“There wasn’t really any right or wrong about what she’d done… the cheating, I mean. I didn’t know at the time, but I think they hadn’t been happy for a while and that if it was anyone’s fault she looked for love somewhere else, it lay with both of them rather than just with her alone. I think that was why Dad forgave her… that he understood… but Mum… Mum had always been fragile… she’d never been a strong woman, emotionally, and I – I think in the end, him forgiving her actually made things worse… made it impossible for her to forgive herself.” For the first time, Nev was voicing fears and suspicions she’d carried silently for far too long – dark theories developed over teenage years that had never really seen closure over her mother’s death. “I think that maybe… maybe… if he’d shouted at her… thrown her out – even just for a little while to punish her for what she’d done – she might’ve been able to deal with the guilt over what’d happened and move on… to feel like she’d paid some kind of penance for what she saw as her own sins. Instead, the demons inside tore her apart…
“You see, Lester… good people – caring, wonderful people – sometimes do awful, terrible things after they’ve suffered some shock or loss that’s too great for their mind to bear. They don’t mean to hurt or betray the ones they love… they just can’t help it. Nicole was my mother’s name, and she hurt my father and I terribly when she took her own life… but there isn’t a day goes by I don’t miss her so much, and I know my Dad does too. I don’t think your mum meant what she said about you either: she was just so hurt and lost after your sister died that she couldn’t cope without finding someone – anyone – to blame. I think she’d be sorry for what she’s done…” she added, suddenly realising something else that seemed relevant both for Lester and for herself “…and I don’t think there’s any shame or anything to feel guilty about in admitting you still miss her… that you still love her no matter what…”
Part of her had known all of it – understood all of what she’d just said – for a very long time, but that moment as the three of them sat around a table beneath the bridge of the Sea Skimmer was the first time she’d ever had the courage to face that fact and put what she’d felt about her mother’s suicide into words… to express it to others. As raw as Nev now felt, her own pain and vulnerability exposed, part of her rational mind also somehow understood that it was probably something she should’ve done a long time ago.
For Lester’s part, there seemed no words at all he could think of: in that moment, the larrikin, outwardly tough exterior of a lost boy forced prematurely into the streets to fend for himself had all been stripped away, leaving just the fragility of a twelve-year-old who still desperately needed his mother’s love and comfort… a boy who’d never been given the opportunity to properly grieve for his own sister in the aftermath of her death.
There was no bravado in his expression now, and his eventual reaction was the most honest Godfrey had ever seen: Lester almost leaped from the bench he was sitting on and threw his arms around Nev, hugging her tightly and burying his face into her shoulder as he tried to stifle the sobs that were now wracking his small frame. She returned the embrace without hesitation, as if some latent maternal instinct already knew exactly what to do. They remained that way for some time, the boy sobbing quietly and Nev staring blankly into the middle distance, thinking deeply and with a very new perspective on the demons of her own past.
Godfrey was the first to move, knowing better than to ruin an important moment with words as he rose to his feet and moved around the table, intending to settle down for some well-earned rest. As he passed where Nev sat, he stopped for a moment to lay a reassuring hand on Lester’s shoulder, at the same time fixing her with an honest and clearly thankful stare as he silently nodded his appreciation of what had just happened. She could only stare back with tear-filled eyes and return a faint nod of her own, along with a ‘what-else-could-I-do?’ shrug, at which point he nodded faintly again and turned toward the nearest of the nearby cots.
“Come on, Lester…” she suggested eventually, patting him gently on the back as he reluctantly opened his embrace and drew back a little. “…We need to get some sleep: there’s a long voyage ahead for all of us tomorrow…”
“D’you really think me ma still misses me?” He asked in a soft, broken voice, again wiping at tears with his sleeve.
“Of course I do,” she answered without hesitation as she rose from her own seat and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Of course I do. Let’s get some rest, now… okay…?”
