A Song for Orphans

by Morgan Rice

  That was a big thing. The kingdom, with its Assembly of Nobles, supposedly kept people safe from that kind of arbitrary arrest. If it happened anyway, it suggested that it was something too dangerous to touch. Sophia found herself thinking of what the artist Laurette van Klet had told her.

  “I heard that they were close to the throne before the civil wars,” Sophia said.

  Emeline laughed at that. “Close to it? They held the throne before the first one. They ruled us, but there were nobles who weren’t satisfied with them, with how close they got to the magic of the kingdom, or with how they treated the people who had that magic. Do you know what the civil wars were about?”

  Sophia shrugged. “At the orphanage, they said the crown argued with the nobles about how much power it should have.”

  “And that’s it?” Emeline said. She sighed. “They’ve tried to wipe you out of history. I mean, it’s true, but it’s not even close to everything. The first move in the civil wars came when the House of Flamberg took the throne from the House of Danse about a century ago.”

  That was a long time for a war. Emeline must have caught some of what Sophia was thinking, because she shook her head.

  “I don’t mean that it happened all at once. It’s like… you know how the wars across the Knifewater are big and complicated and there are about a hundred different sides?”

  “Or there were,” Cora said. “Before this New Army.”

  Sophia nodded.

  “It was that complicated with the civil wars here too,” Emeline said. “The Danses kind of held things together, they had a kind of connection to the land, the magic that came from it. Once the Flambergs took over, all of it came to the surface. There were those who were jealous. The Church of the Masked Goddess said that magic was evil. The nobles wanted power for themselves. There were arguments about whether the Indentured should be free.”

  “So there was a war,” Cora said.

  “There were wars,” Emeline corrected her. “A century of petty rebellions and wars. They gave us the Assembly of Nobles, the Masked Goddess’s church, the death of the king leaving the Dowager and her sons.”

  “And the murder of my parents,” Sophia said, feeling the pain of that night all over again. She’d seen the danger of it all in her dreams. She could remember running through this house, knowing that there were men who would have killed her if they’d managed to find her. “They wanted to kill me too.”

  “Because you’re the Danses’ eldest daughter,” Cora said. “You… you’re the heir to the throne.”

  “There are those who would say you were, anyway,” Emeline said. “Technically, your family accepted being made just nobles, but there were always those who wanted to rally behind them and put them back in place.” She shrugged. “Maybe things would have been better if they never left the throne. Maybe not. It’s hard to see how they could be much worse.”

  It was too much. She’d picked the connection to the throne from Laurette van Klet’s mind, but she hadn’t really understood how real it was. She definitely hadn’t understood what it had meant for her, or how it had brought about the terrible things that lived in her memory. Her family had been attacked for who they were as much as for anything they’d done. She’d met the Dowager, and she could imagine Sebastian’s mother seeing the threat there all too easily.

  That understanding hurt, but Sophia pushed past it. She wasn’t just here for the past. She was looking for any information about the present, too. Her parents had told her to run and hide, said that they would try to meet up with her. Sophia had seen the scale of the violence that night, but someone had to have survived besides her and Kate, didn’t they? Maybe they’d left a sign.

  There were hidden places in the house. Sophia knew all of them, because she and Kate had made a game of trying to find all the spots that had been hidden or simply forgotten. There was the room hidden behind a bookcase, the cupboard-sized hole beneath a series of floorboards.

  “A hiding place for the Indentured for when they sent hunters after them,” Emeline guessed. “Even your ancestors couldn’t just declare people free. Some evils stick too well for that.”

  Sophia could feel the pain behind that. She couldn’t blame Emeline. This was a cruel world, which seemed almost determined to stamp on the weak. She didn’t answer, though, because in that moment, she’d remembered another hiding place. She hurried through to a sitting room where the furniture looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. There were even wine glasses on the table, with liquid in them that had long since turned to vinegar.

  Sophia went over to a panel on the wall. She’d seen her father do this once, watching with delight as he’d touched it here and here. The memory came back to her so clearly that for a moment Sophia could imagine she was him as her hands followed the movements his had made.

  A click sounded, sharp as a crossbow, and the panel swung back to reveal a cabinet-sized space. Inside, a tightly rolled sheaf of paper sat waiting, as it had presumably been waiting all these years.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It took a while for Kate to calm down enough to realize that she couldn’t keep running forever. Running blindly didn’t make anything better. Worse, it meant that she was still reacting to Siobhan, still doing whatever the woman of the forest wanted her to do. She forced herself to walk, forced herself to think.

  Then she headed back in the direction of the training grounds and Lord Cranston’s regiment.

  Kate could have headed for the forge, but she didn’t, for a couple of reasons. One was that if Siobhan sent any kind of trouble after her, the soldiers would be better equipped to deal with it than Thomas and Winifred were. Another was that she had to go back to the regiment at some point, or they would come looking for her for desertion. Lord Cranston had given her some slack in the wake of the victory over the invaders, but Kate suspected that she was rapidly burning through it. Even the free companies maintained their discipline. Maybe especially the free companies, because no one wanted undisciplined mercenaries doing what they wanted around the kingdom.

