"I have offered them peace," Masolon whispered. He could not return the dead from their graves, but he might save thousands of other innocent souls. "Your son will live, brother. I am sorry you. . ." Masolon bit his lower lip, his eyes welled up with tears. "You will not be there to watch him grow up. Blast! What have I done?" He leaned forward, his palms on the ground, letting his tears wet the grass. He had not cried like that since his mother's death.
The sun rose while Masolon was sitting on his haunches. Did he find peace now? He could not tell. He might be feeling a bit better, but that was not peace. He had only known peace when Rona had become his and he had become hers. While she was alongside him, away from the throne hall, out of his subordinates' reach, out of their guards' sight, nothing else could occupy his mind and soul. With her, he was invincible.
He turned his head toward the coming crunching footsteps. It was his bald vassal, Jonson, who dared to intrude on his moment with himself. "Your Grace?" The bald lord of Ramos approached, his hands behind his back.
Masolon pushed to his feet. "What is it?"
"Our emissaries have returned. The bannerlords of Lapond are expressing their readiness to sheath their swords and meet with you to negotiate."
"Negotiate?" Masolon snapped. "Negotiate for what? Those bastards are in no position to dictate their terms." Probably they did not believe so after he had offered them peace. "What about the southerners?"
Jonson exhaled. "The southerners have refused our generous offer."
"Curse the southerners! Curse Daval!" Masolon blustered, balling his fist. Why do they insist on depriving my soul of peace? My peace! The resident of this grave should have been the rascal of Augarin, not his dear friend. Is this how they all answer to peace? The Lapondians, the southerners; both sides must have misinterpreted his promise of stopping the bloodshed. They must have thought that he was not able to continue this war. So be it. If blood was what they sought, he would gladly bring it to them. If they had not gotten enough of his cannonballs, he should be more generous next time.
"Shall we call for the council to gather in the afternoon?" Jonson asked.
"No." Masolon was not in need for a council to make up his mind. They do nothing better than wasting time in their incessant debates. "Send a messenger you trust to fly to Darov in Paril. Tell him I am expecting six ready cannons to arrive at our camp in Ramos in less than a fortnight."
"Your Grace—"
"Until then," Masolon put in, "you and Gramus and your bannerlords will be recruiting more men. When we receive the cannons, we march to Augarin and raze it to the ground, making an example of the city that has disrespected the King's banner of peace."
Jonson looked stunned when he silently stared at Masolon, who continued, "Then, and only then, we will take our army to Lapond to meet with the Lapondians and see if they still want to negotiate."
The lord of Ramos rubbed his bald head. "We should discuss this matter today with the council first."
"There is nothing to discuss with the council," Masolon snapped. "The southerners have left us only one bloody option with their reply. Now go."
Jonson scowled when he saw Masolon's dismissive hand. Without saying a word, the veteran lord turned and strode away. Curse you too, Jonson. Masolon had more pressing matters to deal with than hurting an old man's pride. He gave Antram's grave one last look, his eyes fixed on the spear stuck to the ground. This is their answer, my friend; a spear.
The camp at the walls of Ramos bustled with activity when Masolon returned to the city. His soldiers must have heard of the news of the coming clash. They must be frustrated, especially those peasants who had come from neighboring and distant villages, hoping they would survive the bloodbath and earn some copper. Frustration will break their morale. Fury will make them invincible.
He swung down off his saddle, the humming growing loud as he ascended the stone steps of the wall. Among the soldiers receiving him atop the bulwark was Ben, who shot him an inquiring look. "You will not like this," Masolon whispered as he went past him to face his anticipating the crowd. With a single hand gesture, he silenced everyone.
"Brothers of Bermania!" Masolon hollered, his voice echoing in the silent city. Scanning his audience with his eyes, he glimpsed the impact of the first words on some of them.
