War Bow

by P. S. Power

  Anders nodded though.

  “This evening? I need to work right now and should spend my afternoon doing other things. I need to find a wagon driver and some horses for that.” He grinned at Prince Alpert then, the man looking interested at the sudden attention. “I’m planning on taking Brownie and Chestnut with me... Hopefully the King won’t mind? I should probably ask him first, really. We just don’t run into each other, day to day. It’s a bit of a large thing to request, really.” The last time he’d gone out, to hunt Master Franken with the others, he’d simply taken the beasts.

  No one had ever mentioned the idea to him as being negative, but taking the King’s horses was, if not allowed, a hanging offense.

  The Prince actually nodded at his words.

  “You do tend to be a bit busy, keeping you outside of court activities. I can bring the topic up with him. He might request a meeting, so stand ready for that. Then, he might also just say yes or no and send a messenger.” The words were spoken casually, in a way that had Lyse waving her fan again. Her face was bland, but the device, a thing made of silk and polished brown wood, pointed at him, pausing for a second. He honestly couldn’t tell what her meaning was, if it wasn’t just a random set of movements.

  It occurred to him then to drop into a light trance and to use the skills of the wizard, to see if she was, at least, trying to convey meaning to him. It took some focus and it was clear that Depak Sona understood exactly what he was doing. The man matched him after all, scanning for meaning in the world. There were small physical signs of that happening. The eyes moved less and the breath slowed. Anders dropped deep, doing it instantly, which meant his breath nearly stopped, it was so slow. No more than a single breath in the time span which would normally hold ten or even twenty.

  Depak wasn’t that deep at all.

  The information he wanted was stunningly clear, since calm on the outside or not, Lyse was trying to signal that he needed to be careful. That far too much attention was suddenly on him. In a way that was unwelcome or possibly dangerous. It had to do with her father. No direct threat had come as of yet, but something had given her a sign in the speaking that had been going on which seemed to set her back. The specifics were all right there, but sitting with his eyes open, watching the room, meant he wasn’t going to understand what she meant past what he was getting.

  Anders let his head move, nodding.

  “A messenger would be most welcome. I can’t imagine that the King would have time for me in particular. I need to do that work, for Princess Mathia? I think I can ease breathing at least. That will be useful, come winter. Someone always has a congested chest.”

  Depak stood then, which had everyone else doing it as well.

  “Don’t neglect the nose as well. That and sealing flesh, if you are going to the front. A true healer can, at times, even save limbs that are most of the way off. Those are worthy areas to consider while you are away. Not that we won’t be meeting daily until that time. Keep your practice up, but, in a way, that is what you seek to do now, so I know that I can’t complain as to your plans. I’m sure Master Tolan will be pleased with your efforts as well.”

  He nodded, since that was important to recall. He had more than one type of magic to work with. Really, he should have tried to sense what was going on with Mathia, earlier. She might have more things he could have helped with, if he’d done that. It would need to be a portion of what he did when working on health-related things, if it came up again.

  It probably would. Someone always had a minor cut, burn or minor discomfort that could be helped with magic, if he learned how to do it properly. Mistress Colm had, rather sweetly, referred to him as a proper healer, but that wasn’t true at all. There was, very clearly, much more that could be done that way. More than Master Franken had managed, even. He knew how to do magic, or had, before he’d died. That he hadn’t done more with that skill seemed baffling now.

  Then again, most of what he’d shown, skill wise, had been very limited in power and skill, or actually done by Ganges, if at a remove. The fellow had the magical talent and used such skills, but he hadn’t really done much with them, as far as healing went. Even though that was his stated job. Healing.

  Most of what he’d done had been accomplished with potions, salves and poultices. Bandages and commentary on diet. All of which were useful and important, but didn’t sound like merging flesh back together or even reducing swelling directly.

  It was clear that the room was going to be needed and asking to sit in his bed chamber again seemed a bit uncomfortable as far as presumption went.

  “Princess Peri is coming to meet me here, after mid-meal. I can come back then? I can stand outside, to good effect.”

  That meant going back to his own room to work, but he had hours to get that done still. Really, if he worked quickly and well, he could do as Depak had said and learn a few other things that would relate to healing. The ambassador nodded to him then and waved at the door to the room.

  “Very good. I think we’ve covered what is needed for the time being. We should meet in the coming days, Prince Alpert. Lyse. To make travel arraignments.”

  That meant everyone left the space at the same time. Of interest, they had to part at the door, going down the ambassadorial hallway in different directions. It showed a basic division in power, really. The highest went to the left, while Anders, the lowest one there, moved to the right. Except that this time his mother followed him, a hand gently touching his arm.

  She didn’t speak to him, but still carried her fan in her left hand. It was a thing that he’d never noticed her doing before. One that, he was nearly certain, was being used to signal him. Probably toward caution. As if she didn’t want him to speak or react to anything in particular. The trouble in the situation, was that he couldn’t know what she was thinking and walk at the same time. Her prior concern had been enough to instruct him, however.

  The woman wanted him to react in a certain fashion.

