Ardent

by Florian Armas

  “You know where Codrin is,” I said, impatiently, and I regretted it instantly, for I didn’t want my worry to be widely known.

  “I apologize, but I’ve never made that affirmation. Your young man is more elusive than a Wanderer.”

  Valer knows about the Wanderers. He is more important than we realized. There were very few people aware of the secret order of the Wanderers.

  “It happened that Codrin took the same road as a courier of mine. They did not travel together, of course, but I think that the story would be of interest to you. I have a ... let’s say half debt to Codrin from that travel. One of my soldiers was attacked by Boar’s men while returning home. My courier arrived too late, and anyway he could not help much – there were too many attackers. Codrin did help; at least he tried. In the end, he could not save my soldier, but Boar and half of his men died there. You have one enemy less,” Valer smiled, and he was right. Boar was Lenard’s second Knight, and some of our lands were now in his possession.

  Even if Boar is dead we can’t get back the land he stole from us. “What about Codrin?”

  “Unscathed, as were his men. He is more cunning than the devil. I apologize; I forgot to tell you that this all happened on the road from Mehadia to Arad, half a day’s riding from the latter. Codrin and two young men that you know well were escorting Cantemir.” Valer took a break, and the room became quiet and still, while the light from the small candelabra seemed to grow dim. Valer’s eyes were still too, looking absently away, into the open space between Father and me. The slight tension in his jaw told a different story.

  He must not know... “Codrin is a Wraith,” I said, pretending to be uninterested too. “Many people ask for his services.”

  “Yes, he is,” Valer shrugged. “Except that no one, in Arad or elsewhere, knows anything about a protector named Codrin.”

  “An elusive protector, as you said.” Vasile, our spy in Arad, had written us the same thing: no one at Orban’s court knew about Codrin, and Codrin confirmed to us that he was using several names when traveling, something that I wanted to hide from Valer. “It seems that you have a lot of interest in him.”

  “A young man with a bright future is for lesser men what light is for butterflies,” Valer said, keeping his indifferent posture. “Possible bright future,” he added quickly. “Such a man deserves attention. It can be rewarding. But there is also the fact that Dochia asked me to keep an eye on him and ... Severin.”

  Knowing about the Wanderers was a sign in itself; knowing about Dochia meant Valer was an important hidden player and a stakeholder in many secrets of the Frankis Kingdom. Is this a trap to reveal our links with Dochia? The simple fact of acknowledging her name could be dangerous for her. The Circle was our enemy, and Dochia helped us to stand against that bloody order.

  “Then we have to thank you for helping us, no matter who asked you what.”

  “My apologies, I should have started with this.” Valer took out a letter from his ragged pocket and proffered it to me. I recognized the sigil on the folded paper at once. “From Dochia.” There it was again; that queer gleam in his eyes that I was starting to recognize.

  An attractive man. Indeed, in his late twenties, with black hair and blue eyes, Valer was an attractive man. The thought amused me, despite all the strain created by Dochia’s hidden name being spoken, and the tense situation around. Outside the Wanderers and a few close people, everyone else knew her as Lena. I broke the sigil and opened the letter with the manners of a careless woman, in a way that allowed Father to read it at the same time. Her letter was brief:

  Jara,

  Valer helps me now and then, and there was blood between him and Orban even before he fought for you. I am away from Frankis for a few months, and I had to leave in haste. Just another of my missions.

  PS. We met in Muniker.

  I can trust Valer against Orban. What about the Circle? In our hidden code, Dochia’s message conveyed things that a stranger reading the message would not be aware of. Valer could be trusted, but he was also an independent player, having his own interests. “Thank you for the letter, Valer. It was a fortunate event that you met...”

  “In Muniker,” Valer swiftly filled my silence.

  “Where did your man separate from Codrin?” Father asked.

  “He lost track of him before Codrin entered the Dorna Mountains, on the road going to the Long Lake Valley or the Long Valley how it is known here. It was just two days before the Mother Storm came. To the best of my knowledge, all the ways out of the valley are blocked by snow until the beginning of the spring.”