"It is true I was born thousands of miles away from here. But believe me, I am honored to be, not your king, but one of you. You are the bravest men I have ever fought with. You crushed an army that outnumbered yours. You fought like real lions!" Masolon gripped the tabard decorated with the Bermanian sigil. "This sigil is worthless without your valor on the battlefield!"
The soldiers roared their approval, their fists lifted to the air.
Masolon silenced them with another hand gesture. "We were too generous to offer the southerners a chance to surrender, but today they insult our call for peace, the peace you have earned with your blood! What do you think? How should we answer those bastards back?"
The soldiers hooted, some of them raising their blades, others cursing the southerners. That was the fury he wanted to instill in their hearts. "If they do not give us our peace, we will take it by the sword!" Masolon howled, raising his fist. Day after day, his men would grow impatient to slaughter those southerners standing in their way back to their homes.
"Two weeks!" Masolon announced. "Write to your wives, mothers, sisters, lovers. Write to everybody you know that you will be going home in two weeks! Two weeks, and this war is over for good! Two weeks, and Augarin is history!"
Masolon growled with the roaring crowd. He turned to go down the wall, but Ben stood in his way, his eyes widened in shock. "Two weeks?" Ben's voice was lost in the commotion, only Masolon hearing him. "This war will never end. You have turned a struggle between two throne contenders into a lasting enmity between two factions."
"Enmity will not last if we eliminate one faction," said Masolon impassively.
Ben gaped at Masolon, as if he was staring at a real demon standing right in front of him. "What are you exactly doing, Masolon? Have you gone mad?"
"Not yet, Ben." Masolon sighed. "But I will if I do not sleep well."
44. RONA
It was noon when grey clouds curtained the sunlight. Rain would shower the green trees of the royal palace, Rona knew, the gentle wind playing with her black cloak. The sparrows fled to their nests, seeking shelter from the probable storm. But that storm would look like morning breeze if compared to what she had encountered once in Skandivian raging waters. The sun had not risen when Gramus took the little scared Rona to the docks to escape from the traitors who had murdered her family. The waves had toyed with their galley when they became in the heart of the Northern Sea. The terrified child had believed that the sea was as cruel as Wilander and his friends, but her mighty guardian had assured her that everything was going to be alright. "Skandivia is our haven. Neither its waters nor its lands will harm us," Gramus had said. And indeed they had safely crossed the sea, but Rona never forgot that dreadful storm.
"Your lunch, Your Grace." Sacura entered the balcony, placing a silver tray on the table in front of her. The odor of roasted turkey and fresh bread should make her stomach growl, but not today. The babe in her womb had a different taste from hers.
Rona took a sip from the pottery bowl. "Lentil soup." It was not a usual item in her meals, yet she did not remember she had tried it with so much pepper and onion. But anyway, she liked it. Her babe liked it.
"You'd better finish it while it's still warm." Sacura gazed at the grey sky, rubbing her hands. "Why do you eat here anyway, Your Grace? It's much warmer inside."
Rona took another sip. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine with this weather."
"But His Little Highness may not share your opinion."
"His Little Highness loves the winds of autumn like his mother." Rona patted her belly, still flat, before she resumed eating her soup until the bowl was almost empty. Despite her babe's protests, she put a small bite of turkey
in her mouth, taking all the time she needed to chew the juicy fibers. After she had swallowed it, she did not feel like eating any more.
"Don't you like it?" Sacura asked as Rona gently pushed the tray away.
"My appetite is failing me, but it's good." Rona pointed at the turkey residing on the tray as she rose up from her seat. Gazing at the gardens below, she watched the lads who were tying two horses to their cart. A cart for a new cannon, Rona guessed. Those poor horses. They know that a storm is coming. And Bermanian horses did not like the rain the way Skandivian ones did.
Watching eight men push a wheeled cannon, she wondered how heavy it was. She might wait for a few more weeks if Masolon intended not to resume his march before the arrival of those hefty siege weapons at his camp in Ramos. But if the news she had received about his crushing victory in Ramos was true, why would he wait for the cannons?
