Weight of the Crown

by A. C. Cobble

  “Thanks,” muttered Lady Towaal as she clambered to her feet, brushing melting ice from her chest and arms. “I underestimated her. She kept more in reserve than I thought she was capable of holding, and she’s not the only one.”

  “I held onto the strength of that storm in Whitehall,” admitted Amelie, “as much of it as I could comfortably maintain.”

  Lady Towaal blinked at her. “You held onto it for weeks even while you slept?”

  Amelie shrugged.

  “Being a mage isn’t just about the strength of your will,” said Towaal, straightening her dress. “It’s about knowledge and will together. It’s about balance and supplementing your knowledge with will and your will with knowledge. You’ve done well, Amelie. I’m impressed.”

  “I can’t believe this worked,” declared Rhys, moving to stand over the bodies of the two former Veils. He prodded Coatney with his boot before saying, “Just making sure they’re really dead this time.”

  “They’d better be,” grunted Ben.

  “When you first told us what you intended, I was certain one or both of these women would burn us like… well, like Amelie burned Coatney,” said Rhys.

  “Why’d you come along if you thought we’d lose?” asked Ben.

  “I figured I could run away while you distracted them,” answered Rhys, turning to grin at the group.

  Ben rolled his eyes and declared, “I think it’s best we get out of here as soon as possible. I can’t imagine the guards are eager to walk through the doors after hearing that battle, but sooner or later, they’ll venture in. We need to be gone when they do.”

  “Where should we go?” asked Amelie. “Hide out in Fabrizo or head straight to Murdoch’s Waystation and Saala?”

  “I could use an ale…” suggested Rhys.

  “We know,” responded Ben.

  “I believe Madam Crimson served those, and she has plenty of beds we could rest in for a few days,” continued Rhys.

  “You can’t help yourself, can you?” wondered Amelie.

  Prem moved to stand in front of the rogue, and he sheepishly looked away.

  “For once, no one’s injured,” said Ben. “Between the thieves, the Sanctuary’s guards, and whoever else may come looking for us, it’s best we leave town at once. We could make it a few bells outside of Fabrizo before dark. Two more weeks, and we’ll be at Murdoch’s. With any luck, we’ll catch Saala before he moves again.”

  “As much as I’d like to,” said O’ecca, “I cannot join you any further.”

  Ben nodded. “I understand. You have responsibilities to the emperor. We’re grateful for your help, though. We may not have made it here without you. O’ecca, we owe you.”

  “I, and the emperor, owed you for your help in Shamiil,” sad the diminutive girl with a giant smile on her lips. “Not to mention, you’ve shown me a way of life, a comradery, that I never knew existed. Before I joined you, I was rather… stiff.”

  “You said it,” responded Ben, a grin turning up the edges of his mouth. “Let’s call it even.”

  “Fair enough,” agreed O’ecca. She wrapped her arms around him for a hug.

  Amelie embraced her as well, but when they moved away and O’ecca turned to say goodbye to the others, Lady Towaal said, “I must go a different path as well.”

  “What?” exclaimed Ben.

  “The Sanctuary will be in turmoil,” explained Lady Towaal. “Coatney was a strong leader, and the factions that supported her were strong. They have lost a great deal of credibility now, and that leaves a vacuum of power. Anything could happen, and while I think Coatney was a unique brand of evil, there are others who could be just as bad in their own ways. Even while trying to do the right thing, there is much that could go wrong. A change in the Veil only happens every few centuries, and the Sanctuary needs the right leader now more than ever. If we elect the wrong woman again…”

  “Should-Should I go to the City as well?” wondered Amelie.

  “You never completed your training,” responded Towaal. “You have no vote and no reason to be there. I do have a vote, though, if I can make it to the City in time to cast it.”

  “I will take you,” offered O’ecca. “I believe the emperor will understand. Being nearby when one of your colleagues is granted the Veil could be a unique opportunity for us.”

  Towaal offered a grateful nod.

  “I will stay with you, Ben,” said Prem, turning from Rhys. “Your cause is just, and you need my connection to my father and your troops.”

