by J Glen Percy
“You think my life is nothing but happiness?” Had the sinewy tracker not been her only guard passing this near the Spine and the murderous brigands it harbored, she would have dealt with his insolent tongue the same way she had Lord Ahmet Redmond’s. And with less regret too, curse the beautiful young lord for it. Two days yet remained between her and Rosemount’s outermost wall, two days further she would have to suffer this man’s company.
“The top pack hound needn’t fight over the bone, nor the tallest oak for sunlight,” Allis replied plainly.
“The shortest ground-shrub need not fight for rays in this steamy furnace,” she said sharply, tugging at the scratchy cloth framing her face. The dense forest to either side acted similar to the peasant garb, stifling the air and trapping moisture that the high sun baked.
“You’ve done an admirable job playing at one of us Highness, though a bit of discomfort from the weather is the least of our troubles.” It was easy for him to say, Willa thought, his browned leather skin catching what little breeze the horses’ pace generated. “And far be it from me to gripe. The great are given small trials and the small are given great ones, and the Five give them all.” Allis upended his flask in a toast, taking whatever vile fluid was in there down like water.
Curse him, and curse her flaming son for forcing it all! She’d thought taking on the guise of a lady from a lesser house - Allis her hired sword - would be sufficient, but the man insisted anyone with a second copper to rattle against the first was a target out here. A modest circlet fixing the sky blue headscarf over her brown locks; every traveler they met, every inn they stayed, saw an apprentice shadesayer and her bodyguard. Similar linens concealed the entirety of her slight frame, trapping heat against her skin as they draped over the back of her horse. If only she was back in the capital strolling amongst the Citadel’s marble fountains in light airy silks.... She caught herself mid-thought. Her burdens were great, she contended silently. The man called Allis would likely cower at the very telling of the chains shackled round her neck.
“Would that the Five gave burdens as you say,” Willa responded through her teeth. She would not justify the size of her troubles to any man, especially not to this one.
Standing on that open portico, her son staring through her, she should have flicked Ceres’ ear and sent him packing. She knew that look in his eyes, though. She had seen it before. Fear, not for what he had seen or done, but for what he might do. To defy Ceres would have resulted in worse. But what could possibly be worse than this? That was the question.
“What is my son hiding?” she asked suddenly. She had talked around the matter, tried to manipulate his words, and even paid for more drink than any shadesayer could ever afford in hopes of flooding it out of him. Allis knew what Ceres knew, and likewise would not share. He was course, foul even, and his heart pumped more ale than blood, but he was no halfwit. This was the first she had asked openly, and it proved as fruitless.
Allis smiled that crooked smile of his, darkened gaps more numerous than teeth. “A common faith, as lonely as we find ourselves in it, would not have me speak, highness.”
“Perhaps there is something else then?”
Never glancing Willa’s way, the man let out a repulsive chuckle. “I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse. Don’t take me wrong, highness. Bouncing the Queen of Cairanthem on my knee over a mug of ale would be a story for the ages, but I’m suspecting there’s a king that would take exception. Besides, there’s my unsullied honor to consider. Don’t feel rejected, highness. You’re not the first woman to try. Bloody crows but you’re not.” His grin made her skin crawl.
Willa felt her face reddening with fury. “I was speaking of coin you mud-minded monger.”
“Sincerest apologies, highness.” Allis’ grin widened and he held his wrist to the sky, exposing the floral brand. “But only one of your descriptions is accurate. I’m no monger.”
Were the man within reach, she would have stuck her dagger in his spine just then and chanced the road alone. “I could have your head,” she fumed.
“So too could your son,” he said plainly. “What the prince hides is his to hide. He’ll speak it in his own time, or he won’t. At no time will I be speaking it so you might as well stop fluttering your eyelids and preening your hair.”
“Fluttering my-!” It was true she used her beauty readily, but never on this horrid swine-headed man. She inhaled deeply, sparing the forest a rage induced scream, then grasped for what delicate composure she could manage. “My son is a harsh man to follow and you are neither soldier nor retainer. What is your loyalty to him?”