"You lunch is getting cold." Sacura nodded her chin toward the barely touched turkey.
"It's all yours." Rona leaned to the balustrade when she heard the commotion coming from the gate. Her guards together with a bunch of yelling and cursing commoners dragged a man by the arms toward the building. "They caught a thief, it seems. I must see to this."
"Please, there is no need, Your Grace." Sacura pressed her lips together.
Because of the babe in her womb, she was told to rest and not get bothered by the kingdom issues. But she was still the Queen of Bermania. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me." She went past Sacura to the wardrobe and picked a golden embroidered cloak instead of the black one she wore.
"Let me help you, Your Grace." Sacura followed her.
"Just take care of this one." Rona pointed at the black cloak she had thrown on the bed before she strode to the door of her chamber.
"You should be more careful with your steps, Your Grace," Sacura advised.
Rona kept going, leaving her maidservant behind. The royal guards trailed their queen as she headed to the throne hall. It had been seven days since she last went there, since she saw Masolon off. Seven long days. Her sweet dream of sitting on her father's throne next to the man she loved the most could not stand an entire month. For one month she had everything, the following week she had nothing. Even her kingdom was left to someone else—Ziyad—to deal with its matters.
The closed doors of the throne hall did not prevent Rona from hearing the quarrel going inside. She did not stop as the guards hurriedly opened the doors for her. At the center of the hall stood Ziyad and the tall, slender, gray-haired Idgard, both of them glaring and waving to each other. Idgard, one of the three advisors she had appointed in the King's council, was some distant cousin of Jonson's. She would name him the King's High Counselor if Masolon did not insist that no one would assume that post other than Ziyad, despite the thirty years of age difference between him and Idgard. At the left side of the hall, a few of her soldiers together with a small group of commoners were seizing the man—probably a thief— she had spotted from her balcony. Payton was watching from the other side of the hall, his arms folded.
The place grew hushed when they all noticed the presence of the Queen. "Your Grace." Ziyad was the first one to break the brief silence. "It's a delight to—"
"Glad you've come, my queen," Idgard put in with his coarse voice. "See what this Murasen wants to do!"
"Mercy, Your Grace!" cried the captured thief clad in a shabby tunic.
"You shall speak no word until we give you the permission to do so!" Idgard turned to the captured man, wagging a firm finger at him.
Rona folded her arms, looking at both Ziyad and Idgard. "Will anybody tell me what's happening in this hall?"
"I will." Idgard was faster and louder than Ziyad, who barely opened his mouth. "This nomad wants to enforce the barbarian laws of the desert he comes from." Idgard pointed an accusing finger at Masolon's friend.
Ziyad was not a nomad in Idgard's sense, Rona knew. According to Masolon, the Murasen had been wandering the six realms of Gorania, encountering noble lords and highborn ladies. Sometimes she did not like the way he ranted, yet she could not deny he was the smartest advisor in this palace.
"I didn't know that cutting three fingers could be less barbarian than chopping the whole hand." Ziyad simpered.
Cutting the robber's three fingers was Wilander's law. "Whose finger and whose hand?" Rona was irked. No one was telling her the full story. "You speak, Ziyad," she demanded.
"This thief was stealing from one of the shops in the market." Ziyad pointed at the man in the shabby tunic. "My decision was to chop his right hand in the main city plaza so that everyone in Paril could learn the sanction of breaking order."
"Nooo, please! Nooo!" the thief whimpered.
"What did I tell you, bastard?" Idgard snapped at the thief before he turned to Rona, redressing. "Forgive my manners, my queen. I didn't mean to. . . Did you hear what this Murasen want to do? The whole hand! What will our people think of you and King Masolon? You're letting savages rule them?"
"May I ask why the King's council is held to decide about some thief in the first place?" she asked both Ziyad and Idgard in disapproval. "Don't we have a judge in this city?"
"After he died three days ago? No." Ziyad shrugged.
He had died, and she did not know. Perhaps she had spent too much time in her chamber. "I'm sure he wasn't the only judge in Paril."
