The younger Cyril had been there as well, barely more than a boy at the time. He had held a blunderbuss on the sweating Jobian priest who conducted the dual wedding ceremony and coronation. As he now remembered it, Cyril had also had a splitting headache on that day.
Within five years the boy had gone from the bastard son of a minor knight who’d had to rent horses for jousts to being crowned himself as Duke Cyril II of Chengdea, for his father’s reign was short. It had ended with a drunken fall down five flights of circular tower stairs. The man who had killed something like fourteen or fifteen rival claimants for the Ducal throne in single combat had met his end after tripping over a cat.
To the equal surprise of Cyril II and the Chengdeanese, the young man had proven up to the task of ruling the Duchy, even as the war with Ayzantium slashed bleeding hunks out of the Kingdom’s southern, coastal flank. Chengdea met all royal demands for manpower and supply from the new King of Daul, Hughes III, who had also come to the throne as a youngster after the old king’s death on the Icheroon. Perhaps because of their likeness in age the young King seemed to trust his young Duke from the beginning, and the two had begun and maintained a warm correspondence between Chengdea and the royal capital of Bouree, or else with Hughes’s headquarters in the field. For Cyril the richest reward of the relationship had been his introduction at the King’s behest to Jasmine Halvalon, the beautiful golden-haired daughter of a powerful but under-titled baronial family in the east.
The demands the war put on Chengdea were severe but not crippling, and Cyril maintained enough forces at home to keep a lid on Magdetchoi raids from the Vod Wilds across the river. With Jasmine’s invaluable assistance he was careful to spread the burdens in men and material among his barons and earls as best he could, and willing to dip directly into the Ducal treasury when necessary to pay his own people for what the King could otherwise take from them by right. The revolts and unrest that had flared up in other provinces had not been felt on the Black River, and noblemen with lineages as long as the history of the province had grudgingly warmed to the upstart Duke. His refined wife was invaluable there, as well. Sad to say, after Jasmine’s illness and untimely passing a dozen years ago, the hearts of the common men and women of Chengdea had further opened to the widowed Duke.
That was all before the Ayzants had set siege to Larbonne, closing the Black River to the trade that was the lifeblood of the Duchy. Cyril’s already strained treasury lurched into the red, and that was actually the least of his problems. Of more concern was that with the fall of Larbonne, which all signs said could not be far off, the Ayzants would have an open path north on rivers and roads directly into Chengdea, and the King had as yet given no sign that he apprehended the threat. Hughes had his army in Chevagia, north of Roseille, Larbonne’s sister port to the east which the Ayzants had occupied for decades since early in the war. Roseille could scarcely even be considered a Daulic city any longer, yet there was Hughes perched above it with his massive army like a row of ducklings peering over the lip of a high nest, unwilling to hazard the jump to the water.
Or so it was said in the Ducal throne room of Chengdea, not by Cyril but by any number of his nobles whom he had gathered there to plan the defense of the Duchy. While the walls still bore their rich adornments, the floor had been cleared of carpets replaced with reed mats. Some of the carved benches and chairs remained but they were pushed back against the walls for instead of a grand banquet board smaller tables suitable for maps and stacked ledgers filled the floor. Around these, all day every day, stalked those knights and barons who were not serving this year with the King’s army. Most had already done at least one tour with the King and those men spoke among themselves of Hughes’s unwillingness to move his army anywhere that might leave his capital of Bouree exposed, no matter the result for Larbonne, Chengdea, and the rest of “his” Kingdom.
Every day as the word from downriver grew worse the awareness grew among the noblemen of Chengdea that they were going to be on their own. Many a goblet of wine was emptied and many a bold oath was sworn. Men proclaimed that the Duchy would be stoutly defended from the southern baronies to this very throne room, if need be. Given the size of the mercenary-swollen Ayzant army in Larbonne, most thought it probably would.
Such plans as were generated concentrated mostly on slowing the Ayzants in the south so that winter might close the roads to marching armies. Spring might bring relief from Hughes. Or it might not. But no one in Chengdea countenanced supplication to the bloody crown of Ayzantium.
