by JF Smith
Krayell sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration. He would never see his goal attained for all the blundering buffoons that insisted on tripping into his path.
“Even if it ruins our carefully laid plans? Even if, within a year of his marriage, what Thaybrill did or did not do on his engagement night will be of no consequence to anyone across two kingdoms?” asked the Domo, trying to get the king to remember the true goal.
Azi had resumed his breakfast, and said with a mouthful, “It is of consequence! It is of consequence to myself and my court! All knew within minutes that your prince is more child than man and is unfit to claim my daughter! I will not endure the shame, your plans be damned!”
Krayell had moved on to rubbing his temples. What had started out as a profitable endeavor for a small handful of high ranking Iisenors a quarter century earlier was now on the verge of giving him what he had longed for his whole life. He had been tripped up before, early on, and now the king’s rashness and foolish pride was ruining the opportunity that both of them were looking forward to. But as it seemed with all royal blood, they wanted what they wanted, no matter how impossibly contradictory it was for those who were expected to deliver. The Maqaran sot of a monarch seemed perfectly content to pierce his own foot with an arrow from his own bow, to bungle the real prize, all over the minor quibble of Thaybrill’s qualifications as a suitable husband for his daughter, when she would be a widow within a year.
A bloodless method of placing Iisen in the hands of the Maqarans was all but impossible now, as was his own path to finally entering the ranks of nobility. The accursed line of veLohrdan had been nothing but one complication and aggravation after another for over twenty years now. And once again, they were thwarting everything, this time through an act of gallantry by the brat that was to take the throne. Krayell had been so looking forward to being rid of them, to personally ending the veLohrdan dynasty himself once and for all.
King Azi continued to smack his lips noisily as he dined while Krayell tried to think what to do next.
He asked the king, “Do you still wish the realm of Iisen for your own? Or have you decided you prefer your pride instead?”
Azi pulled the grouse bone from his mouth long enough to say, “I want both.”
The answer made Krayell grind his teeth together in spite of the fact that he knew what it would be before it was spoken. “It would have been better to have your daughter on the throne to assume control of Iisen when we got rid of Thaybrill, but that option is removed from the table because of your pointless tests. There is a new cost now because of last night, for both of us, Your Highness. Instead, here is what we are to do,” said the Domo. “You will send a contingent of soldiers through the pass, enough to take the capital city of Lohrdanwuld. I will eliminate the prince permanently and ensure that the Kingdom Guard will not trouble your path to the capital. I will ensure that they are thinned so desperately in Lohrdanwuld that it will fall into your hands readily. Once you have Lohrdanwuld, you have Iisen.”
King Azi nodded to show he understood.
“My price for this is double the size of the fief we previously agreed to,” continued Krayell. “And I get double my pick of the conquered Iisenors to begin my own noble line before I grow too old. Is that understood?”
King Azi reddened in the face and grew offended, “Don’t speak to me as if I’m your servant! How dare you!”
Krayell snapped at him and pounded on the table, “You value decisiveness?! I have a surplus to present to you! This is the price you pay for the plan we must now follow because you want both Iisen and a son-in-law that takes your daughter like a common trollop! Take this deal or leave it all behind, Your Majesty... those are the two paths last night has left you!”
Azi glared for a moment at the inlaid wood of the fine dining table where they sat, then grunted and said, “Fine. Double the land and title originally agreed.”
“Good,” said Krayell, finally feeling like he was getting somewhere. “How long before you can pull a regiment together and have them gathered at the pass to march on Lohrdanwuld?”
“A few weeks or so. An exact date is impossible to give without consultations.”
“Send a sealed message by one of veBasstrolle’s trusted men to me with the date when you have it, giving me enough advance warning that I can have things on my end set into motion. Remember not to let veBasstrolle or his men know the true plan or we’ll never have their support. They can only think we intend to continue and increase the trades in the same manner of the last twenty-odd years.” said Krayell.