“Aye, and like most of your stature, his pinch doesn’t stink. Begging your pardon, highness.” After the insults she had suffered, this was the one for which he thought to apologize? Her gaze was razors as he continued. “I’m a tracker. It’s what I do. I follow.”
“That’s it? You just follow?”
“The entire world is a nail to a hammer, highness.” Another swig punctuated his words.
“And a husband’s will to a wife,” she murmured, anger fading to regret. Willa had not forgotten who had originally sent her northwards to Whitehaven, a trip which she had desperately wanted to avoid. Had she not gone, Ahmet would be alive. Had she not gone, the Romerian’s would be none the wiser to the blossoming treachery in the West. The thought of sharing with Erick all that had occurred turned her stomach, even the finely... controlled version he would receive.
“The king’s will is not your own, highness?”
“A queen’s business is none of yours,” she replied.
“No, but I can see you are not eager to greet the king. It’s telling of your feelings.”
Willa did not like how the man seemed to be staring through her. “There’s a great many feelings I do not tell the king.”
“Like what?”
“The problems I do not have,” she bit off. Allis seemed satisfied with her answer, or he held silence for more than a few moments at least. Erick would not handle the news well. From her experience, he would sooner mistrust his own wife than Ryecard Starling. “There’s a few days yet between me and my husband’s will,” she sighed, more to herself than in conversation. “Even then, the man is so occupied holding together what his father built, a hired tracker can’t find him on most days.”
“Is that so?”
The man’s knowing tone turned Willa’s gaze forward through the trees.
Where the road between Shorefeld and Rosemount drew near the Stallion Spine, a village called Timber Run sat amongst the foothill woods like a bird’s nest in a pine bough. Three mountain rivers used to float logs down from higher elevations joined into one at the town’s center providing the only open sky in the pervasive canopy. The old growth forest was so integral to the village, its layout, and structures, that it was difficult to say whether the houses sprung up around the trees or whether they grew from the ground alongside them. Thick moss carpeted the roofs and yellow fungal growths created tiny steps across tree trunks and log walls alike. The smell of earthen decay was palpable.
Flashing through the trees as Willa and Allis crossed some imaginary border between town and wilderness was the golden rose banner of her husband’s house. If the flag wasn’t enough, the royal procession complete with gilded coaches and more than two hundred mounted Lancers – most standing amongst the trees and rough cut structures like a troupe of well-dressed idlers - indicated her husband’s presence.
Any composure she had managed in and around the weathered tracker’s insults evaporated as if it were a desert they rode through and not a dimly shaded forest. “Bloody crows,” she cursed. Without a word, Allis extended his arm out to her, flask in hand.
The odor of deteriorating forest was as choking within the Leaning Oak’s great room as it was without; there was no escape. The trifling number of patrons occupying the space – two to be exact - was far thinner than the air, and she could not bear to imagine how suffocating the dank tavern would become
with a score of drunkards adding their heat and stench to the atmosphere. She could have thanked the early hour for its vacancy but knew it more likely to be the two lonely patrons themselves. Aside from their count, there was nothing trifling about them.
Ozias Stellen Fellsword stood next to the circular table adorned entirely in black save for the flare beneath his cloak, identical to the soldiers under his command outside. Squared on his heels, he seemed at ease. Seemed. No man that carried the ivory moon hilt was ever at ease. The Fellsword warrior he had won the sword from had labeled Ozias death in death’s clothing with his dying breath. He was a southern monger and a former prince, and was more than capable of ending anyone who reminded him of either fact. He was handsome too, not that Willa put much emphasis there.
Of the two, he was not even the most intimidating. That distinction belonged to the more-regally dressed, less-regally postured man slouching at the table beneath him. Stooped and worn, wrinkles plaguing his noble features, her husband looked to have aged a hundred years since her parting. This was the King of Cairanthem, and his feeble indifference scared her worse than any bout of rage. If not for the half-dozen empty mugs on the table, she would have said he needed a stiff drink or two.