"You're right, Your Grace." Ziyad nodded. "Unfortunately, all his young apprentices have marched with our army to Ramos."
Rona would not be surprised that Masolon had not spared an able man for his war. But judges? Recruiting them just because they were young? Her husband was not leaving anything for chance.
"My queen." Idgard leaned toward her. But before he uttered another word, she gestured to him with her palm to shut his mouth as she approached the thief and the men holding him.
"What did he steal?" Rona asked.
"He works for us, Your Grace, me and my brother," a man wearing a blue woolen tunic hurriedly replied, pointing at himself and a taller man clad in black and brown. "We are tailors and we own a workshop a few steps from the main street of Paril. We can even see the towers of the royal palace from—"
"Where's the answer to my question?" Rona interrupted, scowling.
"Oh, I beg your forgiveness, Your Grace." The man clad in blue waved with both hands. "Our doubts were piqued when we noticed many missing items in the last couple of weeks. Today we caught him selling our silk and linen to another shop at one third of the price we demand."
The owner of that shop must be punished as well for buying stolen goods, Rona believed. "The sanction of lying is worse than that of stealing." She leaned forward toward the thief, recalling her father's words to a captured robber, long time ago. "Would you like to say something?"
"I beg you, Your Grace," the man wept. "I was never a thief. I just have four children that I wanted to feed. Please, grant me your pardon and I swear I will never do it again."
Rona kept her voice cold when she asked the two tailors, "How long has he been working for you?"
"Two years. Two years and a couple of months."
Two years, but he had started stealing only a couple of weeks ago. The thief was speaking the truth then. Hunger and desperation could turn good men into robbers. . . and murderers. Paril has never been miserable like it is today. And no one to blame except the royal palace residents who started this war. Glancing back at Payton, she recalled his painful words to her. Painful, but true, she could not deny. If she punished this man for stealing, she should receive the same punishment too.
"I cannot grant you mercy," said Rona to the wretched thief, "unless you return what you've stolen from these two men."
The man's cry was mixed with a smile. "Yes, yes, yes." He swallowed. "I can do that. I can return everything."
"But, Your Grace. He sold them already." The two tailors looked astonished when they exchanged a look.
"I can bring them back. Everything," the thief hurriedly said, like a
drowning man clutching at a straw. "I swear, I can bring everything back."
"See? You will have all that was taken from you," Rona reassured the two brothers before she gave the thief a warning look. "But if one single item is missing, you will miss one hand of yours, not three fingers."
"Nothing will be missing, I swear," the man in the shabby tunic promised before she ordered her soldiers to accompany him, the tailors, and all witnesses until the matter was settled. "Thank you, Your Grace. Thank you, thank you. May the Lord bless you and our great King." The man did not stop gabbling until he left the hall with his escort.
"That was wise and brilliant, my queen," Idgard grinned, looking impressed, or pretending to be so. "Mercy conditioned by justice. We didn't think of that."
Ziyad was silent, a wry grin on his face. Inwardly, he must be mocking Jonson's relative.
"Not so brilliant, I'm afraid," Rona curtly said. "If that man doesn't return all stolen goods, I must punish him as I promised."
"In that case, we might pay the value of the stolen goods to the tailors," Idgard suggested.
"Do you realize what you're doing?" Ziyad shook his head, smiling crookedly. "You're simply inviting the people of Paril to steal, because the merciful Queen will never harm her subjects or their children." He looked at Rona when he continued, "Today we have one thief, tomorrow we will have ten, and after that, it will be chaos in the city."
"You should know the people of this city before you rule them, Murasen." Idgard curled his lower lip in disdain.
"Are you going to quarrel in my presence, Lord Idgard?" Rona glared at Jonson's relative.
"He is referring to the Slaves' Revolution that happened in his homeland, my queen." Idgard stepped forward. "The man from the desert must have thought that Bermanians could become as barbarians as his people."
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