The other two were snoring softly in their cots within ten minutes, and a shaken Nev was left to stare at the deck above her, wondering what on earth had come into her to have shared anything so personal. At a whim, she drew out her phone – for the first time not even bothering to check for a network that still wasn’t there – and recorded a short ‘segment’ for her imaginary vlog.
“At the moment I’m lying on a rough bed on the deck of some sailing ship, waiting to be taken off to a God-knows-where place rather disturbingly named ‘Despair’…” she began, thinking over her current situation carefully. “I’m still no closer to finding my way home… if there is a way home… but I think at least I’ve made some friends here I can trust: friends who’ve already saved my life twice and – I hope – won’t have to again.
“Sensei Honda has given me an incredibly beautiful katana…” she continued with a frown. “He seemed to have somehow known what was going to happen to me, or at least had some idea. I should be angry with him… should hate him for not warning me…” She paused, thinking about that for a long time. “I’m not though, although I’m not sure why. This morning, all I could think about was getting back to that portal thing – whatever it was – and getting home. That didn’t work out, and I nearly got myself killed into the bargain. I still want to get home more than anything, but I think I need to listen to Godfrey for the time being: he seems to know what he’s doing, and he’s kept me safe so far.
“Who’s Godfrey…?” She smiled coyly at the camera, her face vague and almost ethereal in the dim light of the screen. “More on him later, at a more appropriate time when I work out how I actually feel about him, but newsflash: he’s gorgeous…!” She whispered, simultaneously excited and scandalised by the fact that she was admitting it even to an inanimate recording device. “If you get to see this, Dad, don’t worry: I think I know what I’m doing, and I won’t do anything silly.” Her expression darkened then, showing much more sadness.
“I miss you, Dad… more than you can imagine. All I can think about is seeing you… of hugging you and being home safe again. Last night I was scared that’d never happen, but now…” she paused again, searching for some reason for her sudden certainty “…now, at least I have some hope that it’s still possible. Godfrey says he thinks I’m strong enough – that he has faith in me – and I have faith in him… so maybe I can find a way.”
With her recording done, she tucked her phone away, made sure her bag was secure beside her, and lay back once more, a thousand wild thoughts circling in her mind over what she’d experienced and what else might still lay ahead. She too was asleep minutes later, lost in strange, hopeful dreams.
It felt as if it were just moments later that she was shaken roughly awake once more, although it had in fact been three or four hours and there was now a glow behind the clouds on the eastern horizon. Birds were already singing all around as Godfrey shook her again, this time calling her name softly as her mind fought to clear the sleep from her thoughts.
“Nev… Nev, wake up now…!” He hissed urgently, and she could also hear Garbutt calling desperate orders from some distance away over the shouts and calls of the crew hurriedly going about their business.
“What – what is it…?” She blurted, forced into a suddenly nervous state by the unexpected nature of her waking. ‘What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Blackwatch!” Godfrey whispered, crouched by her right side as she sat upright with a start. “They’re
taking over the ship!”
And as she looked out in fear across the open deck forward, she could already see Garbutt standing on the pier, arguing with a helmeted officer as a line of black-clad soldiers waited by the gangplank for the order to go aboard.
VIII
Secrets
Standing thirty metres tall, Fortress Burnii’s central keep was a simple, hexagonal affair with crenelated turrets at each corner for use by archers. A single keep wall surrounded the entire structure; roughly circular and around a hundred metres in diameter, it stood ten high and was also adorned with crenelated battlements and firing slots both for crossbowmen, their shorter-ranging iron bolts lethal against even the thickest armour.
At six equally-spaced points around that outer wall, squat, stubby towers rose a few metres above the battlements, each of them aligned with one of the hexagonal keep’s corners and mounting a single large trebuchet seated on a rotating platform. At least four could be brought to bear on any target within range, allowing their well-trained crews to strike at landward targets up to three hundred metres away and even further out to sea to the north, firing as they were from atop a steep cliff that towered over two hundred metres above the road and the narrow beach below.