Krayell waited for what he knew the king would insist on to officiate the new deal, but Azi continued his breakfast, now ignoring the Iisen Domo Regent.
“Are you not going to insist this be put to parchment as is your way?” grunted Krayell. “Or are you seeking an advantage by not allowing a record of our agreement?”
Azi frowned then waved at one of the servants nearby. “You know us well, Krayell. Very well. Ajidab, you heard the details of our agreement. Have them transcribed to official record and allow our Iisen... guest... to affirm it. Then it will be binding.”
The startlingly blond servant bowed low and scampered from the room to comply with the order.
Krayell left the king to finish his breakfast, keenly aware that the man did not have even the basic manners to offer him any before he left for Iisen. It made him long for the day when he would be a noble himself, finally, master of his own land and house, with his own dynasty and servants that answered to him and no one else.
No matter what the cost to the rest of the Iisendom.
~~~~~
In the carriage leaving the capital city of Daum Maqa, Krayell felt the bitter resentment almost ready to boil over. He shuffled a few parchments of random reports and directives, feigning occupation so he did not have to look at the prince across from him before it all became too much to bear. At least the little boil on his backside was staying quiet for once after having ruined the betrothal trip. He allowed his bitterness towards the last of the veLohrdans to be read as disappointment and frustration with what had happened the night before. With a new plan in place, what the prince thought of him mattered not, and letting the boy sense his true emotions towards him for once would keep him from being vexed by a barrage of questions that he did not feel like answering.
Twenty years earlier, Krayell would have been content to allow veBasstrolle to ascend the throne after the veLohrdan line was eliminated, all so the corrupt trade between Maqara and himself, veBasstrolle, and the Lord Marshal Soudern Jahnstlerr could increase even more. But that had been spoiled by the birth of the prince sitting across from him. With an heir born to King Colnor and Colnor dead, the laws of Iisen put himself in charge of the country as the Domo Regent, which stayed his hand from further treacherous action for twenty years. It was only after a visit to Azi several years ago that they hatched the plan to deliver Iisen to the Maqaran king, in payment for which Krayell would be made a full noble of the Maqaran realm. He had hidden the real plan from Jahnstlerr and veBasstrolle because they were to be victims of it as much as the rest of Iisen, only they didn’t know it.
The more Krayell thought about it, the less he disliked the new plan in reality. There assuredly would be bloodshed, but it wouldn’t be his. And it would all happen much sooner than marrying off Thaybrill to Quannah and then making her a widow some months later.
Even with his mood improving, he was nonetheless rankled by even the presence of the prince across from him. And so, he had hardly bothered to reassure the boy that everything would turn out in the end as they prepared to depart Daum Maqa. After all, why expend any energy at all on him when, in a matter of weeks, Thaybrill would be out of the picture and Iisen would fall to Maqara?
The blessed silence did not last forever, though, and eventually Prince Thaybrill interrupted the Domo’s review of the reports and notes by asking softly, “Domo, you must help me understand more fully why it is that we even wanted this alliance with
Maqara in the first place.”
Krayell had always responded to this question vaguely in the past. There was no need for an alliance with Maqara; it served merely as a pretext to force the marriage of Thaybrill to Quannah.
Krayell sighed heavily and put down the parchments, giving in to the interruption. “More than one reason, Highness,” he said to the prince. “The more our people trade with Maqara, the more money they make and the more we bring in from tax revenue as a result.”
“Yes, I understand that, Krayell, but that hardly seems like a critical issue to me. Trade is difficult since there is but one passage between our two kingdoms, and we trade well enough amongst ourselves in Iisen,” said Thaybrill.
“More is better, Highness,” said Krayell with a hint of impatience. “Besides, we need to be prepared if the people from the south, beyond the Ouleand Sea, ever turn aggressive. We do not have their shipbuilding skills or seafaring nature, and we need to be prepared with an ally to stand against them,” insisted Krayell, digging up one of the other reasons he had fed to the prince along the way.
