he must submit to me.”
“Arnacin,” Valoretta gasped. “What is the seer trying to do?”
“He is not trying anything,” the islander exclaimed, whirling back to her. “There is no natural means for him to name the continent neighboring my home. Not only that, but you said yourself that he has always been blind.”
Silence stretched between them. Finally, licking her lips, Valoretta mentioned, “Maybe it’s real. Maybe someone was trying to warn Father that he needs to start listening to your plans.”
“Only you would think that,” Arnacin said in exasperation. “Not only will he never listen, something like this is bound to cause division. People will fall back to their disgusting superstitions and feel obligated to rise against Miro in my name, and the price will be hundreds of their heads! Tell me that was a considerate warning.”
Smiling sadly at his understanding of politics, Valoretta reminded him, “You are the one who believes in an all-powerful god, Arnacin. I would expect you to say that He might send the warning, and it is up to us to use it for good or evil.”
“But it’s certain evil, Valoretta. He would know they will never listen. Therefore, how could He send it?”
“I’m hardly the one to answer,” the princess laughed. At his glare, she sighed, “I think we can use it to our advantage, though. It hardly matters what such a message really implied. If someone were willing to present it as being about the wall, Miro might listen.” Seeing the protest on his lips, she hurriedly added, “No, listen. The thing about your neighboring continent might mean nothing more than how it will flourish once you return home, after you narrowly escape our fall if we don’t go along with your wall. It makes enough sense and, under the current circumstances, everyone will petition their agreement.”
“And so you use their fears to your advantage,” Arnacin growled with a knowing nod.
“It’s not my advantage. It’s their lives.”
“Discarding honor has never saved lives.”
“Sometimes, it has.”
“No, it hasn’t, and I’ll tell you why,” the islander stated vehemently. “You are willing to lie, twist other people’s thinking for something you think ‘better’ for them. And, maybe, the first time, that thing is better for them, but now you’ve chiseled away at your honor, and the next time something dishonorable seems necessary, it’s so much easier to chip away more for that imaginary cause. This war started because of a lack of honor. Do you fancy it will turn around through a greater lack of it? Not in my mind. If I cannot find an honest way…” He broke off, insisting, “There is a way to achieve peace through honor.”
“But there isn’t,” Valoretta contradicted him. “How long have we tried? Had there been a way, that wall would be in the making already.”
Obstinately, Arnacin stated, “Then peace will never be and that’s the end. There is no dishonor that can obtain it. Look how many people I have injured by doing just that? Cornyo, Firth, all of Mira really.”
“You’ve never mentioned Firth before. What happened to him?”
She saw the shields go down over the islander’s eyes. Instead of answering, he said, “For the cause of your war, I’ve learned deceit. I’ve murdered women and children. I no longer wince when someone dies and I feel no sympathy for a tortured culprit. I hate what I’ve become, but I can’t go back, and there is nothing I’ve gained through it.”
Hissing in defeat, Valoretta’s gaze dropped to the table still littered with diagrams and histories. Silence again fell in the cavern. Slowly, the princess’ thoughts caught up with her gaze, and pushing aside a few books covering the object of her attention, she breathed, “We’re fools, Arnacin.” She paid no heed to the sarcastic glance thrown her way, instead finishing her thought. “The sea wall. The blockade against pirates.”
No comprehension altered the islander’s frustrated expression and she exclaimed, “Was not Memphis’s excuse that a wall caused more attacks, because it meant we could not defend ourselves without one?” Laughing now, she asked, “Well, where are our pillaging pirates? I have yet to see any.”
A slow smile crept across Arnacin’s face and he replied, “That’s only because they’re invisible, Valoretta.”
“That’s exactly what the councilors will say,” Valoretta continued his line of thought, as it seemed the sun had once again woken from a deep sleep.
Miro did not call the islander for an entire week, but then word arrived from Mira’s forces that Melmoor was completely empty of savages. The king at last called Arnacin into the council chamber along with the rest of the councilors to discuss the enemy’s possible reasons for leaving the woods.
As men ran out of possibilities and Miro looked on the verge of dismissing all of them, Arnacin spoke up. “Your Majesty. You possess a sea wall. Do the pirates whom you built it against now deem you weak? Do they attack all the more?”
A dead silence fell. Miro’s councilors glanced from the king to the islander and back, nervously. Arnacin waited, the lift of his chin expecting attack, and Miro continued to study the speaker.
Finally, one councilor ventured, “It makes little difference either way. Unless Mira builds a wall all the way around the entire continent, someone could just go around, particularly someone who has often used the sea to his advantage.” His look pierced the islander condemningly.
Arnacin did not submit. “With a wall all the way around, only a ship could…”
“Enough!” Miro roared, cutting off all argument. “I told you once never to mention it again. The next person to ever mention a wall in my presence, or out of it, will have their tongue cut out. Is that clear?”