  “We can use you,” said Ben, nodding to the girl. He looked at Rhys. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  The rogue, his eyes on Prem, did not immediately respond. He turned to Lady Towaal and raised an eyebrow.

  “Go with Ben. He will have need of your skills.”

  Rhys hitched his belt, and Ben felt a flood of relief. He had been prepared to continue, but without Towaal, the loss of Rhys would have been difficult.

  Towaal said to O’ecca, “I would like to leave as soon as possible.”

  O’ecca set her naginata on her shoulder. “We’ll inform Madam Crimson of what happened here, and then we can leave on the next tide.”

  “With luck and a strong wind, we may reach the Sanctuary before the vote,” said Towaal.

  “Hold on,” advised Amelie. “I can contact Hadra again through our thought meld and ask the Sanctuary to wait until you arrive.”

  Towaal blinked. “Girl, I don’t think they’d—”

  “She just executed the Veil for them,” reminded Ben. “When Hadra mentions that, and about the demon-king, the undead mages in their midst, the wyvern fire, everything else… They had better wait.”

  A smile stole onto Towaal’s face. “You two have come a long way into leadership, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know about leadership,” muttered Ben, “but I know that even an ungrateful bunch of witches should admit when they made a mistake and wait a few weeks to make sure they don’t make another one.”

  9

  Going Home

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t stay just one night in Fabrizo,” complained Rhys.

  “There was a time you said it was all fish and wine down there,” replied Ben, “and you’re an ale man.”

  Rhys drew on his pipe and then slowly exhaled the fragrant smoke. “I’ll drink wine when it’s the only thing available.”

  “How much of it is an act?” asked Prem, sitting across the small campfire from the rogue, studying him through heavily lidded eyes.

  “An act?” responded Rhys innocently.

  “You play the rogue like you were born to it, but there’s more beneath the surface,” said Prem. “You’re here with us, camped out beside the road with no women, no ale, and no payment at the end of this quest. You don’t have to come with us on this journey, but here you are.”

  “There are a few women,” protested Rhys, waving his pipe in her and Amelie’s direction.

  Prem snorted. “None you want to share a bedroll with.”

  Ben thought he saw the rogue flush, but it could have been the heat from the fire.

  “Your father—” started Rhys.

  “Isn’t here,” interjected Prem. She leaned closer to him, pinning him with her eyes through the flickering flames of the fire. “Why do you do it? Why do you keep up the image of the uncaring assassin?”

  “He has a reputation to keep,” responded Ben, coming to his friend’s aid. “The minute he shows everyone how gooey and soft he is inside, he’ll be tossed out of the assassin business. Cold-hearted killers only, I’m told.”

  Rhys guffawed. “There’s some truth to that, I suppose, but I’m not sure that’s a business I want to be a part of anymore. The real truth… this is fun, and it’s nice to do something noble for a change. I’ll let Ben be the bright-hearted hero, though. Drinking, carousing, cracking-wise, that’s what I prefer.”

  Wordlessly, Prem stood and circled the fire, gathering her bedroll and flipping it out to where Rhys
had already laid his. Only a finger-width of room separated the two blankets. The rogue and the former guardian stared at each other. Finally, he grunted and pulled a plump wineskin from his pack. He offered it to the girl, and she took it, settling down beside him.

  “Are you going to go back to Farview, Ben?” asked Amelie, turning to him and trying to ignore the looks between their two friends.

  “I’m not sure I can,” he responded.

  “It’s, what, two or three days from Murdoch’s Waystation?” she asked.

  “Two,” answered Ben. “That’s not what I meant, though.”

  “It probably won’t be the same place you left,” warned Rhys from across the fire.

  “And I’m not the same person,” added Ben.

  “We don’t have to go there,” said Amelie. “I just thought… we’ll be so close.”

  “I have friends I’d like to see,” admitted Ben, “and family, I suppose. But, going there, spending time with everyone… I’m not sure we can afford to lose a week, and if I go there, I’m not sure I can do what I need to do.”

