The commander paced the floor and listened for several long moments. Then he froze. “WHAT? My lord, I can’t do that. They are just people. They aren’t armed.”
The commander was silent again, and this time he did not pace.
The man might not be as bad as I imagined.
“I can’t do that, my lord. They are unarmed. They are no threat to you. They are only simple men, women and children – families. It would be slaughter.”
Another short pause. “Yes, my lord,” he said, with a grimace. “Some of the men have been reported missing from the morning roll calls, but…”
Another pause. “My lord, if I order them hunted down, more may disappear.”
After this pause, Sean could see the color drain from the man’s leathered features. “My lord, I can’t… No… My lord… It’s not… My lord…” The commander gripped his chest, his mouth gasping for air. The runner fled.
* * *
Sean stood in front of him. He gave him the air his body was screaming for. “Convince me that my effort meant something,” he said.
The commander swayed, but Sean didn’t steady him. “Who are you?” he asked, trying to regain his composure and feed his lungs at the same time.
“Does it matter so much who I am? I gave you air when your master denied you. Have you ever watched someone die from suffocation? Have you ever watched a fish after you pull it out of water?” Sean might have continued, but he hadn’t done either of those things and didn’t have any other ideas.
The garrison commander looked at the young man who had appeared in front of him; he looked him up and down while his fingers rubbed the base of his throat idly. “Your effort meant my life, but now my life is worthless since it is no longer supposed to be.”
“Wrong,” said Sean. “Your life is your own, make use of it.” He left as abruptly as he had appeared.
* * *
“Where did you go?” asked Elias, as he sat up.
“I thought you were sleeping,” said Sean.
“I woke up shortly after you came in. Are you going to tell me where you went?”
Sean started to put his armor on. “No,” he said shortly, with his mouth tight.
“Marinda tells me that you’ve become very independent lately, even unruly.”
Sean looked at him. He is the only father I have ever known. “Why didn’t you tell me a long time ago?”
“Tell you what? That you were a prince? That you would be a king someday? That you weren’t from Earth? How was I supposed to tell you all that and still let you grow up and discover who you were? There was never any guarantee that we would get this far, especially after Clayton died. I wasn’t about to take away what you might have had there on the slim chance that we might make it back here. As it is, you may have missed out on many things a prince would have been taught, but I think you just might be better for it. You can always pick up what you missed later.”
“I suppose.” Sean shrugged into his mail shirt. “I’m going to be leaving soon. Do you feel like coming along or would you rather stay here?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll start assembling the men,” said Elias, as he started to dress too.
“No. I’ll be going alone. You can come if you like; Ferris too if he can bring himself to do it. Everyone else should stay here. There’s too much to lose here.”
“You’ll be disappointing a lot of men if you do that.”
“I will not strip this place of its best workers and protection so the men can follow me on a wild-goose chase that could very well lead to their deaths.”
“You are their king. They have been waiting to follow you all of their lives,” said Elias, as he scrutinized Sean’s face.
“It’s not up for discussion.” Sean left the room still buckling his shoulder piece in place.
Elias was hot on his heels until they passed through the kitchen. Marinda was crying, so he diverted his path to find out why.
Sean did his morning workout until he was called in for breakfast. Then he took Prince out behind the barn for another long-overdue workout. Both Darrel and Manuel saw to it that he covered everything, and even helped him learn some more, then he went out for a run. This was not something one does for pleasure. Clydesdales were bred for size and strength, not for their gait. Nevertheless, it felt good to be out and just going somewhere aimlessly for a change.
Before he turned back, he brought the stones to him, all eleven of them. With the original six in one hand and the other five in his other hand, he compared them. Held closely side by side, he could see a small variation in their color, but even a few inches apart, that small difference was hard to spot. The fact that Ferris had been able to use the piece of glass he had been given, led Sean to believe that it was less the stones than the belief in them that made them work. What were the chances that the maker of that picture had found the right rocks to use in the flower?
When he got back to the yard, Elias had every man and boy in the community formed up, and the stones were forgotten. Sean dismounted and led Prince up to the gathering. “I told you not to do this,” he said to Elias. It’s like they’re anxious to have me gone from here, or maybe they’re anxious to die. He looked over the assemblage. “What have you told them?”
“That you’re prepared to leave,” said Elias. “Nothing more; I did not call for this.”
Sean turned back to the men. They were all lined up and standing tall. At least they aren’t kneeling. “I’ll be leaving in the morning.” He had to wait for cheers to subside. This is so much harder than I imagined. “I will not take every man who stands here.” That quieted them a bit. “I will not take any man who has a family.” They were very quiet now. “And I will not take anyone younger than me.” Not having been here long enough to know these men, Sean could only guess how many that left, but he hoped that he had pared out at least three quarters of them. He wanted to cover distance and he didn’t want to advertise his presence any more than he had to. “Those of you who remain must understand that I will be marching under the White Star banner.” He turned and hung a small representation on the front of the house. That just might chop the rest of them in half, and if I’m lucky, all of them will stay here. Marinda can remove the flag after I leave.
