The Madness of Kings

by Gene Doucette

  The Madness of Kings

  Tandemstar: The Outcast Cycle, Book Two

  Gene Doucette

  Copyright © 2020 by Gene Doucette

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  Cover art by Jeff Brown at Jeff Brown Graphics

  Map design by Cat Scully

  Contents

  Part I

  A Distant Castle

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part II

  The Man in the Sky

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part III

  The Engine of the World

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Gene Doucette

  Part I

  A Distant Castle

  Chapter One

  A soft wind bearing the scent of lilacs pushed aside the curtains in front of the open window, and in came the light from the twin rising suns. It was Sha-Sevvitch, the third month of the springtime season, and the whole valley was reveling in post-bloom glory.

  Battine Alconnot, Lady Delphina, gave up on getting more sleep well before the sunlight made it all the way to her face.

  The malevolence of birdsong, she thought, sliding out of bed and into a silk robe. The perpetual chill of a bedroom with stone walls was a shock, but the warm breeze from the window made up for it.

  She pulled back the billowing curtain to get a better look at the day.

  The view from Battine’s window was one of the best in the entire the kingdom. In the immediate foreground was her bequest, up to the stone fence at the base of the hill. Beyond that was the woods where she hunted on days exactly like this one. She couldn’t see the river at the bottom of the valley on the other side of the woods, but she could sometimes smell it when the breeze turned. Then there were farming fields on the far side of the valley, and beyond those, the waters of the Elonian Gap.

  Most days, she saw the farmers working the far side land in time with the rising of the Dancers on the horizon. Today, hardly anyone was about.

  Wait, she thought, what day is this?

  The boy in the bed groaned.

  “Come back,” he said.

  “The suns are up,” she said. “The day’s begun.”

  “It begins whenever we want it to begin.”

  “I can’t stop the day, even by decree,” she said. “And we’ve spent enough time on our backs already. The horses will require attention.”

  He grunted, and rolled over. “Yes, milady,” he said, his tone attempting to navigate the terrain between lover to servant.

  The stable boy, she thought. How ridiculously cliché I’ve become.

  The boy was just past ten, in his forty-second season, and full of energy, which was why Battine—herself late in her sixteenth year (and sixty-eighth season)—invited him into her bed in the first place. His ardor was welcome after the suns had gone down, but far less so in the light of the Dancers.

  She could hear him scrambling about, dressing hurriedly. Battine hadn’t intended to cause a panic; she just wanted him to leave.

  “I had a lovely time, Josit,” she said, turning. He was half in his trousers already.

  “Oh,” he said. “Good.”

  “I mean, thank you. I’m sure we can do this again.”

  “I’d like that, milady.”

  He smiled the smile that landed him in her bed in the first place.

  She went back to looking out the window, and he went back to dressing as rapidly as possible. There was perhaps no way to handle the transition from lover to lackey without it being a little awkward.

  Naught to be done, she decided.

  Her thoughts drifted back to the empty fields.

  “Josit, what day is it?”

  “Milady?”

  “The fields are usually a bustle by this time, is why I ask.”

  “Oh, but it’s the first day of the feast.”

  “Holy Pal,” she muttered. “Nita’s Feast always sneaks up on me. I do need you to hasten to the stables.”

  “I understand, milady, I’m dressing as fast as I can.”

  “No, no, no, I mean…Ready Eremis for me, would you?”

  “You’ll be riding her this morning?”

  “Yes, and longer. I’m crossing the whole of Totus today.” She sighed, and walked away from the lovely view at the window. “As much as I’d rather not, I have to keep a promise to my sister.”

  Haupid was ready with food and a sour expression by the time she reached the dining hall.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Delphina,” he said blandly.

  “Shut up, it’s still morning,” she said.

  He pulled a chair out for her to sit in, which she ignored, picking a chair closer to the food instead. In a proper household, a manservant—Haupid or someone answering to him—would fill a plate for her. This wasn’t a proper household, though, and as long as she was the lady of the demesne, it would remain improper.

  Mr. Haupid (Battine didn’t actually know his first name) was bequeathed to her at the same time as the castle, having outlived the prior Lord Delphina, Stampier Alcon.

  Battine only met Stampier a couple of times, when she was a child. On neither occasion did he deign to speak to her, but spoke of her and around her often enough to make an impression. That impression was bad.

  “Plenty of food, Haupid,” she said, pointing with her fork. This was innately improper as well, which was why she did it. “Sit down, have some.”

  He remained stock-still for a solid five-count, before sagging visibly and sliding into the chair opposite Battine.

  “I won’t tell,” she said, filling her plate with sausage, fresh fruit, and poached quail eggs.

