In confusion, she took her place. Signe was nowhere to be seen, which should not have surprised her but did.
“Raske, sit next to Dagmar,” the king instructed. “Lind, you too may have a seat, next to my son.”
Inge looked in surprise to the soldier to discover that beneath the armor he still wore, it was indeed Lind. Awkwardly he removed his helmet and set it on the table as he assumed the chair to Inge’s left.
Silence stretched across the room.
King Halvard broke it. “So, it’s finally coming to a head. I trust that everyone here knows where their loyalties lie.” He looked around at his listeners, his eyes landing last of all on Inge. His brows furrowed into a scowl. “You’re here so you won’t go sneaking off for information on your own. Your father would murder me from beyond the grave if I somehow got you killed, even if it wasn’t technically my fault. Lind, now that Ingrid is here, you may make your full report.”
So surprised was Inge to hear her given name from the king that she almost didn’t look to Lind at all. He cleared his throat, which drew her attention.
“Two nights ago, a rogue army carved through our ranks. Their standard-bearers carried a black flag and proclaimed fealty to the Mark of the Dragon.”
Inge sat up straight, a chill running down her spine. Baron Adelborg and his friend had referenced that term in connection with Prince Osvald.
“They have officially appointed their leader, then,” King Halvard murmured. “It’s about time they stopped skulking in the shadows.”
“There are scores of monsters among their ranks as well as men,” Lind continued. “They call their commander the Dragon, and Prince Osvald’s banner flies beneath the black one.”
“Naturally,” said the king.
“They came up from the marshes and cut through both the enemy’s camp and our own. The Dragon sent out commands for all to join him or die. More and more soldiers are breaking ranks daily, either to flee or to defect. If the monster horde continues on its current path, Sire, it brings them straight here, to the capital.” He finished his report with grimness heavy upon him.
Halvard sighed, as though shouldering the weight of the world. “It was too much to expect that Osvald would have stopped with two night-walkers and a single nest, I suppose.”
Memories of the foulness beneath the mire flashed across Inge’s mind. She shuddered. Osvald—the Dragon, as he apparently called himself—had to possess a twisted evil streak to create and lead such an inhuman army.
“What is the Mark of the Dragon?” Captain Raske inquired. He fixed cautious eyes upon his king, aware that the man might withhold an explanation.
Halvard looked to Dagmar, who answered. “It is a remnant of ancient times and customs. ‘The Mark’ refers to the land, not to a physical mark.”
“The Land of the Dragon?” Inge spoke up, more confused than ever. Osvald marched under the banner of the Land of the Dragon? What did that even mean?
“It was a tradition intended to preserve the rightful rule of the land,” said King Halvard, his gaze pinned upon the table, “a safeguard against tyranny, an ancient belief that the country belongs to a greater being than any one man who governs it. Founded in truth, I will allow,” he added as he raised steady eyes to his audience. “The nation lives on as generations pass away. However, more often than not, those who invoke the Mark of the Dragon simply seek an excuse to rebel. They don’t like the way things are going, so they gather under a black flag and appoint a new leader, the Dragon, whose purpose—divine, so they claim—is to overthrow the crown.”
“You’ve dealt with this before?” Captain Raske said.
“I’ve stamped it out before,” King Halvard replied. “Rather, I ordered it stamped out. During the Ten Years’ War, a faction arose. Its members defied my father’s rule, withheld support to the troops, and conspired with the enemy. There have always, throughout our history, been insurrectionists, but they’ve mostly been disgruntled old men who spoke treason in their private chambers and toed the line otherwise. This incarnation nearly cost us the war. So yes, I dealt with it. Any man connected with the Mark of the Dragon received a traitor’s reward—a swift execution. And their executioners were Lukas Falk and Jannik Bergstrom.”
Inge jerked in her chair. Shock flashed across Raske, too, to hear his father and his mentor named as agents of such a deed. Under this new information, Bergstrom’s death seemed all the more calculated, an act of revenge against a man who had cut short a previous rebellion.
“But if they were all executed…” Inge began.
“Oaths of this sort always survive, even if every oath-bearer dies,” said Halvard, his voice dry. “All the movement requires is dissatisfaction, ambition, and the opportunity for these to foment. Typically, it begins among the lesser nobles, easily corrupted by their status and their lust for more power. They wrap their treason in a shroud of patriotism, that they’re seizing control for the good of the country. This time around, they’ve been very careful—secretive in any communications, wary of any appearance of wrongdoing. Even now, as it comes to a head, it’s difficult to determine for sure who is loyal and who is not.”
“Baron Adelborg,” Inge murmured.
King Halvard snorted. “Among others. I’ll admit that he has been under close surveillance.”
She thought of Signe. “What about the Sparres? Is Mikkel involved?”
He favored her with a shrewd glance but ignored her question. “It’s troublesome, the extent this may have spread. I was aware of discontent among the peerage, but I never dreamed they would be so enterprising as to recruit actual monsters to their ranks.”