Though he said no such word, Cyril thought spring would be too late. The Shugak of the Vod Wilds were quiet now, running their operations around Vod’Adia, but with the Opening and Closing of that fell place the hobgoblins and bullywugs might well take advantage of Chengdean concentration in the south to raid across the river anywhere else they liked. Good guardsmen on the banks of the Black were necessary to keep the Magdetchoi in check, and Cyril knew that the northern barons loudly proclaiming their dedication to the greater cause of the Duchy would feel far different when their own people were menaced from another quarter, back in their own lands.
As for those nobles, fewer by the day, who still had confidence that the King would come to their defense…Cyril did not disabuse them of that notion. He let their fellows do it for him. Cyril had begun to lose his own faith in Hughes several years back when the King’s personal correspondence had begun to grow strident, paranoid, and increasingly divorced from reality. Hughes had spent most of last year assuring Cyril that his position in Chevagia would keep the Ayzants from moving troops out of Roseille and the Chirabis for an attack in the west, on Larbonne. Cyril had received few letters from Hughes since that attack had happened. In fact, the only direct orders he had received in the last six months had been brought to Cyril in person by a High Lord Knight of the King’s own household, who had insisted on dispatching a Chengdean force on an ill-conceived reconnaissance south to the siege lines, sending a group that had been at once too large to avoid detection, and too small to engage in serious battle. They had been lost almost to a man, and at a personal cost to Cyril that had been far too high to pay. Hughes’s man had slunk back to Chevagia, and Cyril never received as much as a word of condolence.
That had been three months ago, and it had been something of a tipping point for the Duke, moving him decidedly toward something he had been considering for a few years but only ever spoken of with one other person. On the dark night that the body of Sir Lucas Towsan had returned home to Chengdea in a wagon, the Duke had spoken of his thoughts to a third person, Lucas‘s father. A few more knew of it by now though nothing had yet been done about it, apart from Cyril allowing his nobles to come to the realization in their own time that they, the Chengdeanese, were very much alone.
As evening approached on the Eighth Day of Ninth Month and the nobles began to discuss dinner as much as the defense of the Duchy a servant handed the Duke a folded note, one name and a few words scribbled on embossed castle stationary. Cyril excused himself, clapped a somber baron on the shoulder, and made to leave the chamber. Everyone stood to attention and the Duke gave all a nod, but he met the eyes of one thin old knight in particular and beckoned for the man to join him.
Knight-Baron Gideon Towsan, head of Cyril’s Household Guard, was a foot taller than his Duke and some fifteen years older. Despite having the close-cropped gray hair and tidy triangular beard suitable for the generation of Daulmen leaving their fifties, it was Towsan who had to shorten his long stride to walk beside his Duke, as Cyril was of a broad and slightly bow-legged build that marked his Kantan ancestry by way of Orstaf. The Duke’s brown hair was worn short as well, but he had gamely followed the present Daulic style by wearing a flared moustache and allowing his beard to grow long, but only from his chin, and binding it with silver wire.
“Pagette,” Cyril said a name as the two men marched down the long hall to the portal connecting the throne room to the upper courtyard of Chengdea’s castle, high on th
e northern-most hills of the city.
“He has found another…possibility?” Towsan asked carefully. The two nobles passed by uniformed spearman at the wide door who briskly saluted their Duke and commander. Cyril nodded to both the guards and the question. Towsan eyed the men to make sure their chain mail was immaculate, their gold and green tabards bright and without wrinkle.
Cyril and Towsan crossed the grass of the open courtyard passing under trees and around a great central dais mounting an enormous bell as old as the realm, the bronze so green it looked like jade. A mallet hung from the crossbar as a striker though the bell was so old the castle staff thought the thing might shatter if it was ever struck.
“Adventurers,” Cyril muttered. “Dunderheads bound for disaster in Vod’Adia. I cannot believe I have countenanced this plan.”
