by F. D. Lee
John sighed. “Can’t we work over that area post-script, as it were? Begin elsewhere?”
Harold was not an unkind man, John knew, but he was a traditionalist. He drew a long whistling breath in past his teeth, shaking his head at the sheer magnitude of what John was asking of him.
“Could do, could do. The only problem, m’lord, is we need access to that water,” he said, jabbing the map. “Gotta water the horses and cattle. Need steam t’run the engines.”
John rolled his eyes. “Blasted steamers. Be a sight easier if we could just keep on farming and whatnot. World’s changing, Harold, and we’ve got to keep up. I don’t mind the idea of change, course not, my cousin went through one once, and now we’re all expected to call him DeMenTor and ignore the fact he always wears black, even when it’s hot.”
John sighed. Sadly, the changes facing Llanotterly were somewhat more dramatic than a dash of lipstick and a summer letting your hair grow.
Llanotterly had survived well enough for hundreds of years through agriculture and farming. But the new steam ships were changing everything. The world was getting smaller, and it was almost – not yet, but almost – cheaper to buy imported goods from far away. Especially when cities like Cerne Bralksteld relied on slavery. John was forced to admit that, while obviously being dash unsporting and generally a rum job, slavery certainly guaranteed low production costs.
“Dunno ’bout that, m’lord, but the men won’t like workin’ if they’re constantly waitin’ t’be jumped on by a load of in-ser-gents. We’d hafta pay ’em danger money, on top of the rest.”
“How much danger can a gaggle of chits, bounders and chota-wallas actually pose?”
“Couldn’t say, m’lord. But a lot of the lads… well, it’s their sons and daughters out there, or their wives. S’not nice havin’ t’go up against family. To be honest, m’lord, it’s a bit of a problem,” Harold added, winning the prize for understatement.
“What do you suggest, S.?” John asked, glancing into the corner of the room.
Llanotterly’s new Adviser detached himself from the shadows and approached the table, bracelets jingling as he stepped into the light.
John had never met a man who wore jewellery before, but this one was a magpie for sparkling metals and precious stones: rings ran up the shells of his ears and bands jangled around his wrists and ankles, causing him to jingle like a dancer whenever he moved. But it was the golden snake that wound its way around his neck, its head pressed against his collar bone like it was about to sink its teeth in, that really gave John the heebie-jeebies. He had to remind himself it was just a torque every time he saw it, it was so sinister.
On any other man so much jewellery would have been feminine and out of place, but on Seven, his Adviser, it looked both beautiful and extremely male. John didn’t know how he managed it. But then he was foreign, something which surely explained a lot about his fashion choices, not least the jewellery. Seven wore gloves, even when he was indoors, and loose, white linen tunics and trousers – something no native of Llanotterly would be caught dead in. He also liked to wear a white silk hood that totally obscured his face.
John could forgive the impractical clothing, but he found the hood to be the height of bad manners, and although Seven would remove it when John ordered him to, the King couldn’t help feeling the other man was resentful. Which was, in fact, also damnably odd.
When John had first ordered Seven to remove his hood, he had been half expecting some kind of monster to reveal itself. Instead, John had been presented with a pair of knowing, sapphire-blue eyes set into a face that might have been sculpted from marble, all framed by a mop of tightly curled hair, so black it was almost blue. Why he wanted to keep himself hidden was anybody’s guess.
Still, despite his unusual customs, Seven at least spoke well, his accent as rich as treacle, and he had the air of a gentleman, or at least as John understood the term. Seven conducted himself not with the confidence of the newly wealthy - an arrogance that had to be earned and as such was tainted by the need for consent - but with the absolute assurance that anything he did would be correct simply because he was the one doing it. A real gentleman. Not only that, but Seven had so far proven himself to be an extremely good Adviser. John was beginning to wonder how he’d ever managed without him.
“It is difficult, my Lord,” Seven said. “The forests number among your most valuable resources. Yet so too do your people. Unfortunately, you need the latter to make use of the former.”
