“What are you talking about?”
“War. There’s no place for women in it.”
Her eyes narrowed to blue slits. “Women have followed their men to war for ages, Captain Strake. You just walked through the compound where a dozen women came with their husbands and brothers. There’s more coming in with the Volunteers, and General Rathfield’s cavalry will have their share, I’m sure.”
“But that’s different, Bethany. You’re not the sort who should be here.”
“And what sort is that, exactly, Captain Strake?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Is it you think that the women who follow their men are stupid, or of low virtue? Am I some how too good to be out here, too delicate? Or is that women might come to war, but ladies like your wife never would? That my being here means I’m not as good as she is?”
Her last two comments-barbed and colder than any winter he’d ever seen-ripped through him. Until that very moment he’d not realized that when he’d seen wives accompany their husbands, he’d taken secret pride that it was always a wife from the ranks, not the officers corps, or a foreign woman, a war-bride, who was at home in the land where they were fighting. He’d allowed himself to think less of them not because they deserved it, than it prevented him from questioning why his wife didn’t love him enough to want to be with him. Deep down he’d seen that as a failing on his part, not hers, but he’d never taken the time to consider it.
He glanced down at his hands. “Bethany… Lieutenant Frost… I’m sorry. I know you’re not stupid, and I have the utmost respect for you. I respect the Prince’s decision that places you here, and your decision to be here. It’s just…”
“What?”
He drew in a deep breath. “You’ve seen what war does. You’ve seen the marks its left on me, on your brother. You’ve seen your uncle and his empty sleeve. I don’t doubt your courage. I just dread what the whirlwind of war could do to you.”
“Silly man.” Bethany shook her head. “I have seen what it did to you and Caleb and my uncle. Do you think I don’t dread the same thing? I do. Not for me, but for you and Caleb and Clara and everyone else. Owen, why are you here?”
His head came up. “I have my duty to my home and family, to people I love.”
“Do you think, because I am a woman, I do not feel the same duty?” She brushed away a tear. “I am, bar none, the best thaumagraph operator in the world. Clear communication, delivered quickly, is very important. If I were back in Temperance and I thought that something horrible happened because a message got garbled, I don’t know what I would do with myself. That line of reasoning-and Princess Gisella’s support-is why Prince Vlad allowed me to come. More importantly, Owen, I earned my place here because of my skills. I have a responsibility, just like you, so here I am.”
Owen closed his eyes for a moment. He could not count the number of times he’d used the same reasoning to explain to Catherine why he had to answer the Prince’s call. When he did it, he thought it the highest of noble motivations. He could not claim that justification if he would not grant Bethany the same. And not only could he deny it to her, but he felt no desire to do so.
He opened his eyes again and looked at her. She seemed incredibly tiny and fragile, though he knew she was far from either. She held her head up high and her back straight. She was proud of what she’d done so far and yet, in the way she shied from his gaze, she awaited his judgment.
He chewed his lower lip for a second. “I’m pleased, Lieutenant Frost, to have you out here. I’m not saying I won’t worry about you being here.”
“But no more so than you would any other soldier.”
Owen hesitated. “I can’t say that, Bethany.” He jerked a thumb toward the door. “I don’t want harm to come to any of the people here. I’ll help any of them I can. But there’s people here that I care about, that I care about a great deal. You’re at the top of that list. I’d sooner die than see something bad happen to you. I’m sorry, I don’t want to embarrass you.”
“Nor I, you.” She glanced away. “But I should tell you something, so you understand why I will act as I do, why this will be the last time you and I can speak alone behind closed doors.”
“Bethany…”
“No, Owen, you must listen.” She brushed away another tear. “I remember what it was like when Ira Hill went with the Rangers to Tharyngia. I remember waiting and the worst happened. He never made it home. And I remember when Nathaniel reported you had been captured. The days waiting for your return were pure torture. Then when you went off to Anvil Lake. Every day lasted forever because I didn’t know if you would be coming back, but I did know that when you returned, it would not be to me. I think I held my breath the whole of the time you were gone, and returned to life when you came back.