Safely beneath his own brush of moustache, Towsan smiled faintly. The present incarnation of this stage of the plan had not been conceived by Cyril, but rather by the one person the Duke had never been able to deny. Not since her mother had died.
The thought of death took all traces of a smile from Towsan’s face. His wound was too fresh.
The south side of the high courtyard gave down a ramp into another, and the citadel wall separating the two was thick enough that rooms were housed within it. A guard standing at attention next to a plain door saluted smartly. Cyril thanked and dismissed him, and opened the door himself.
The room was used for extra storage, with rolled carpets wedged next to a stack of ale kegs and a rack of spears. A lantern hung from the ceiling and Pagette was examining the ends of the carpet rolls in its light when the Duke and Towsan strode in.
Pagette turned and made a flouncey bow, ruffling the frilled cuffs of a silk shirt worn under an embroidered waistcoat. His hair was slicked down with some sort of pomade Cyril and Towsan could smell in the small room. He referred to the Duke and Knight-Baron properly in impeccable High Daulic as Your Grace and Your Lordship, Sir.
“What are they this time?” Cyril rumbled without preamble. “Green Hill musketmen? Tarthan priests of the Sword Maiden?”
Pagette beamed, his gold tooth catching the light along with the trove of rings glittering his fingers.
“A Miilarkian,” he said. “A young and rather pretty one at that.”
Cyril raised a brown eyebrow and Towsan frowned.
“An Islander?” said Cyril.
“A woman?” said Towsan.
“Yes, and yes. She has a Codian sell-sword with her, but otherwise travels alone.”
“Wait,” Cyril held up a hand. “She is a merchant of some kind? Traveling alone?”
“I do not believe so, your Grace, as she has no goods with her.”
“Pagette,” Towsan said. “She did not happen to be wearing a night-black cloak of a triangular cut, did she?”
“Ah, no your Lordship, sir. Though she did have something like that rolled up behind her saddle.”
“A Guilder?” Duke Cyril nearly sputtered, then raised his eyes toward the beams of the ceiling as though imploring help from the heavens beyond them.
“Good night, Pagette,” he said sourly, “Better luck the morrow. For the record, I am not particularly interested in thieves and assassins.”
Pagette looked modestly offended. “Pardon, your Grace, but strictly speaking the Guilders of Miilark are neither of those two things. Not precisely.”
“Bloody well close enough,” Towsan growled.
“My lords,” Pagette said, then snapped his mouth shut as the note of exasperation that had crept into his voice had been obvious even to him. “Forgive me, your Grace, and your Lordship, Sir. But might I perhaps speak plainly?”
“Please,” Cyril said, causing Towsan to glance at him. The Duke, perhaps because of his unorthodox upbringing, did have a tendency to treat in too familiar a fashion with commoners. The Duchess Jasmine had never been able to fully cure him of the habit.
Pagette held out his bejeweled hands. “Your Grace, owing to the siege of Larbonne there are not so many Vod’Adia-bound adventurers moving through your domains this season, and none of those who do come this way are paladins, or cavaliers, or people, in all honesty, of reputable circumstance. The better classes are going through Souterm and the Codian Empire. Those we get here are Kantans and Rivenmen moving overland, and a variety of ne’er-do-wells who either slipped around the siege or else were allowed through by the Ayzants as they look like trouble. The pickings, your Grace, are slim.”
Cyril was frowning, and Towsan knew why. Despite the rough nature of the heavily armed men and women who had come through Chengdea in the last few months, there were many among them who might have been convinced to hire on in the Duchy’s service, at least for a season, to bolster the defenses. If there had been any money left in the treasury, that is.
Pagette continued.
“My liege, time is not our friend. Vod’Adia will be Open in a few weeks, and Closed only a month after that. The adventurers, loaded with treasure or not, do not linger in the Wilds and the Shugak close the road behind them for the next ninety-nine years. In little more than two months there will be no route through the wilderness. Larbonne is already lost to us.” The man turned to look at Towsan. “If your Lordship, Sir, is still decided and resolute, you have to go now .”