  It took three years to crack the mystery that was Mr. Haupid. Prior to her receipt of the Delphina, Battine had never headed a household, never mind an estate with vassals.

  It took some adjustment.

  It shouldn’t have, given she was raised in Castle Totus, which was simply full of servants. But it felt different somehow when she was the lady of the house. Like their fealty was being imposed by her specifically rather than as a natural consequence of historical tradition. In short, when she was at the Delphina bequest she only rarely treated the help like “the help” which—oddly—just made them edgy. This was doubly so for Haupid, and since she was around him more often than anyone else attached to the Delphina, she also worked twice as hard to get him to just relax.

  One day she realized that he wasn’t concerned with how she behaved around him at all; he was concerned that someone else would be concerned with how she behaved around him. Especially when they had guests.

  Fixing this meant inviting a few cousins for dinner and treating Haupid terribly in front of them. Having made it clear that her wholly inappropriate efforts to treat him like a person would only happen when they were alone together, they got along fine.

  “Josit,” Haupid said blandly. There was an entire paragraph hidden in his expression and
the utterance of the stable boy’s name. “Really.”

  Battine smiled. “My bed required adjusting,” she said. “He looked capable.”

  “People will…Lady Delphina, this is how rumors begin.”

  “That I bedded a stable boy? Is it still considered a rumor if it’s factual? I’ve never been clear on that.”

  Haupid just shook his head. He was somewhere north of his one hundred and twenty-fifth season, which was precisely old enough to weaponize his I’m disappointed with you, young lady expression.

  She was unquestionably the first Alconnot Mr. Haupid had to contend with, and not only because Lord Stampier had been an Alcon: The unblessed were almost never granted lands in any of the Middle Kingdoms, period. As such, Haupid failed to reconcile with the idea that Battine’s behavior was precisely what was expected of her.

  “On the subject of our young stable hand,” Haupid said, “I took note that he hastened to the stables directly. And now I see that you’ve donned your riding leathers. Does this mean, milady, that you intend to ride to Castle Totus? You’re aware, I hope, that the first day of Nita’s Feast is today?”

  “I do mean to ride, yes. It’s a lovely day.”

  “It is indeed. But pleasant weather does nothing to adjust the distance between Castle Delphina and Castle Totus. If you meant to ride, you’d have been better off leaving yesterday.”

  “A perfectly fair point,” she said. “Only yesterday, I was unaware the Feast of Nita began today. Did you tell me?”

  “Twice.”

  “Pity, I wasn’t listening. You should have tried a third time. I’m certain there was a respite between Josit’s bedframe adjustments in which you could have stepped in and made such an announcement.”

  He sighed dramatically.

  “Well,” he said, “given you did not leave yesterday, I’ve packed you for the trip based upon certain assumptions.”

  “Such as?”

  “That you would be taking the airship.”

  “I despise travel by dirigible,” she said.

  “So you’ve said. And yet you own one and are expected to be a kingdom away from here by sunset. Unless you’ve got an outsider’s auto hidden in the stables, I don’t see another option.”

  This was simply not true. She could make it to Castle Totus by nightfall if she rode hard enough. Haupid was just being dramatic.

  “I could just send a man with a message in lieu of myself,” she said. “Dearest sister, so sorry I am unable to attend this year’s feast. I will surely be free during the Tribulations! Yours, Lady Delphina. Go on, write that down and I’ll sign it.”

  He was unamused. “Batt…I know you don’t want to go to court, but you promised to make it this year, and it’s unwise to continuously renege on promises to kings. Now stop being ridiculous.”

  “My vow was directed to the queen,” she said. “I can break that.”

  “Battine…”

  “Fine, I’ll go. But I’m not taking the airship.”

  “Yes, well, as I said, the other option is an auto you don’t possess,” he said. Which was of course true; Battine was wealthy enough to own several cars, but it was forbidden technology. “The issue is one of loading capacity. I’ve packed three too many bags for Eremis to manage alone.”

  “You prepared five bags? Do you not expect me to return at all?”

  “Your presence is expected at no fewer than twelve events. The twelve changes of clothing alone take up three bags.”

  She laughed. “Mr. Haupid I am shocked that I own twelve outfits. Court-appropriate or no.”

  “I make no claims as to their appropriateness to court,” he said. “They are dresses, and at one time they were tailored to fit. I also make no claims as to whether or not they still fit.”

  “I’ve been notified by a reliable source that I have the body of a tenner,” she said.

  “I’m certain the stable boy’s extensive experience with horse rump makes him an expert in that area.”

  Battine gasped, and threw a melon slice at Haupid’s head. He caught it and placed it gently on his plate.

  “Now,” he said, pretending nothing untoward had just transpired, “we will have to work out the best way to get the bags to court, given you refuse to take the airship. I can arrange a retinue, but I’ll need time.”