  They moved in silence, a walk that took several minutes, since they did so at a measured pace. It was, he knew, what people did in the hallways there. Anders thought of it as normal having lived with it his entire life, but Farad saw it as contrived and a bit showy. People marched a bit, almost in step with one another. Each step surged slightly, then there was a pause before the next step took place.

  Most people in the world, in his experience, simply walked. This was a bit of pageantry, designed to show off clothing and perhaps something more. Wealth. After all, the poor needed to rush from place to place. Those with grand resources had time to spare on things like looking relaxed as they traveled.

  He fell into the pattern easily enough, since it was, truly, how Anders had been taught to move, when he wasn’t working. That had, until recent months, been completely about passing messages to others. Even in that moment, he wasn’t truly doing anything that could be counted as a useful task. It was important enough, he supposed. It would be, as soon as he could get to work. Part of him feared that Lyse would want something of him that might impinge on his time that way. If so...

  Well, then Anders the boy would have to make it work out. After all, she was his mother. That didn’t mean he couldn’t spare some time to help a Princess taken ill, naturally. As excuses to not do a task immediately, that one was fairly good.

  When they got to his door, he waved the lady inside, making certain that no one saw him gesturing first. It was a bit too covert, so he spoke, finally.

  “You wanted to speak with me, Mother? I know that I’ve neglected you in the last weeks. Forgive me.” The words were only of average volume, but he had no illusions that they could not be overheard, if anyone cared to do so.

  She grinned at him, her smile almost mischievous.

  “True enough. Having to learn of my son’s strange doings of late from gossip is a bit backwards. Now, this won’t take long...” She moved with him into the room, shutting the door behind them with a firm click.

  Then,
once inside, the rather attractive, very well made up and presented woman, closed her eyes. A look crossed her face that spoke of real worry and concern.

  “Anders... Farad Ibn Istel... You must take great care now. There is a sudden danger, with the arrival of my father into the castle.”

  Anders let his head tilt, just a bit, and tried to smile, since he truly didn’t understand the idea.

  “Why? Hasn’t the man disowned me? That news wasn’t over-welcome, but there is little I can do about it. Will he seek to harm me over the accident of my birth, do you think?”

  Lyse snorted and actually looked angry for a moment. The blue of her eyes flashed.

  “Accident? You can’t truly believe that you weren’t gotten on purpose, can you, my son? My father ordered you into being. He even demanded that I seduce Alpert, specifically, to see to the task. Then the King ordered your father to marry Aisla. A sound decision, but one that may come back at us now. King Mathias knew at the time that my father plotted for the throne, at least through you. When the needed marriage couldn’t be made, he... sought to get rid of you.” She looked away then and shook her head.

  As if she weren’t going to speak on the matter.

  Anders needed to know, though. Farad did, at any rate. The boy was merely baffled that his mother had been set to the task of producing him, since it had seemed an accident before that moment. A thing that was important to understand, that had been hidden from him completely.

  “Get rid of me? Do mean remove the fruit of your womb before I was brought to this world?”

  The woman looked at him, a hard thing, then shook her head.

  “It was too late for that, when he learned of it. Of your being a factor. You were already alive. Some six months old, when he came for you. His plan was to throw you off a cliff, as he traveled home, claiming that an accident of the road had taken you. I found out about his plan, and went to the King. He saved you. It’s why I, a daughter of a mere baron, lives here with her child. That was why father disowned you. Not in anger as it might seem.” She shook her head, softly, then looked directly at her son.

  “No, he pretended toward great shame at the action he’d ordered, as if it were a mere indiscretion of a young girl. That way he could lay claim to his attempted plot to murder you as a mere means of wiping that stain away.”

  The words got him to shake his own head, frowning a bit. The expression was strange on his face. He either smiled, or most often, seemed blank. Then, he normally didn’t have call for a wider range of expressions than that. Perhaps concern, but he didn’t truly feel that over Baron Brolly as of yet.

  “I see. I think. Still, why would that be an issue now? Do you think he’ll attempt to finish the task? I can’t lay claim to any grand martial skill, but if he tries it, he might find that I’m not all that easy to toss from a high place.” He didn’t allow a hint of threat in his voice. That would be both foolish and premature.

  So far, he’d only heard a tale, after all. That wasn’t enough information to take action over, even if it was likely the truth.

  His mother nodded, though her words showed that her thoughts were elsewhere for the moment.

  “So I hear! There was talk of you flying through the air, as we spoke of last night. I’d tell you to be careful there, but too many know of your great magic now. That might be enough to protect you. Or it might simply mean that you are treated as a true threat to my father. That is the real issue here. Last night Sir Humphrey moved from the meal to send a fast courier to my father. The man himself found me and mentioned it.”

  That was a bit odd, but Anders simply waited for her to explain. She either would or would not, after all.

  Finally, she sighed.

  “If I have it right, that letter was to warn him not to try conclusions with you. That to do so would bring great harm and misfortune, since you have become rather more than the mere castle boy that one might think. It spoke of your actions in the East, last spring. That and some other things. Hints, no doubt, of what you have achieved of late.” She smiled then. “Which will work. Father is keen with plotting and is known for it. He rarely seeks to go to war, if it can be helped and never duels or fights in his own person. The thing is there, Anders, that my father’s enemies tend to die.”

