Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  “Would you tell us what the hell’s happening?” From the corner of vision Shayna started at the heat of his words. Mykel didn’t care. He would not relent, not now, not ever. He fumbled a bit at Lazarus’ tossing a scroll for an answer. Despite his anger there wasn’t a confrontation in their weary bones, so Mykel hid his disgust in reading the parchment.

  Wanted Dead or Alive

  For the Murder of Samuel of the House Etnad.

  One hundred thousand marks.

  The bastard that raped Shayna. It was a blurry picture, but Mykel knew it was not a blessing. Greed would gloss over the details. There would be more from their quarter. Many more.

  “I don’t regret what I did,” he said to Lazarus, handing the scroll over to Shayna. Her gasp of surprise went unnoticed.

  “Nor should you.” Lazarus’ eyes were daggers above his stone-shaded spectacles. “Your method, on the other hand, has put us all in danger. You do realize your rage makes us the prey of every bounty hunter of the coast? You saved her life only to put it in danger. Fatal danger.”

  “I’d do it again if given the chance.”

  “Stubborn mule,” Lazarus muttered. “Do you have no ears? Did you just hear me speak in your defense? And the rage. You are not stupid enough to miss that. Rage compelled you to murder. Rage...” Lazarus’ words drifted off, but his eyes lowered to Ifirit’s golden form, and the coldness of that flat stare drove home the old man’s point better than mere words.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Something I’d hoped not to do yet. I have a friend who can shelter us. It will place untold weight on his shoulders, and might cost him his head.” Again he glared daggers at the librarian before swooping his cloak about him for sleep.

  Mykel growled, jerked as Shayna’s fingers wrapped about the dead fingers. Her eyes were half admiration and half sorrow. Her cloaked back put an iron wall between them, cursing comfort and words to nothing. After a time, Mykel, too, retired to sleep. His dreams were of grinding the damn high-born into the dust.

  XXIII

  Christina had half a mind to throw the servant out the window. “No, dammit! I told you no scents! I have no wish to smell like a lemon.”

  “But milady, Amden brides have been cleaned in this manner for hundreds of years.”

  I am not an Amden bride. Here was a situation that required diplomacy and not anger, but it was hard not to be angry when one was trapped in a bath scrubbed with horse-hair brushes by maidens who looked vomited than birthed from their mothers’ legs. She watched the serving girl choosing the appropriate scents with slitted eyes just to see her shrink with dread. By the time the baseborn fool had ground the scents properly her fingers shook as though petting a drunken mastiff. Damn fool.

  She faltered completely when at last Christina’s breasts remained to be scented. Christina snatched the girl’s hands to work the scent and glared at her for having to touch one with grime worked into her from the cradle. Almost did Christina call for another bath, but the very thought of being worked by such witless fools made her sick. She worked a double dose of the scents to hide the grime; smiling as the second maid scurried from the room from under her glare.

  The seamstresses arrived in groups of two or three, filling until the room was bursting with wizened old hags. Each had their own name, but they looked so alike they must have been a litter, so Christina gave them the names of the clothing they specialized with: Smallclothes, Gown, Bodice, Slippers, and Skirts. The names ran out before the hags could be named, so Christina grouped them together and added the appropriate numbers.

  “I remember me my own wedding just like it was yesterday,” Bodice was saying. “Not a day over nine and ten, and as fresh as I was on the day I was born.” Hooted laughter filled the room. “I was!”

  “What about that dashing minstrel when you were five and ten?” Smallclothes smiled. “You practically begged to be bedded.”

  “Valiant was a perfect gentleman,” Bodice stated flatly.

  “Then what were you moaning about? Didn’t come from the wolves.”

  “It was a full moon out that night. All wolves howl at the moon you know. It’s not just an old wives’ tale.”

  “I was terrified that first night,” said Skirts. “I’ve known Marcus all my life, and we’ve seen each other in the village pool, but this was different. I was red from head to toe, and I couldn’t stop myself from shaking.”

  “All first brides are terrified,” said Smallclothes. The elderly among the servants gave a short nod. Christina didn’t like it, especially when they cast none-to-subtle glances at the new bride. I’ve bedded princes and barons, idiots. The closest you ever fucked was a stable-boy.

  Next the bondswomen introduced a maid close to Christina’s body type to see how the gowns would fit. Christina goggled at the last. The girl could have shared her mother’s womb; so close was she in shape and shade. Even in leaving the room she possessed the same stride of smug royalty. That one must be watched. Very carefully.

  It made the seamstresses’ job easier with their charge’s attention divided.

  “No, dammit! I told you to curl the hair, not twine it with those accursed beads!”

  “But milady, Amden brides...”

  Christina shot from her seat with a whirl and unleashed a right cross so ruthless it damn near broke the girl’s jawbone. She watched the handmaiden cradle her jaw in one hand and fluttered a sign of warding with the other. Stupid sow. “Get out of my sight before I decide of something worse.” She thought to snap a threat to the nameless servant and smiled. Who amidst the peasantry would acknowledge such a punishment against one of royal blood? Who among them would believe?