“So my being here, Owen, is to be near you. I know that’s wrong. I have no claim on you. I cannot have one while your wife lives. I accept that. But I needed to be here to make sure that you would live, that you would be able to return to her, and to Miranda and Becca. And, yes, I know I am torturing myself. I know I should be smarter than that, that I should forget you and find someone else, but I cannot.”
Owen forced himself to remain where he stood. He wanted to cross to her and take her in his arms. He wanted to hold her and keep her safe. He wanted her to feel his presence, for her to feel she could take sanctuary in him.
But he knew he could not. To do so would destroy her. Save for the Prince having chosen her at the insistence of his wife, Bethany would have been thought a woman of curious moral character for going off to war. That her brother was along might offer mitigation and her family’s upstanding reputation might shield her, but all that would go away were one person to see them together. Even an innocent remark would be forged into vicious gossip. Catherine would seize upon it and flay her alive. She would be ostracized and ruined, utterly and completely. Traveling south to Fairlee to live with her uncle might allow her to outrun the scandal for a short time, but it would eventually track her down.
Owen studied the floor for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Anything I say will sound false and will cause you more pain.”
She half-laughed. “Then you probably ought not speak.”
“Being silent isn’t going to help, either.” His eyes tightened. “Decisions get made and lives are launched on a course we can’t predict. My mother fell in love with a Mystrian sailor. Her decision to marry him, and my father’s death, meant her father could decide to marry her into a powerful family. That set my mother up for her life, and made mine miserable. And yet, without any of those decisions, I’d never have come to Mystria. I’d never have fallen in love with the land, the people.” With you.
“Other decisions put us here,” he went on, “under these circumstances. Somewhere out there the Norghaest are making decisions that we’ll respond to. There’s no telling what will happen. But there is one decision that gives me heart. That’s your decision to be here. I can’t say I’m not scared for you, but I can say I trust you to do what you have to do. And I understand everything else you said, and I’ll respect your wishes.”
She nodded without meeting his eye. “Thank you, Captain Strake.”
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant Frost.” Owen shook his head. “It is going to take a bit for me to wrap my mind around having a woman in the militia.”
“You’re lucky I’m only a lieutenant, and that might change if the Bookworms don’t shape up.” Bethany smiled genuinely this time. “The Prince has threatened to make me a field marshal if that’s what it takes to get them to abide by communication protocols. It’s hard to tell their messages from ghost messages sometimes.”
“When the Prince promotes you, I’ll salute smartly.”
Corporal Brown returned with a bowl of stew topped with a hunk of black bread and a small mug with a slug of whiskey in it. She set them on the table, saluted, and made her way out, but left the door open at Bethany’s request. Owen moved his satchel, handing it to
Bethany, then sat and began eating. “In there’s my journal, but it’s the map that’s the most interesting.”
Bethany drew it out, unfolded it, and smoothed it against her desk. She studied it for a moment, then nodded. “Many more ghost rivers. If you project the lines out, the nexuses flow together out here. What’s this marking on the map?”
Owen glanced over. “Hodge called it the Stone House. Natural formation at the edge of a woods, nice fort in and of itself. And you’re right, lots of ghost rivers come together in that valley about a day’s march west. We all noticed it, but I’m not sure of what to make of it.”
She shook her head. “Neither am I. I can’t wait to hear what the Prince thinks.”
Chapter Fifty-one
21 May 1768 Fort Plentiful, Plentiful Richlan, Mystria
“It almost looks like a system of canals.” Standing in the thaumagraph office, Prince Vlad studied the map to which he had added the information from Owen’s latest surveys. A strong line running from the direction of the Antediluvian ruins to the northeast-and on toward a geological formation in the mountains in Bounty which looked like a man’s face in profile-split near the Stone House. Rays shot out at angles and then bounced back in. Another slightly weaker line ran from the southeast toward the northwest very close to the splitting point. The Prince guessed it was contributing to a formation of which they could only see the edge.
