by Robert Brady
“He has two daughters,” Hectar said.
Groff smiled, and Hectar added, “And let us not forget Lee. Who knows where I will set the boy’s ambitions?”
My stomach contracted when I thought of marrying Lee off, but I just laughed and put my hand on Hectar’s shoulder.
Groff looked at his son. “You are well with this, lad?”
“I am, father,” he said. “She is a comely girl, her name is good, her father is healthy, if unstable. When she gives me sons, I will teach them not to drink.”
“Probably best,” I said.
I wanted to discuss more about troop limits and to arrange for him to meet Duke Jaheff, when the door burst open behind us.
I recognized one of my captains, with ten Wolf Soldiers behind him. “Lupus,” he said.
“This better be important,” I said.
“Most urgent, if we may have your ear,” he said.
I excused myself, and left the small room with the Wolf Soldiers, and shut the door behind me. “What?” I asked, looking him right in the eye.
He was an Uman, with severe features and hands like an artist. I’d made him a captain more because of his expert swordsmanship than his leadership skills. I thought to give him a training command eventually.
“Lupus,” he said, “Karel of Stone has notified you by fast messenger that he has achieved his mission in Andurin, and proceeds now to Vrek.”
“Vrek?” I asked him. Karel was supposed to get Groff to come here, which he did, and then set up a system of spies there, which he should be doing.
“He claims that the Duke of Vrek informed him that he would be moving onto the Plains of Angador, and establishing a colony there.
“Vrek is moving against the Free Legion.”
Chapter Nine
The Good Fight
It didn’t take a genius to know what was going on.
Duke Ceberro of Vrek, according to the Oligarchs, had a reputation as an opportunist, and an opportunity like the Free Legion creating a sophisticated training compound and then abandoning it wouldn’t be lost on him.
“If he has been fed information on your Fire Bond,” Oligarch two said, “then he may believe that attacking an Eldadorian is like attacking you, and that he is actually safe from the Free Legion.”
We sat together in a mirror of my war room from Thera. Four Oligarchs, J’her, Shela, Groff, Hectar and I sat around a round table, torches burning on the cork walls. I had been notified of Karel’s actions less than an hour before.
Oligarch one shook his head. “The Free Legion laid siege to Eldador the Port,” he said. “So Ceberro knows better.”
“But if he knows of the Fire Bond,” Oligarch three said, “then he will be calling for the Heir to stand with him in defense of his new lands.”
Oligarch four nodded. “He would believe that the Free Legion can never attack you.”
“Also disproved by the siege,” Oligarch one said. “Wolf Soldiers lifted it.”
“It is widely known that Lupus did not attend,” Oligarch two said. “In fact, there is more talk about the Battle of Thera.”
“That was a significant victory for the Wolf Soldiers,” Oligarch three said.
“Perhaps you are looked at now as greater than the Free Legion?” Oligarch four said.
“Have no doubt of that,” Groff said. We all looked at him. He’d been included here because he had a view of this from the outside.
I’d never wanted my Fire Bond commitment to be known of by people outside of the Free Legion. It represented a liability to me that I didn’t need, and this obvious weakness which I’d know would be easy to exploit. On the other hand, certain other people whom I trusted had to be made aware of it, otherwise my actions were going to look like those of an usurper. My grandfather had told me once that if you are the only one who knows something, it’s a secret. Otherwise it’s a story.
Grandpa had been a smart man.
“The longer we know you, your Highness,” Groff said, pointing his sharpened features right at me, “the more we see you do the impossible. The Battle of Thera was an impossible victory. So few should not stand against so many, and the Confluni legions are infamous.”
“Ceberro is a fighting man,” Hectar said. “He picked a city in the wild because he wanted to carve out civilization from nothing. He sees himself pushing into Toor, so it is no surprise that he has pushed into the Plains.”
“We’ll need to know how far he has gone already,” I said. “I want fifty riders sent to the plains immediately, forty to remain watching, and ten to relay reports to and from there as things change.”
