by R. J. Price
“His cousin threatened to take him on. And why, you might ask? Why would one warrior challenge a warrior who is stronger than him? At least I think Av is. Since Jer is stronger than Url and Av is stronger than Jer, therefore Av is stronger than Url. Or was it just that Jer was stronger than Er? He did say that he didn’t want to try his cousin to defend Av’s honour,” Aren rambled to herself.
That made four warriors who knew who and what Aren was. A warrior for each of the queens Aren was linked to, perhaps? Without asking directly, there was no way for Danya to know.
“Why didn’t the one who sits the throne stop them?” Danya asked. “It’s her duty to protect the queens around her. If she doesn’t defend them, commoners will not respect her, or them.”
“She wasn’t there at the time,” Aren said.
“Did you report it to her?” Danya asked.
As she asked herself what state of affairs the palace had fallen into. The throne changed hands quicker than it ever had in the past. How much tradition could survive with so much shifting?
“She was… made aware.”
“And she still did nothing?” Danya pressed.
“It would not have been politically sound for her to step up to protect my interest,” Aren said.
“Meaning she didn’t know that you had rank,” Danya said, watching Aren empty the third bowl.
Finally the woman appeared to be satisfied, her hunger sated. Aren pushed the bowl away and sat back in the chair, hands settling in her lap. Danya watched the queen look over the room. Aren’s focus shifted to Danya and for a moment the world did a sickening spin. She felt as if something else was looking through Aren.
“She knew,” Aren said quietly.
The one who sat the throne knew Aren had rank and still allowed her to run away? Danya wondered how strong the one who sat the throne was, truly. Perhaps Aren was the weaker of the two.
“Then why didn’t she step in to protect you?” Danya asked. “I’m sorry to ask so many questions. It simply seems that in order to understand you better, and you’ll be here a month probably, I should ask. In order to fill in what I know about your past.”
Aren drew in a deep breath, then sighed it out. “The throne thought it best if I be mated to the youngest son, a commoner scribe, of the southern baron. Av had already claimed me, filed papers with the throne in order to capture and possess me, I’m not certain what they’re called.”
“I’ve heard a little about that tradition. It can be awkward for the one who has had papers filed for her. Or him. You can file them for a warrior, actually. They call it the right to stumble,” Danya said, smiling gently.
“Right to stumble?” Aren asked.
“You have a right to stumble and make a fuss and weep to draw the attention of the warrior you want. Allow him to save you even though you are strong, I believe is how it goes. I could look it up in the books, if you like. We’ve a small library here. My mother was a knowledge keeper for the village and prided herself on her books.”
“I would be interested in that,” Aren said in response. “The throne believes it can do as it pleases. It might be of aid to me, to know my rights. I know of my right to education, life, and clean water. But beyond that rights aren’t exactly spoken of.”
“I will pull out the books and read through them,” Danya said. “Why did the throne want to mate you off to a commoner? That hardly makes sense.”
“I know that, but my mother and father arranged the mating and the court supported it. Which means the throne supported it and there was nothing to be done but to mate. Url, Av’s cousin, made comment to try to claim me at a breakfast table. The throne allowed this because I don’t know why. All it did was irritate Av. The throne looked the other way because Url couldn’t claim me because I was already promised to someone else.”
Throne.
Aren kept using that term, completely ignoring the one who sat it. Av obviously lived at court. Another warrior claiming her at breakfast meant a visitor to the palace. There to see the one who sat the throne. Aren’s parents arranging a mating between her and the southern baron’s son? Arranging a mating that was enforced by the throne? Supported by the court?
“Aren, who sits the throne?”
“It’s the winter season, the queen is not on palace grounds.”
“But come spring, who will sit the throne?” Danya pushed.
Aren shrugged. “Not important. I’m not going back there.”
Danya couldn’t shake the feeling that, as Aren met her eyes, the throne stared back at her.
Chapter Eleven
“They’re training,” Av said, spinning the ring on his finger. “Mie should have started years ago and Anue could use the training. We won’t be telling her mother of this. Keep it a secret. Not even Aren. Father insists Anue receive the same training as Mie. Too early in his training to give the conflicting message, he says.”
“Or he wants to prove a stubborn rank wrong,” Jer said.
The two of them watched Anue and Mie clear off the little sparring area. Not a proper ring, but large enough for two children to train in. Av, as an afterthought, had added a little area for him to stand in, just off the ring that had been formed.
Their father preferred to watch from the comfort of his covered porch, but Av insisted on being within arm’s reach. He recalled being that young, how eager he had been. How a flash of pain was enough to set off the instincts that were slowly beginning to awaken in the boy. The kind of pain that would put Mie into his first rage.
After the first time, it was easier to control the bouts of anger. Fear of oneself did marvellous things for self-control.
That didn’t mean that Av trusted Mie not to take a chunk out of Anue before Ervam could come down off his porch and separate the two.
Anue paused in her shovelling to peer at Jer. The new warrior, the new threat to her safety. Until Anue was either reunited with Aren or made some kind of link to a warrior, she would feel uneasy around males. For whatever reason one might come up with, Anue hesitated when being introduced to someone new. Av had been startled when he had first found Anue, so he had missed it that time.