By the time he was finished, the assemblage was absolutely silent. He went into the house hoping that lunch was still on regardless of what was going on outside; he’d worked up an appetite.
Sean spent the rest of the day getting ready to leave. He checked over his gear. He checked over Prince’s gear. He’d been reshod since their arrival, so he didn’t need to worry about that for a while. He even took the time to regrind the big claymore under the patient eyes of its owner. He had beaten it up quite a bit the other day – the least he could do was try to fix it. The man didn’t want it sharp; Sean figured that big a butter knife wouldn’t need to be very sharp.
He found Ferris when he made it back from town and gave him the rest of the stones from the picture at the manor. Ferris assumed that they were the original ones. “What are you giving these to me for?” he asked.
“They’re for you to use if you need to. I don’t need them. Let others use them too as you see fit.”
“But what about when you meet up with Ludwyn?” he asked.
“I still don’t think I’ll need them, but if I do, I can find them.”
Ferris tried to give them back along with the one he already had. “I can’t take these.”
Sean pushed them back at him. “You can take them if I give them to you. If you want, they can go into the royal treasury when we get that far, but for now, I might need you and your magic one day, and you might need these to be up to the task.”
He took them back, holding them as if they were the very life’s breath of this world. Sean wondered if giving them to him was a good idea. He wondered if he would just hide them again. Surely, he was more practical than that.
He had much the same encounter with Elias w
hen he gave him the original stones. Later he regretted having done that. He could just see them both giving their white stones to Marinda, thus discovering that he had two sets of stones.
Under Way
The morning of his planned departure started much like every other morning, with a few exceptions. Breakfast was full of farewells, best wishes and regrets from those who would be remaining behind, and from their wives, though there were less regrets there.
Some of the girls managed to work up the courage to give the handsome young warrior who didn’t act like a king a few small parting gifts with their eyes all aflutter and their giggles hidden behind their hands.
Marinda brought out the tabard that had belonged to his Uncle Clayton. “Your uncle used this only for formal occasions. It’s yours now.” Emblazoned across the front and back was the six-petaled flower; Sean changed it to the four-pointed White Star; it was fitting for this mission. He also had to change the cut at the neck a bit so it would fit with his shoulder piece without bunching inside the guard or stretching outside of it.
Aside from the shoulder piece, Sean still wore Elias’s armor, and Ferris had his own; Uncle Clayton had been wearing his when he was killed, but that didn’t stop Elias from finding another set or having one made. He changed the emblem on that tabard as well, though it was only a small representation on his left shoulder. When they finished, they went outside to find Ferris and saddle up.
Twenty men were gathered with their horses and packhorses already geared up and ready to leave. The sight made Sean regret not teleporting away sometime during the night. Most of them had some sort of tabard. Resigned, he moved among them and changed the emblems on their shoulders to the White Star; those who didn’t happen to have a tabard got one, which caused a few whispers to fly. They all wore helmets and Sean didn’t really pay much attention to who was behind all that metal; he just wanted to be under way.
They were out of sight of the compound less than an hour later. Sean had hoped to leave with no more than four or five men. He felt like he was dragging a juggernaut with him. Then again, most of that was his own attitude; they moved along well enough.
Sean didn’t think much about it, but when they made camp, he discovered why so many men were with him. Jenny, Mattie and three other women were among the ‘men’. They had, of course, brought their husbands with them. What could he do? He could send them back, but if they were willing to sneak aboard his contrail, they would follow him anyway, and he couldn’t let them go haring out across the country alone, not when he was about to rip it apart.
Determined not to display another temper tantrum, Sean went beyond the edge of camp with a hatchet and helped to collect firewood. He picked the biggest pieces of deadfall he dared and bashed them into more manageable pieces. It felt almost as good as a workout with his swords.
Over the campfire that night, they discussed their plan. Elias, Ferris and Cordan sketched out a rough representation of the country and its towns in the dirt near the fire. They had arrived at the manor house from the northeast. Their map gave Sean a much better understanding of the country, and with their help, Sean created one on a stretch of leather that showed coastlines, towns, mountains, and at least most of the rivers. It was a Dungeons & Dragons-type map, drawn with hexes to represent days, but by the time they were all finished, it was a fair approximation of the country. They all agreed that some things might have changed over the last seventeen years, but not enough to matter. With a malicious grin, Sean touched his finger to the center of the one mountain range that was entirely within his borders and left behind the representation of a volcano.
“What’d you do that for?” asked Ferris.
“Every map should have a volcano,” said Sean. “It adds color, don’t you think?”
“There’re no volcanoes here,” replied Ferris, but he shrugged and they continued.
The map was rough. No one could agree on where district borders went with any surety, but Sean wasn’t too interested in borders, so he left them off completely for now.
