Redemption

by Anne Osterlund

  The general used the base of his boot to separate the only burning branch from the rest of the pile. “I’d have you strung up already if I didn’t believe, despite all appearances to the contrary, you might have a sense of honor. And that the reason my stepdaughter is sharing your tent might actually be for her own safety.” The boot crushed the struggling flame. “You aren’t going to disabuse me of that notion, are you?”

  Robert stood up. “No, sir.”

  “Your Lordship.”

  “No, Your Lordship.”

  • • •

  The candle had overflowed, the hot wax dripping down and filling the metal base a blood red. Liquid spilled, searing Aurelia’s fingers as she emptied the excess wax onto the barren earth that served as the floor of the tent. How many times had Robert done the same while waiting for her? She returned the still-burning candle to its base and set the metal holder onto the crate beside his empty pallet, then sank back upon her own pallet and hugged her knees to her chest.

  Her gaze lost its grip on the flame. Instead, she stared into the empty chasm within herself. She had hurt him. How badly she did not know. The words from their argument this morning had ripped through her all day, like lead bullets. She had called him worthless. She had not meant to—had been referring to his failure to talk during the council meeting, but she had not realized at the time how Robert would hear the comment. That he might think himself inferior.

  Why had it never occurred to her to consider the difference in their social status from his perspective? The signals had been there all along: her sister’s gasping comment that he was not titled, her father’s pompous dictate that Robert never return to the palace, Daria’s warning not to hurt him. And her more recent accusation that, because he was not an aristocrat, her friend had failed to value his heart. How had Aurelia never realized Robert might believe the same?

  She had tried to find him this morning after he had blown past her and out of the council tent. But he had remained as elusive as in the days before their trip to the Fortress. She had been left to face the day’s concerns, a dozen mundane complaints she could no longer remember. All of which she had resolved and which had seemed irrelevant once she had grasped the meaning behind Robert’s words. That he believed he was no one.

  Their tent was terrifyingly empty. The candle. His maps. Her canvas bag. The pallets she had spread out on the ground. He could pack and leave within seconds. Could leave without even packing.

  A rustle came at the entrance.

  And Robert stepped inside, letting the tent’s flap fall behind him.

  They stared at each other in the candlelight, silent for the moment. Dirt smeared his clothes, and she did not care. Nor did she care that his palms were callused, his trousers worn, or that the boots he had acquired at the Fortress were secondhand. But she cared very, very much that he was here. So much that she was shaking, gripping her hands at her knees with such ferocity that her knuckles ached. Too much to let the silence linger.

  “I’m sorry.” The apology came from both of them at the same time.

  Aurelia rushed on. “You mean more to me than anyone.”

  Which felt so inadequate.

  If he had fallen in love with someone else, would he have felt inferior? She struggled for breath. Because here was the problem: She couldn’t marry him. Couldn’t tell him her fears of what might happen to him if she did. And she couldn’t tell him she loved him—because she was too flawed to be able to love. She couldn’t lie to him and tell him he meant more to her than their country. He would never have believed her.

  “You saved my life,” she continued. “I wouldn’t be here without you. You showed me this country. You helped me see parts of our home no one else would have thought to share.” He had been correct when he had called her self-centered. Why couldn’t she focus on him? “You came home for Tyralt!”

  He stared at her, speechless.

  “You were right about me this morning,” she admitted. “The truth is I didn’t know how to express … what I was feeling.” She still could not put into words her doubts from the war council. “I wanted you to express it for me. Which wasn’t fair.”

  He crouched down, his hand tracing the spilled wax in the dirt. “Aurelia, I’m the one who hasn’t been fair. I knew you wanted my support. I should have had more courage. I should not have left you alone to face … all the hard discussions … over the past month and a half. I knew you wanted my help and I … pretended to be blind. I was too afraid to be on your council.”