There were also defences for Burnii itself of course, with similar stone walls and towers surrounding most of the city and the docks, but the fortress to the east on Round Hill was the linchpin that held the rest together, having so far proven impregnable in three major sieges since its completion some fifty summers before.
Even from the lower ramparts that looked out over the framework of the chain-car platform, Princess Charleroi could pick out the faint smell of the city and the Burnii Docks below, teeming with life in much the same way – as she’d heard her old mentor, Randwick mutter unkindly once or twice – that a festering carcass writhed with maggots and other parasites as they feasted on its inevitable decay. Below them lay the largest city in Huon: a tainted jewel that was the kingdom’s economic centre and one of the major ports connecting it to the rest of the world via trade ships and fishing fleets that sallied forth into Deepwater Strait and beyond every day to make their livelihoods. Her father often said that Fortress Cadle, the ancestral home of the Namur lineage, was Huon’s ‘heart’, and by the same analogy, Burnii was the kingdom’s ‘lungs’, breathing life into the nation through trade and through the tonnes of fish its ships brought in every evening to feed nobles and peasants alike throughout the land.
“Matron won’t be pleased to see you out and about, young one…” Randwick observed, stepping up at her left shoulder as she stared down at the coastline below. “You know the law, and it applies to princesses the same as it does for fishwives! The King gave express orders you were not to be out in public on the journey from Cadle, and he’d have a heart attack seein’ you standing like this at the railing. Heads’ll roll if he finds out, more ‘n like, and I’ve no doubt Madam Griselda will find way to blame me for it…” he added with an almost impish grin, a happy participant in the competitive rivalry that existed between the Princess’ two primary carers.
Slightly stooped with age, the man must’ve once towered over most others, and his barrel-chest and broad shoulders still showed some of the immense strength and fitness he’d carried with him in his younger years. He made use of a thick, wooden staff now for support, its tip gnarled and battered like the head of a war club, and no one really knew exactly how old he was. Angelo, the First Lord’s firstborn and one of Charli’s few friends in court back at Cadle, thought Randwick might even be as old as sixty summers. She didn’t really believe it, though – no one lived that long, after all – but he was certainly older than the King or anyone else the young princess had ever met, save perhaps for Cardinal De Lisle… or possibly Chief Quisitor Silas.
“I’m not in public,” Charleroi pointed out proudly, making every advantage of the fact that the battlements from which the mechanical elevator rose and descended were still technically part of the castle’s outer walls. I know father doesn’t really believe any of that anyway… he’s just being over-protective.”
“Fortress grounds or not, you’re still out in the open and away from home, Princess,” Randwick countered evenly, trying to hide a wry smile, “and what I or His Majesty think of Keepsake Laws aside, I doubt a Quisitor would care for the finer points of your argument. I’ll concede in this case but you should learn not to take these laws for granted. Why has ‘The Grizzler’ left you roaming about on yer own?” He added, changing the subject.
“Matron was too scared to ride the chain-car, so she left with the royal carriage hours ago to make the journey down by road,” Charleroi added, making great show of an outward lack of fear over her first ride in this new, mechanical creation.
“And it frightens you not, I take it?” He asked in return with a faint smile still gracing his features, not believing such an insincere display of bravado. “But look, you: it draws near! Behold, whelp: here comes a wonder of this mechanical age!”
The old man leaned almost precariously over the railing as they looked down at the approaching chain-car, and The Princess – ‘Charli’ to her father and a precious few she considered close enough to be friends – flinched slightly in reaction to both his actions and the clatter of its rise toward them. The Princess generally hated being called such names and there were few who might get away with such a slight without reprimand or worse from The King. Randwick was one of those few, however.
“I’ve never ridden the chain-cart before, Randwick…” She remarked softly, trying to sound as brave as a sixteen-year-old was able but not really managing.
