Ravian's Quest

by Jerry Carpenter

  Ravian's Quest

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Ravian’s Quest

  Jerry Carpenter

  Published by Jerry Carpenter at Smashwords

  Copyright 2012 Jerry Carpenter

  Chapter One

  ‘The woman is a whore and you will put her aside!’

  Jeniel, King of Tarcus, had gone very red in the face.

  Hardly a soul in the kingdom would have dared confront the monarch when he was so angry, but the subject of his rage stood his ground and glared back at him.

  ‘I shall not!’ snarled Prince Ravian, his younger brother, Defender of the Nation and hero of the Great Sea War. ‘Belice has stood beside me more loyally than any daughter of the Nine Houses.’

  ‘One daughter of the Nine Houses!’ Jeniel roared. ‘And you virtually ignored the woman the whole time you were married to her!’

  There was a tense silence.

  They were alone in the palace’s Hunting Room, their only witnesses the animals’ heads that decorated its walls. As their father had before him, the king preferred this particular sanctuary for private meetings, and his brother had immediately become suspicious when Jeniel had summoned him there.

  His marriage to Sinur had been a disastrous mistake, Ravian admitted to himself, but he had never entirely exorcised his suspicion that Jeniel had somehow been involved in her murder. Now, it was as though his dead wife’s ghost floated between them, her cold presence powerful enough to quench the flaming tempers of both brothers.

  ‘You won’t be seeing much of your Ezrenian harlot for a while anyway,’ Jeniel continued, in the tight tone of one who has just wrestled himself back under control. ‘It is time to repair our relations with the nations of the North and rebuild some of the trade that the Great Sea War has cost us. In my name, you will head a mission to the countries on this list and attempt to re-establish formal diplomatic ties.’

  Jeniel handed Ravian a parchment scroll which the prince snatched and immediately unrolled. The prince’s eyes widened as he began to read out the formidable tally inscribed upon it.

  ‘Groven, Gerouf, Dekane, Graftsen... Survene? Saravene? Grenwain?!’ Ravian exclaimed. ‘This is more like a list of the whole world west of Dalvan! Most of these countries did not even take up arms against us!’

  ‘True,’ his brother replied, ‘but while you’re carrying out your mission, you might as well cement ties with the friendlies and try and bring some neutrals onto our side as well. Some monarchs might be upset if they thought they had been bypassed.’

  There was an odd smile on Jeniel’s face now, and Ravian decided he didn’t like the look of it one bit.

  ‘Needless to say,’ the king continued, ‘your legendary diplomatic skills – or lack thereof – will make this mission a challenge for you. With this in mind, I have decided that the good Citizen Lectus will accompany you as your mentor and advisor.’

  ‘Lectus!’ Ravian exploded. ‘Surely you jest! Do you really expect me to represent Tarcus to the world in the company of some...some pederastic whale?!’

  ‘I’m not joking at all, Ravian,’ his brother replied evenly. ‘Citizen Lectus may be on the large side, and he may well prefer the company of men, but I don’t believe that his tastes extend to boys. More relevantly, he has an extensive knowledge of foreign customs and diplomatic protocol, which you will find invaluable in carrying out your mission.’

  ‘But it will take a year to voyage around the countries on this list,’ Ravian said angrily.

  ‘Oh, at least – probably longer,’ the king agreed smugly.

  ‘Send Ramus then, if you’re so worried about my lack of diplomacy.’

  The king’s smile widened and Ravian realised he had stepped into a trap.

  ‘Alas,’ Jeniel sighed. ‘Would that I could, but our little brother is increasingly busy with our trading partners in the East. Besides, he has a wife and family to think about...a royal wife and three wonderful princesses.’

  Ravian knew that there was more to come.

  ‘In fact,’ the king continued, ‘Ramus’s eminently suitable marriage and abundant issue are precisely what make him unsuitable for the other part of your mission.’

  ‘Oh yes...?’ Ravian coaxed his older brother suspiciously.

  ‘Well…,’ Jeniel said, ‘there is this other list that I want you to consider.’

  He handed his brother a second scroll.

  ‘Princess Veletia, daughter of King Paxim,’ Ravian read. ‘Princess Flamina, daughter of King Zecretes. Princess ...Is this what I think it is?’

  ‘If what you think it is, is a list of young women of noble birth whose parents would consider a marriage alliance with the royal family of Tarcus, then you are correct,’ his brother replied.

  ‘So this is all about Belice!’ Ravian said hotly.

  ‘No, Ravian, it’s not about Belice,’ Jeniel replied wearily. ‘It’s about Tarcus.’

  The king drew a deep breath before continuing.

  ‘Look, Ravian, we’ve discussed this before. Kasanda and I are still childless and you are still next in line to the throne. You have a duty to me and to this country to find a suitable bride and produce an heir. Besides that, a marriage with one of the royal families of the North would give us an alliance that might prevent another war. Think of that – if you can stop thinking about yourself for long enough.’

  ‘You can’t make me marry any of the women on this list,’ Ravian said.