“In recorded history,” said Thaybrill, “not once have they landed a ship on our shore, nor even communicated with us. Why now are they suddenly a threat to concern us?”
Krayell’s patience was about worn through with the probing questions from the young man and his hand was starting to crumple one of the parchments he held in his lap. “But such suspicious behavior is exactly why we need to be prepared, obviously,” he said, forcing himself to unclench his jaw. The prince was correct, though. Every six or seven years, stretching back for centuries, a ship or two from the south would appear over the horizon, but they never landed and there was no reason to think they bore any ill will. But like the gypsies, it was a convenient monster in the garderobe with which to scare the prince and the people into a direction the Domo wanted them to go.
“We should send a boat of our own out to greet them one time. To welcome them as guests and to see what is their nature,” said Thaybrill.
Krayell could stand no more, especially when the prince began to show independent thoughts. He snapped at the prince, “Do you want the blood of our ship’s crew on your hands when this plan of yours fails? Do you fancy the idea of seeing our brave men eviscerated and strung up from a foreign enemy’s masts? Do you want to tell their families the tragic result of your whimsy?”
Thaybrill frowned and backed down at this point, looking thoroughly chastised. He said “no,” softly and sank back into his seat in the carriage, quiet once again.
Krayell shook a piece of parchment purposefully and stuck his nose back into it, willing the quiet to last as long as possible.
He would need to plan out with the Lord Marshal how to get rid of Thaybrill when he got back to the Folly. The trick would be to make sure the Lord Marshal only thought it was to allow veBasstrolle to take the crown so their enterprise would be safe to expand carefully. He closed his eyes and began to think of a hundred cruel ways to rid himself of the prince, to spit one final time in Colnor’s face, his final revenge for the king who never saw him as anything more than a servant.
He wondered how he would survive the days not passing quickly enough to suit him at this point.
Chapter 8 — Bound And Bloodied
It was never much of a home, but it was exactly that to Gully, more than any other. To refer to it as a cabin was almost putting on pretense. Years ago, when Gully was about twelve and Roald was almost fourteen years aged, they snuck out of Lohrdanwuld alone so Roald could see it for himself for the first time. Roald laughed when he first laid eyes on it and told Gully it would make an excellent privy, which angered his brother. He threatened to leave Roald stranded amongst the bogs and then he refused to speak to him for most of the rest of that day.
Most would probably call it a hut, but it was a sturdy one. The bottom half was stone, the top half timber. In the years he had lived there, it was enough space for him and his father to be comfortable, and they certainly weren’t crowded with any other people pressing in around them as in the city.
Gully rubbed his itching palm on the rough material of the breeches on his thigh as he stood for one last glance at his home before he left to begin the second part of his mission in the woods of Ghellerweald. When he had arrived a few days earlier, he felt the same anticipation and hope, however weak it had become these last few years, that his father had somehow found his way back home in Gully’s absence. As always, there was no sign that anyone, his father or otherwise, had been in it since he was last there.
In the days since he had arrived, Gully had spent time making repairs that were needed and had cleaned up the inside. A couple of the shutters on the windows needed mending, and he had cleared away some moss growing on the stones on the north face of the cabin. He had also cut and dried some fresh grasses from a nearby meadow to stuff into the mattress ticks of his and his father’s beds, plumping and freshening them up. Lastly, he cleared away a few wasp nests that had appeared in one of the rafters.
Normally, he would have performed these sorts of duties with a touch of sadness and longing. But during this stay his heart had felt as light as a wispy cloud in the blue sky and he couldn’t help it. His encounter with Mariealle could do nothing less than give his soul wings that lifted his spirit even as longing for his father tried to ground it again. Merely greeting her in passing would have been a gift enough for Gully, but he had magically been blessed with so much more, and he had spent hours and hours thinking over their meeting in his mind. She knew the ugliest truth of whom he really was, and still she was kind to him. She had even promised to keep the secret of Roald to herself. And then there was the crowning grace... she had indicated she’d like to see him again. Were he to be showered with favors from every star in the sky, he would not be able to ask for more than what had come from their first true meeting as he had embarked down the South Pass Road.