  So she walked back to the training grounds, and by the time she returned there, the other members of the company were already gathered back there from whatever time they’d spent celebrating in the city. They had the lazy look of men recovering from heads too thick with drink, but at least when Kate walked past them, they looked at her with a measure of respect now.

  Will was with the group of artillerists who worked with him on the cannon, scrubbing it down and getting it ready for use. He ran over to her as she approached, throwing his arms around her. Kate wished that she could kiss him in that moment, but she suspected that would just bring her jeers from the others there, and in any case, there were things she didn’t want to do in front of so many others.

  “You came back,” he said, and Kate could feel the relief there. From his thoughts, she could see that he wanted to kiss her as much as she did him. “I always worry that you won’t when you go off like that.”

  Kate could see him imagining a life where she didn’t wander off, doing dangerous things; where they could both be safe and happy in a home of their own. Kate wished that she could promise him something like that, but the truth was that it wasn’t the life she was cut out for. It just wasn’t who she was.

  “You need to get to Lord Cranston,” Will said, lowering his voice. “He left word with me to send you over as soon as you came.”

  Which meant he’d expected her to go to Will first, and that he had something that he needed doing. Probably the usual combination of chore and test.

  “What is it?” Kate asked. “Does he want me to take his socks to be darned while dodging arrows? Recite the commanders of city states’ armies while cleaning his armor?”

  “I think it’s more serious than that,” Will said. “The others are talking about another messenger from the Dowager. You know how rumors spread.”

  Kate did. She also knew that the last time there had been a messenger like that, th
ey’d ended up fighting to defend the shores of the kingdom from attack. There was no time to waste, so she ran through the camp, dodging around soldiers even as they tried to congratulate her on her role in their last victory.

  By the time she came sprinting up to Lord Cranston’s tent, Kate was out of breath. The company’s commander stood there looking like a slightly ragged fop, the gray in his mustache and hair dyed out with oil. His clothes had probably been the finest money could buy at one time, but now had discreet patches and stitching to hold them together.

  There was another man there, and Kate recognized him from the last time the Dowager had sent a messenger. It was true then; their company was to go into battle again.

  “Ah, Kate,” Lord Cranston said as she approached. “You’re just in time. Our friend here has just been congratulating us on our role in repulsing the New Army’s men.”

  “He’s here to congratulate us?” Kate said. She didn’t believe it, and not just because the camp would have been in a far more ebullient mood if it had been the case. Rulers, she suspected, didn’t show gratitude unless they wanted something.

  One glance at the messenger’s thoughts told her the truth of it.

  “And to ask us to fight again,” Kate added.

  “Indeed,” Lord Cranston said, and his tone was tight. “Although ‘ask’ is probably a strong word for it.” He handed over a sheet of parchment.

  As a result of the incursion of foreign forces onto our shores, the Assembly requires all companies of armed men within the kingdom to mobilize and make themselves available under the command of the rightfully appointed officers of Her Majesty, to…

  Kate didn’t need to read more than that to get the gist of it. “They’re commanding us to do what the Dowager wants. Can they do that?”

  Lord Cranston nodded. “With an instruction from the Assembly, they can.”

  “And we have to go where they want? Fight who they say we fight?” Kate asked. She could feel how unhappy Lord Cranston was at this, just as she could pick up the gloating satisfaction of the messenger. Maybe she shouldn’t have driven such a hard bargain with him the first time he’d come to the camp.

  “Failure to obey would be seen as desertion or aiding the enemy,” the messenger said. “I must inform you that articles for your arrest would then be drafted, enforceable with the aid of other regiments, if necessary.”

  He tried to make it sound like an unfortunate possibility, but Kate could see how much he wanted it to come to that.

  “And we still get paid for this?” Kate asked.

  Lord Cranston smiled a little at that. “Still asking the right questions, at least. Look further down the instructions.”

  Payment for free companies is to be at the rate of regular soldiers, held one month in arrears.

  That stoked Kate’s anger a little, although not because she particularly cared about the money. It was more because she knew how much Lord Cranston would care, and because of what it would mean for everyone in the company, including Will.

  “Is this some kind of punishment?” Kate asked with a frown.

  “A punishment?” the messenger said. “It is no more than a necessity of war. The kingdom can afford to employ free companies on an ad hoc basis at other times, but with the current threat, there simply isn’t the coin.”

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t believe you. This is about something else. What?”

  The messenger took a step back as she moved toward him.

  “What makes you think I have any answers for you?”

  His thoughts betrayed him, though. If you weren’t here, there would be no need for this. This is what Lord Cranston gets for taking on murderers.

  That thought slid into Kate like a knife. This was because she was there? After all she’d done to help on the beach, they were still going to punish the whole company she was in like this?

  She looked over to Lord Cranston. “I’m so sorry, I’m—”

  He held up a hand to cut her off. “Not in front of our guest, please, Kate. Besides, we still have to hear the details of what he wants done. I take it that there is a specific task that Her Majesty has in mind?”