“But with an Island Guilder?” Cyril said, though it was a question now and not a denial.
“Just so,” Pagette nodded. “As I say, she is a young woman and in truth not so formidable in appearance, but the reputation of her people proceeds her. If you two noble men are, forgive me, intimidated by the name of Miilark, may not the same be expected from the Shugak, and even from the rough crowd of Camp Town? There is no percentage in meddling with an Islander, for the Islanders never forget. Is there anyone in the world who has not heard this said?”
Cyril was quiet, thoughtful. Towsan spoke to Pagette.
“Does this young Guilderess mean to enter Blackstone? What is her goal?”
“I cannot say, sir, though I do not think Vod’Adia is her objective. Her sell-sword did purchase a one-man license on the docks with Island bank notes, and the pair of them booked passage on the next wug raft to put-out, probably in a few days.”
“Why else would she be going to Camp Town if she is not a merchant?”
Pagette shrugged, but the Duke had seen something. His dark eyes narrowed at the gaudy trader.
“You may not know, Pagette, but you have suspicions. You have that sort of a brain.”
The man lifted a hand as though to run it over his head, but remembering his slick pomade he only feathered his fingers above his hair.
“Well. I did hear a bit of talk between her and her man. There was something of an implication that she, well, does mean to…do a certain amount of harm to some fellow traveling ahead of her.”
Towsan snorted. “But Guilders are not assassins? Not precisely?”
Pagette sighed. “Yes. Well. Your Lordship, Sir, I must say again, what does it matter to us if she is? Have I misapprehended your purpose in seeking to travel in the manner intended? As I understood it your only wish is for security from here to Camp Town. Once there you can avail yourself of the hospitality of the Jobian priests, and your need for an escort is ended. If this Miilarkian wishes to go kill some fellow, or even to try the Sable City, what of it? Your need for her ends before either is an issue.”
“You are sure the Codian Priests have a temple at Camp Town this year?” Cyril asked, for it was a point to which he often returned.
“Absolutely your Grace, I have confirmed it time and again with the Shugak. They have raised an entire pyramid, of wood of course and not stone, and are operating it as a sort of hospice.” Pagette turned to Towsan. “It will be the most distinctive structure in Camp Town, I expect, for the Jobians put up a far better class of building than the Shugak, gods know. Not the sort of thing every breeze threatens to topple.”
Cyril was quiet for a time and Towsan gave his Duke the silenc
e to think. Pagette waited on tenterhooks, not bothering to conceal his eagerness. The man was a native Chengdean and while no more of his Duke’s plan had been explained to him than was absolutely necessary, he did possess the sort of brain that would have figured it all out by now. Pagette surely understood that the fate of the Duchy could well be in the balance, though Towsan suspected that the light in his eyes had still more to do with the substantial payment he had been promised than with any sense of local patriotism.
Cyril finally sighed. “Where is this pretty assassin now?”
“The Stars and Stones on the docks,” Pagette said. “She and her man took two rooms as it is the only inn not stuffed to the rafters with refugees. Not at the pretty penny the owner is still charging.”
“That innkeeper has no soul,” Towsan muttered. Pagette shrugged.
“But he has stacks and stacks of silver. Many are the men who will make that trade.”
“Arrange a meeting, Pagette,” Cyril said. “Let us say, in three hours.”
The man bowed deeply, still smiling, and was quickly out the door and gone. Cyril made no move to leave the room right away so Towsan waited beside him.
“I should bring Claudja,” the Duke said. “She has a good eye for people.”
“She always did, your Grace.”
Cyril looked at his oldest vassal and opened his mouth as though to apologize, which would have been a mortification for Towsan. Instead the Duke only reached out and squeezed the knight’s narrow shoulder with a strong hand. Towsan lowered his eyes.
Cyril looked out the open door at the sky above the courtyard walls, somber blues and purples starting to play across the undersides of clouds.
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