  “Two days before the storm,” Father said, massaging his chin. “Not enough time to leave the valley on the road to Dorna. Isn’t that strange? Codrin took the longest road from Arad to Dorna, and there are only some small villages in the valley.”

  “Boar’s castle is there and ... the village of my slain soldier, the one that Codrin tried to help, but I know nothing more. It may be related to Matei’s death though.”

  “Is there anything else we should know?” I asked.

  “Ferd,” Valer answered promptly, but the name told us nothing. “The son of a small merchant in Severin, and one of my soldiers. He will stay here for a while, and you can use him for passing messages, if the need arises. The fifth house on the Merchants Street. Sir Cernat, you know him. It so happens that Vlaicu and Lady Saliné knows him too.”

  “Ah, yes,” Father said. “Now, I remember. He was wounded in Mehadia, and stayed here during the siege. Saliné helped us with the wounded.”

  “May we ask you a favor now?” The mention of Saliné’s name brought her strange behavior back to me. “We had a kind of a ... familial issue related to my youngest daughter.” Father gave me an intrigued look, while Valer nodded in a way that made me think he already knew the story. “Two of Aron’s men were involved, and for some political reasons, their punishment will be far from what they deserve. They will be flogged tomorrow.”

  “I know the men,” Valer said. “And the new punishment seems lenient indeed for what happened to Lady Vio. It will be done. I suppose that Aron will try to send them away from Severin after the flogging. Don’t stop him.”

  “We have a strange development right now,” I told Father, after Valer took his leave. “Saliné came to me in a state that was disturbing, and you know how composed she can be. We have to increase the number of our sentries around the castle; some people entered the garden and menaced her. Aurelian, the Sage, was one of them.”

  “They entered Severin incognito. This is something we need to check with Vlaicu. It’s not so easy to frighten Saliné,” Father said, thoughtfully. “I suppose that it was not some physical threat.”

  “The threat seems to be for the whole family, if we don’t do their bidding. They warned us about cutting off the hands of Aron’s thugs. It looks like a dirty trick from Aron, but it is not. I know Saliné well enough to think that this was no ordinary threat. They also told her about a reassessment of power. Aron’s status will be enhanced. Or at least this is what Aurelian told her.”

  “The only reassessment happening now is the election of the new candidate King. Orban lost his chance after last year’s war. Do you remember Senal’s last letter? The one that was stolen when he was killed? He mentioned that we have a spy among us, from Orban or the Circle. We already know that Aron betrayed us to Orban. It may be that he is in league with the Circle too, and will be favored by the next candidate King.”

  “It makes sense. Aurelian,” I whispered. “The Snake. One of the Sages who tested Saliné when we still lived in Midia. His threat could be related to the Duke’s soldiers.” We lost many guards in the Mehadian campaign, but Mohor was able to hire some more and borrowed a few soldiers from his most loyal Knights, and he forbade Aron from coming to Severin with more than three guards. Our soldiers outnumbered the enemy inside our walls, but it is hard to sleep well with scorpions in your chamber. “We have to tell Mohor. And you have to reconvene
a Knight Court and change the sentence for Aron’s thugs to flogging.”

  After the sentences were carried out, Aron sent the punished men, together with three more of his guards, out of Severin. They never arrived at his castle, and no one saw them again.

  Saliné changed after that day when she was ambushed in the garden. She avoided me, and she avoided everybody else. In the rare moments when I forced myself into her privacy, we had only small, meaningless conversations or we just stayed silent. In a few days, her metamorphosis from child to woman became complete; it was visible in her face, in her stance. There was nothing of the child I knew left in her. She never laughed again after losing her marriage to Codrin, because of Duke Stefan interference. And now, even the slightest smile seemed to have deserted her. It took me a week of pain until I thought that we could talk again about the ambush in the garden without harming her even more. Unwillingly, I went to her room, and for a while we just looked at each other in silence. She was sitting at the window, facing the darkness. It was a full moon at least, if that could alleviate her pain. I moved slowly, and embraced her. She leaned against me, then turned and laced her arms around my neck, her head resting on my shoulder, like so many times in the past. Mechanically, my hand moved to caress her beautiful hair, and that created some calmness in me. I needed it, not as much as Saliné, but I needed it too. After a while, her breath became even, and I did not dare to spoil her tranquility with my questions.

