The Trophy Chase Saga
Page 88
The beast swam deep, deeper down into darkness than ever it had swum before, pushing, fleeing downward until the sea was as cold as the faraway ice, until the waters pressed in thick black darkness and squeezed and squeezed, until all sounds echoed in emptiness and all was as cold and hollow as the cavern within.
And there the loss turned to anger. The anger was aimed at no prey, no enemy, no object at all. And then anger became hunger.
It wanted to feed.
“Stop where you are!” shouted the Captain of the Guard, and the young priest candidate reined his horse to a halt thirty yards away.
“I have a message for the Most Holy Reverend Father!” he shouted back. He wore the green robes of a novice still in school. His voice was thin. He sounded young, or exhausted, or both.
“Who hails us?” the captain called back.
“I am a lowly messenger, in service to Father Usher Fell, elder of the Seminary of Mann!” He had approached at full gallop as dusk settled over the long, dusty road. Eight dragoons had turned as one, protecting the two coaches ahead of them. Four horsemen, dragoons in civilian clothes, quickly blocked the road, pistols drawn, while four more dismounted, unholstering long rifles and taking cover in the ditches. The drivers of the two royal coaches shook their reins, each putting his team into an easy canter toward the Mountains, visible on the distant horizon.
The benign figure spoke plaintively, but the dragoons did not lower their weapons. “Approach slowly,” the captain ordered.
The rider was in fact both young and exhausted, but his bright eyes held no fear. The horse foamed, and stumbled once as it bore its rider closer. He was allowed to fish a parchment from his pocket. The captain ordered him to dismount, and then required him to stand alone in the road as both the parchment and the horse were taken from him. Still the dragoons did not waver, but aimed their weapons and scoured the countryside for accomplices, as though the unarmed seminarian might become an army of Drammune warriors if they so much as blinked.
Once the driver of Reynard Sennett’s coach had reined his horses in, the folded sheaf was handed up into the dusty compartment. The High Holy Reverend Father and Supreme Elder, Harlowen “Hap” Stanson, accepted it. Briefly he met the eyes of the man he still believed to be the king of Nearing Vast. Reynard’s big jowls trembled.
Princess Jacqalyn watched both men with a comfortable, contemptuous smirk across her narrow face. Queen Maeveline watched with single-minded apprehension. Stanson examined the seal, saw it was unopened. He broke it, unfolded the sheaf, and read the note silently. Then he let his hands fall onto his lap. He closed his eyes. “Is this true?”
Reynard sniffed. “Would you like me to guess the contents?”
Hap Stanson shook his head. When he opened his eyes, his usually sunny visage was hard as a diamond. He glared at the former king. “You gave your kingdom to your son.”
“Ah. Then he’s announced it!” Reynard’s heart leapt. The former king had been little more than a large lump on a padded cushion the entire trip, distant to the point of unreachable, his face pale and his puffy eyes blank as his enormous folds of flesh were bounced about mercilessly on the dry, rutted roads. Now he was animated. “I would not have kept the matter so close, but he swore me to tell no one but those present at the moment. And I felt I must obey because, well, those were orders from the king—my son, the king.” The big man’s tone fairly boasted. “Is he well? What news of the war? Speak!”
Queen Maeveline and Princess Jacqalyn looked at one another. Neither treated herself to anything like the large helping of hope Reynard had just dished up for himself. They had been “those present at the moment,” the two witnesses required by Vast law, chosen by Mather as witnesses to his ascension because they were handy and they were headed out of town. “The moment” itself had been dreadful. The prince was ill-tempered, the king energized and impatient, the queen fretful, the princess draped in more than her usual disdain. In fact, that moment mirrored this one precisely, except that now the cleric stood in for the prince.
The look in the churchman’s eyes only grew colder. “I need a horse.”
Now a shadow fell over Reynard’s heart. “What for? What news? What of my son the king?”
“You should have told me,” Hap Stanson said, grim as death. “I could have prevented this.” He climbed down out of the carriage with his small leather travel bag in hand, and called for a mount.