Stiffening her spine, she crossed the space. Ozias greeted her with a proper bow but her husband hardly offered acknowledgement. “What are you doing here?” Willa asked.
Erick looked up at her, shadows dragging at his weary eyes. “Drinking like a common man. And what of you wife? Taken a new profession peddling your gods, I see.”
Willa had forgotten her shadesayer garb and quickly removed the cloth shroud from beneath the circlet before placing the modest jewelry back atop her head. A serving man was there at the same moment, pulling out her chair. No sooner was she settled when Allis pulled up a chair of his own, boisterously asking mead and meat of the staff, and in that order. A puzzled glance from the king was met by a grin and an enthusiastic nod from Allis. Ozias scowled deeply, no doubt ready to split the strange man in two. It didn’t matter who it was, the man was as indelicate as a three-legged bull in a glassblower’s shop. Unless he was singing, that was.
“When you’re sent packing like a beggar you must travel as one, I am told,” she said, strangling the toothless man with her eyes, “else the filth of the kingdom will seek to take advantage.”
“I am in no mood for your trivial grumbles, Willa. You were sent to Whitehaven with two dozen Lancers and you return by way of the West with... this.” Allis frowned as the king gestured his way, then brightened instantly at the arrival of his flagon. “What are you doing here, wife?”
Willa ringed her hands in her lap. Upon closer inspection, the table was a large stump that looked to have been cut and the tavern built up around it. Whether she was ready or not – whether Erick was ready or not – it seemed the kingdom’s direction would be shaped by a few grubs in the belly of a rotting log.
“I was on my way to your council hall with terrible news,” she began.
“You too then,” Erick said, staring into the bottom of another empty mug. “What of it?”
“I was not the only embassy seeking aid in Whitehaven. Meryam Starling was there, and their pet as well. She was seeking alliance against the capital.”
“Did Lord Redmond accept?” Erick’s tone was surprisingly muted.
“No,” she lied. “And he died for it. The pet,” Willa added when her husband’s eyebrows rose from the mug.
“So this is how they repay my pardon?” the king mumbled to no one in particular. “This is how they repay a lifetime of friendship. Ahmet Redmond dead....” Erick’s voice trailed off.
“When people look toward the sky, highness, some see clouds, others see brilliant blue.” Willa, Erick, and Ozias all turned towards Allis, whose food had arrived. He was tearing into a roasted turkey leg around his unsolicited wisdom.
Willa had seen her husband lift lords off the ground and toss grovelers across the galley. She knew Erick’s drunkenness to be Allis’ saving grace.
“Who are you, poet?” Erick asked.
“I’m your son’s man, highness,” Allis said. “Until recently.”
“What do you mean by that?” Erick’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“The prince asked me to escort your wife, meaning I am her man, if you’ll excuse the limitations of language.” Willa could not spare the roll of her eyes.
“Were you loyal to him?” Erick continued.
“More than most,” Allis replied simply.
“Then you will be disappointed to hear that he wanders the brilliant blue of which you speak.” Allis hesitated a moment, then sunk his gums into another bite. “Have you no remorse for your prince?” Erick asked.
“All men die, highness. Even princes. Seems killing the Starling whelp was his final offense.”
The news was all too much; Willa heard only bits and pieces. “What did you say? Do you know which one?” Allis shrugged his thin shoulders. “Had the boy been in Whitehaven?”
“Does it matter, Willa?” Erick thundered, his fist coming down on the stump tabletop. “They can all burn! Ceres is dead!”
This time she did hear her husband’s words. Her gut wrenched, a punch akin to a kicking babe. Ceres had been that babe once. Her first. “How-how can that be? He was to leave Shorefeld just behind us.”
“Word travels faster than feet,” Erick replied miserably.
Ceres, her first and only son, the heir to the Thorn Throne, gone. Emotions came and went as swiftly as the years of his life. Sadness to pain, pain to resolve, resolve to anger. “Who did this?” she managed, though she more than suspected the answer.