Now as he was ready to leave, he gave the cozy little hut where he had been so happy for his first years a final glance. The stone bottom half was in fine shape, as was the timber upper half. The roof would need some repairs in the thatching next time he was here or the leaks in very bad weather would become too much. And this reminded him that he would need to replace two of the rungs in the primitive ladder he used to get onto the roof. The work never ended, but neither did he mind it.
His feet turned and began to take him away so he could begin the next phase of the search for his father. They followed, of their own mind, the spiral path out from the safe lot of wooded land upon which the cabin sat. The cabin was surrounded by dangerous bogs and perilously soft ground impossible to pull yourself from if you sank into it and became stuck, dangers that he and his father alone knew how to navigate safely. Others, even if looking for the cabin, would be hard pressed to find it without dying in the attempt, but Gully made his way out by the one tricky path that was safe without even thinking about it.
As he followed the path out to safer ground, he made a minor detour while still in the deep woods to his favorite meadow. There were many of them here and there in the forest, small open spaces that the forest moors and bogs seemed to leave well enough alone, but there was one that was Gully’s favorite.
When he reached the edge of the small open spot of ground, the light of morning was drying the dew of the deep teal leaves that carpeted it in the summertime. He crossed to the middle, finding the flat stone there that was one of his favorite spots as a child. He, his father, and Pe’taro had spent many afternoons in this meadow, reclining on that very rock, enjoying a picnic beneath the open sky and sunshine and clouds. In the early spring, the field would be covered in clusters of the tiny, ice-white and silver flowers of spring hail that would rustle in waves at the touch of every breeze across the meadow. The air would be thick with the rich floral scent with a touch of mint that was the hallmark of spring hail in bloom. He remembered many happy times taking a nap with Pe’taro curled up around him, keeping him warm in the cool air of t
he new season, his father whistling a tune as he worked on sharpening his throwing knives or lying back with the both of them.
He thought back to playing hiding games with Pe’taro in the spring hail until exhausted, then falling asleep on the warm rock. His father would pick him up while half asleep and say, “Let’s get you home before I have to carry both of my tired foxes the whole way!”
He allowed himself a few minutes in the meadow to reminisce before resuming his walk out of the deep wood and to the South Pass Road. At the edge of the meadow, before entering the woods again, he spotted a large obsidian nettle bush growing and it reminded him how his jaw was still hurting from where he had lost the tooth in his encounter with the guard. He took a small pouch from his bag and carefully picked as many of the young, tender shoots of the plant as he could, leaving the mature black leaves alone. When he camped later that night, he’d make some tea with them over the fire and it would relieve much of the pain in his jaw.
It took another hour of trekking through the dense growth of the woods where no path existed except what was in his mind until Gully reached the South Pass Road. He approached warily to make sure no one was nearby before starting on his way. A three hour walk along the road to the west would lead him back to the Trine Range and Lohrdanwuld, but that was not the direction he took. Gully turned to his right and headed east. He would have to follow the road for the rest of the day, but then he would come to the eastern edge of the Ghellerweald, not far from East End. He had decided to begin methodically tracking and exploring the northern half of the forest for signs of his father, and his plan was to start from that end, working his way back towards his cabin over the next week.
~~~~~
Gully looked up through the trees and realized how he would need to choose a site to safely camp out for the night before too much longer. The sun was sinking, and even though the laughing moon was now rising almost as soon as dusk gave way to night, Vasahle’s light would not penetrate enough into the forest for him to find a spot to settle into for his sleep. His first day of crossing through the northern half of the Ghellerweald had proven fruitless, but he wasn’t anything if not patient.