The Captain of the Guard usually accepted the cleric’s orders as though they came from the king himself, having learned that Hap Stanson was universally granted whatever he wished. But there were no extra horses to give. “Yes, sir,” he said, and spurred his own horse back to the dragoons behind.
Hap watched him go. The leader of the Church of Nearing Vast was a big man, both tall and heavy-boned, with waves of auburn hair and bright, pale-blue eyes. He wore a dusty blue robe for traveling, unadorned but for the ever present inverted chalice that hung from a gold chain around his neck. His demeanor was always one of confidence. He always knew what needed to be done.
“The message!” Reynard croaked. He meant it as an order, but it came out a plea. Hap handed the parchment back up into the compartment. Princess Jacqalyn snatched it up with sharp fingernails. She read silently as all looked on, all but Hap, who peered down the road impatiently.
“Dear God,” Jacqalyn said aloud. It was not a prayer. She kept reading, and then said it again. She looked up at her father, then at her mother, folding the parchment slowly and deliberately. Even though the news vindicated her cynicism, and even though she generally relished the role of delivering such, she now had trouble finding her voice. Eventually, she chose her words the way a hunter chooses his arrows. “Daddy, your favorite child apparently managed to remain king for only a day. Then he, too, abdicated.”
“Abdicated?” Maeveline asked, her mouth agape.
Reynard’s mouth dropped open, then clamped shut, his head and jowls shaking back and forth. It was not possible.
“Yes, and quite publicly. Just before that dreadful Mux hanged him.” She managed to toss it off as an afterthought.
“Hanged him? Hanged who?” Reynard asked, unable to grasp the meaning of the words.
“Oh, Lord!” The former queen put her hands over her mouth. Her words were, in fact, a prayer.
The king closed his eyes, let his head fall back, back into the blackness that rose up around him. “Who was hanged?” he asked from the darkness.
“Your son the king. Well, no, not the king. I suppose he died without any title at all. You see, our dear Mather gave the kingdom away. To that heroic young man whom the peasants adore.”
This opened Reynard’s eyes. He searched Jacqalyn’s face. “Not Packer Throme.”
“The very one. King Packer! And doesn’t that have a ring to it? The fisher boy now wears your signet.” All eyes looked at Reynard’s right hand. With his thumb he turned the ring on his finger around, and they could see that it was not the king’s signet at all, but a similar-size ring of no particular distinction.
Jacqalyn looked at the written message again. “Ah, finally some good news here at the end. All this activity has been embraced by the general populace with the greatest possible enthusiasm. Out with the old, in with the new, and long life to king and kingdom! Nice work, Daddy. A proud ending to an illustrious reign.” Her words were a plunged knife that her cold smile twisted.
“Packer Throme…” Reynard repeated, as though unable to make sense of the name. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing. Reynard had abdicated so as to avoid any more errors on this scale, on the scale of sending the Fleet to its demise last year. But his abdication itself had now become an error of even greater proportion.
Jacqalyn took a long look at her father and then rolled her eyes. “What did you expect, Daddy?” Now her bitterness was unrestrained. “Mather was a shipwreck searching for a shoal. And now the palace, the Mountain House, this carriage, even the clothes we wear belong to that pockmarked littl
e boy.” Her eyes went wide and distant. “And to his pugnacious little bride.” She shook her head at the thought. “They’ll turn everything to righteousness and ruin. I can only imagine what they’ll do with us.” She envisioned Panna, fists unfettered, battering Sennetts at will.
Hap Stanson was listening. “I believe the Drammune will have something to say about who owns what,” he suggested dryly. He watched the captain bring a saddled horse toward him.
“The Drammune!” Jacq exclaimed. “Well there’s our hope, then! I’d far rather die at their hands with the dignity due me than bow and scrape before that…” images filled her head of Panna Throme dressed in the princess’s own fabulous finery, ordering a rag-clad Jacqalyn to scrub her woolens. It was simply too painful for words.
Maeveline broke into sobs. Her son was dead.