Oligarch one nodded.
“We can’t send Wolf Soldiers to rout them,” Shela said.
“We should not rout them at all,” Groff said. He stood, his hands on the table. “The Free Legion pays no tax, and in fact have acted against Eldador. I cannot think that you would side with them against one of our own Dukes.”
“Ceberro should have consulted with me –“ I began.
“With Glennen, you mean,” Hectar said. “Which I know he didn’t do. The Heir doesn’t really decide these things the way our laws are written.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Shall we turn this over to Glennen, then?” I asked him.
Groff and Hectar scowled. “Our point,” said Groff, “is that you are Heir to the Eldadorian throne, your Highness. If you wish to take that throne and keep it, as indeed you clearly seek to do, you need to do more than to hold the capital. You need to hold the country, and you cannot do that without support from your Dukes.”
“He is right,” Oligarch three said. “Your Highness, if the city of Vrek wishes to push its ambitions onto the Plains of Angador, where there is no Eldadorian city, then you cannot directly oppose them.”
I turned to Shela, who looked into my eyes. She didn’t have to say that she agreed for me to know that she did. The Free Legion would have to lose this fight.
I sighed. “Send the riders, watch them,” I said. “I want to be kept apprised of the situation.”
I turned to Oligarch three. “Extend to Duke Ceberro my most polite invitation to meet with him and to learn from him,” I said. “Clearly, this is a military man.”
All four Oligarchs nodded as one. Groff and Hectar exchanged glances, then turned to me.
“I will put Eldador before the Free Legion,” I promised them. “I know where my future lies.”
“If I can speak frankly, your Highness?” Groff said.
“Please,” I said.
He took a moment and chose his words. He looked around the table once, the severe features sweeping us rather than identifying us. I thought to myself, “That is something a leader learns – make the room hang on your words, when you have something important to say.” He did that now.
“You know that all of Glennen’s Dukes, and most of his Earls, were his chosen men when he founded this nation,” he said.
Hectar nodded. I hadn’t spoken to Hectar as much as I should have. Here was an untapped resource that I should have exploited. There seemed to just not be enough hours in the day.
“Rennin, Hectar, Yerel, Glennen, Ceberro and I, we were the closest,” he said. “Men like Klem, Devarre, Endjen – they were there, and they were helpful, but they didn’t pick up a sword and stand toe to toe with Swamp Devils or Shree or Taranji. When it came time for killing, the six of us did it.
“You are come new to this land,” he said. “Your ways are strange. They work – for now – but they are strange. You give horsemen sticks and teach your men more about marching than about fighting with swords – and they beat their enemies, as if war were walking. You take less from the peasants and have more to show for it, as if peasants managed their money like kings.
“And then, suddenly, you are not just among us, but above us. You are the one who Glennen turns to when his wife is killed, and you avenge him by sacking the invincible city. Yet there are those of us who know that, had he never met you, then Alekanna
would still be alive.”
My hand dropped to the Sword of War, and Hectar held up his own and said, “Your Highness, do not think for a moment that this is said in disloyalty or challenge. Glennen made the same point to me. He never blamed you, but had he never met you, then Eldador would not be the growing threat to Fovea that it is now, and no one would care enough about her to assassinate her Queen.”
I squeezed the pommel of the sword but didn’t draw it. “To be honest with you,” I said, “you’re repeating what’s been going through my head since the assassination happened. I have to admit that one of the reasons I felt like I had to crush Outpost IX was to get over the guilt from that good woman’s death.”
“If you can admit that,” Hectar said, “then I can admit to you that, given a choice, I will be a part of Eldador the threat, rather than Eldador that is no threat at all.”
“And I,” said Groff. “I can accept you, Rancor Mordetur, as Heir and, when the time comes, King.
“I can accept Wolf Soldier guards in the palace, and I can accept Wolf Soldiers sacking the cities of those who would raise a hand against Eldador, if there is no other way.”