“If you look here and here, you see a similar angle. It is as if several squares are overlapping, rotating by thirty degrees.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “That would concentrate a lot of magick in the area.”
Owen, who had joined the Prince, Count von Metternin, Nathaniel, and Bethany Frost in the thaumagraph cabin, shook his head. “We didn’t see anything unusual out there. Just a valley with those three points on the ridges.”
“Not likely you would have seen anything.” The Prince smiled. “The Norghaest have taken refuge under the ground. If they were to have planted any devices or tools to help them split and deflect the flow, they likely would have done so from beneath the earth. Without the surveyors you’d likely have passed over the area without noticing anything.”
“I reckon we did just that a year ago, on our way into the mountains.” Nathaniel tapped a finger on the map. “We’ll be needing some eyes on that area. I’m fair sure I ain’t the only one what’s thinking that if they is going to raise a colony, that’s the spot they’re preparing for it.”
“Precisely what I was thinking.” Vlad looked at Owen. “How big is that valley?”
“About as big as this one, but not as much water. Forest mostly, with a bit of marsh in the middle. An industrious beaver could turn it into a lake.”
Vlad slapped his own forehead. “Of course. I was insane not to have seen it before.”
The Kessian noble cocked his head. “What is it you see?”
Vlad grabbed a sheet of paper from the thaumagraph table and overlaid it on the map. He drew six squares, each with a corner on one of the nexus points at the eastern edge of the valley. “This star shape, it is what we see from the high point of a fortress, with the glacises set to deflect cannon fire. It is easy, then, for us to see these squares as walls, or lines of defense. But what if that is not what it is at all? What if, instead, the magick is being channeled here not as a defense, but to create a reservoir of magick energy? Just as we shipped supplies up the Benjamin to Grand Falls and replenished our supplies there, could the Norghaest look to create a reservoir in the valley?”
Von Metternin frowned. “This would suppose that magickal energy can be contained and that we can draw on that reservoir to make magick work. Unless your studies have carried you much further than even I imagine, neither supposition is supported.”
“We do have Kamiskwa’s statements that he could feel residual magick in the ruins. Owen, you had your own encounter with it.”
“Yes, Highness, after a fashion.”
“My Lord von Metternin, please do be so kind as to fetch your servant. He might have an insight into this matter.” Vlad studied the map while emotions warred within him. The idea that magick could be collected and somehow could be used by a man alleviated the limitation of magick use. A man who fired a gun would tire. A man who used magick drawn from elsewhere might not. Provided using external magick did not kill him, it might save him from instances where overusing magick might kill him. This prospect thrilled Vlad.
And terrified him. A man like Laureate du Malphias, given an inexhaustible source of magick energy, would be unstoppable. If the Church learned of this, or shared knowledge that it already had with various individuals like Duke Deathridge, its control over society would go unchecked. The same knowledge which might give them a fighting chance against the Norghaest could spell doom when their fellow citizens turned it against them.
Von Metternin returned with Ezekiel Fire. The Steward had grown a beard and styled it in the Continental fashion, featuring twin forks. He wore one of the Count’s old uniforms, taken in and up, along with hose and black shoes with silver buckles. The Prince found the change jarring. Even though he knew who the aide truly was, he had a hard time reconciling images of Fire and the man before him.
The Prince laid out his thoughts. Fire listened thoughtfully, then nodded slowly. “I don’t know as I have a perfect answer for you, Highness, but I been thinking on why in the Good Book, in Genesis, chapters one and two tell the same story of God creating man over again, but different. First time man is made in God’s image. Second time around he’s made from the dust, has life breathed into him, and God makes him that special Garden, where everything is fruitful and it is a paradise. Now, I am thinking that this garden had four rivers, like the sides of your squares, and inside was paradise. If these rivers were your ghost rivers, then the land inside would be full of magick, which is why it was a paradise and why, within the garden, men knew no pain nor hunger. It’s right there in the Good Book, I do believe.”