The Captain of the Guard climbed down from the saddle and handed Hap the reins of the horse. “We have no horses to spare, Your Holiness. This belongs to one of the dragoons, who will need to walk or be left behind, unless…”
“Unless what?” Hap asked irritably.
“With your permission, the messenger came on horseback. If he were to return afoot…”
“Yes, of course.” The High Holy Reverend Father and Supreme Elder Harlowen “Hap” Stanson took the reins and climbed aboard the big bay gelding. “You should have told me, Reynard!” he called out. “None of this needed to happen.” He maneuvered the horse up close to the carriage. He peered in, now at eye level with all three of those within it. His eyes suddenly sparkled. “But fear not!” His famously sunny disposition was back. “Where the State fails, the Church is ever ready to step in.”
“And do what, pray tell?” Jacqalyn asked, her voice dripping disrespect. “Is there something here to annul?”
“My dear Princess,” he answered, unperturbed, “certainly you know that the Sennett family was ordained from on high to rule. Passing the crown to a fisherman’s son—why, that is simply an affront to all that is right and holy. But errors of this sort are often made in the confusion of turbulent times. And battlefield promotions need not stand once the battle is won.”
“Won?” Jacqalyn asked.
“Oh, don’t doubt that our young hero can rally our troops. We should all pray for his swift success. I suspect that this is precisely the divine purpose at work here. But thankfully, the Almighty has put in place His instrument to calm human storms, so that we all may walk unharmed across troubled seas. And,” he added with an extra twinkle, “as Providence would have it, that instrument is me.”
“But I don’t understand. What will you do?” Jacqalyn asked in a tone that seemed quite close to sincerity. “Who will be king?”
“Do you want your crown back, Reynard?” Hap asked the enormous, dejected hulk.
Reynard looked as if he had seen a ghost. “No.” He said it quickly and vehemently. The others blanched. He had not sounded so certain about anything in months.
“Very well,” Hap said easily. “There is another male in the Sennett line with due rights to the throne. And we must follow the laws of God rather than those of man, am I correct?” His face was now positively beaming.
Jacqalyn did not share his confidence, or his enthusiasm. “Ward,” she said, as though the word were a curse. “You’ll replace the hero with the drunkard. Oh, the people will be so pleased when you reveal to them God’s will.”
The sparkle dimmed. “Fortunately, power is not given by popular acclaim.”
“Or the Church would never have any at all,” Jacq said coldly.
Hap stared at her just a moment, then laughed breezily. “You forget, Princess, that the pockmarked boy, as you call him, was once a student at my seminary. He was expelled for reasons our enthusiastic populace knows nothing about. Public opinion changes with the weather. And so! I must go now, and bring a little sunshine where dark clouds loom.” He peered more deeply into the compartment. Maeveline was sobbing silently. Reynard was gone off into his own private hell. Jacqalyn was morose and bitter, but at least she was paying attention. “And dear Princess, if Ward will not or cannot be king, there is certainly a Sennett here who might be queen.”
Her eyes blazed. Such words were a match to the dry tinder of her soul.
“Continue to the Mountain House,” he said gently. “If it is within the power God has granted me, be assured that the House of Throme will be put down, and the House of Sennett shall rise again.”
And then he rode off in a cloud of dust.
Princess Jacqalyn sat back in the carriage, stunned at the vision that streamed through the window the cleric had just flung open. She began to consider for the first time the value that might come to her through a personal commitment to the Church. For the first time, she felt she understood the whole point of religious conversions.
She read the message in her hands once more. The last words written there were, “The boy who delivers this message fought the Drammune on the Green, and shares the kingdom’s current passion for Packer Throme. Just a word of warning.” The note was signed, Fr. Usher Fell.
Hap Stanson rode up to the young seminarian, who now stood by himself in the road. The young man went unsteadily to one knee, and bowed his head.
“Rise,” Hap said, towering over him from atop the gelding. “Where is your knapsack?”
“I was told the message was urgent,” the boy said, his heart ablaze. He had never met his High Holiness. “I didn’t stop for provisions.”
“No provisions?” Hap asked, pondering his options. “How long have you fasted?”