  She hadn’t asked him! No wonder he had failed to speak. She had asked everyone else: Valerian, the Oracle, Lord Lester. She had planned out each request—had failed at times to follow the plan, yet had made it clear she was asking. But Robert, she had taken for granted. Had defended his place on the council as if he had needed defending. “I should have asked you.”

  “I would have refused out of cowardice.” His hand stopped tracing the wax.

  He rose slowly, then added, “You were the one who was right this morning. I should have said what I thought. Those men”—he lifted a hand toward the tent flap—“deserve better.” He stripped the scabbard from his waist and lowered his pack to the ground. “I’ll serve on the council, Aurelia.”

  Relief flooded through her. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He knelt on his own pallet. His hand gripped hers, pulling her to him. “You are welcome.”

  Her heart thundered. He had accepted her gratitude. She buried her face in his shoulder as his arms closed around her. Warm. And safe. “You realize,” she whispered, “you are the only person I can confide in within this entire camp.”

  He gently pushed her back, a slight smile on his lips. “And who do you think I can talk to, Aurelia? Your stepfather? Or maybe the Heir of Valshone?” Robert brushed a strand of her hair from her cheek.

  “I thought,” she said, “maybe you talked to Thomas.”

  The hand jerked away. “Thomas and I have different perspectives.”

  Which meant what?

  She did not ask. Her last discussion with Daria still needled. Of course, Aurelia had not known then that Thomas planned to forfeit his place as Lord Lester’s spy in order to fight. No wonder Daria had been scared.

  Aurelia found herself staring again into the candle.

  How many of these men would ever return to their wives and families?

  “What is it you would like to confide?” Robert whispered.

  My fears. They had become so dominant. Would it really hurt to tell one person that she was uncertain of her decisions? That having people risk their lives to follow her vision was a million times harder than she had imagined. That she believed in freedom, but she did not know at all if she could deliver it.

  “Robert, I …” He had just admitted he was afraid to serve on her council, yet he was confronting that fear. She had no right to burden him with her own. “I’m sorry for all the criticism you face because of your closeness with me.”

  He blew out the candle. “Aurelia.” This time the smile was in his voice. “You realize we’re in a camp full of men. That nearly five thousand men are jealous of my relationship with you.” His hands cupped her shoulders, drawing her closer. “I have no interest in changing my reputation.”

  Her entire body heated as his mouth claimed her own. She had forgotten, again, how much she loved arguing with Robert.

  Then he collapsed on his pallet and rolled away from her. “Or,” he added, “in correcting their misconceptions.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  BATTLE

  No sign of the desert scouts. Aurelia shifted in her saddle and swept a futile gaze from the dense spruce on the right side of the Northern Road, across the tight-marching ranks of Valerian’s men in front of her, and through the equally compressed forest to her left. Nothing disturbed the advance of southbound travel. No ripple in the ranks. No shouts of concern. No unanticipated return of the three men she had secretly ordered ahead only two days ago. All of w
hich should have comforted her.

  She urged Falcon to the road’s edge, waited as the frontiersmen passed, and pulled her mare up alongside Horizon at the rear. Robert rode beside her in silence, as though waiting for her to speak.

  She clasped the back of her neck with her hand. Her anxiety, like her discomfort about the battle plans, hovered beyond words, as though trapped behind the fog that still haunted her from the fight on the frontier. She had ridden into that battle naïve and useless, a memory that had stalked her every day since. And through every discussion. She had realized she needed counsel—the expertise of men who knew weapons and tactics and how to lead. She had tried to listen, to learn from others’ advice, to ask questions. To respect her council’s expertise.

  But the fog had failed to clear. And the advice from the last meeting continued to chafe.

  She slowed her mare; Horizon slowed as well.

  “Something felt wrong,” she said, struggling to explain to Robert, “about the idea that you can’t fight a battle in the middle of the forest.”

  “It’s good logic, Aurelia.”