  Battine hated going to court, but when she did go to court, she doubly hated being orbited by a squad of people.

  “I’ll take two bags,” she said. “Three outfits, one for each day.”

  “I’m sure that will be quite a scandal.”

  “It probably would be, if it ever happened. The queen will insist on setting me up with however many extra dresses she thinks are appropriate. Porra has always been a slave to ritual.”

  It was only about a five hour ride to Castle Totus from Castle Delphina. (This was assuming decent weather, which was almost always a valid assumption in the Middle Kingdoms.) If hard-pressed and unencumbered by two heavy bags, Battine—on the back of Eremis—could reach the court in under four hours.

  She knew this because she’d done it when cousin Trinara fell ill with a rare strain of the Lladnic flu. (Trinara, only two years older than Battine, died of respiratory distress just minutes before Batt reached the castle. It was a bad day.) Because of this, it was always in the back of Battine’s mind that the ride to court was actually only four hours, conveniently forgetting that she was sore for a week and that she traveled exceptionally light on that day. This calculation was likely the partial culprit for her nonchalance regarding the oncoming trip to court for the Feast of Nita.

  But mostly, it was that she didn’t really want to go at all.

  It took Haupid so little time to consolidate her five cases down to two saddlebags that she had to wonder if he’d actually only packed two in the first place. They were already lashed to Eremis’s saddle when Josit brought her around to the gate a half an hour after Battine was finished eating.

  “I’ll also need my sword,” she said, as she greeted Eremis with a gentle brushing of the mare’s mane. The statement was made facing Josit, but was meant for Haupid.

  “Let me send a man with you,” her manservant said. This caused Josit to perk up for some reason, even though in the unlikely event Battine felt the need to be accompanied by a guard, that person would not be the nearest stable hand. Besides which, skill with one kind of sword only rarely translated to skill with another kind.

  “No need,” she said. “My sword, Mr. Haupid. And my crossbow as well. The royal hunt is tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but that isn’t one of the twelve occasions in which your presence was requested.”

  “I’ll be sure to rectify that. Josit, run to the armory, would you?”

  “Of course,” he said. He ran off.

  “You really mean to arrive in court in your leathers with a sword on your hip, don’t you?” Haupid said. “The King’s Highway is safe from brigands and you know it.”

  “It’s never a bad idea to have a means to defend oneself when out in the world,” she said. “But yes. This is just for fun. I know I’m supposed to roll up in a carriage under six layers of silk. I don’t care. If you’d like to pin a note to my breast declaring that you had no part in the disreputable condition at which I have arrived, I promise to leave it attached.”

  “You’ve no idea how tempting that is, your ladyship.” He handed her a pouch of platinum dorins. “In case you’ve a need to share beneficence as you travel the countryside.”

  “Or to stay overnight somewhere in the countryside,” she said. “There’s an inn not halfway to the castle with an exceptional roast duck.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  The path to the King’s Highway took her past about half of her vassal lands, none of which were being actively worked because of the holiday.

  The Feast of Nita was a harvest festival. It was meant to combine a celebration of the first crops of spring with a sort of good-neighbor-networking. Arrangements made du
ring the feast—which, contrary to the implication that a “feast” was a single large meal, lasted three days—would be the foundation for an entire region’s economic network through the rest of the spring and into the summer and the fall.

  In less temperate regions than the Middle Kingdoms, the post-Nita networks could make the difference between surviving and not surviving the winter. Punkoah farmlands, for instance, in North Eloni, considered the Feast of Nita the most important event on the calendar.

  Since the Kingdoms were equatorial, Nita’s Feast served less as a market setting (or resetting) occasion. Here, it was mainly just the last big party before the summer heat really kicked in.

  In other lands, where Septalism was honored but farming wasn’t common, they practiced bastardized versions of the Feast. She’d heard tell of post-farming cities—like Velon in Inimata, or Toranica on Botzis—where gifts were traded instead of crops, which seemed antithetical to the intent of the Feast.

  Then there was what her family did.

  The royal Alcon family of Totus, nearly to a one, expected their subjects to deliver a portion of the harvest to them, each day of the Feast. This was on top of the weekly crop taxes already being collected.

  It wasn’t an exchange—which, again, was the spirit of Nita’s Feast—at all; it was an additional demand of fealty. A staggeringly unnecessary one.

  Battine’s first official statement, as the new lady of Delphina, was that she expected no goods from her subjects during the Feast of Nita unless or until she managed to farm the estate lands herself, grow a crop, and offer that as part of a standard exchange. Given that this would never happen (the land was arable, but the day Battine tilled a field would be the day Battine drew her final breath) it essentially absolved the families from paying her fealty during the Feast.