Severance (The Sovereign Book 1)

by Michael Pritsos

  Xander ushered Stefan inside and turned back out to the graying town to greet Patrick as he walked down the street. Patrick was wearing a green doublet over a white linen shirt. Bleached trousers were accented by high black boots and his green cloak was fastened at the neck by a golden brooch displaying a leaf to symbolize his homeland of Tethys.

  “Lord,” Xander said as the nobleman approached.

  “Ah, my favorite watchman,” Patrick exclaimed. “I take it the Gaians aren’t coming?”

  Xander looked past Thalassa’s heir to where the dock only harbored one vessel. “Their ship capsized.” Patrick’s mouth parted in shock but Xander continued in a hushed voice. “We rescued many of them, and their ambassador awaits you inside. His guards died in the ship’s sinking, so I have made certain to keep an eye on him while he’s here. I shall be his guard, temporarily.”

  “Clever,” Patrick observed. “Shall we get this farce over with?”

  “Please,” Xander answered. He turned to the yard where several soldiers were standing about idly. “George, Murchadh!” The pair rushed over to their officer and he gestured towards the nobleman.

  The four walked into the conference room to find Aldous himself standing in at Stefan’s left. Xander moved to the right of the Gaian ambassador while his two guards moved to Patrick’s flanks and attempted solemnity in a newfound position. It might have been some kind of bad luck to have the grey cloaks flanking Patrick instead of the normal scarlet, but they played the role easily enough. Murchadh was a stalwart soldier, and at twenty-seven Xander thought he should have been promoted to watchman years ago, especially being a cousin to the House Mestre on Proteus. He was a shining example of what a guardsman should be, with a strong jaw, bright eyes, and a bright smile to go with his defined physique. George was a good man, Xander knew, but in some regards it was clear that his peers might take training more seriously. Especially on the physical side of things.

  Silence grew awkward as time ticked by and no one said a word. Patrick’s face gave nothing away but Xander wondered briefly where the nobleman’s thoughts might lie. He stuffed his own ponderings away and began tallying his monthly wages as though they were something knew to think about. Finally Stefan stood and extended his hand. Patrick returned the favor with the hint of a smile before they both took their seats.

  “I see Nicolette has failed to grace us with her presence,” Patrick began, “unless she was lost when your ship capsized.”

  Stefan cleared his throat. “Gaia’s High Council has found her innocent of any crime, my Lord. However, I am to replace her as ambassador henceforth.”

  “You shall find yourself with little to do, I’m afraid,” Patrick said. “My Lord and King, Philip, has decreed that there shall be no taxes delivered to Gaia from this point on. We stand firm demanding retribution for our loss.”

  “I figured as much,” Stefan replied.

  “Perhaps we should hold you until the witch is delivered over to us,” Constable Aldous suggested. There was heat in his gruff voice.

  “That would be unethical,” Xander challenged his superior. When Aldous bristled his subordinate continued, “We should not have it said that Thalassans behaved as Gaians on this matter.”

  Stefan shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sure a Gaian vessel will be by in time to retrieve me.” He paused and Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “Once I relay Thalassa’s refusal to pay, I’m certain everything will work itself out.”

  “You had better hope so,” Patrick threatened. He stood and motioned for Xander to follow him out of the room.

  They went outside to avoid the Gaian’s probing mind. Darkness was beginning to settle over Triton and a light rain was falling. Xander pulled the red hood of his cloak over his hair and breathed warmth into his palms.

  “Gaian treachery has proved to know few bounds,” Patrick declared suddenly. “I would like you to try to pry whatever information you can from this bastard. Gain his trust.”

  Xander pondered over his lessons with Sophia for half a heartbeat but decided she would be consoling Ana for the night anyway. “I could take him to the tavern.”

  “Alcohol has a way of loosening lips,” Patrick said. “Do what you must.”

  “My Lord,” Xander replied with a bowed head. He walked back into the embassy with a guarded mind to retrieve the Gaian. The night was only beginning.

  *

  “I never wanted to get into politics,” Stefan slurred. He finished his ale and belched loudly. The barkeep was there in an instant and Xander slid a few more coppers along the bar.

