“That could take a while,” Relam observed.
“Then we’ll be here a while,” Oreius countered. “Come on, it’s time for lunch. Narin will be waiting.”
Master and student trudged up to the house, Relam still dripping river water as he walked up the garden path. At the back door, Narin emerged and tossed a towel to Relam. The prince dried his hair and arms roughly, mopping up the worst of the water and river slime.
“You were expecting me to miss that one?” he asked Narin drily, returning the towel.
Narin nodded happily. “I rather hoped you would,” he admitted. “Since it was my idea.”
“Worked just like you said, commander,” Oreius grunted. “Let him chase me down to the river and I stepped over it. He didn’t see it and came charging in. Next thing you know there’s a tremendous splash and I’m alone on the bank.”
Narin howled with laughter and thumped Relam on the back cheerfully. “Ah, well, you can’t win them all, your highness,” he said sympathetically. “So, while we’re all here, tell me what’s going on at the palace these days. Anything interesting?”
Relam looked between Narin and Oreius, and decided it was time for him to have a little fun with them. “Well, on the first day of the weekend, my father tried to kill me,” he admitted, grinning as their jaws dropped open in surprise.
Chapter 31
Relam told the story of his confrontation with the king thoroughly, leaving out not a single detail from the terrible, gut-wrenching encounter. Oreius and Narin stopped their preparations for lunch and stood quietly, listening without interrupting, shaking their heads in disbelief.
When he had finished, Narin and Oreius exchanged a guilty look.
“What?” Relam asked.
“Well,” Oreius said hesitantly. “If I’d known what you’d been through this weekend I would have taken it a little easier on you today. I’m sorry you had to handle the new drill on top of . . . everything else.”
“Yes,” Narin agreed, nodding. “Fighting your father like that must have been terrible, your highness. I can only imagine what was going through your head. And you say the new guard commander did nothing to help, didn’t try to break up the fight?”
“No,” Relam agreed. “At least, he didn’t try very hard. He and Clemon were both shouting at us but neither really wanted to get in the way.”
“From what you told us, I wouldn’t have wanted to get in the way either,” Oreius muttered.
“The guard commander has a duty to intervene in such a situation though,” Narin pointed out. “If Relam and his father had wiped each other out-”
“It wouldn’t have come to that!” Relam said, horrified that Narin would even contemplate such a possibility.
“It’s impossible to know,” Narin said stubbornly. “In battle, right and wrong, good and bad get a little distorted sometimes. Especially when emotion is playing a large role in the fight, as in your case.”
“Narin is right,” Oreius agreed. “Terrible things could have happened there, much worse than what did transpire. Do you think you got through to your father?”
“Maybe,” Relam said, shrugging. “I can’t know for sure because I haven’t seen him since. He’s been locked up in his room, and I’ve been recovering.”
“I hope that you did,” Oreius murmured. “Especially if the king’s chatelain is right about the Assembly stirring again.”
“Who is the new commander?” Narin asked curiously, rummaging in the pantry.
“Eckle,” Relam grunted. “A fool if there ever was one. A patronizing, overbearing-”
“The name is not familiar to me,” Narin murmured. “He must be a fairly new hire.”
“As the commander?” Oreius asked skeptically. “That would be unusual, wouldn’t it?”
“Extremely,” Narin agreed. “Usually the commander has been in the palace guard for years, and spent some time as an officer. I’ll ask around, see if I can find out anything about this man, Relam.”
“Eckle said you brought him on,” Relam interjected.
“Absolutely not!” Narin replied hotly. “At least, not that I remember. Maybe one of my officers brought him in. In any case, it doesn’t sound as though he’s well-suited to the job, which makes me wonder why your father appointed him.”
“He was going through a rough time,” Relam said, shrugging. “Honestly, he might not even know why he appointed Eckle as the commander. Some of your guards have no use for him either, just so you know.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Relam said, grinning. “My personal guard. You know the four who helped me execute you? Wil, Eric, Johann and Galen?”
Narin threw back his head and laughed. “Those ones! What have they been up to?”
“A few privy buckets mysteriously dumped their contents outside the commander’s door,” Relam replied, grinning evilly.
Narin snorted. “They did the same thing to Bannen on his first day, to welcome him to authority. You said they’re your personal guards now? How did that come about?”
“Eckle demanded that I select eight men to my personal guard,” Relam said, shrugging. “So I went to the guard barracks and selected four, then told Eckle I’d be taking those men off his hands for him. He took the news without too much complaint. I think he must suspect they don’t like him very much. He should, at any rate, since he assigned them to double night shifts three days in a row.”
Oreius winced. “If double night shift means the same thing it did when I was in the army, then that’s pretty rough,” he observed, producing plates for everyone. “Narin, there should be some bread back there somewhere.”
“And ale?”
“I thought palace guards couldn’t drink?” Relam called as Narin rummaged in the pantry for the bread.
“Well, not when we’re on duty,” Narin agreed. “But seeing as I’m dead, I could be considered permanently off duty.”
“Back there, in the cold storage,” Oreius grunted.