“You’ve never been anywhere beyond Cadle before…” Randwick observed kindly with a tilt of his head, “but aye, there’s been a few ‘firsts’ on this trip, sure enough.”
“It’s very high… is it safe…?”
“Never heard tell of anyone ever dyin’ from it…” he shrugged simply, as if that single sentence settled things in his mind. “I’ve ridden it a few times meself this last two weeks, and I came out no worse than I went in.” He neglected to add that it nevertheless also frightened the living Crystal out of him every time he had.
On a viewing platform set at a slightly higher level, no more than a dozen metres away, three whiskered old men stood with grave expressions, all dressed in identical hooded robes of thick brown wool. In unison, all three chanted softly and without falter, the words too soft to be intelligible although the unmistakable meter of prayer in the faint thrumming of their voices carried well enough across the intervening distance.
Charleroi knew well enough what they were doing – protesting the use of an ‘infernal device’ (the chain-car) – and they didn’t need to be loud or to make a scene for their presence to be felt: everyone already knew where the Brotherhood of The Shard stood on the ‘evils’ of mechanical invention. In their hands they carried their personal prayer books, each one wrapped in the chain of a Holy Pendant identical to the one De Lisle had used at Endweek.
“Merry and Annabel think it’s a ‘tool of Nethug’…” She whispered nervously as she sent the murmuring monks a sidelong glance, recalling the overheard conversation between the two maids
“‘The Corpse-Eater…?” He asked in a tone that tried unsuccessfully to sail a steady course directly between scorn and amusement as she nodded quickly. “Well, people think and say all sorts o’ things, not all of ‘em true or even sensible… Look now for yourself and tell me what you think…” he added, more thoughtful this time as he nodded toward the rattling cage of wood and iron that was now little more than a few metres away, below the edge of the rampart to their right.
“Well… the carts are fashioned by smithies and carpenters...” she reasoned cautiously, understanding – as was usually the case – that there was something deeper hidden within the old man’s question. “So they’re just iron cages on wooden frames... just like any old wagon.”
“And what carries them up and down the mountai
nside? Do they fly on the wings of dragons…?” He asked impishly, the gentle sarcasm evident in his tone.
“A pair of bullocks turn a wheel, and that winds a chain…” she frowned in mild exasperation, suspicious that he might be teasing her “…with that big rock ‘thingy’ tied to the other end…” she added, pointing down to the left at the parallel track that carried the cart’s large, stone counterweight on a similar set of cast-iron bogies.”
“And what is it that the ‘rock thingy’ does…?”
“It…” she began, staring down over the iron railing now and thinking very hard until the light of realisation blossomed in her eyes. “It balances everything!” She declared triumphantly, looking eagerly up and Randwick and receiving a nod of approval that filled her with hard-won pride. “It makes it easier to move the cart up and down!”
“And, does that seem like ‘Majik’ to you?”
“That’s not Majik… that’s just… just…” she paused, trying to remember a new word she’d heard her father use two nights ago on the balcony… “Science…!”
“Science, indeed…” he nodded, hiding most of the pride he felt over Princess Charleroi’s display of logical reasoning. “Concepts called ‘engineering’ and ‘mechanics’, and other ideas: yes, that is science…”
“So…” she began again, hesitant now as she ventured back to a subject that she instinctively understood was far more contentions (and possibly dangerous into the bargain). “If it’s all just building things… science and… ‘mechanics’… and stuff, why do The Brothers say it’s something else… that it’s bad…?”
“The Brotherhood wants everyone to believe that true power rests solely with the Gods of the Dragon Shard…” Randwick growled softly, giving the deity its full name, and Charleroi was surprised to note that even he carefully lowered his voice as he threw his own furtive glance in the priests’ direction. “Through them, of course,” he added caustically, unable to keep the sneer from either his face or tone, “and they’re not short of tryin’ anything to keep us all believin’ that.”
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