  After a week or more, she started to interact with Bucur. It pained and frightened me at the same time, and each time I touched on the subject, I received the same cold answer: “It is my choice, Mother.”

  Part 2

  Chapter 8 – Codrin

  During the night, the storm gasped its last breath, reluctantly giving way to patches of clear sky gleaming with stars, forecasting the cold. It was a capricious flirtation between howling gusts of wind and sudden calm. In a last impulsive shift rumbling along the valley, the storm broke in the morning. The rumbling in my mind faded too, and I fell asleep, dreaming of Severin and Saliné. I woke late, to the reflection of a dazzling sun glinting from the snowy peaks. Someone had opened the widow, and I blinked, covering my eyes.

  “Wake up, lazy lowlander,” Vlad smiled. “We have guests from Boar’s castle.”

  “If you’ve found time for insensitive jokes about sensible people, there is no danger from the strange men of that dead animal.” Some last vestiges of a thin sleep made me stretch, yet the cold sneaking into the room was refreshing.

  “Who told you about men?”

  “Women?” I laughed, jumping from my bed. After two weeks of intermittent storms and no sun, I felt the need to stare through the window: the sky was almost clear and radiantly blue. Far away, between the eastern peaks, ragged tatters of clouds streamed lazily. “The last two weeks were worse than that whole winter I spent in your house in Litvonia.” That storm killed all my plans. I bit my lip. The Solstice Party in Severin was now a thing of the past. I hope Saliné is well...

  “Comparing Frankis to Litvonia,” Vlad sneered. “Boar’s wife and Secretary are waiting for your laziness in the kitchen.”

  “Do they want our heads?” I left the window, and dressed fast.

  “They may, if they learn that we killed Boar, but it looks more like a request for help.”

  “Help?” I scratched my head.

  “That’s what Varia told me. If you hurry-up, you may still find some leftovers to eat.”

  “Late, eh?”

  “For highlanders, yes. We...”

  “I know, you are nothing like the normal people living in the plains.”

  If I didn’t count the deep melancholy in Livia’s eyes, the atmosphere in the large kitchen resembled a normal family having breakfast. Varia was a tough woman, able to conceal her grief when needed, and everybody else from the family, and Pintea, were already out, to feed the animals in the barn, or they were simply enjoying the sun – there was not much work to do during the winter. Winter is for laziness; I remembered old Gran’s words. For safety reasons, Varia had taken the decision to keep Matei’s death hidden for a while. We were his comrades, sent home with the money to pay the debt to Boar and two horses for his children. The storm trapped us in the village. At least some things are true. There was only one visit from a neighbor during the two weeks of wind and snow siege, a worried friend of the family. Like most of the village, he was concerned by the presence of three armed strangers, but Varia convinced him that Matei’s friends were no danger to anyone. She even showed him the document signed by Little Boar, that a third of the debt was paid. In small villages news flies, and it seemed that most people knew about the strangers in the house.

  “Sara,” Varia presented the young brunette, dressed all in black, at the table – Boar’s widow. Her pale face contrasted strongly against the black of her long and thick hair, a beautiful woman. She looked more frightened than sad. “Lovrin,” Varia pointed to a thin man sitting next to her, “the Secretary of the Long Lake castle.” My name was not announced; they already knew it, the perk of being the last one to arrive in the room. “There has been some trouble at the castle in the last two weeks,” Varia said, glancing briefly at me. “Boar is dead, and Sharpe returned yesterday.”

  “I’ve made this for you.” Livia came with a portion of rice boiled in milk that she knew I liked to eat in the morning. There were also dried fruits and honey to blend with the rice at the end. Later, I learned that Pintea had betrayed my habits to her.