  That was the problem. In her final confrontation with her sister there had been no rationality. Melony’s eyes had been feral, her voice filled with hysteria. The accusations raw. With grief? Yes. Her sister’s perfect veneer had fragmented at Chris’s death. But beneath that grief had been no hint of remorse. Aurelia’s instincts churned. Of course her stepfather’s prediction was good logic—that the army would select their ground and wait.

  But the plan was too rational. It implied that Melony would listen to her generals. And Aurelia didn’t believe her sister would listen. If she had listened to military expertise, she never would have allowed Anthone across the desert.

  Nothing about Melony was logical.

  She preferred the ulterior.

  The underhanded.

  The unbalanced.

  Aurelia lifted her reins. She had fallen victim to the same error for which she had blamed Robert. The failure to value her own knowledge. She had asked questions at the council meeting but failed to provide her own insight. Into her sister.

  “Robert, we need to hold another—”

  The forward ranks exploded with musket fire.

  Falcon reared, and Aurelia tightened her grip, then shortened her reins as the horse came down.

  Another volley of muskets. Followed by cacophony: shouts, drums, whistles, pounding boots, and the war cry of the desert tribes.

  An attack. Her epiphany had come too late.

  Falcon spun in circles, the world blurring. Men, wagons, other horses: all consumed by the blue-green mass of the forest.

  A hand reached for the mare’s halter. “Dismount!” Robert shouted.

  No.

  And cannon erupted. The mare ripped away from Robert’s reach and spun again. Aurelia melded her body to her horse. She closed her eyes to the blur, allowing her heart to pound with Falcon’s hooves. Her insides squeezed, anticipating screams and death. Perhaps her own, for where else could royal cannon fire but straight down the road?

  At last her mare stilled, every muscle in Falcon’s body trembling.

  A guard of frontiersmen had formed a ring around Aurelia. Four of them mounted. Plus Robert, motioning at the others to maintain their positions. Most of the remaining frontiersmen had vanished. Others raced forward into the space behind Lord Lester’s men that was being evacuated by the Valshone. Black coats headed into the forest. To the left as the plans had stated, she realized, though the plans had been wrong.

  Smoke, far too dark to be musket fire, rose above the trees to the southeast.

  Shouts clamored for movement among the men assigned to the center. His Lordship’s troops must be clogged on the road.

  A rider burst from the north side of the forest. Guardsmen moved to block his path, but he wore the robes of a desert tribesman and lifted a carved token from his throat. The emblem of a courier.

  “We hear the enemy,” he shouted, “but we cannot see! The trees. We cannot ride!”

  She had no idea how to advise him.

  “Then dismount and fight on foot!” Robert shouted. “Hold the line!”

  The courier nodded, pulled his horse away, and disappeared into the trees.

  For a moment Robert’s hand tightened on hers.

  And then a whistle came through the smoke. The Valshone whistle for retreat.

  • • •

  What in the clouds? Robert swore as he recognized the signal. Men began to come out of the forest. Men who were supposed to support the left flank. He launched from the stallion, grabbed a frontiersman by the shoulder, and questioned, “What are you doing?”

  The man grimaced. “Followin’ orders. To retreat from the fire.”

  To retreat where? There was no ridge to protect them. Nowhere to go except behind the men dying out in the open road.

  “Who gave the order?” Robert demanded.

  “The General of Valshone.”

  In the name of Tyralt! If the entire left side retreated, with the road blocked, Aurelia’s forces were finished. The royal army could sweep around and destroy Lord Lester’s men. Valerian had to take the offensive. He couldn’t retreat.

  Again the whistle sounded.

  Robert swung once more onto Horizon’s back and broke from Aurelia’s side. They would none of them survive—not her, not these men, not the mission—if that whistle continued to blow. The stallion tore through the chaos: underbrush, branches, running men. Robert followed the screeching sound. And then he was there. At that whistle. Around the neck of the man who was forfeiting the entire revolution.

