Dream of Embers Book 1
Page 16
Later on she met up with the Captain on the tower top.
‘Swarztial has the entire castle looking for the Wolf, but they cannot find him, and I sincerely hope they don’t,’ said Merohan, the veteran looking uncharacteristically excited.
‘I’ll set him free even if they do catch him. How is it Swarztial has his own guard in the castle?’ asked Shala who had not lived down her own giddiness.
‘It’s supposed to be an independent guard established for the council, but Swarztial has occupied them for himself, as he often does with such matters.’
‘What do you make of our so-called Wolf?’ asked Shala.
‘I am as dumbstruck as I am thankful. I could not have bested Yanci-gan and in my place he saved Your Highness's throne. I haven’t seen anything like it before Highness, or maybe it was in my youth, when the Wolves at their last still came to the castle. They displayed some swordplay, but there were no duels, and definitely not to the death. Remember today Highness, I doubt we’ll see such a display any time soon.’
‘I’d be glad for it. My gratitude for this apparent Wolf is paralleled by my horror of having bloody disputes right in the throne room. I do not wish the likes of it again.’
‘Yet we are victors. My father always said to me that the rule of kings are drawn and cut by the swords around him, that the sovereignty is only as strong as the loyalty he commands. Today we might have seen truth in that,’ said Merohan.
‘Do you believe he is really a Wolf like he claims?’
‘I cannot think it. The timing is not right. He looked very young, much too young to have been one of the last before the Order was annulled. He had some remnant of the mighty Taggandus that had fought here twenty years ago. But it cannot be him...’
‘What of Swarztial's cries, was Dieral wrong in how he officiated the duel?’ asked Shala carefully.
Bemused, Merohan pulled up his shoulders. ‘Was there a meeting of the minds regarding the law of combat? Certainly not. But ignorance of the law has never been taken as an excuse. It was their failure to realize the dynamic changing before their very eyes. And the Wolf took full advantage of it. Do not think less of the Wolf, Highness, no man as lightly armed as he should've beaten Yanci-gan with his armour.’
‘It is a matter I have never understood, why the Crimson City had the Wolves ended.’ Today especially Shala questioned the motion.
‘There must’ve been some wisdom in it my Lady, or some history we do not know. I remember in my young days how all feared the Wolves, and how even those who live close to the Benevolence did not escape this fear.’
‘Yes. But my father’s House and the Wolves bathed in the same cold water of Dunnoom. That was the foundation of our bond, the strength of the Mountain. It was to keep us clear-minded and stalwart in rule, and so we owned their loyalty. I saw the cold in him today, it was there.’
‘I wonder who he was?’ said Merohan.
Shala carried a smile. ‘I don't know,’ said Shala putting her hands on the railing. ‘I hope to have a name from him when our paths cross again.’
It was in a surreal mood that she left the tower, until she met up with deBella, who outright hugged her with furious gladness. She had evidently already heard the news.
‘O deBella, it was wondrous,’ said Shala, surprised to find some tears in her eyes, the idea that she had won this day only settling with her now. ‘I do not care for bloodshed, and I wish so the man Yanci-gan did not have to die, but I saw some great remnant of the past today. He was a warrior like none in the castle can match, and now that I think on it, he carried the cold about him like he was born to it. I stood in those freezing waters, praying hopelessly, under a broken fortress that delivers no more warriors calling themselves Wolves. And see, he comes striding through doors barred and guarded when I needed a champion most. He could just as well have been a ghost, his intervention was just and a mercy granted for all my faith, fragile though it might be. At least for today and tomorrow, my right as Queen is saved.’
‘No my Lady, not just for today and tomorrow. I’ve heard all the stories, those which I can believe anyways, and I’m filled with hope. The castle is turning against Swarztial. That Wolf, impostor or not, has felled the wicked hold that vile man seemed to have on everyone here. Sannil has turned their back on Swarztial and without a royal house to support him much of the platform from which he spoke is stripped out from underneath him. If he speaks or acts ill now it is his own agenda, and for that you can take the sword to him!
‘I may be speaking too far ahead my Lady, but I think your crown is saved, everything is going to be alright. We’ll prepare for your inauguration in due time and not long from now you will be called Queen Shala of Evrelyn. Mother to all of Attoras!’ she said proudly. They spent the day in a kind of ecstasy, the castle devoid of the troubled uncertainty for the first time since King Anka's passing.
Naceus came up to the castle naturally, with a dusty bottle of port as his contribution to the Princess's silent celebrations. He was awash by questions concerning the Wolves, and while he was more than happy to delve into their histories, he could only pull up his shoulders as to how a Wolf had risen on this day.
Come nightfall Shala could not sleep, and from her bedroom windows she saw a curious quality of Rodreon emerge, shedding its light on the mist in the hills.