  “Soldiering was chosen for me,” Xander said. He took a sip of the watered wine before him. “You could say I was born to the sword. I never had a choice.”

  “So see,” Stefan said, a little louder than he had thought it would come out. “So see, we are the same, you and I.”

  The watchman chuckled. “Indeed.”

  “A Thalassan walks into a Gaian tavern,” Stefan began. “The barkeep says, ‘what’s on your mind?’ The Thalassan says, ‘You tell me.’”

  “Bad joke,” Xander said but could not help but laugh at the drunken ambassador.

  “I once knew this woman…”

  “Is this a joke too?” the watchman asked with a grin.

  “Quiet,” the Gaian replied with a chuckle. “She was no whore, but one would have wondered with the skill at which she did things.”

  “Sounds like a wholesome girl.”

  “Her name was Antoinette,” Stefan continued. “I used to take her on a skiff around Tellus’ island. It was my father’s boat, but he hardly used it. Anyway, without meaning to… I fell in love with her.”

  “That’s often how it happens,” Xander noted. He took a long draught of his drink and brushed Roselyn from his mind.

  “She was lowborn,” Stefan said. “Not a servant, mind you, but her father was a fletcher. He made arrows and packed them into sheaves to sell to hunters and some of our military.” He stopped to take another swig. “When my father found out he was furious. He sent her family away to Vulcan and when I opposed him he had me whipped.”

  “Not a funny story, then,” Xander said.

  “No, my friend,” Stefan slurred. “I tried to find her so we might run away together, but by the time I did she was already established with a trade in Vulcan.”

  “So?”

  “Her belly was swollen and she did not know who the child belonged to,” Stefan explained sullenly. He spoke almost as if he was telling the story to himself more than relaying it to a companion, like retelling events from another life that had just been revealed to his mind. “Apparently those skills I spoke of came in handy.”

  “So she became a whore,” Xander concluded.

  Stefan blushed. “I have spoken too much.”

  “On the past?” Xander inquired.

  “On many things,” the Gaian said. He stared ahead at a red-haired girl walking from table to table.

  “You’re a good man, for a Gaian,” Xander said. “Try not be so hard on yourself.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Stefan replied. He finished his ale and waved away the barkeep. “I’d much rather be hard on that redhead.”

  Xander laughed. “That can be arranged.” He turned at the sound of the door’s bell to find that Ana had walked in. Her dark eyes were made almost black by the heavy circles beneath them, but a smile on her face illuminated her pale skin and told him that she was glad to see him. Xander motioned for Jane, the red-haired tavern wench, to come and sit beside the Gaian ambassador. Ana approached and Xander stood up, offering his seat as the last one unoccupied in The Blue Dolphin.

  “My parents are stifling,” the young woman complained in a whisper.

  “I was about to say the same about this tavern,” Xander replied in her ear. It looked as if half of Triton had shown up to The Blue Dolphin that night. Every table had a group of the townsfolk, several of them rapping their knuckles on the wood in demands for service. “Would you like to go to my ho
use? I have a stew I could heat up if you’re hungry.”

  “No,” Ana answered. Xander reddened and apologized but she giggled. “I mean that I’m not hungry. I would love to go there and talk with you though. Perhaps you could light a fire? I’m cold.”

  “Certainly,” Xander said. “We cannot stay there long, however. I have a report to make.” He left Stefan to his clumsy advances on Jane and walked out with Ana, confident after his revealing conversation with Gaia’s ambassador.

  The rain was falling steadily when they walked out into Triton’s night, and Xander did his best to keep most of it from freezing the young woman with his cloak. They hurried into his house and he immediately started a fire in the hearth. Warmth stretched its long fingers through the room and Ana stared into the blaze for a long time while he retrieved a blanket for her.

  “Thank you,” Ana said as she wrapped herself in the wool.

  “You’re welcome,” the watchman replied. He sat on the floor in front of the hearth and she knelt beside him. “I’m sorry for your loss today.”

  “Yes,” Ana said vaguely.

  Though he could not read her mind Xander knew she must have been thinking the same thing. How could so much happen in a single day? Exhaustion began to ebb his strength and he took off his weapons and armor, placing them on the floor beside him.