He looked me in the eye, his severe brows down, and added, “Wolf Soldiers, your Highness. Not Legionnaires.”
Hectar nodded, and the Oligarchs with him.
So be it.
My daughter had her first birthday in the month of Life. I gave her a doll with a ceramic face, and eyes that closed when she laid it down. She cherished it and kissed it over and over, calling it her ‘bebe’. Its hair came from my own head.
My hair had grown down to between my shoulders now. I wore it back over my head, with a gold circlet to keep it in place. I still dressed in leather pants and a plain white shirt, but my boots were always shined, and my face never showed stubble.
On that birthday, Duke Ceberro arrived to attend the royal court, as did Ancenon, D’gattis and Karel of Stone. I doubted very much that the timing was a coincidence.
Karel’s spies were everywhere, including here. Drekk had been no different.
“His Grace, the Duke Ceberro of Vrek, and the Lady Jameen of Angador,” the herald announced.
Ceberro moved like a mountain of muscle and steel. Heavier than Rennin, taller than Glennen, the ground shook when he walked, and the gigantic mace at his side thumped with every step.
His hair had gone gray and hung from his tonsured scalp to his armpits. He had one eyebrow, still black, across both green eyes. He had a hawk-like nose and his mouth formed a thin, pink line. His armor mirrored mine.
He stopped right in the center of the circle, and he looked me right in the eye.
“Your Highness,” he said, and bowed. His Lady curtsied politely.
“Your Grace,” I said, inclining my head in respect.
“Vrek was summoned to your presence, to speak of military matters,” he stated.
“We appreciate your efforts,” I said. “How goes the conquest of the plains?”
“We shall make a city named Angador where the rogues once held their training,” he said. “I am already raising walls.”
I nodded, impressed. “And this Lady, she shall be its first Duchess?” I asked.
She smiled and looked away. Ceberro turned his head to her, and then back at me, and said, “She was born a common, but now she is with me. She is my Lady, my consort and, Adriam willing, the mother of my children, when they should arrive.”
“I wish you well in that battlefield as well,” I said. “I’ve ridden those plains myself. In fact, if you would indulge me, it is my daughter’s first birthday, and I would have you to the royal table for a feast.”
He lowered his head. “We are honored, your Highness.”
I dismissed him, and went on with court. Seemed that the war raged between Sental and Volkhydro, and Free Legion shipping did very well moving goods from Sental 1 to the rest of Fovea. This increased the demand for ships, and increased the flow of Volkhydran immigrants to Eldador. Sental paid the Free Legion in grain and barley, and of course they now had nowhere to send it, which created an influx in the Eldadorian markets, depressing the price for our own farmers.
The farmers wanted protection from the flood of grain, and the merchants wanted land grants to find new ways to exploit it.
Others wanted to be able to cull the Aschire for its wood, which of course I couldn’t allow. That meant I had to dispatch Eldadorian Regulars to protect it, so that these others didn’t do it anyway and touch off a war.
And the Trenboni were back, as delegates for the Fovean High Council.
“Is there still a Fovean High Council?” I asked Oligarch two. “I thought perhaps they had run away.”
“Still very much present,” one of the three Uman-Chi said. I looked closer and saw that they had sent, in fact, Aniquen, whom I had bested on the plain outside of Outpost IX. He looked to see that I recognized him, and then added. “Which is, of course, not how Lupus the Conqueror prefers to leave his foes.”
“You were my foe once,” I said. “Do you claim that we have unfinished business?”
“Not at all, your Highness,” he said, with that snotty smile that Uman-Chi have. “In fact, I come seeking peace, not war.”
“Peace?” I said. “Whom would you have me at peace with?”
“Well, Eldador is in fact the victim of Confluni aggressors,” Aniquen said. “So you might, then, seek the help of the Fovean High Council toward that end.”
“You might note that, as you made clear, those enemies were not left alive.”
“Well then,” Aniquen said, without missing a step, “there is this devastating war between Sental and Volkhydro.”