  He simply accepted that information. It spoke of covert assassination, instead of anything truly martial in nature. He wasn’t aware of how to look for poisons in particular, but had memorized some old texts that might give him some clue toward how to protect himself that way. He had to doubt that the basic tricks of that sort of thing had advanced too greatly in the time of his long slumber.

  Which did nothing to stop a knife to the back, or even a full attack being pointed at him, when he was off to the battle front.

  “There was more though, wasn’t there? It makes little sense for a shrewd man to seek my death, in particular. Especially being disowned. You weren’t, correct?”

  She tightened her lips then, so much that a bit of white showed at the edges, under her red makeup there.

  “Correct. That was even more pointed. As if you, personally, were the one in the wrong, when as a child you had no control over the agency of your birth. A way of keeping me under the thumb, as his daughter, while the King granted me access to his halls. I’ve been forced to spy for him, my father, for the last eleven years. Not that I wasn’t here for that purpose before that. I won’t draw this out, since you are exacting in your thoughts. This new information and the work you are doing for the King might well goad the Baron into taking action against you.”

  That one went right past him. Both portions of him. He simply admitted the lack, since it seemed like it might be important.

  “I don’t understand. My taking messages for the King is an insult to him?”

  That got another snort from his mother, she quirked her lips though.

  “As if that’s all that you’ve done? You’ve been most humble about it, but it is Anders Brolly that men and women speak of as the hero of Sapphire Lake. Even today you ensured your place here, saving Princess Mathia. A marvel, but a thing that will make it seem as if you are tightly bound here. Then you ride off in mere days to the front, to ensure that the battle plans and information are passed in ways that none can match. That... It means that King Mathias trusts you, a mere boy, so greatly that the plans of his entire army are known to you. That’s rare even for generals and his own advisors.”

  It was also needed, if he was to pass the information along. Farad wasn’t nearly as certain that the man was all that enamored of him.

  His mother shook her head.

  “Then, when one of our own betrayed us, Franken the traitor, who murdered the mother of the King’s secret sons, it was again Anders Brolly who led the hunt. I have that from both Master Belford and Captain Ford. That it was you who led them and drove them to greater speed, then set the plan to take the evil...” She grimaced then, her eyes tearing up. “Is it true that you ordered his arms and legs broken?”

  It wasn’t a thing that they’d spoken of, so he shrugged.

  “I suggested it. I certainly wasn’t being as commanding as all that. He was covered with blood magic...” He faltered then. Istlan didn’t have a specific word for tattoos. He was familiar with the practice, but these people simply didn't have the idea at all. “Drawings. Ones that were part of his very skin, the ink driven in. We needed to prevent escape.”

  She nodded then.

  “I’d heard some of that. I also heard that you dispatched ten brigands on the road.”

  It was his turn to tighten his face. He had. Worse, he hadn’t even considered it since that time. Things had been busy. That realization shook him internally for a moment. He’d killed and not even cared about it being done. That was the action of a monster. Good men should feel the pain of each death they caused.

  “I did.”

  There was a wave in his direction then.

  “A thing noted by the King himself. That you, even in pass
ing, made certain to protect his lands and people from harm. That, well, it’s odd, Anders. Fearsome and a thing none can call you to task on, even being so young, but strange. Still, none of that would be of issue with father, on its own. You live here and making a mark for yourself is needed, being without inheritance or assured position in life. Even he wouldn’t truly begrudge you that. No, the problem is your grandfather, Sula Darian.”

  Anders shook his head then and smiled, trying to make it seem warm.

  “That’s unexpected, but how is it a problem? The Baron set me aside. It’s not his matter to be concerned over, is it?”

  She closed her eyes then, as if trying to see the whole of a picture, in her mind.

  “That’s the real heart of this, my son. The rules of Barquea are strange to us, but to them, as declared by their own highest King, you are a member of his house. Related not just to one King, but two, you might well be one who could take offense at his actions toward you and do something about it.”

  She smiled then, her face blank around the eyes.

  “As well, the whole thing makes him look very bad. A bastard in the castle will not be lauded as other men might, while also being given a certain level of care, since they are still family. The people of Barquea don’t see it as an issue at all. To them you are merely one of them. A Prince, if one of about two hundred of that sort. So, there is possible danger.”

  He could, in a way, see it now. He smiled.

  “Simple enough... I’ll write him a letter and suggest that he undo the disowning portion of things. After all, that way he can claim that there was a mere mistake at the time and that he’s having that corrected. If he does it, then it will seem... Well, it will probably seem as if he’s seeking favor with me. Still, then he won’t look too poorly in the eyes of others over the issue. Anyone might be upset and say the wrong thing, after all.”

  Lyse stopped for a moment, then started laughing.

  “Oh. That... Probably won’t work, but you should suggest it to him. I think he might have great trouble working out what you mean by it. That might even give you some protection. Still, be wary of a knife in the night, my child.”