  “We’ll know when we get to this Murdoch’s, right?” asked Prem. “If we find King Saala there, maybe this will all end, and you can go home.”

  Ben frowned. “Maybe.”

  In the first few days of travel from Fabrizo, they passed the small towns that were scattered around the outskirts of the city, little places that subsisted on a specific focus in specialized crafts like making lace or blowing glass. They stopped in several towns for supplies, but they found the stores were empty, and the locals greeted them with glares and curses.

  The Alliance’s army was passing through. While it was an incredible boom in business for the small towns, it was clear the residents were overwhelmed. They’d gotten sick of the constant stomp of hobnail boots on the road, the rudeness of the soldiers, and the haughty disdain the highborn displayed toward the provincial craftsmen.

  “Saala isn’t winning any friends around here,” remarked Rhys as they ducked out of a store which purported to sell general merchandise. Inside, they’d found mostly empty shelves and a grouchy proprietor who’d answered their queries with surly disdain.

  “That man has probably had the best year of business in his lifetime,” complained Ben. “Everything he had left in stock was marked up four times what it should cost, and I’d bet all the silver in my pouch that it will be gone by next week. What is he so upset about?”

  “He’s selling for four times what everything is worth,” explained Amelie, “but so is everyone else in this town. Prices on everything from sewing needles to eggs are inflated. He’s taking in more coin, but he’s got to go pay it right back out to the farmer, and that’s only if he can find a farmer who still has produce to sell. The soldiers are cleaning these places out. That merchant may have more coin in his purse than he’s ever had, but he has less food in the larder. His children can’t eat gold coins.”

  “There’s also the concern of what happens next,” mentioned Rhys, standing in the center of the dirt street and looking around the village. “When food cannot be bought at any price, these soldiers aren’t going to peacefully go hungry. They’re going to take what they cannot purchase. The villages won’t be able to do anything about it except hide what they can. The soldiers have the muscle, the armor, and the swords.”

  Ben frowned, looking at a group of armored men who were ducking into the village’s small tavern.

  “Even worse is what happens when the battle is over,” continued Rhys. “Win or lose, many of these men will be heading home along this road. They’ll be footsore and starving. They’ll be jaded from seeing the horrors of war. Their officers will no longer have a hold over them, as most of the recent conscripts will be dismissed from service the moment they get to Whitehall. What do you think they’ll do, then? There may not be food in the cellars or ale in the taverns, but there are still farmer’s daughters in the fields. If those women are smart, they’ll be far out of the way of the returning soldiers. If not…”

  “Surely the local highborn will do something.”

  “Who?” asked Rhys, gesturing around. “There’s no highborn within a hundred leagues of this place. The Merchant’s Guild in Fabrizo is the closest thing they have, and their power is financial and political. They have no large standing army that can enforce order around these little towns. This village might have a mayor, and he might try to raise a militia to deal with unruly strangers in town, but what could they do to stop a well-armed company of men? Nothing, Ben. There’s nothing they could do.”

  “Maybe we could… do something,” said Ben lamely.

  “Let’s worry about stopping the war first,” suggested Amelie.

  “First,” declared Rhys, “we should stop in that tavern and see if they have any ale left. It’s a long walk to Murdoch’s Waystation, and with the bulk of the Alliance’s army nearby, I’m guessing it’s going to be as dry as a bone. We should drink what we can now.”

  Amelie rolled her eyes but didn’t object when the rogue shuffled toward the tavern.

  “Wait,” said Prem.

  Ben turned and saw she was looking to the edge of town. A man was standing there, bent over, hands on his knees. His face was red and he was drawing ragged breaths. A crowd of soldiers was gathering around him. Other soldiers ran off, shouting for companions or officers.

  “I think we should see what this man has to say,” suggested the former guardian.

  Rhys sighed and then followed when the party moved closer. They were careful not to draw so close as to raise the notice of the soldiers, but close enough they could hear when the man finally stood and raised his voice over the crowd noise.