“Blast it! What’s a fella supposed to do? Only got to meet Cerne Bralksteld’s Baron to know that everything they say about him’s true. As slippery a devil as I ever met. Can’t this lot see I’m trying to keep Llanotterly safe? Why can’t they just do what I’m telling them to do?” John said, voicing the question that has plagued rulers, managers and cat owners across time and space.
“They do not understand, my Lord,” Seven said. “They are afraid of the threat posed by the Baron and Cerne Bralksteld. They fear that by expanding you bring undue attention onto Llanotterly. They are mistaken. But this is their fear.”
John sighed. He knew his Adviser was correct. For years the other two counties, Marlais and Sausendorf, had done nothing as The Imperial City of Cerne Bralksteld grew larger and more powerful, taking slaves from Cairranbia, the Fifth Kingdom of Thaiana, and investing heavily in steam engines and infrastructure.
Now they were beginning to take notice, it was too late: Cerne Bralksteld to all intents and purposes ruled Caer Marllyn. Marlais and Sausendorf sent half-hearted ambassadorial parties – the political equivalent of going door to door trying to sell religious absolution – and hoped the problem would go away, or at least remain outside their borders.
John, newly enthroned, was worried. Traditionally, as long as Llanotterly kept in line and paid its dues, it was considered a friend of the Baron and left in peace. But how long this arrangement would last once Llanotterly ran out of money – a fate that was perilously close to becoming reality – John didn’t want to find out.
“So what can we do, S.?”
His Adviser ran his gloved hand over the map, tracing the outline of the camp with his fingers, lost in thought. The movement caused the bracelets on his wrist to tinkle softly.
John waited. He had spent his life longing for someone handsome, well-bred and articulate to look up to him, and suddenly, with the arrival of Seven, his wishes had come true. And it was good to feel respected. Not because he was King, because everyone respected that, where ‘that’ was of course the crown but not, crucially, the person wearing it.
“My Lord,” Seven said, “we must ascertain what it is they want. Everyone desires something.”
“What they desire? They want the woods! You got fluff in your ears?”
“I am sure they do not require the woods, your Majesty. There is, after all, plenty of wood to go around. Cannot you think of something else that might be motivating them?”
John thought for a minute. “There’s a woman. The one that started all this. She’d know what they want, wouldn’t she?”
Seven watched the King carefully and, with the kind of controlled casualness normally encountered in high-stakes card games, said: “Oh?”
“Ooh yes. She’s quite possibly the worst specimen of womanhood ever to walk the E. A real stinker, you know the type. Rude, disrespectful, snotty. Always thinks she’s right. Nose the size of... of... a really big thing, I don’t know,” he waved his hand around, searching for a word that would truly capture the majesty of the woman’s nasal region. “A cannon! Nose the size of a cannon. And her voice, ye God, her voice. Girl sounds like she’s just digested a hedgehog, sans hog and with double helpings of hedge. And she smells. You know, not of flowers or vanilla or the usual…”
The King drifted off for a moment, the expression on his face conceding that, perhaps, smelling clean and natural might just be preferable to smelling like an explosion in a florist’s.
Seven interrupted his
musings. “If you were to speak with this harridan, encourage her to see the wisdom you so clearly behold, common ground may yet be found.”
John looked horrified. “Been at the sauce, S.?”
“At the very least you may uncover any demands she has for the cessation of her activities.”
The King slumped in his chair. He was tired, and now he had to talk to the only person in the whole of Llanotterly who – to his face, at least – showed him no respect? It was too much.
“Blast it all, S. Can’t you just tell the girl what’s what? Give her her marching orders? ‘Off to Penqioa with you’ and all that?”
Seven took a deep breath, and, accompanied by his background jingle, knelt down by the King. He pulled his hood back and fixed John with a steady gaze.
“Your Highness, please do not let my stupidity cause you to lower your own intellect. Were not you the one who said plans never see completion when founded upon a wish?”
John wasn’t entirely sure he remembered saying such a thing, but he nodded along anyway.