  Robert pulled Horizon up against Valerian’s mount, drew his own sword, and held the tip to the Heir’s throat.

  The screeching halted, fear wild in the general’s eyes.

  I’m not the enemy, Robert wanted to say. And neither is that fire. A month later in the dry heat of late summer, it would have been; but for now the fire was a tactic. A ploy, no doubt borrowed from the Anthonian army.

  He leaned over and ripped the whistle from the Heir’s neck, then blew his own signal. Halt!

  Valerian yanked his mount away and headed toward the road.

  Robert had no time to think about him. Lord Lester’s three thousand men were trapped in a stretch less than ten feet wide. The only way they survived was if one of the sides broke the opponent’s line. Advance, Robert blew the signal.

  Figures formed around him. Frontiersmen and Valshone. Their general had disappeared. “Form a line!” Robert shouted at the men. “Shoulder to shoulder. We’re going to swing and come around. Whatever happens, you hold the line!”

  The men moved to follow his directions.

  He rode left along the growing formation, repeated the same orders, thanked Tyralt there were still men. And rode on. Horizon struggled through brush. The desert courier had been correct. The forest was too thick for decent riding. But that wasn’t the point. Robert had to be seen and heard. To extend the line.

  He had no sense of how far he rode, how long the line built before he ran out of men. In places, there were three maybe four rows, in others only one. The officers didn’t argue, just supported the formation of their soldiers. He reached the end, the line stretching to his right as far as he could see.

  Swing right. He blew the signal, then tried to guide that end. Horizon rebelled, fighting the order to align his front hooves with the feet of the men on the ground. Robert focused on his stallion, as if the entire maneuver depended on his ability to control his mount. In a way, the challenge was the same. Because the men, like the horse, had to trust him. To defy the flames and bullets ahead, though every instinct, every muscle, wanted to turn and race back. The arc began to sweep inward.

  He had no knowledge of time as he guided that end. No sense of the larger battle. No means of communication.

  A single word rippled down the line: fire. Fear throbbed in the men’s voices. And Robert knew the rest of the battle did not matter to the men
facing those flames.

  At last a Valshone courier rode up alongside Horizon. “Should I relay a message—”

  “Hold the end and swing the arc.” Robert gestured for the man to take his position. “If you keep swinging, eventually we’ll come round.”

  “Around where?” the courier asked.

  “On the attack!” Robert replied. “Onto the road.”

  He lifted his reins, and his stallion plunged back the way they had come, along the line. And through smoke. The blackness burned in Robert’s lungs and stung his eyes, sparks assaulting his skin. Heat wafted from flames that incinerated dried brush and peeled bark. But the fire had not spread. No charred graveyard scarred the forest behind those flames.

  Urging his stallion through paths in the burning debris, Robert guided groups of men, helping them reform on the other side of the fire. Each time he feared the line might be lost when he crossed the flames, but each time he found it again. The men kept coming.

  Hold the line! he wanted to shout, but his voice would be lost in the smoke or drowned by the growing musket fire from the road. And then he realized he had been wrong. The battle was not limited to the road, but here, within the forest. The smoke he saw now came from the muskets of his own men. The opponent was among the trees. And the line was too thin.

  • • •

  Aurelia was blind. She could see nothing beyond the smoke, the guards, her mare, and her own ignorance. She realized, as soon as Robert left her side, that the greatest weakness in the war council’s plans was not the lack of scouts or the assumption of where the battle would take place. But the idea that she was the core—the person through whom every message should be delivered.

  The riders from Lord Lester and the Oracle found her—how? She was uncertain, but the council had agreed she would be at the back, and she did not move. Did not dare. Though what her presence achieved for those men in the battle, she did not know. Except that the couriers needed somewhere to relay their messages. If those riders could not find her, that would be the word they returned. And she could not allow that. Could not have men worrying about her safety as they fought for their lives.