  Kate could see the shape of it in the messenger’s mind like a looming boulder about to topple on them.

  “Given your previous success against the New Army,” the messenger said, “it was felt that your company might be the right choice to take the fight to the enemy. That is why I have orders for you to attack the Port of Carrick, where it is believed many of the enemy’s ships are moored. You will destroy as many of the ships as possible, damage their supplies, and take any other steps possible to reduce their opportunities for the invasion of our island.”

  He held out another piece of paper, and this one was sealed with the Dowager’s crest. Kate had no doubt that it would say the same things the messenger had just taken such amusement in telling them. Lord Cranston reached out to take the paper with a formal bow.

  “Thank you for your message,” he said. “Please inform our queen that we remain her dutiful servants.”

  “Of course,” the messenger said. “Your transport ships will be waiting for you at the docks on the morning tide.”

  “Thank you,” Lord Cranston. “Now, please leave my camp before I feel the need to put a musket ball in your skull.”

  He said that in the same polite, formal tone that he’d used before, but Kate could see that he was serious about the threat. Apparently, so could the messenger. The man returned Lord Cranston’s bow in a hurry, then sped off through the camp, back in the direction of Ashton.

  “He’ll report that you threatened him,” Kate pointed out.

  Lord Cranston shrugged. “Men like him will always find someone to chatter to. It rarely makes a difference to the world, and in any case, I am likely to be dead long before anything comes of it.”

  “Dead?” Kate asked.

  She could feel the pall of depression that had sunk over Lord Cranston now like some low-lying fog. His thoughts were filled with violence, but for once, they weren’t about the simple practicalities involved, or the joy of outthinking a foe. No, he was thinking about what it would be like to die in battle, and for his grand adventure as a mercenary to come to an end.

  “Yes, Kate, dead,” Lord Cranston said. “Dead, and for what? A soldier’s wages?” He spat like a common soldier. “It’s almost enough to make a man want to find a better side to fight for. A more lucrative one, at least.”

  Kate could see that he didn’t mean it, but just the fact that he was willing to say it said something about the situation they faced.

  “Exactly how bad is it?” Kate asked.

  Lord Cranston gestured for her to follow him. “There is at least an opportunity for another lesson here. Come with me.”

  He led the way to his tent, where he pulled out a book from the great iron-bound chest that seemed to hold almost everything he owned. Kate knew from other times spent looking at it that it contained map after map, some representing far-off parts of the world, some setting out the way long-ago battles had unfolded.

  “This is the Third Battle of Carrick, about twenty years ago,” Lord Cranston said. “In it, an invading force three times the size of the defending contingent assaulted the city. They were slaughtered.”

  “But the New Army took the city,” Kate insisted. “There must be a chance.”

  Lord Cranston shook his head. “They took it through treachery, when the men of Carrick heard the Master of Crows’ reputation and decided that his coin was preferable to the alternatives. Unless you can think of a way for us to outbid him now, I think we are being sent to be waves breaking on the shore.”

  “Why?” Kate asked. “Why would anyone do that in a war? Why would they send their own forces out to die when we could be doing something useful to protect the coast?”

  Lord Cranston spread his hands. “It could be jealousy, that we succeeded in a battle that should have been the royal regiments’. It could be fear that, buoy
ed by our success, we might try to act against the crown. It might even be some jealous noble from my past, because I bedded a few men’s wives when I was younger.”

  “You don’t think it’s any of that, though,” Kate said. It wasn’t a question, because she could see that Lord Cranston wasn’t thinking that way. “You think it’s about me.”

  Lord Cranston hesitated, as if he might lie about it, but then nodded.

  “What else can it be? I take in a girl who has just slain an orphanage full of masked nuns, and my men are sent out to battle. We succeed in that, and we’re sent out again, to a fight that no one could expect to win. If I were a sensible man I would have hanged you when I had the chance.”

  He said it in a friendly tone, but Kate could see that he wasn’t entirely joking. Sparing her life was about to cost Lord Cranston his, along with those of most of his men. Kate could hardly blame him, looked at like that.

  “So, what do we do?” she asked.

  “What can we do?” Lord Cranston countered. “You ask me that as if I have some cunning plan stored away for moments when my queen and country decide that they would be better off without me.”

  “And don’t you?” Kate replied.

  Lord Cranston paused. “Well, yes, but it mostly involves running with whatever gold I have and retiring to a nice sunny island somewhere, and that would involve abandoning my men. I’ll not do it. Not here, not now.”

  It was a curious degree of loyalty from a man who claimed to mostly be motivated by the money he could make from war. It made Kate think about her own loyalties.

  “I could leave,” Kate said. “You could let it be known that you aren’t protecting me.”

  Lord Cranston shook his head. “These orders have been given. Besides, I will not have this done to me, only to give up my student.”

  “So what do we do, then?” Kate asked.

  “What else is there to do?” Lord Cranston shot back. “We fight. We’re going to go to a city that hasn’t been taken and try to destroy the fleet carrying an army that can’t be beaten. All I can say is that, when we die in the attempt, they had better sing songs about my efforts.”