  “So many lives lost,” Ana said as much to herself as to Xander. She looked into amber eyes reflecting the blaze. Her own were filled with despair. “You have known misery, haven’t you?”

  “Aye,” Xander answered carefully.

  “And I don’t just mean the death of your friend,” the young woman went on. “I can tell you have been wounded… by a woman.”

  “Perhaps,” Xander replied, curious as to how the conversation was brought to his love life.

  “Was this woman so great?”

  “In some ways,” Xander answered. He was careful to hide who his former lover truly was. “In other ways she could be cold… hurtful.”

  “Then I am sorry for your loss as well,” Ana said sincerely.

  She hugged him then, and he was surprised by the strength in her slender arms. Xander wrapped his own arms around her and they sat there for a time, just holding one another. Eventually, the steadiness of her breathing told him that she had fallen asleep in the embrace. Xander gently kissed her forehead, though he knew not why he did. He inhaled the scent of lemons in her hair. He held the sleeping girl in his arms and watched the fire dance before them, marveling at the first bit of peace he had felt in much too long.

  * *

  Triton was dark and the sea even more so as Xander stood on an evening vigil in the northern watchtower. He stared out at the ocean and saw a black shape against the gray water. The watchman squinted. We don’t need to read minds to know what you bastards are about, he thought with a smile he did not feel. Fear was beginning to grip him but he saw more of it on Victor’s young face beside him.

  “Don’t fret,” Xander said in a quieted voice as if the crew of the distant Gaian vessel might hear. “You shall be in this tower the whole time. You’ll be safe.”

  “They have bows,” Victor replied nervously. He clutched his grey cloak closer to him to ward off the autumn chill.

  “Few enough,” his officer said with a shrug. “Stefan told me only the lowest born of their military possess them. The sons of hunters and bowmen before them.”

  “How many are there?” Victor asked for the third time that day.

  Xander tried not to show annoyance. “Fifty, same as us. They think we’re not prepared, though.”

  “That’s true,” Victor said. He was shaking.

  “Just keep focused,” Xander told him. “You have four rifles up here. That’s four shots until you have to reload. If every man in a tower hits their mark that takes out over a dozen of their soldiers.”

  Constable Aldous had done most of the planning, but it had been at Xander’s urging that they keep one man in each of Triton’s four towers with all the muskets the garrison possessed. The other forty-six men were to be spread throughout the town in random houses, protecting the townspeople but also listening for those first shots that would herald their ambush. The constable was in the embassy with a pistol trained on Stefan should they overrun Triton so he had a hostage of value. Xander had been opposed to holding the friendly Gaian captive, but Aldous had seen it as a last resort for Triton’s survival.

  Victor nodded and picked up a rifle, fumbling with it for a moment before settling into a more comfortable position in the top of the tower. Xander patted his back to reassure him and fleetingly hoped to see the young man at the night’s end. He walked down the tower stairs and adjusted his gray iron mail to fit snugly on his chest. He had done that perhaps a dozen times that day. If Stefan had not lied, and Xander did not think he did, then the Gaians would arrive to storm what they hoped to be a sleeping garrison and bring a direct control over the isle. Triton would be lost completely to Gaia, and they could easily use it as a stepping stone to halt Thalassa from seceding out of their empire.

  Patrick stood at the base of the tower and looked out of place with a mail hauberk and a sword at his side. Xander had never preferred the hauberk to a habergeon. It was too heavy. A habergeon was smaller than a hauberk but provided almost just as much protection. Instead of chain mail sleeves extending just past the elbows and the skirt going below the knees, the habergeon had short sleeves of leather strips and its skirt ended a few inches above the knee.

  A pistol was strapped across his chest in the same fashion as a soldier of Thalassa and Xander could have laughed as the nobleman adjusted the iron sallet on his head. His well-kept hair would be matted and greasy already by the old helmet. Helmets were rarely ever worn by anyone but these old sallets would serve a purpose on this night. Nearly all of them were rusted and required a good scouring, but there was little time to prepare and only twenty-two helmets to go around anyway. Those in the towers as well as a few more of Triton’s Guard would have to deal without head protection. Almost preferable to this nonsense, Xander thought as he scratched underneath the sweaty leather liner of his own.