Seeing it play out again with Jer reminded him.
“Get back to work,” Jer said to Anue, motioning to Mie. “It’s not fair that he does more work than you. You’re bigger than he is.”
“He’s a boy,” Anue said.
“And that means he does the physical work while you stitch clothing back together?” Jer asked.
“Well, yes,” Anue said with a frown.
She didn’t even realize she was walking into a trap.
“Palace teaches equality, lady. That means that if you’re bigger than the boy you’re working with, you pull more weight than he does. If there’re those that need it, you give them help no matter their gender, title, rank, or age.”
Anue stood placidly, watching Jer. She turned ever so slowly and began clearing snow once more.
Why hadn’t she protested?
Av had delivered a very similar lecture to a number of lords and ladies. They had complained bitterly because what Av asked of them was not what they were used to, not how they were raised. The palace believed in equality but in most of the land it was nothing more than an ideal to reach for.
Their father joined them after a time. Eyeing the cleared area, Ervam made a grumbled sound. Hoping, perhaps, that the children had made a mistake, to give him a reason for being irritated that he wouldn’t need to explain.
“Good. Put the shovels away and fetch the sticks,” Ervam said.
The children trudged off to obey. Mie would bounce back shortly. Anue was like any other girl her age. She would be tired and only recover with rest.
While Telm knew how to defend herself, Av had never seen the woman in action. He knew she still practiced every other day, since the palace guard mentioned it on occasion, but not whom she worked with or where she kept her weapons. Guards became better with practice, their stamina improved.
Did a queen’s?
“Can’t be her,” Ervam said quietly. “The one I was told about is dead. I’m certain that’s what I was told. It was the stone that did it, red like that. Only one I’ve ever heard of. Made me have a moment.”
“How dead are we talking?” Jer asked.
“Dead. Died during the events that were spoken of,” Ervam said. “She destroyed a good chunk of land, bard didn’t say where. Cursed a village with something the bard wouldn’t speak about.”
“Myth,” Av said.
He watched his father turn grey. The trainer, who had done things that made the court shrink away for fear of him, shuddered and shifted away from Av.
“The steward said the details were withheld to protect the privacy of the victims,” Ervam said. “It wasn’t just the wrong-doers she destroyed, it was innocents. Children, who had nothing to do with whatever happened. Families caught up with the rest for no fault but living alongside those that did wrong.”
“A queen?” Jer asked. “Where was her warrior?”
“He was the one who betrayed her,” Ervam said.
There was silence as the warriors shifted, uncomfortable with the notion.
Bad ranks existed. Ranks were, after all, people with histories just as any other had history. Being born a rank did not make a person inherently good. The goodness had to be taught, just as with any child. Teaching traditions helped show the boundaries, taught them how to behave.
A warrior was meant to protect commoners from the queens, but also to protect the queens from everyone else. For a warrior to claim a queen then do something that another rank would call a betrayal was almost unheard of. Those that did betray a queen were quickly met with the wrath of their warrior. Lacking a warrior, or if the warrior was the cause, the queen dealt with them in such a way that no one considered repeating the action.
“And where is he now?” Av asked, mustering the courage that he knew Jer would lack.
“Dead, I assume,” Ervam said. “The steward had no idea where the man had gone, but there was a bounty on his head. The queen, he said, was dead. The other facts of the tale were true, the amulet of red stone with dark cracks through it. The stone was much like a ruby, transparent as such. I’ve never seen another like it, never heard another describe the stone.”
“It’s not a tale that is passed on to the next generation,” Jer said. “Shouldn’t it have been passed on by the throne?”
“No,” Ervam said as the children returned with their sticks. “The queen didn’t sit the throne, she didn’t have blood who sat the throne. She also killed innocent people, both ranks and commoners. Fear is a powerful tool.”
Jer sighed. “In order to avoid a possible uprising from the commoners, which might decimate the ranked population, they kept it under wraps and didn’t offer the knowledge to children, hoping it would die off.”
Ervam nodded. The trainer motioned to the children, then to the sparring ring. Mie marched along obediently, Anue hesitated by the adults. The girl had likely heard the word ‘queen’ and instinctively became curious.
“Not a story for children,” Ervam said, motioning towards Mie. “Go join him and go through the motions that I showed you over the previous days. Go on.”
Anue hesitated a moment longer, but joined Mie in the end.
“Did he tell you where?” Av asked.
“No.” A headshake accompanied the word. “Again, for the safety of those involved, no one was told where. Just like no one was told the name of the queen for the protection of her family. Commoners tend not to forget that kind of thing.”
Av focused on Mie and Anue. Both children were going through the motions, but were obviously distracted. Listening in on adult conversation. Hoping to learn something they weren’t supposed to know.
“Maybe Telm’s mother,” Jer said. “Her mother gave her the amulet.”
“That is a distinct possibility,” Ervam said. “Though I cannot imagine why Telm would not have mentioned earlier that her mother died an unpleasant death. I’ve shared often enough with her. She knows enough about our family to sink us to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Why not share?”