“My Lord, it is my very life’s purpose to aid you,” Seven continued smoothly, “but you have to trust me. It is of equal import to me as it is for you that this situation is resolved satisfactorily.”
John looked into Seven’s eyes, now revealed, and felt an unpleasant sensation, not unlike when one stands on the edge of a cliff and some urge from the darkness whispers ‘jump’.
It’s something to do with his eyes, John thought. There’s something there that pushes back, somehow. For just a moment, John was certain he was looking into eyes that were blue from lid to lash, as cold and obdurate as the end of time. His eyes began to water, straining to see what couldn’t possibly be there.
Seven blinked. “My Lord?”
And then Seven’s eyes were just eyes. Admittedly, they were still lined with the strange black kohl he insisted on wearing, but otherwise they were normal, and full of the respect and admiration John had spent his whole life longing for.
“’Xcuse me, gentlemen,” Harold interrupted, raising his hand with all the enthusiasm of a lingerie salesman at a nunnery, “but there’s still the issue of finances. It’s cost a packet keepin’ them men on, and we’re behind now.”
John rallied magnificently. “Well then, that settles it. Can’t be seen wasting time chasing around the fairer sex when there’s men to be paid, what?”
Harold, who was watching both men with the kind of intensity often reserved for those with enough power to see you hang, did not miss the look that passed across the Adviser’s face as he pulled his hood back over his head. He very quietly decided that as soon as his contract was fulfilled he would take his wife on an extended holiday, as far away from Llanotterly as possible. What with the increasing unrest caused by Cerne Bralksteld, the death of the old King and now this foreign, softly spoken man exerting increasing influence, Harold was pretty sure he knew which side his bread was buttered, i.e., the other side of the Kingdom.
Seven stood. “I see. And when exactly were you planning on sharing this piece of fiscal information?”
“Um… now?” Harold started mentally planning his journey.
“Now, now, S.,” John said, “can’t shoot the messenger. Seems we’ll have to put the girl on the back burner. Focus on money matters.”
Seven paused, and then turned back to the King.
“Lord, what about the Ball you plan to host, in order that you might attract investment? Were you not this very morning considering using it as a means to broker an agreement with the insurgents? Of course, at the time I could not understand your brilliance and foresight. Now I am agog at your mastery of thought and action.”
John smiled, pleased with himself. “Ah yes, jolly good memory, S. So much on my plate I’d forgotten that one. So… the Ball, eh? Don’t suppose you can remember exactly what I said…?”
Seven bowed low and, it couldn’t be denied, elegantly. He’d promised to teach John exactly how it was done.
“As fortune would have it, my Lord, I can…”
Chapter Seven
The cottage was almost sickeningly adorable.
It nestled into the garden as happily as a warm cup of tea in a pair of chilly hands. Roses climbed the honey-coloured walls and twisted around the stable door and over the charmingly mismatched windows. A crooked chimney stuck up merrily from the thatch, and, judging from the smell drifting out of the open window, a cake had been baked in the not-too-distant past.
Bea, however, was not in the right frame of mind to enjoy the twee prettiness in front of her. She had woken early to get started on her Plot. Today was the introduction, and introductions were important. The girl had to meet the boy in an equal setting – if they met any other way there’d always be a question about whether it was True Love or a more financially motivated desire that awakened the passions.
It was also very important that the heroine got to see the hero being, well, heroic.
He couldn’t just introduce himself to her and start a conversation about the weather. He had to do something to impress her, and Bea, eager to get off to a good start, had spent hours setting up an introduction that would guarantee a Happy Ending. Now she just had to get the girl out of the house and into place. She put her hand on the strap of her bag, making sure yet again that she could feel the weight of the Book inside it, set her shoulders and steeled her nerves.
She ran through the garden in a crouching, hopping sprint as she fought to a) not be seen by the girl, b) get to the safety of the back of the cottage as quickly as possible, and c) not fall over her skirts and land in the pig sty. The course of True Love was certainly circuitous.