The towns didn’t have any names, and neither did the districts. “The districts used to be referred to by the name of the royal family who lived in the area, but I’m fairly certain that’s no longer the case. This district hasn’t been known as Loire for a long time,” offered Cordan.
The circles with the black centers were district capitals with garrisons, and since some districts had more than one garrison town, the secondary garrisons were shown with white centers. It was easy to see how garrison placement was done geographically; no patrols would need to cross any large rivers. A bridge would create a choke point in their route, and such a point would be a weakness.
By general consensus, the district borders could have been changed or more garrisons might have been added since they had been away, but regardless of such anomalies, with the help of this map, Sean could plan his approach to the capital. With luck, I’ll be able to disrupt a healthy swath of the countryside directly around the capital before my dear uncle can do much about it.
The town he had already messed with was southwest of the farm, farther along the valley, about five hours from the manor house. Two garrison towns were farther west of the farm. One was less than two weeks away and the other was at the mouth of a large river, clear out at the end of the peninsula. Over land, it would take them more than three weeks to reach that garrison, and Sean wasn’t interested in going by barge. He decided to cut south by southeast to a small river, then head northeast along its course, where he would encounter two garrison towns before the river curved off toward its source in the mountains.
His rough plan was to circle around the capital city, sticking to the open plains where he could move the fastest. Eight garrison towns were north of the capital. He would display the White Star in every garrison town he could find as he went. At the eastern most one, he planned to cross to the south side of the river on the ferry, then head directly for the capital. He didn’t think he would need to bother with the smaller towns; the local constabulary didn’t have the resources to mount any kind of resistance, or offer any assistance. They would likely have their hands full with the suddenly mobile people from the garrison towns. He also didn’t plan to touch any of the towns and villages in the mountains. Their lives were likely difficult enough as it was; he didn’t want to disrupt them any more than he had to and he wanted to home in on the capital, and his uncle, as fast as he could.
Later, after the camp was all settled down for the night, Sean took out the map again, and with its help, he found the closest garrison town to their west and the one to their southwest. He displayed his banner at the gates in both towns. At the seafront towns, he was torn. If he blew those apart, what would happen to what was left behind? What would be left behind? What kind of coastal defense were they responsible for? Would the people just get into their boats and leave the country? The likely presence of destriers in the garrisons made the decision for him. He could see no reason for such a display of cruel force. He would deal with them when he could do so properly.
Dawn was only a couple hours off when he returned. He had taken his time. Though he was nowhere near his bedroll, he didn’t bother to move. The night was warm and the sound of the river was soothing.
Nightmares
Ferris woke him a short time later. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Sean wondered why he would ask such a question. “I didn’t get much sleep, but I’m fine,” he replied. He didn’t mention that he had a headache.
As they traveled, they did everything in their power to stay out of sight of even the most remote homes, and Ferris kept a constant patrol of single scouts out to make sure their path was clear.
Despite the constant motion during the day, Sean had trouble sleeping at night. If he wasn’t tossing and turning, he was pacing, and his headache simply would not let up.
On the third day after leaving the farm, it clouded over and started to rain. That night sleep came without a struggle. Wh
ether it had something to do with the rain or just exhaustion, there was no way of knowing.
Though his body was quiet, his mind wasn’t. He relived his discussion with Aunt Marinda, watching as her shoulders hunched as she fought back tears. Then film clips of thousands of women, some he knew, many he didn’t, flipped across his view; he was certain that many of the faces belonged in New York City. They were all crying and saying much the same thing Marinda had said, over and over, in a hundred different voices.
Sean felt like he was strapped to the chair, forced to watch it all and feel every tear. When Ferris woke him, as had become his habit, he made no mention of the fact that he had been crying; the rain covered his tears and his eyes had been red for days.
The next night, Sean came across Larry at his sentry post several hundred yards from camp. Though Sean knew he was seeing Larry, he wasn’t seeing what was in front of him. He saw a tall young man dressed in a suit, in some setting he couldn’t remember, other than it had something to do with New York City. The anomaly was that he had a long scarf draped over his head and the wind was blowing the scarf close against his face. The dream Larry reached out to him, calling him to help him to not be blown away on the wind; and then he slapped him when he refused to lift a finger. The slap had been very real, and it woke Sean from his walking nightmare. Not wishing to repeat the experience, Sean spent the rest of Larry’s shift talking nonsense with him.
Sean returned to his bedroll, and his nightmares, when Larry returned to his bedroll with Jenny. By the time they saddled up, he was more than ready to move on.
The day dawned steeped in fog, so their progress was slowed, but they still moved. Sean, however, saw things in the mist everywhere he looked. He knew it was probably nothing more than little waves caused by some waft of air, but he saw people, and whatever portion of them he saw was covered in long black scarves, making them look like dark ghosts.
The Making of a Mage King: Prince in Hiding Page 19