  ‘That is true,’ Jeniel replied, ‘but I can, and hereby do, order you to carry out your diplomatic mission, and you will meet with each and every one of those women in the process. That is my command to you, as a prince of the realm and as Defender of the Nation!’

  ‘I’ll abdicate,’ Ravian shot back.

  ‘Abdicate, and you betray the memory of our father, you betray me and you betray every man who died under your command in the Great Sea War,’ Jeniel replied, clearly having already considered that this might be one of Ravian’s responses.

  ‘And if I refuse to set sail on this...this royal stud mission?’

  ‘If you refuse to carry out my command,’ the king growled ‘you will leave me no alternative but to have you confined you to your old rooms here in the palace until such time as you see the error of your ways. This mission has already been discussed with my advisers and a number of key council members, and I will not allow them to see my orders disobeyed without consequence – even by you.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ Ravian rasped at his brother.

  ‘I grew up, Ravian,’ the king replied, ‘and it’s time that you did the same. I will allow you seven days to choose which it will be – a pleasant sea voyage or a prolonged stay here in the palace until you see your duty.’

  Ravian was so preoccupied with the king’s ultimatum that, as he strode out between the massive columns that flanked the main entrance to the royal residence, he barely acknowledged the salute of the palace guards. Blind to the familiar yet breath-taking vista of the White City’s sweep down to the deep blue eye of the harbour, he descended the wide flight of steps that fronted the building and set off along the crowded, cobbled street that would take him towards the Western Arm, the cliff-flanked promontory beneath which sheltered the naval base and atop which was his home in the Admiral’s Residence. Despite the baking, early afternoon heat, a host of merchants and travellers from every shore of the Sapphire Sea scurried busily around him, all drawn to the White C
ity by the fabulous commercial opportunities that the trading centre offered. None of these men or women failed to recognise or acknowledge the Tarcun prince however, clearing a respectful, bowing and curtsying path, as he marched angrily toward his destination. Ravian was barely aware of their presence – he was already considering a third alternative to the two presented to him by the king.

  He would abdicate, he thought to himself.

  He and Belice would sail away in the preposterous, gilded vessel in which she had so spectacularly entered the White City two years’ beforehand – the “Floating Brothel” as he had heard it called. They would be gone before Jeniel knew it and start a new life together.

  But where? Ravian wondered.

  Certainly, no ally or trading partner of Tarcus would want to risk offending Jeniel by harbouring them – and that left precious few places else that were even remotely habitable. Belice’s ridiculous, lumbering ship was also a problem, so slow that they would need at least three days’ start if they were not to be run down by one of his own swordships before they made it even as far as the Delenes Islands, the closest landfall to Tarcus.

  As he wrestled with his problem, the prince encountered what had become a familiar sight in the city – a one-legged veteran sitting against a wall with his hand out for the charity of the passers-by.

  Jeniel was right, curse him, Ravian thought, pressing a copper into the grateful beggar’s hand. To slip away in the night like some visiting troubadour would be to betray all the men who had died – or, like this poor devil, been disabled – in the Great Sea War. They had sailed for their country, yes, but also, damn it, they had fought for him.

  For a moment, the busy, noisy world around him ceased to exist, as the faces of the many who had followed him to bloody victory, but who had not returned to their homes and families, floated before him.

  It had been a war they had had no choice but to fight, Ravian consoled himself, and, in military terms anyway, Tarcus had secured a great victory.

  Not a single vessel from the huge Northerner war fleet had made it back to its homeland. Thirty-four thousand of the enemy and over two hundred of their vessels had vanished beneath the waves off the island of Tarcus. Their leader, King Bordwar of Dekane, had perished aboard his four-decked galley as, mortally wounded by Ravian’s own flagship, the massive craft had capsized and sunk just outside the city’s sea wall. That had been the turning point of the two-day sea battle and, after Ravian’s swordships had picked off those enemy galleys too badly crippled to escape, they had pursued and destroyed the few able survivors that had fled north.

  Tarcus’s own casualties, although small by comparison with those of her enemies, had still been significant enough to almost cripple the small island nation.

  Twenty-three swordships had been lost – almost half their fleet of the advanced new warships that Ravian had laboured so hard to build – and just over two thousand men had perished.

  Everyone in the kingdom, it seemed, had lost a friend or relative in the war, and Ravian mourned the death of Combus, the tough, loyal, bosun he had inherited from Admiral Acrusta, found by a Northerner arrow whilst helming Sea Eagle into battle. Even more, he missed his vice-admiral and good friend, Capernal, who had perished in the brave defence of the South Gate against a surprise landing by an enemy force that had crept down the eastern shores of the island even as the main sea battle raged to the north and the west.

  The Northerners’ strategy had almost succeeded, Ravian knew, their raiders having already taken the gate and begun entering the city before reinforcements – led by, of all people, Graticus – arrived and pushed them back into the sea. Had his old rival been a minute or two later on the scene, the enemy could have taken the eastern watch tower, raised the chain guarding the harbour and then, Ravian thought grimly, the wolves would have been well and truly amongst the sheep. As it was, the man that the prince so disliked had become a colossal hero, he and his “Heroic One Hundred”, having managed to repel a force ten times their number.