Narin pulled open another set of doors to reveal a space framed by stone, with blocks of ice lining the walls. Several casks and flasks were standing in the crushed ice at the bottom of the cupboard. Narin selected one, poured himself a glass of amber liquid, then replaced it with its fellows.
“You’re welcome,” Oreius said drily, rolling his eyes.
The former commander took a sip and smacked his lips. “Excellent,” he pronounced. “You have incredibly good taste, my old friend.”
“Into the dining room,” Oreius grunted, hefting a laden tray and gesturing for Relam and Narin to do the same. “We’ve wasted enough time nattering. Let’s eat and let the boy get home, shall we?”
“What?” Relam demanded, nearly dropping his tray in surprise.
“Careful!” Narin warned, reaching out to steady Relam, watching his glass of ale cautiously.
“You’re letting me go early?” Relam asked, following Oreius to the dining room.
Oreius took the tray and set it on the polished table. “Well, you’ve been through a lot this weekend, and after what I put you through this morning-”
“I can handle it,” Relam said defiantly. “I did well enough this morning, didn’t I?”
Narin looked up from his glass of ale. “How did he do?” he asked curiously. “Outside of falling into the river I mean. That obviously wasn’t good.”
Oreius was quiet for a long moment, then shrugged. “He was good,” the old man admitted at last. “Very, very good. Even without considering the beating he took over the weekend.”
Relam’s eyes widened in surprise. This was high praise indeed coming from Oreius.
“You’re sure you can keep pushing this afternoon?” the old warrior asked, glancing at Relam. “I don’t want you to burn out on me.”
“I can do it,” Relam said firmly. “I will do it.”
Oreius nodded gravely. “Yes,” he said as he reached for his sandwich. “I do believe you will.”
They ate lunch in relative qu
iet, each with his own thoughts. Relam kept mulling over the battle with his father, wondering if the king would be around when he got home, if he would be any better, if, somehow, Relam had stirred him to action by provoking him in that fight. What if he had made the situation worse, though? What if the shock of striking down his son and losing his wife was too much for the king? That possibility had not occurred to Relam until this point and he quite suddenly lost his appetite.
Finally the quiet meal broke up, and Relam and Oreius moved back outside to continue training. The mist and fog had cleared up, leaving behind the usual summer warmth and an unusual amount of humidity. A light sheen of sweat had formed on Relam’s arms before they even reached the stone bench and the quiet glade beyond.
“How do you feel about some practice patterns?” Oreius asked, glancing at Relam. “I have two more for you to try if you are ready. Narin helped me develop them over the last two days.”
“We can give it a shot,” Relam said, shrugging. “Are they any harder than the first four?”
“The first four weren’t hard,” Oreius said dismissively.
Relam raised an eyebrow at that, but wisely said nothing. Instead, he drew his sword and assumed a ready stance. “What’s first?” he asked pointedly. Oreius hesitated, then drew his own sword and began walking Relam through the newest practice pattern.
An hour later, Relam was drenched in sweat, even though he had not worked particularly hard. He and Oreius had run through patterns fifteen and sixteen at the speed of dirt, exaggerating every blow, the placement of every foot. These patterns were much longer, and far more complicated, requiring an enormous level of focus and determination in order to get all the steps in the right order. Twice, Relam ended up three meters from where he started, and had to try again. Normally, this would have frustrated Oreius immensely. But on this day, he was patient and understanding, coaching Relam through each thrust, slash, and parry, every side step, every jump, every advance, and every retreat.
“Good,” he said when at last Relam performed both patterns to satisfaction at a slow, but not unreasonable, speed. “Very good. Let’s take a break, get some water.”
Relam led the way up to where the water barrel stood, sheathing his sword as he went. As usual, he filled two mugs and passed the first to Oreius. The master drank deeply, draining half his mug, then took tiny sips.
“You’re doing well,” Oreius said grudgingly. “Very well. Far better than I expected.”
“Thanks,” Relam replied, smiling slightly.
“I only tell you this, because I get the sense that even though I give you high praise you won’t slack off on me,” Oreius continued. “With some students, the moment you tell them they’re doing well, they think they know everything.”
“I know I don’t know everything,” Relam snorted. “You could have beaten me any time you wanted this morning.”
“True,” Oreius agreed. “But I have years upon years of experience to draw on. You will too, someday.”
“But not yet.”
“No, not yet,” Oreius agreed.
They stood in silence for a moment, watching a ship passing on the river. Upstream, the middle section of Bridge Street was falling back into place, pedestrians and wagons waiting patiently to cross on both sides of the gap.
“I love this place,” Relam said finally, leaning against the rain barrel. “The garden, I mean.”
“There’s nowhere else quite like it,” Oreius agreed. “When I retired from the military and began looking for a place to live, I spent a lot of time looking. Nothing seemed quite right. I wasn’t used to mansions and palaces and manors. I was used to common barracks and, when I was an officer, a small, spare room. None of that prepared me for something like this.”
“What were those days like?” Relam asked. “The days when you were a soldier.”
Oreius’ expression darkened. “That was a long time ago, boy. It was a different age. An age of military strength and conquest, not an age of peace. When I was growing up, there were still many kingdoms at large. As I grew older, they fell one by one to the Sthan kings.”