  “All men of the Alliance are instructed to march immediately,” he said between ragged breaths. “You are to march without pause to Issen.”

  “Hold on,” protested a man who looked to be one of the officers. “We were told to head for a place called Murdoch’s Waystation. The army is supposed to be marshalling there.”

  “They’re moving,” explained the messenger. “They were packing up as I left. They’ll be to Issen in three weeks. With a small company, if you hurry, you can catch them. The king has demanded everyone make all haste.”

  The officer frowned and glanced to his fellows. “Why the change? We have forty-thousand more men coming from Whitehall. Without them, the Coalition has an advantage over us in the field. Without Northport, we’ll need every sword we can get to take the keep at Issen.”

  “The highborn in Issen have rebelled, throwing off the mantle of the Coalition,” responded the messenger. “It’s unclear who will rule. We expect Lord Jason will march immediately from Irrefort. Whichever army makes it to Issen first and is able to take the city will have an enormous advantage when the war begins. From behind Issen’s walls, we won’t need those forty-thousand.”

  “How’d they throw off the mantle of the Coalition?” wondered the officer. “Lady Selene still lives, doesn’t she? She’s the rightful heir, and I can’t imagine any of those highborn in Issen would betray her and Lord Jason. Bastards’ll be short a head if they did.”

  “Some old fox named Lord Dronson found an ancient law saying the ruler of Issen may have no title in another land. Lady Selene married the Black Knife and became Queen of the Coalition. So, they stripped Lady of Issen from her. No one knows where her heir is. The way I understand it, it’s all a bit uncertain right now. Rumor around camp is that there is supposed to be some meeting of the highborn in Issen, but half of ‘em are dead or fled, and the other half don’t know which way to go. King Saala’s figuring that if he can get there before Jason, the city’s amendable to Alliance rule. If not, why’d they strip Lady Selene of her title?”

  “Probably some power play by this Lord Dronson,” muttered the soldier. “He figures if he has control, he can negotiate himself a sweet piece of the spoils.”

  The messenger shrugged. Clearly, he wasn’t concerned with the intricate political maneuvering of Issen�
�s highborn, and neither was Saala. The Coalition had held a major advantage by occupying Issen. With it in play, the Alliance could steal the upper hand.

  The officer turned to the men standing around the runner. “Well, boys, you heard ‘em. Pack up. We leave in two bells!”

  Soldiers began to scatter, and the runner unstrapped a water skin and turned it up.

  Amelie charged through the departing crowd of men and confronted the messenger. “Lord Dronson, has he declared Issen for the Alliance or not?”

  The runner shrugged. “This is military business, girl.”

  “Was Issen declared an independent nation?” pressed Amelie. “Did Dronson merely strip Selene’s title, or did he remove her house from the rolls of nobility? This is important, man.”

  “I wasn’t there,” said the messenger, hanging his water skin back on his belt. “Look, girl, I’d tell you more if I knew it. All I know is the orders to march and the rumors that were flying around camp when I left. I don’t know all that political stuff. From a military perspective, if we can gain Issen, we got them bastards in the Coalition beat. Now, girl, I got other towns to alert before dark.”

  The messenger trotted off, heading south toward Fabrizo.

  Ben came to stand beside Amelie. Under his breath, he said, “Your mother married Lord Jason after all.”

  “Of course she did,” responded Amelie, staring north, her brow furrowed in thought.

  “If what the messenger said is true, Saala’s already left Murdoch’s,” said Ben. “We won’t be able to catch him there. Maybe if we hurry, we could get to him before he makes Issen, though.”

  “Ben,” said Rhys.

  Ben frowned at his friend. “What?”

  Rhys nodded to Amelie.

  Her were still fixed north, and she was ignoring the discussion between Ben and Rhys.

  “What did I miss?” asked Ben.

  “If what the messenger said was true,” explained Rhys, “Lady Selene was stripped of her title because she cannot be both Queen of the Coalition and the Lady of Issen. It doesn’t sound like her familial rights were terminated, though. Any heirs of Lady Selene would still be in line to rule Issen.”