  Another maid took the former’s place, one that was almost a twin of the other save for honey-sweet hair. A sister that watched her own blood scampering like a rodent from the chamber without as much as a twitch. It almost made up for her sharing her sister’s tongue.

  “This dress will bring out your eyes, milady. See how the griffin is at the lower edge and the lion poised above? It’s a symbol of how the Mace name will be traded for the King’s family.”

  The women truckling to the men. Sometimes Christina felt she was the only woman with brains. At least Shayna would have known to keep quiet. The thought gave her a chill. Oh, things must be desperate if I miss the damn Companion. Then the notion penetrated, and Christina gnashed her teeth. Quickly she scrubbed the longing from her face and thought up a little scene to cover the quick flash of emotion: Shayna turning purple under the death-grip Christina had upon her throat.

  Next came more seamstresses to make sure the bride looked as expensive as possible. A kind of winter-white stole that flowed from the forearm-length gloves to the shoulder, where it wrapped and tapered to an upward point. It might have cost a bit of the royal treasury, but for all the assurances the damn things reminded Christina of the spike-tapered shoulders of a warrior. Marriage is a kind of battle, Christina thought. The deadliest one of all.

  A fleet of thirty bondswomen trailed after Christina as she descended the bride’s tower, with two women as burly as forest bears at either side. Fat lot of good that did. Who’s the idiot that thought descending a stairwell with heels was such a good idea? She tried not to look down into the yawning darkness, silently cursing the lazy servants that failed to light the goddamn torches.

  The corridor ended in the inner courtyard. The priest emerged from around the bend, snow white in habit and balancing the good book in the crook of his arm, smiling. This one’s anxious to get back to his altar boy. Or perhaps his sheep.

  Next the spectators came. Amden tradition denied any sort of chair or bench, and so the nobles were forced to stand without as much as a servant on a
ll fours to sit on. The fur-lined clothes of common design protected from the winter chill, though the stitching looked as if done by the laziest serf. There were the lions of House Simba, the red tiger of Nanaki, the Hart’s banner of a black sky rippled with crudely drawn stars. There were the golems of the Seacren, the hunters of Callowei, and a hundred other minor Houses. Christina saw Galen Zephyr’s sardonic eyes in all of them. They were his brood, all right.

  The couple ascended a dais with veils drawn down upon their faces; black for him and white for her. Christina suppressed laughter. She was hardly the innocent type, and she knew for a fact that Galen earned the symbolic taint of manhood through various skirmishes in battle, not to mention the usual flings and courtships men of power experience.

  A cadre of maidens awaited them. Ten of them, all in white robes slashed at sleeves and sides in the colors denoted for the stars: the silver of Mercury, gold for Venus, blue for Earth, red for Mars, purple for Jupiter, orange for Saturn, green for Uranus, violet for Neptune and black for Pluto. They were all young and nubile and so goddamn perfect that Christina wanted to rip their throats out with her bare hands.

  “For the bounty of the journey these two will take.”

  “For the bounty of the prosperity these two will reap.”

  “For the bounty of the life these two will make.”

  “For the bounty of the knowledge these two will gain.”

  “For the bounty of the struggles these two will overcome.”

  “For the bounty of the peace these two will strive.”

  “For the bounty of the solitude these two will find.”

  “For the bounty of the memories these two will create.”

  “For the bounty of the wisdom these two will rule.”

  The maidens stepped back to allow the priest passage. “By the mandate of our bountiful Savior, I dub thee husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.” Galen’s lips were cold, clammy and lifeless. A grunt of surprise overcame her as Galen pressed her tighter against him; a pathetic attempt at romance made all the clumsier at his devotion.

  Then they, the spectators, priests and maidens all marched into the gates to the beat of a hollow drum, single file. One by one the participants followed the same rhythm, each drum a heartbeat, connected to the ground that had witnessed the beginnings of the land’s people since time immemorial. One by one the people undulated with a serpent’s grace, all the way back to the great hall.

  The great hall looked expensive. Silk banners fenced the area, held in check by long black poles that ended in tripods. At each beam there stood a minstrel, singing out the legends woven into the banners in sequence, though each one did so at the top of their lungs. As if that was not extravagant enough, huge oak trees filled the space between the harpists; ripped from a faraway land, shipped to the kingdom, and then planted directly into the cobblestone. From these wayward trees, small children dropped wave after wave of cherry blossoms. Children. No.

  Shifting the traditional bouquet to the other hand, Christina snatched the nearest aide to a side corridor, glaring at the confused train of attendants. “I told my husband I didn’t want the children included in the ceremony!” Unfortunately, the attendant she chose was a meek little thing, pale as a ghost and shivering as she would naked in a winter storm. Christina reined her temper and asked the question again, slowly this time. The girl fainted dead away. It took another three faints to get a servant that could speak three words without “milady.”

  “Why would the children be banned from the ceremony?”

  What to say, what to say? They’d have me locked away for life if even the slightest sliver were to get out.