Fire lit Arnacin’s dark eyes as a million unwise words formed behind them, yet he dipped his chin with the rest, hissing, “Most clear, Your Majesty.” As all the rest turned to the usual war plans, the islander asked, “I have no more suggestions to give currently, Your Majesty. May I beg your permission to leave?”
Miro regarded the islander for a moment, yet as if recognizing the tenseness and the clamped lips, he nodded, adjourning the meeting. Leading the retreat, Arnacin swept off down the halls to his ship.
Not long after, Arnacin was scrubbing the deck as he would have liked to scrub away the whole of Mira, the king and the councilors—viciously, cruelly, until his knuckles bled from the scouring. Then he sat back on his heels, his anger exhausted by the lonely, hard work, and slowly he exhaled in submission. There was nothing he could do, anyway.
All the same, as the salty sea wind whipped across his hot face, he felt his throat constrict in yearning for the open ocean so close, yet so far away. He could dip his fingers in it and still never know its freedom. That was how tauntingly near its great vastness lay, red now in the setting sun. That sky promised a wonderful morning, and therefore also promised the intense bloodshed good weather brought.
Jerking awake at the sound of hurried footsteps approaching his door, Arnacin had just enough time to register the darkness outside before someone pounded on it, calling his name.
“Stop trying to break the door down and come in,” the islander groaned, sliding out of bed and pulling his top layers over his head. “Arnacin,” the squire gasped even before he had fully entered. “You’re to come to the great hall at once. Duke Cestmir
returned from the field earlier this morning, and he’s only just come around.”
Yanking his cloak around his shoulders, the islander brushed by the squire, leaving his boots where they stood. “Come around?” he asked, as the squire fell into step beside him.
“He rushed back with only a few of his men, but no sooner had they galloped into the ward then he fainted—right off the back of his horse. When he did wake, he insisted he felt fine, and he is also on his way to the king by now, I’m sure. Something horrible must have happened, Arnacin.”
Wordlessly, Arnacin agreed, trying to imagine anything that would cause the regally proper Cestmir to faint.
As it was, however, Arnacin arrived in the great hall before the duke, catching the king’s concerned gaze before slipping behind him. Neither spoke, and only a few minutes later, the duke himself entered with a bow. “Sire,” he said, and Arnacin heard the strained note of sickness in his voice. “They have nearly reached the capital. Through the marshes.”
“What?” Miro snapped, and even Arnacin felt himself pale.
Unrolling the map he carried in his hand, Cestmir pointed to the empty place in the west, marked only “Marsh.” As he had said, it ended not far from where the forest, Kelwin, began. If they swarmed that forest as they had Melmoor, they would only be a few miles from Mira's capitol.
“My men were out patrolling the towns remaining on our northern borders one night when we saw a false sunrise at our backs,” the duke explained. “I sent a detachment to find out why and they never returned. Then, when I moved my troop to discover the reason myself, we found a flattened farmstead—bodies left scattered among the ashes. Not only that, but I met with Sir Hadwin’s forces. They also reported farm attacks behind our lines. We agreed to join forces for the time being and remained on the alert for any more strange attacks.
“Finally, we saw a group of the savages on the march and swooped in on them. They didn’t even wait to meet us, retreating as soon as they heard our footsteps. We followed them—straight into the marsh. Although we followed right in their footsteps—as near as we could—our men sank. We attempted to pull them out with ropes, but those monsters poured arrows upon us from the bracken. We had no choice but to retreat. The men we tried to save were all pierced by their arrows anyway, and I immediately took a few men with me to return here, while the rest stayed to aid the other force watching the marshes.
“Your Majesty,” he concluded. “You no longer employ enough men to watch all the borders you hold. Should you send us to guard one area, rest assured they will pour forth from another.”
If Cestmir fainting was an impossibility, Arnacin thought it equally impossible to see Miro pace. Yet after a few seconds of dark silence, the king whirled away toward the black windows of the great hall and, after a few steps, whirled back. Repeating his pent-up movements about three times, Miro finally halted before his duke, stating, “I will return with you to the battlefield as soon as the sun rises.”
Two chins shot up in surprise, yet he gave neither Arnacin nor the duke time to speak. “I wish to know the battle lines for myself. While I am gone, Princess Valoretta is the ruler of Mira. Arnacin, I leave you, as high councilor, in charge of the city’s defense. Should I not return, everyone knows what to do.”
Without comment, Cestmir and the islander followed him out, sharing only the briefest of grim expressions.
Standing beside Arnacin in the library, Valoretta watched the king ride out alongside his duke and the few men in their entourage. “Part of me hopes he dies out there,” the islander admitted.
For a long moment, the princess did not reply. Then she whispered compassionately, “You might think that now, Arnacin, but realize that even if the war ends soon after, you could never leave.”
He turned toward her in puzzlement. Uncomfortably, Valoretta walked away and picked up a book from the table, running her finger down the spine. “He put you in charge of military actions.”
“Is that common for a high councilor to be given command while the king is gone?” the islander inquired after a moment of silence.