She peered through the cottage window and was relieved to see her heroine still at home. The girl was young, with shoulder length, ash blonde hair and the kind of figure most men would gladly go to war for. She was of course singing to herself as she swept the floor.
Bea slipped away from the window and snuck around to the back of the cottage and the kitchen door. Now she just needed to get the heroine out of the house. According to the Plot, the girl was supposed to buy some fruit to bake a cake. Bea peered in at the window. The fruit bowl was empty, and cooling on the table, quietly mocking her, was a rich, brown cake.
The problem was that the Plot said it had to be the necessity of baking a cake that called the heroine out of her house and into the path of the hero. But Bea had taken too long setting up, and now the cake was baked. She bit her thumbnail, weighing up her options.
The thing she should do was go back, admit she’d missed the cue and try to convince Mistasinon to give her another go. The thing she should absolutely not do was go into the cottage, rummage around the heroine’s drawers and cupboards, looking for a way to re-engineer a meeting.
Bea gave the conundrum due care and deliberation for all of three seconds before opening the kitchen door and sidling into the heroine’s house.
She tiptoed over to the cupboards and quietly opened them one by one, looking for anything that might help. In the end, it was an absence of something that gave her an idea. She padded over to the cake and knocked it off the table, so hard it landed with a crash. She dashed out of the kitchen and ducked down under the open window, her heart pounding. It was a risk. The heroine might just give the whole thing up as a bad job. But she had to try.
Bea heard footsteps, closed her eyes and hoped for the best.
“Oh… poot!” exclaimed the voice of the heroine. “It took me hours to bake that cake! I suppose I’ll have to make another before they all get home, which means I’ll have to go out again. Isn’t that just the most rotten luck?”
Bea heaved a sigh of relief. And then froze when she heard another voice. A man’s voice.
“Bad luck, Sindy. Couldn’t you do something with this one?”
Bea felt a tingle in her chest. There wasn’t supposed to a man in the house. What was going on? She delved into the Book to check the Plot, quickly thumbing through the pages. The heroine’
s voice drifted out from the kitchen.
“No, no. It’s ruined. Look, it’s got bits of broken plate in it. And I daren’t not have one, not on her birthday,” Sindy said darkly. Or as darkly as she was able.
“No, I suppose not,” came the man’s voice again.
The pages of the Book turned furiously as Bea skimmed through it. It was no help. There was definitely not meant to be a man here. The tingle in Bea’s chest started to sting. She closed the Book and put it carefully back in her bag. So... the cake was already baked. And there was a man. But she could manage, couldn’t she? She had ingenuity. She’d seen hundreds of these stories.
Bea started chewing her nails.
This was her chance.
Once the girl met the hero it would all work out.
True Love couldn’t be denied.
“Would you mind finishing tidying up for me?” Sindy said. “I’ll have to pick up some more flour from the miller. It shouldn’t take me long, but….”
“Don’t be daft, Sindy, of course I’ll help. I’d always help you, you’re… we’re friends, after all.”
“Oh, yes! Thank you! I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
The girl might have missed the tell-tale note in the intruding man’s voice, but Bea hadn’t. Something was very wrong here. This man, whoever he was, spoke to the heroine in a way that he definitely shouldn’t. That tone was reserved for the hero, and him alone.
Bea’s panic was interrupted by Sindy dashing out through the door, basket in hand, and into the woods. She gave up trying to work it out, and ran after her heroine.
An hour later, Bea traipsed behind Sindy as she skipped through the forest on her way back from the miller. A less experienced person might have raised a few questions regarding the health and safety implications of prancing through an environment almost solely designed to trip one up; but Bea knew about heroines, even if she’d never had personal dealings with one.
She’d come to the conclusion that one of the lesser known attributes of heroines was an extremely adept sense of balance. Possibly it was genetic – a well-honed inner ear or particularly wide toes. Either way she wasn’t surprised to find herself puffing through the woods as quietly as she could in her patchwork dress, trying to keep the girl in sight whilst not, and here was the tricky bit, actually revealing herself.