“Eldador is not involved in that affair,” I said. “And Eldador shall not be drawn into that affair.”
“And if the call is made for the Fovean armies to intervene?” Aniquen asked.
“That shall be taken on its merits,” I said. “I cannot say that the armies of Eldador will stay home if called upon, neither can I say that they are at the beck and call of the Fovean High Council.”
Aniquen nodded. “I should like to speak, then, to King Glennen on this matter.”
“I am sure you would,” I said. “However, he is indisposed. I am at your disposal, and you have heard me.”
“This is not in keeping with –“ he began.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, interrupting him rudely. I knew the Uman-Chi. That was an unforgivable slight.
I think he leveled a glare at me – it’s hard to tell with those ambiguous eyes – so I met it. I disliked him, and I saw no benefit in acting otherwise.
He turned to one of the Uman who’d come with him, and took a package from his hands. He opened it and held the contents up for me to see, a marble carving of a rearing stallion, in white.
“In celebration of your daughter’s birth,” he said. One of the Oligarchs was already descending the throne steps to retrieve it.
I couldn’t suppress a smile. “I didn’t expect this,” I told him, frankly.
“A child is a cause for celebration,” Aniquen informed me. “We see them rarely among our people. Every child is a chance for change, for improvement, for new insights into the world. A child is a precious thing, your Highness, no matter whom the father.”
He could have left that last part off, but I thanked him. The Oligarch couldn’t lift the statue so a couple Wolf Soldiers helped him with it.
“Eldador withdrawn from the Fovean High Council is Eldador with no friends in Fovea,” the Uman-Chi warned me. “Such an Eldador would have a difficult time on Tren Bay.”
“Fortunate for Eldador, then, that this is not your decision to make,” I said. I agreed with him that I couldn’t withdraw from the Fovean High Council. But I could be the France of the EEC and get away with it.
“You are dismissed,” I said, and brushed him off with a wave of my hand, looking away. He turned on his heel, passed giggling courtiers in the gallery, and out the throne room door.
/>
“Perhaps poorly advised, your Highness,” Oligarch two whispered to me, ascending the steps again.
“Probably,” I said, loud enough for the court to hear me. “But the emissary they sent tried to kill me once. A statue doesn’t forgive him that. I’ll be more civil to one who didn’t.”
He smiled and nodded. I ordered a division of Eldadorian foot from Steel City to patrol the Aschire border and protect it from woodsmen. Rennin wouldn’t want or need wood from there, and he would best be able to spare the men. I ordered Oligarch three to write him a letter of explanation and to have it to me before I went to bed, then called court over for the day.
Hectar and J’her were waiting for me with, of all people, Tom Kelgan. By rights the man should have been in shackles in the dungeon with the wizard that I still hadn’t decided on. In fact, he stood not three feet from me, a sword over his shoulder, looking me right in the eye with an irritating smile on his lips.
So I punched them. Four Oligarchs, a major and a Duke stood stunned as the bounty hunter’s blood sprayed them down.
The next took him in the nose. He went for his sword and I pinned him by the neck to the wall with my left hand, then caught his left wrist in my right hand, twisting it so that the knife he held didn’t find my stomach as he had intended.
I slammed his head against the stones as all four Oligarchs protested as one and Hectar’s hand found my shoulder. J’her already had a dirk out and in position to be driven into the side of Tom Kelgan’s head.
“Met your friend, Varoth,” I said, looking into his seething green eyes. “I didn’t like him real well.”
“I am told he didn’t live to regret it,” Tom Kelgan said. His eyes stayed fixed on mine, but he released the dagger. Blood already seeped into the red hair on his head and moustache. Hectar pulled the sword from his shoulder sheath without removing his hand from my shoulder.
“You weren’t smart to set me up,” I said, and released him. “But you were plain stupid to stay here after.”
“I gave you my word I wouldn’t act against you, and you knew I was a spy,” he said. “I stayed because you still bear watching. Don’t blame me if the Guild hasn’t found a way to you yet.”