“When I started out in the military,” Oreius continued, “I never imagined that I would end up here. I was a young soldier, eager to do battle for the kingdom, to push our borders across the known world. To crush resistance and annihilate enemies. My head was filled with images of glorious battles, driving the enemy before us, routing them completely.”
“When I was thirty-four, the Orell War began.” Oreius glanced at Relam. “They were the last of the free kingdoms that still stood. They caused us no trouble, other than the fact that they seldom allowed us to trade within their borders and the fact that they were the only part of the world that did not pay tribute to the Sthan King. Your grandfather called me up to the palace and asked me to launch a campaign against them. I was a promising young officer at the time, and a veteran of several minor skirmishes. I had also had dealings with the horse lords in the past, so I knew their ways.”
“I left the palace with a plan to take over the southern lands and the means to do it,” the old warrior went on, gazing down towards the river. “We mustered our armies, thousands of archers, pikemen, and cavalry, and marched. Our forces were split in three. One arm went east around the Furnier sea and down the river, entering the Renlor Basin by way of the city of Ostgard. Another force went west around the sea, entering the basin north of Narne. I took the leading force and commanded it personally, sailing across the sea and riding down between the two ranges of hills on which the East and West Bank fortresses now stand.”
“The Orell were not prepared for a war,” Oreius continued quietly. “But they resisted. They have an extremely strong code of honor. They would rather die than surrender, and die they did. They burned their own homes and villages as they fled south, those who survived the initial battles anyways. We drove them before us recklessly, herding them south through the Fells, past Ishkabur, all the way to the southern end of the peninsula.”
Relam stood quietly. He had heard this story before, but he dared not interrupt. Oreius was still looking off into the distance, at another age, at another scene, the river and the western part of Etares hidden to him.
“I tried to put a stop to it,” he whispered. “By then I had seen how terrible war truly was, witnessed the chaos of a real battle. Seen a world on fire, black smoke blotting out the sun and turning the day to night. We drew our forces up short of the end of the peninsula and set up camp. I sent a messenger back to Etares, hoping that the king would relent and allow us to withdraw, to offer the Orell protection under the Sthan Kingdom. They wouldn’t surrender, but maybe they would join us. I had to hope that was possible.”
“But before the messenger returned, the Orell ended it once and for all. Their remaining warriors mounted up and rode straight into the frozen sea, without a backward look. I had never seen anything like it. And in that moment, I realized what we had done. What I had done, in the name of my kingdom.” The sword master’s voice was low and hoarse. “We slaughtered an entire race, for a bit of land when we had the world. They are all gone, every last one. Their way of life, their people, even their villages and cities. Nothing remains. We had no right to break the long peace between our peoples, but we did anyways.”
Relam said nothing. He had never heard the story of the Orell War told quite this way before. All the tales agreed that the Orell were a noble and proud race, but they never mentioned how wrong the Sthan Kingdom had been. Probably, Relam reflected, because Sthan bards had composed the stories and sagas and written the praises of the heroes.
“When I returned to Etares,” Oreius continued. “I was made a national hero for my service. A great honor.” The old man laughed bitterly. “But I knew better. I was nothing more than a butcher. I withdrew from the army and retired. That was when I found this place. A place of peace and beauty and simplicity. A place where I could forget what had happened.”
“If you wanted to get away from it
all-?”
“-why did I stay in the capital?” Oreius guessed, smiling ruefully. “Because I was stuck here. Once I found this place of . . . tranquility, I didn’t want to let it go. I was torn between wanting to leave and go where no one could find me, like a mountain lodge or maybe an island in the southern sea, or staying here. I kept a low profile for several months, and people largely forgot about me. A few years later, I began quietly taking a few students to earn some money, students that I felt could go on to make a real positive difference in this world.”
“You’re not just talking about training a warrior,” Relam observed. “You wanted to pass on what you had seen and learned. Your mistakes.”
Oreius nodded. “Yes. Eventually, I gave up because I couldn’t see that any of it was helping. My students were doing great things, commanding the city guard, the palace guard, being battle commanders on ships in the royal navy. But it didn’t seem to be enough. The real turning point was the war ten years ago, against the Vertaga. That was when I really gave up hope of changing the world. War and bloodshed and violence would tear lives apart, whatever I did.”
“Then why train me?” Relam asked. “To keep me from becoming my grandfather?”
“Not at all,” Oreius replied. “No, I train you because for the first time I see someone with not only the heart and the skill to make a difference, but also the position. The birthright. The power and prestige necessary to run a kingdom. The wits and heart to do it justly, and with due consideration for the people under your wise rule.”
“You’re putting an awful lot of faith in someone who isn’t even officially a crown prince,” Relam observed.
“It will happen before your training ends,” Oreius said, shrugging. “And I believe that you can change the way our kingdom sees the world. Teach them to value peace, not war. Teach them to value charity, not greed. Teach them to value not power, but resilience.”
Relam nodded. “I hope that I can,” he murmured. “This place here . . . it’s all of those combined. I can see why you couldn’t leave.”
The Prince (Heirs of Legacy Book 1) Page 38