“The monsters can be dealt with,” said Dagmar. “They can only attack at night, and they’re weak to wooden weapons. The summer solstice is nearly upon us, which leaves far more hours of daylight than darkness for us to ferret them out and destroy them. It’s the men that could cause the greater trouble, for they’ll make up the daytime difference if this movement amasses enough of them.”
Halvard grunted. “Men are fools who follow the strongest warrior among them. Raske, now that you know the worst, what do you recommend?”
“Dispatch messages to your colonels immediately; tell them to band their troops together and attack with full force, if they haven’t already.”
“And if they are confederate to the Dragon?” King Halvard pressed.
Raske frowned.
“He’s coming here,” the king continued. “The throne is his goal. It always was, long before I ever realized it. It seems as though, rather than allowing his army to cut through our ranks piece by piece, we should gather our people together and resist him in force. The trouble stands with the traitors among us.”
“We can ferret them out easily enough as well,” Dagmar said.
King Halvard did not seem so sure. “Lind, how many days are they from here?”
“Two. Three at the most, depending on how much progress they make even this night. Our soldiers are unaccustomed to nighttime battles. The Dragon carves his way through hosts of men before him.”
“Perhaps I should have left the Demon Scourge among your ranks,” the king remarked, with a wry glance toward his Captain of the Castle Guard.
Raske straightened his spine, the slightest of movements. “Command, and it shall be done, my Liege.”
“Hmm,” said King Halvard ambiguously. His pensive eyes rested upon Inge. “And now that you know what’s happening, how would you plan for it, child of Torvald?”
She opened her mouth and shut it again. Her accusing glare shifted to Raske, who must have reported the content of her tantrum, her need to know, to plan. Raske looked totally unrepentant, and Inge reminded herself that she was not to act as a child, however much she might want to scream at the moment.
“Clear any citizens out of his path, first,” she said. “Soldiers may give their lives for their country, but spare as many innocents as possible.”
“How very like your father,” said Hal
vard. “Lind, make it so. Raske, the creatures will be immune to metal and magic. What would you recommend to eradicate them?”
“Wood worked against the first; fire worked with the nest under the swamp.”
“We can’t set the countryside ablaze,” Dagmar argued. “The fields are still growing—you’ll destroy the harvest. We cannot save our people in summer only to starve them when winter comes.”
“If we could find their daytime retreats, we could attack when they’re most vulnerable,” Raske said. “Use javelins and wooden arrows, with fire as a last resort.”
“Lind, carry those instructions back to my colonels as well,” Halvard instructed. “We will resist. If the Dragon wants my crown, he can pry it off my cold, dead head. Dagmar,” he added speculatively, “do you have a spell that might fix a crown to a man’s head?”
“It would make for difficult sleep, Your Majesty,” she replied.
He waved an indifferent hand. “No trouble there. That I already have.”
***
Morning came all too soon. Inge had slept only half an hour, thanks to the stress of the night. Blissful gratitude infused her soul when Raske informed her that the castle guard’s training had been suspended. Willingly she trudged back to bed.
No one disturbed her. It was close to noon when she finally poked her head outside her door and pinned the sentry there with an inquiring frown.
“Captain Raske’s up in Dagmar’s tower,” he informed her. Inge stared blankly. “You’re to join him there,” he added, and he nodded down the hall to the narrow door.
In confusion she headed that direction. She glanced back more than once at the sentry, but he didn’t even look her way. Foreboding heavy upon her, she passed through the narrow door and up the spiral stairs.
She had not been back to this tower since the morning she had been cursed, nor had she wanted to visit. Still, obedient to instruction, she tapped on the door at the top of the stairs. A voice bid her enter. She pushed through to the round room.
Raske stood at one of the windows, its diamond panes swung open on brass hinges.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
“As well as I could,” Inge said. Her eyes strayed to the magical implements on the walls as she wondered why she had been directed here, with him, alone.
“Good.” He returned his attention to the scene beyond the glass.
“What are you looking at?” she inquired.
He beckoned her to join him.
Dagmar’s tower was the tallest in the castle and afforded the farthest view of any point. Inge gingerly peeked out to see a distant southern horizon: Raske was watching for any signs of the enemy’s approach. “Do you expect them soon?” she asked anxiously.
“You don’t see the cloud of dust?” he replied.
She squinted. Low to the ground at the very farthest point that she could perceive, a haze shimmered against the air. Dread welled in her throat.
“They made more progress last night than expected. That’s where the battle has come. They’ll be here by nightfall, unless our forces can keep them at bay.”
She studied the haze, such faint, scant evidence of war that it was. “Which direction are the little ones?” she asked, ashamed even as the words crossed her lips. To worry for her own family when so many others were passing through calamity was the height of selfishness, but she couldn’t help it. She had lost too much already when her parents died. She couldn’t stomach the thought of her little sisters and brothers in harm’s way.
“They’re to the north and west,” Raske replied, and he pointed in almost the opposite direction as the far-off battle. “They will be safe, I promise you.”
He had no way of keeping that promise, of course, but the distance alone helped assuage her fears. “What about all the other people, all the other families in the way?”
“Any settlements have been given an order to evacuate. We’ve ordered people in the city to evacuate or hunker down, too.”