“None of this is common, Arnacin. In the first place, I am not a prince. But no. As a matter of fact, each time one ruler passes, the new monarch discharges all the old councilors and chooses new ones of his liking from Mira’s university of peasants, around twenty or so.”
“And what would make this occurrence so different that I would remain your captive?”
“A captive, Arnacin?” Valoretta inquired, the words cutting like a blade. Unable to meet his gaze, she answered half-untruthfully, “I assume it would be your honor that would hold you. If Miro dies, no king stands in his place, and Mira’s state of warfare would only grow. Unless I destroyed Mira and decided to live as the natives, it would not settle. I’m not sure I can safely do that. Truthfully, I have put off thinking about that choice as long as possible.”
She knew he was studying her, perceiving there was something she was not saying, yet she could not look at him. Her father had, by design or not, left Arnacin’s life and freedom at her mercy. She could easily bind him to Mira by his honor forever if something happened to the king. To her shame, she felt excited by the prospect. If her thoughts were her fingers, they were gleefully tightening around the islander’s future in a stranglehold.
So much for love. Would love ever consider denying him everything dear to him, everything that gave him breath, simply because of her selfishness?
Instead of contemplating that guilt, she finally opened her book, leaving Arnacin to figure it out himself if he could. She hoped he never would.
After returning from the field, Miro strode into the council chamber. Furiously tossing his riding cape over a chair, he unrolled a map onto the table. He did not have to wait long for his quarry, to whom he had sent a messenger before entering the room. Arnacin entered with a subservient nod; his cloak testimony to the fact that he had been outside as usual.
Hardly had he entered, however, before the king jabbed his finger at a point on the map, exclaiming, “Those rotten tribes continue to slink through our guards around the marshes and are burning our villages, scurrying back to their roost before we can strike. How are they even slipping through the guard?”
Exasperated, Arnacin said, “They know back ways, side ways, front ways, and I wouldn’t put it past them to have top ways and bottom ways out of there as well. Your men can’t be expected to guard every path in or out when they know nothing of the land, if there were even enough men for the task.”
“Every time we try to explore those lands, we lose another hundred at least,” Miro reminded him, tiring of the hidden tone of their continued debate.
Arnacin did not reply for a minute, studying the blank edge of the map, where the maker’s lack of knowledge cut off at the marshes. It was challenge that lit those dark eyes, however, not defeat in the hopelessness of that ignorance. Knowing Arnacin’s unconquerable determination, the king also knew that short of burning their enemy out—dangerous though that would be—they had no better choice. Even the barren plains around the marsh aided the savages.
Finally, the islander stated, “You keep trying to go in by force. Stall for now. Pull all your subjects behind your city’s walls while you send someone to follow the tribes in, until that person knows enough of the terrain to return with the information. Then, and only then, will you be able to send in an army.”
“And in the meantime, we cower behind our walls and starve while they pillage and burn our fields and livestock.”
“If we act fast enough, starvation can be prevented. There is no better option. They are already destroying supplies.”
“No better option! I can find a better option if repetitive creatures like you let me think! I’m king and I will not cower or allow the kingdom to be set upon by swine, for whatever amount of time!”
“Forget your pride!” Arnacin snapped at last. “You’re losing, and there isn’t any time left! Your worry should only be for the protecti
on of your subjects, not your artificial, selfish honor!”
“Artificial? Selfish?” Miro spluttered, turning a violent shade of red. “What—!”
Yet it was like a river’s dam had been yanked open and there was no stopping the ensuing flood. “If you had any real honor, I wouldn’t have to tell you what your duty is and isn’t—”
“Who do you think you are to tell a king—?”
“I don’t care who or what rank you are—you are still human, and thus not above other people’s safe—”
Arnacin had finally overstepped his boundaries. In jealous, hateful fury, Miro swung his fist, catching his ostensible enemy on the side of the head with his gauntlet. A crack seemed to echo in the room and the islander collapsed to the floor without a sound, blood trickling down the side of his head.
It seemed to Miro that he saw the islander revealed. Had not Memphis truthfully depicted him as a shrouded figure, devouring hearts with every breath he took and converting them for his own support? Now, the kingdom had been stolen by the islander, his people had surrendered wholly to him. They would act for him—breathe for him—and him alone.
Even Carpason had not gone to his last battle for Miro, but to preserve the wretch’s honor! And even Miro’s precious Valoretta had defied her very birthright, her father’s love, before hundreds, to claim the islander as her lord! The king himself had been duped, duped until now when the Phantom had the audacity to proclaim his power and expect the king to yield. Memphis alone had known.
“Guards!” Miro snapped, hardly even glancing at the heap on the floor. As two men stepped out from behind the doors, he commanded, “Take this thieving filth to the nearest tower and have the mason seal him in. I don’t need to see him to be able to deal with his treachery.” Without another glance, he strode out of the room, yanking his cloak off the chair as he passed.
The Savage War Page 38