“We can be sunk to the bottom of the deepest ocean?” Av asked.
“Oh,” Jer said quietly. “From the implications I’ve heard, we could be sunk there after being tarred and feathered, and not a soul would care.”
“I would be,” Ervam said sternly. “You two, your only fault is being born to your mother and I.”
“Since when are you ‘bad people’?” Av asked.
“We aren’t bad people.” Ervam shook his head. “We simply reacted to what life gave us. Made choices that were ours, and ours alone to make. But the world doesn’t understand that, it doesn’t like blood on your hands to protect the innocence of a child that isn’t yours. It certainly wouldn’t understand killing someone you’ve known your entire life for a woman you’ve only known a few years. But it happens.”
“Doesn’t make you bad,” Jer said.
Av wondered why it sounded like his brother’s heart was breaking. Jer avoided Av’s glance. Come spring, Av would have a private discussion with Er and if the baron didn’t answer without hesitation, he might find himself in pieces. Scattered across the lands.
What had happened to his nice, stable family?
“Lovely,” Av muttered. “Is any of this information pertinent to the throne itself?”
“If it becomes pertinent,” Ervam said. “I will let the two of you know. If what you’re actually asking is, did I unleash a curse that, upon the birth of your first son, the entire world will be dragged into darkness and consumed by the undead? Then no. Nothing of that sort, all mortal problems. Not a drop of magic involved.”
“Just a great deal of blood?” Jer asked.
“Suppose there must have been blood. I always fade out when I get like that,” the trainer said, turning to the children. “What are you doing, just gawking? Get back to work!”
Av and Jer watched their father march towards the suddenly frightened children. An outsider might think that Ervam had made a well-timed comment. His sons knew better. They had been afraid of their father for as long as they could recall, afraid of angering him. Those at the palace still whispered to one another about what Ervam had done to the last man who tried him.
Av had never bothered trying to piece it all together. Truth be told, he didn’t want to know. He wanted to be able to look to his father and see the good man that Ervam was, not the rage that could come over the trainer and warrior ranks when pushed too far.
“Well,” Jer said, barely above a whisper, “Father killed someone and Url made a point to tell Aren that I was stronger than all of Grandfather’s children.”
Cold washed over Av. Of course there was a reason why Jer was making faces and moping, a reason beyond his altercation with Telm.
“Should I call you uncle?” Av asked just as quietly, with a chuckle.
“That would mean Father killed Grandfather for raping Mother,” Jer whispered back.
“Would explain his hatred of males who don’t exactly obtain consent,” Av muttered.
“It would also,” Jer drew in a long breath, then finished, “mean that I am the true baron of the north.”
Av laughed, outright and loudly, before he lowered his voice to ask, “You? Really? Why wouldn’t she just claim paternity and reunite the north then and there?”
“Why Aren over Anue?” Jer countered.
“Because Anue isn’t the queen the throne needs,” Av said.
“Perhaps it is the same reason.”
“You’re my brother,” Av said sternly. “I’ve made you eat mud and you peed in my bed while I slept that one time. Rumours, shadows, and secrets will never change that. If I need to make you eat mud again for you to see that, I will. Not sure where I’ll find mud this time of year, but I’d get my hands on some, and don’t you even think I won’t.”
Chapter Twelve
“How are you feeling?�
� Danya asked, walking into the sick room with a pair of winter boots in one hand and a cloak over her arm. Nothing that Aren could leave the village in, nothing for long outings, but it was the best they could offer her without finding an animal within the lines.
“Cold, but well,” Aren said.
She was curled in the corner of the cot, wrapped in the blankets that Danya had offered. The pillow was missing from the head of the bed, likely behind Aren’s back. There would be no warmth for Aren.
Others in the village didn’t necessarily notice the cold. Danya had begun to, little could rid a body of the bone-chill that only the hottest day of summer could chase away.
“That’s good. I’ve brought a cloak. The seamstress made it for you, and a pair of boots,” Danya held up each in turn.
Aren pushed aside the blankets in favour of the winter boots and cloak. Made for outside weather, Aren thought they would help warm her.
They would not.
Even sitting in front of a full fire, the cold would persist. Most days there wasn’t enough wood to go around. Plenty of trees, but no bodies to bring them down. For a while they had tried, but then the trees became farther and farther from the lines, making it almost impossible to keep fires going. Now Danya only started a fire when she absolutely needed it.
“I thought we could go for a walk,” Danya said once Aren was dressed. “I could show you down to the lake. The body of water you were found by leads to it. The lake itself is mainly frozen this time of year. Do you skate?”
“Skate?” Aren asked. “What is skating?”
Danya frowned. The others who had come before Aren had known what skating was, even if they hadn’t enjoyed the act. She struggled with how to describe what a skate was, how one skated.
“It’s like dancing on ice, only you wear sharp pieces of metal on the bottom of your shoes,” Danya said.
“You dance on knives?” Aren asked, looking as if Danya had lost her mind.