“Two days now, sir.”
Hap nodded appreciatively. He pulled a bladder from his own knapsack. “Take some water.” He watched the boy drink, then accepted the bladder back and returned it to his own bag. “You are a student at the seminary.”
“Yes, sir, name’s Lester Mine, apprenticed to Father Usher Fell, Your…Worship.”
“Do you know the contents of the message you brought?”
“No, sir. I know only it was about the new king, Packer Throme. May he live forever!” The fire within the boy leapt up, singeing the clergyman’s sensibilities.
“Indeed. Your return walk is long. It will test your spirit.”
The boy’s eyes dimmed. “Sir?”
Hap’s voice grew thick with compassion. “God has appointed you a task, my son. You have begun a fast that will end only when you return to the seminary.”
“But…the Drammune, sir. They hold the city.”
“Here is your mission and your purification. Speak to no man. Drink nothing. Eat nothing. Fast and pray until you have knelt at the altar of the Seminary Chapel. Stop on your way. Pray on your knees four times a day. For two hours each time. Ignore all men, all women, all children. This mission will purge you of politics, of devotion to mere men, and prepare you for His service.”
Hap watched the change come over the boy. The seminarian swallowed the words like they were doses of bitter medicine. But he swallowed them. It was a spiritual journey now, entirely. “Yes, Your Holiness.”
Hap was genuinely pleased. “God bless you, son.” And the High Holy Reverend Father and Supreme Elder, Harlowen “Hap” Stanson, rode off, trailing clouds of dust. Hap gave Lester Mine no further thought. He had his own mission to worry about.
Huk Tuth sat hunched over a table in the library of the conquered palace, his white hair hanging in wispy strands over a carefully plotted map of Mann, and of the Hollow Forest. The Supreme Commander of the Glorious Drammune Military was an old man, but thick like a gnarled tree trunk. He had just dismissed his spies, two men and one woman, who looked for all the world like Vast natives. Tuth did not like spies, even his own, especially those who could so easily pass for enemies, and so he tended to treat them as though they were trying to hide something. But he had wrung from them all they knew about troop movements, and the preparations the salamanders now made for attack. They had told him of the hasty fortifications of the Vast eastern perimeter, their vulnerable
left flank to the north, the exposed rear to the west, and the impenetrable, rocky, thickly wooded hills to the south. They had told him of the ascent to the throne of the yellow-haired warrior, who had escaped the Drammune noose. Now Tuth brooded over his options, anxious to destroy those unworthies.
“General Harkow!”
His most experienced field commander entered immediately. Tuth rubbed the stubble of his bare chin and spoke. “The Vast are out of food and their position poorly defended. They will move quickly. What news of the tunnel?”
Harkow was a tall man, taller than most Drammune, and he summoned his full height. “None, sir. Our engineers have not yet penetrated the doorway.”
Tuth took out quill and parchment and began to draw up formal orders. “We will attack as soon as you can get your troops to the Hollow Forest.”
By nightfall of their third day in the encampment, the Vast battle plan was in place and the armies of the new king were ready. Reorganizing the troops, ensuring that each platoon, company, and battalion had enough men and a suitable commander, had been the easier part of the job. In spite of the shameful disarray during and following the rout that was the Invasion of Mann, Bench Urmand had actually done an admirable job of organizing his army. When the initial shock of cowardly defeat wore off, a sense of discipline began to return. Soldiers found their units, the dead or missing were noted and reported, the next in rank stepped up to take their places, and the chain of command held. The Vast became an organized force once again.
Provisioning, however, had been more difficult. In the past twenty-four hours, barely half the troops had had a meal, and not much more than half a meal at that. The army’s chief quartermaster, a tobacco-chewing, oath-swearing, utterly competent barrel of a man who lived in a constant state of frustration, managed to find and load wagons some fifteen miles away to the south and east, in a small community on the outskirts of Mann. He put his chuck wagons in a field outside this village, one of no particular note, undistinguishable from a hundred towns just like it scattered across the Kingdom of Nearing Vast, and there he awaited orders.