  I wish to have some cinnamon. But that expensive spice was rare, even in Jara’s house. Your highness, I bet you can survive without cinnamon. “Thank you, Livia.” I ruffled her hair, and she smiled thinly.

  “Sharpe told us that you killed Little Boar.” Sara spoke for the first time, her voice bland. “That’s the reason I am here.”

  “An unfortunate event, which may stem from causes you wouldn’t like to hear about; but I understood that you are looking for help,” I said reluctantly, after I forced myself to swallow some rice that had filled my mouth at the wrong moment. “Taking into account what’s happened, why do you think we are the right men to help you?”

  “Whatever the reason, what happened helped me to avoid an unwanted marriage with Little Boar. Each time Boar was away, he tried to be my lover, and Boar was often away because of his duties for Lenard, the Seigneur of Dorna. Two times that Little Snake came into my room during the night, menaced my sleeping son with a knife, and... Each time he left, he dared me to report what happened. I couldn’t; Boar would have killed me and take another wife. I was nothing more than furniture in his castle. One that brought him land and an heir. Little Boar would have forced his marriage on me, then find a way to kill my two-year-old son.”

  “The Boars are gone, what worries do you have now?” I asked, confused by her tirade; her story was strange, and she was speaking really fast, and sometimes I had troubles with her heavy northern Frankis accent. Varia speaks differently.

  “Boar had a half-brother, Ralf; a bastard his father sired outside wedlock, and Sharpe’s half-brother; they have the same mother. Ralf sent a letter, through Sharpe, saying that he considers himself the best man to help me administer Boar’s inheritance, as my next husband.”

  “You refused him,” I shrugged.

  “Sharpe has already taken over the castle. There is not much I can do; most of the people there listen to him; the ones that count, the soldiers. I have several servants on my side, if that may help.”

  “Why do you think that I will help you?”

  “Varia told me that you are a kind man, and I can pay too.”

  “Sara wants to marry Lovrin.” Varia gestured to the silent man at the table – he did not look like someone to able fight Sharpe. “They were supposed to be together, before Boar’s family forced her mother to accept Sara’s marriage.”

  “So ... all the soldiers in the castle answer to Sharpe.”

  “There are only twelve soldiers in the castl
e right now,” Sara said. “They were more ... before. Those who attacked Boar killed eight of his guards too. The survivors mentioned something about cowards and arrows, as if I would care. Some of our soldiers don’t like Sharpe, but they are afraid of him. They will look the other way if... From what we heard, Ralf will come with ten men, but I don’t know how much truth there is in Sharpe’s numbers.”

  “How did you leave the castle?”

  “My aunt is sick. She is living there,” Sara gestured toward the window: a house was visible some three hundred paces away. “I don’t want to trick you. Why should I avenge Little Boar? My son needs your help.”

  “No one but Sharpe survived from the troop that came here. Did he see us when we attacked Little Boar?”

  “Yes, or at least he knew about Little Boar being dead, because Sharpe left to warn Ralf. His claim has some weakness, as he did not warn us before leaving,” Lovrin spoke for the first time. “He was in a hurry, and the Mother Storm stopped him from returning quickly. So, in the castle, some ‘think’ that you might have killed Little Boar. Others ‘think’ that it might have been Sharpe and his brother, because of the marriage proposal. We’ve encouraged the latter version.”

  “How many soldiers think like you?” I asked

  “Openly, not many,” Lovrin turned his palms up. “They are afraid of Sharpe and Ralf, but the balance may change.”

  “I need to think about this,” I said, unwillingly to commit myself to their cause.

  “We will pay a hundred galbeni to each of you, if you keep Ralf away for two more weeks, until the Black Mourning ends and the Grey Respect starts,” Sara interjected. “Marriages are then allowed in certain circumstances. My child’s future is in danger and that gives me the right to remarry one month after my husband’s death.”

  “I am sorry, but I am not for sale. That doesn’t mean that I reject your plea; I just need more time to consider.”