“Ryecard Starling, the hawk has it. More than a week back. The first bird arrived with news that Gabryel Starling had been killed, the next said that Ceres had joined him. I left for Shorefeld immediately, though I do not need to arrive to verify the bird’s truthfulness. Every monger this side of the Spine wears a smile on their lips and a gleam in their eye.”
Willa had wanted to avoid war. It was the very reason she had murdered the only man who had quite possibly loved her. That, and to protect her place next to this drunken king who most certainly did not. If war it was, now it was solely about protecting her position. One Starling was dead, but a duplicate yet remained. And nothing said that Gabryel was the one who shared in her secret. Ceres’ sibling was in her belly. Soon it would be kicking.
“My hope that the message incorrectly accuses Ryecard fades with the news you bring, wife,” Erick continued. “Lord Redmond’s death, and more so the secretive dealings behind it, seem to confirm what I am loath to believe. Ryecard sought resolution for his oldest son while playing me like a blind general. Having pardoned his son, the Rosemarked will not respect me, and now I must ask them to fight for me. I have diced with the man, bled with the man; never could I have anticipated this cunning. He has defeated my army’s will, cut the legs from beneath its leader, before I could even sound the muster call.”
“Fighting with the man, or fighting against him, I propose we take this as a lesson, Your Grace,” Ozias said, breaking his long silence. Erick looked to him questioningly. “If Ryecard knows where you are looking, you are looking in the wrong place.”
“How am I to look behind when the Grayskins are preparing assault to my front? Or have you grown eyes in the back of your head, Lord Captain? I trusted that man.” The sorrow in Erick’s voice was stronger now than at mention of his son’s death.
“Like you, I could not have predicted Lord Starling’s manipulation had I one thousand eyes and a priest’s foresight besides. He struck with a physician’s precision and now the Gray’s assault will serve his purposes as surely as it does theirs. But time and an enormous river yet stand between us and the nomadic heathens. Time that men can be pulled from the eastern front to quell the West and punish its leaders. We must move swiftly; the West cannot possibly stand against the capital’s might.”
“Unless, as Meryam Starling argued
before Lord Redmond, the other provinces get this fool notion of equality in their head,” Willa cautioned. “The idea is a plague as surely as the Ferals, and far more contagious.”
Everyone awaited the unmarked Fellsword’s response. “There is yet time to cut the poisoned limb from the trunk, to burn its waste before it spreads. The Starlings will not receive a second pardon. Then we can return our attention to the Ash.”
A long silence existed as the king contemplated his captain’s words. “My stomach for these games weakens with every passing moment,” he said at last. “In this moment, I want only to find my daughter.”
“What do you mean, Erick?” Willa asked. “Which daughter?”
“The Princess Cecily, if I had a guess,” Allis spoke up suddenly around a stuffed mouth.
“Speak, poet!” Erick lunged for the man’s collar but Allis reacted deftly, brushing the king aside without removing eyes from plate. He could not ignore, however, Ozias’ blade tickling his throat.
“I would let you cut my meat for me only the bird’s nearly gone,” Allis said boldly.
Erick accepted his drunkenness and sat back in his chair. “Speak what you know or never speak again,” he grated.
Allis swallowed purposefully, took a slow drink, then dabbed his mouth with the provided napkin, all at blade-point. Willa doubted the man had ever used a napkin in his life. “After slaying a Feral not a week past, and despite my adamant protests, the prince took on the most wretched fire-haired monger you have ever seen. It was that wretch who informed Ceres his sister Cecily was in Shorefeld. The oldest Starling, whom I’ve gathered you pardoned highness, was the obvious culprit, and in conversation it came readily that the lad was hiding something.” Allis paused, pushing away Ozias’ moon blade with his fork. “That something is your daughter, dying or dead as best as I could tell. Your son took it as the latter and beheaded the Starling boy for it. From a message the boy carried, he and your daughter were held captive for some time in the wild by a fierce man with more scars than your overeager Fellsword here.”