  “Milady. I know this land is strange to you. The Amden people are a proud people. They want nothing more but to witness their new Queen say the vows. They love you. They want to share your joy. What possible harm would it be if the children want to cheer you on the first step of your new life?” There was no rancor, not even the smallest bit of smugness in the woman. Her words were the mantra of everyone assembled here. They love me, Christina realized. They really do love me. It wouldn’t save them, though.

  Then one heel trapped on a cobblestone’s edge and suddenly Christina pitched the wrong way and the stone was rushing to meet her and then pain, so much pain. Laughter flitted quietly through the crowd as the bride pulled herself up. Damn you all.

  The slaughter was merciless. From a thousand pewter plates servants brandished wickedly-curved blades and made the great hall into a slaughterhouse. Men wailed as they tripped over errant table legs, crawling first on their hands and feet and then twisting about like a spider, eyes wide with fright as pale lips blubbered for mercy. Women huddled about their children in a vain attempt to shield their young. Their flesh offered as little resistance as a leather hide, choking as sword pierced throat and then child in savage spurts of blood. It took moments for the carnage to end, and suddenly Galen Zephyr found himself the only man not pasted with blood. “What?”

  “I told you not to include the children,” Christina said flatly. “Damn your heretic tradition.” From an errant slayer, she plucked a longsword. “Damn you to hell.” The stroke cleaved the head in twain. “You do good work,” she commented the nearest slayer.

  “Work’s as good as the pay,” the greasy man replied. His smile showed blackened gums, topped by the oh-so obvious lust in his eyes. Without warning Christina made her way to the outer doors, forcing the hired killers to follow. “So where is this gold you promised?”

  “In horses,” Christina replied, letting the doors crash against its stone frame, waiting a bit for the winter wind to part the wedding dress just enough for a glimpse of softly-curved legs. A little lust couldn’t hurt, after all.

  “Horses?” Behind the leader the slayers grunted. “We got horses, pretty lady. How do you think we get from place to place?”

  “Not these horses.” It’s a miracle that you don’t break your necks tripping over your own feet. “These horses are from Ropada. Horsemen family. One of their stallions was sold at ten thousand gold pieces.” The outer gateway stood before them, naked without the heavy beam to ward it. “You do know how to breed horses, don’t you?”

  The slayer snorted. “They fuck, they shit out babies. What else is there to know?”

  Incompetent morons. “Exactly. And you’re getting a dozen. Imagine what you can do with an entire herd.” She held the door for the last slayer entering the inner hall; weathered the odious glare of lust until it was snug in the hall. Then Christina slammed the gate shut and spun the gate’s new mechanics just as her engineers instructed. Within moments the roars of betrayal cracked not unlike the screams of the women they slaughtered moments before. Hot oil pouring from slots on the ceiling. There was a reason why the inner hall was the “murder” hall.

  Christina imagined the fools writhing as their flesh sloughed off their bones. Now there were no more witnesses, no more challengers to the throne. I am the Queen. Within moments Christina was sending the appropriate pigeons and fled to the chapel to prepare the horrifying tale of slaughter and survival. I am the Queen. Damn that sounds good.

  XXIV

  So many things in a battle were beyond mortal means, Tolrep thought. The wind could abandon them at its leisure, the fog could descend at a moment’s notice, or the sky could spit out lightning without any warning at all. Such were the way of plans. From the moment of their conception, the chaos of battle rotted even the best stratagems into obscurity. The only thing to do was to ride the madness and hope to survive.

  Tolrep drummed his fingers upon the steering wheel, forced himself to stop, and then growled at his foot when it began tapping. After all these years, the boredom of sea battles itched at him. Oars or wind, it made no difference. Battles at s
ea were mostly about waiting for the right moment. Once when he was young Tolrep patrolled the Tennant’s bow in one of the war games his father participated in during the annual family reunion. Three days of nothing to do; he was so bored that he slept through the entire battle.

  Tolrep’s eyes swept the fog. He could not see the Coicro ships, but it was not the boats the privateer was concerned about. The man captaining a ship was almost as important as the ship itself. Build her from oak or pine or scales, a ship was nothing without the captain to guide her, to move her, to love her.

  The bulk of the fleet was divided between the Ram’s Pride and the Tennant. Flanking the former were the triremes: The Black Wind, the Enchanted, the Irving and the Falcon. The galleons had their own entourage, a mismatch collection of cogs, longships, and more than eighty oarships. The Hunter’s Arrow boasted more than three hundred oars, though it was stuffed with so many archers and soldiers the planks were near to bursting. Power at the expense to speed. Why does every sailor have to be the same mold? He’d met far too many arrogant men in better times; wars seemed to double the number in all the wrong places.

  The lesser ships were in the same fashion. Dragging along in the wake of the galleons were the trebuchet longships: The Spider’s Web, the Raven’s Eye, the Golden Sun, and a handful of other ships Tolrep couldn’t remember at the moment. Stripped nearly bare, the longships carried the large trebuchets that would pound and pound the slower ships until they were piles of kindling. The rest of the rear guard limped their way forward, manned by the foreign prisoners freed at the Baron’s death. Tolrep was more inclined to trust the foreigners more than the Baron’s loyalists, but a shift of power would have meant mutiny. Then the battle was joined, and there was no more room for musing.