Her mind turned over how abruptly everything had changed. Much as she despised her daily castle routine of lessons and royal dinners, she desperately wished for its return over the impending doom before her. Danger brought greater clarity of mind. Above everything else, Inge wondered what might have been done to prevent this dire situation.
“If Osvald was rebellious to the king, why was he only banished? Why was he not imprisoned from the start?” she inquired.
Raske’s troubled eyes shifted from the view out the window to rest on her.
“You’re not going to tell me I can’t talk about him, are you?” Inge guessed. “He’s marching here with an army of monsters! I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist!”
He looked away, torn on how to address her remarks. King Halvard had not given him leave to speak of the matter, Inge surmised, and Raske, in his undying loyalty, would obey the king.
She sighed bitterly, frustrated by the continued secrecy.
“Osvald… was…” Raske began—haltingly, as though the words pained him. Inge met his tentative gaze; silently she willed him to continue. “I think King Halvard hoped it would not come to this,” he murmured at last. “I think he feels responsible.”
“What did he do?” asked Inge, fully able to believe that Halvard had driven someone to rebellion. Hadn’t he driven her almost to that point on numerous occasions?
Raske’s expression turned reproving. “Osvald’s family was killed by marauders when he was thirteen. He was the only one to survive; in the aftermath, King Halvard adopted him into his house and treated him like a son. Signe was only a little girl. The queen had just died, and there would be no more rightful heirs. People probably assumed…” His voice trailed off as he searched for the proper words.
“That Osvald would become the next king?” Inge finished.
“That… something like that would come about,” he allowed. “Osvald’s parents were nobles, but there are houses that are higher in the line of succession. It caused controversy, not least of all because Osvald himself was… damaged.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
He cast his gaze about the room as though the proper response might be lurking among Dagmar’s magical implements. “He witnessed his family’s slaughter, Ingrid. I don’t know the details, but I know that it haunted him. He wasn’t a bad person, but he… he was always trying to make sense of what had happened, always searching for someone or something to blame. King Halvard hasn’t forbidden mention of him out of hatred, but out of compassion for Osvald, so that people wouldn’t bandy his name about as though he were a common villain. He believed that Osvald should have a chance for redemption.”
“Then why did he banish him at all?” Inge insisted. “If he felt such compassion for him, why—”
“Because of Signe,” Raske interrupted. “Signe was a child when Osvald came. She looked upon him as a brother, but he… he knew she was not his sister. He had an odd fixation for women anyway, but he got… well, a little too attached to Signe. He fancied himself in love with her, but his idea of love was more like obsession. It wasn’t appropriate. When she turned sixteen, he actually went to her father and asked to be disowned so that he could both marry her and inherit the kingdom. It was the right of inheritance that tipped the scale, I think. King Halvard may act like a traditionalist, but as far as he’s concerned, Signe is the only lawful heir to his throne. Whomever she marries will be consort, but never king.”
“Then why did he announce to the nation that I was his new heir?” Inge argued.
Raske favored her with a flat glance.
She was missing something vital, his expression told her. “Why?” she pressed. “He denied Osvald the right of inheritance, denied his courtship of Signe, but then he decides to give both of those things to an unknown peasant? It makes no sense! Why would he do it?”
“Because of Mikkel Sparre,” he said quietly.
Inge recoiled. “Mikkel? What’s he got to do with any of this?”
“S
igne’s in love with him, that’s what. Osvald was already stirring up trouble—he incited the border conflict, and there were reports of a vow to drink the king’s blood. If he had discovered Signe’s love for Mikkel as well, he would have assassinated the poor boy without batting an eyelash. So, King Halvard decided to create a decoy in hopes of flushing Osvald out and bringing an end to his rampage.” He said that final sentence lightly, as though it was nothing of consequence, but the words sank into Inge’s head.
“I’m bait?” she cried, outraged.
“Well, not so much anymore,” said Raske uncomfortably.
“I’m bait?” she repeated. “This whole time I’ve been at the castle, the king has been dangling me as bait for a madman?”
“If it’s any consolation, it was supposed to be me.”
That was no consolation at all.
“And you had the gall to rebuke me for getting in harm’s way!” She balled one fist and beat against his arm. “You people put me in harm’s way, and then scolded me for being there?”
He caught her wrists before she could truly harm him. “Why do you think we always had you under guard?”
“I was cursed outside my room and dragged beneath a swamp! My family was threatened, all so you could lure Osvald out of hiding?”
“It was King Halvard’s command!” he protested. “I was only obeying the king!”
She shook her wrists in his grasp, no match for his strength but still angry enough to fight it. “I told you he’s a lunatic! Why do you keep obeying him? I might have died!”
“We all might still. There’s an army of monsters and rebels coming for us, remember?”
Inge gaped up at him. “You’re not helping!”
A defenseless look flashed through his eyes. “No one’s died yet,” he mumbled. “We can still pull through.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re worse than Eirik and Einar! You’re like a child, clinging to hope when the very jaws of fate are bearing down on you!”
“Better to hope than to despair,” he replied with a tentative smile.
The Legendary Inge Page 22