  “You should be in the embassy with Aldous,” Xander said curtly.

  “And have it said that Patrick, son of Vladimir, hid while men fought in his place?” the noble argued with a scowl.

  “And if you die what are we to tell your pregnant wife?” Xander asked just as bitterly. “Or your father-in-law, who holds you responsible to govern his people should anything befall him?”

  “That I died with honor,” Patrick declared. He straightened his back and for a second looked the part he wished to play. “Brennus is fighting beside us.”

  “He’s old military,” Xander replied. “That’s different.”

  “I know how to fight,” Patrick said.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Xander said. “I can only keep you from harm when we are in that conference room. Only the gods know how tonight will turn out.”

  “Mind your place,” the nobleman said but his voice withheld any venom.

  Xander blushed at having called a noble a fool and muttered apologies. He sighed. “I suppose there’s no deterring you then. Stay close to me and make that pistol shot count. There shall probably not be time to reload.”

  “Aye, sir,” Patrick said with a grin. He chuckled until he saw the seriousness in Xander’s bright eyes.

  The watchman led the noble to Sophia’s house and they entered the door silently. Aldous had ordered all but the torches lining the streets to be extinguished. He wanted to give off the impression that Triton slept. Xander drew Daemyn’s pistol as he felt the time nearing and Patrick did the same. He held the gun in his left hand and unsheathed his sword across his body with his right.

  “Good luck,” a soft voice whispered behind them.

  Xander turned to find Ana smiling and he smiled back before gesturing towards her mother’s quarters. She nodded and retreated to the safety of Sophia’s bedchamber and Xander
turned back to the closed front door. His stomach was turning and his mind was cluttered with the events of the past few months. It seemed as though everything had drawn him to this point and he felt another stab of fear as he worried that that may mean that fate had decreed this night as his last. Just as he hoped that was not the case the first shot fired.

  * * *

  There was a succession of muskets firing after that first round, and three screams pierced the chilled air. Xander saw a shadow scurry past the window and he took the opportunity to catch a man unawares. The watchman kicked the door open and fired at a sprinting Gaian. The lead ball struck the enemy soldier in the upper back, burying itself into the iron rings of his armor. He stumbled and fell forward to fall in the dirt. Xander ran to the fallen enemy and stabbed his grey blade down into the back of the Gaian’s neck to end his groaning.

  He swiveled to find Patrick standing dumbfounded in the doorway. “Patrick!” Xander shouted to snap the nobleman from his trance and he turned just in time to parry a Gaian’s thrust aimed at his sword arm. Patrick backed into Sophia’s threshold and fired his pistol into his assailant’s leg. The Gaian fell to his knees, clutching the fresh wound squirting scarlet from his thigh, and was nearly decapitated by Patrick’s wild swing. Xander was there in a heartbeat and shoved the nobleman inside and slammed the door. “Protect them!”

  One kill is more than enough to prove your valor, Xander thought of the frightened noble. He sprinted down the street and halted as two arrows flicked from the Gaian ship’s direction to smack into a pair of grey-cloaked guards. They collapsed and Xander had already taken an alley to go around that deathtrap and so hit the bastards from behind. A few more gunshots sounded but he could not tell whether they came from the pistols in the streets or the rifles in the towers.

  Xander emerged from the alley to find two Gaians lighting torches from Triton’s own. There were no Thalassans to be seen other than one corpse bearing a red cloak lying face down in the road. Here is where I die, he thought morosely but moved to attack anyway. His initial thrust was parried aside by one of the two soldiers so he shifted to the defensive. The enemy soldier must have seen victory there for he assaulted, keeping his own companion away with exaggerated swings that would harm Gaian as much as Thalassan. Xander grinned as he realized the man’s life was his, knocking his foe’s shortsword aside with each clumsy stroke the man offered. The Gaian’s companion was circling like a hound looking for the Thalassan’s back while his wild friend rained blows onto Xander’s nicked grey blade.