Though he found Fire’s comment vague, he did find it reassuring. “And the idea of men being able to use that magick energy?”
Fire smiled. “The Good Lord wasn’t the only person who did miracles. His disciples did, too, and their enemies. Seems like it could be used and, being as how there isn’t any prohibition against it, I do believe God intended us to be able to use it.”
“How?”
The Steward shook his head. “That I do not know. I imagine, however, that Rufus found a way in what was said on the tablets.”
Vlad nodded. He had avoided studying or working on translations of the tablets because of what had happened at Happy Valley. Vlad felt certain that whatever Rufus had translated first had, in fact, caused him to invoke Norghaest magick. He suspected, based on what he had later learned about the devices used by trolls to control wooly rhinoceri, that this first magick may have given a Norghaest sorcerer the ability to control Rufus. If the changes in his body were at all accurate, the Prince was ready to suppose a Norghaest sorcerer had actually taken possession of Rufus’ body.
“If anyone else has any thoughts on the matter…?”
“Well, Highness, I onliest know about magick what I done learned for green powder, but I have to reckon that if a man is going to use that reserved magick, he needs a couple things. First, he needs access. Second, he needs to know what he needs to be to use it. Could be he just needs to see himself as a pipe and let it flow through, with him directing it. Or, and I beg your pardon Lieutenant Frost, he needs to know what it tastes like going down, then know where he’s peeing it out to. I reckon he needs to beware of drowning or being eroded and just figuring out how to start drinking it in would be the big thing.”
“Thank you, Nathaniel, for that colorful explanation.”
Bethany held a hand up. “Another thought, perhaps?”
“Please, Lieutenant.”
“We’ve noted different transmission speeds of different ghost rivers. We’ve supposed that it’s all one stream, and the only difference is speed.
What if, instead, the magick is different? Think of it like the notes in a thaumagraph. It could be that a stream only produces one note, and to be able to use that stream, you have to be attuned to that note. If someone has only one string, he can only use one flow. If he has two or three, more. It may not be, as Major Woods suggests, a matter of drinking all you can, but to learn what to drink.”
Owen nodded. “The splitting and diversion might not be channeling all the magick, but only the strains our enemy can use.”
“I like that idea. Very clever.” The Prince sighed. “Unfortunately I like it because it limits our enemy and suggests vulnerabilities. Until we can prove they exist, however…”
Everyone nodded slowly. Working from any unproven hypothesis and treating it as true was to invite a disaster of an unimaginable magnitude. For a heartbeat Vlad recalled Lord Rivendell and could see him leading troops in a headlong dash for the reservoir, certain he would take it, able to work magick, and vanquish the Crown’s enemies.
Vlad tapped the map in the vicinity of the Stone House. “Nathaniel, I will, as suggested, want eyes on this. It’s three days out to Stone House, and another to Ghost Lake?”
“That’s what I made it mostly. Maybe half a day more to Ghost Lake.”
“Take one of the Bookworms and a thaumagraph, a dozen Rangers. Head out after sundown.”
Nathaniel nodded. “I will go organize that now.”
“Thank you. The rest of you, please, see to your normal duties. If you do have any thoughts on this, let me know.” Vlad folded the map up. “I’d be content with a few more solutions and a few less mysteries.”
The others left the cabin-save for Bethany Frost. Vlad almost stopped Count von Metternin, intending to fulfill his promise to Gisella to let him know before guns fired that she was pregnant. There will be ample time yet for that. So much here needs to be done.
Bethany Frost took her place at the thaumagraph. Vlad tucked the map away in a desk drawer, bid her adieu, then headed out to the large pavilion built against the exterior of the fort’s southern wall. It jutted out forty feet and the canvas, peaked roof fluttered in the breeze. Baker sat outside, polishing brass buckles. He started to stand, but the Prince waved him back down onto his stool, then slipped into the tent’s dim interior.
Of Limited Loyalty cc-2 Page 40