  ‘But the next guard post was only three hundred paces further along the wall,’ Ravian had pointed out to Jeniel, when they had analysed the battle a few days afterwards. ‘Surely they must have noticed that the South Gate was under attack?’

  ‘I gather that they, like everybody else in the city, were distracted by the action outside the harbour entrance,’ the king had replied. ‘You and your swordships were putting on quite a show by that stage.’

  ‘Maybe, but what was Graticus doing with a century of men anyway? I didn’t even know he was still an active reservist.’

  ‘They were men from his house that he had asked to be stationed in the warehouse area. Just as well – if those Northerners had made it onto the Southern Arm, they could have taken the watchtower and dropped the chain. Then we would have been in trouble.’

  ‘Well,’ Ravian had conceded without enthusiasm, ‘I suppose we do owe Graticus a debt.’

  ‘We certainly do,’ his brother agreed, ‘but don’t worry, Graticus being Graticus, you can be sure he’ll make the most of his opportunity for self-aggrandisement.’

  But the people of Tarcus had soon discovered that the cost of the war extended beyond its casualties in ships and men, Ravian reflected, as he turned onto the quiet, tree-lined avenue that ran along the top of the Western Arm towards the Admiral’s Residence. The defeated Northerners’ colossal losses meant that, overnight, trade around their shores reduced to a small fraction of what it had been before the war and, while Tarcus may have had other markets about the Sapphire Sea, the first few months following the conflict were a time of great fiscal suffering for the Nine Houses. Eventually, however, commerce had begun to re-establish itself in the North and emissaries from first one and then another of the defeated nations had come to Tarcus to request that their trade routes be reopened. Now, things were slowly returning to normal – although Jeniel had not been able to resist a punitive doubling of the taxes and fees on the trade and the vessels from those countries that had been a part of the Northern Alliance.

  Peals of children’s laughter broke into Ravian’s thoughts and, looking around in surprise, he saw that he had walked as far along the Western Arm as the House of Palms without realising. Once the home of wealthy Tarcun merchant, the large, handsome residence had been secretly purchased for Belice by King Saravar when he was still alive and she was then the Ezrenian monarch’s favourite mistress. On his death, she had prudently fled the eastern nation – and the inevitable vengeance of Saravar’s wives – and taken up residence in the house. Then, she had relentlessly pursued and seduced Ravian who was, at that time, living a bitter, reclusive life in the nearby Admiral’s Residence. Not long afterwards, with the same generosity and compassion for the disadvantaged that had made her the idol of the poor of Ezreen, she had opened the doors of her house to the orphans of Tarcus, her servants becoming the willing staff of the newly-founded institution. Ravian, already thoroughly besotted with her, had taken this event as a sign that Belice should begin living with him at the Admiral’s Residence.

  Of course, Ravian thought, as he acknowledged the salute of his guard and stalked up the steps to the upper storey of his home, moving Belice into his quarters also marked the beginning of his conflict with his brother over his relationship with her.

  Apart from the guardhouse that serviced the harbour watchtower, the Admiral’s Residence was the last building at the end of the Western Arm. While the handsome structure’s lower storey contained his naval headquarters and staff, the upper level was his private living area, its wide, surrounding balconies offering sweeping panoramas of almost all the city, the harbour and the Lee Shore for many miles northwest towards Belainus.

  Ravian had no eyes for the stunning views today though – he was looking for Belice. As he had half-expected, he found her reclining on a luxuriously-bolstered divan in one of her favourite places, an awning- shaded corner on a balcony that looked out over nothing but the blue of the Sapphire Sea. As she looke
d up from the fine tapestry she was working on, Ravian felt himself tumble into the depths of her dark eyes – even before she melted his heart all over again with her dazzling smile. Belice was known as the most beautiful woman in the Sapphire Sea and, from the first time he had seen her dance at Saravar’s palace, Ravian had never doubted that this was true.

  How could Jeniel expect him to put her aside?

  Belice saw the expression on his face and her smile vanished to be replaced by a look of concern.

  ‘What is it, Ravian?’ she asked, with barely a trace of the lilting accent of the East. ‘What did the king want?’

  She laid aside her tapestry and rose to her feet with smooth, feline grace, her eyes searching his face for clues.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, forcing a smile as he came to a halt before her. ‘Jeniel just wanted to brief me on Tarcus’s trading situation.’

  Even as he said the words however, Ravian realised that Belice already knew that he was lying. After arriving in the White City, she had swiftly established her own network of spies among the servants at the palace – simple people, blindly devoted to her because of her philanthropic activities. If Jeniel had discussed the forth-coming diplomatic mission outside of any but his very closest advisors, then Belice would have known the details even before Ravian received his brother’s summons.

  Now, she looked at him levelly.

  ‘There is no point in either of us pretending, My Love,’ she said. ‘Jeniel has wanted me gone since the Great Sea War.’

  ‘What Jeniel wants doesn’t matter,’ Ravian said. ‘I want you and that is all that counts.’

  ‘Oh, My Darling, if only life were that simple,’ Belice said, putting her arms about him and laying her head on his chest.

  When she looked up at him again, he saw tears in her eyes.