The Hickory Staff

by Rob Scott

  Stopping before the door to their bedroom, Mark’s thoughts moved to Brynne. Could he leave her here alone with an unholy fight looming before her? No, of course not. She could return to Colorado with him – they all could. But now he sounded like the coward, a sensible coward, but a coward just the same. Despite his friend’s confidence, Mark believed Nerak would kill them all.

  Steeling himself against the wellspring of emotion he felt whenever he saw Brynne, Mark entered the room quietly, hoping not to disturb her right away. They would remain in Eldarn until this business was finished.

  Garec pulled hard until the resistant plug popped from the bottle with a satisfying report. ‘Whoever this trapper is, he has great taste in wine,’ he said as he poured for each of the friends, topping his own glass to the brim before handing the unfinished portion to Lahp, who proceeded to drink directly from the flask. The bottle looked like a toy in the Seron’s hand and Garec laughed as Lahp finished the contents in one enormous swallow.

  ‘Remind me not to get into a drinking contest with you,’ he said, crossing to the fireplace to removing his trout fillets. ‘Sorry it’s fish again tonight,’ he told the company, ‘but tomorrow I’ll see if I can’t get a deer or something.’

  ‘This is fine, Garec,’ Brynne replied. She looked much better for having slept most of the day. ‘Without you we’d be reduced to roots and berries.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Mark agreed, sipping noisily. ‘You missed my archery display at Seer’s Peak: thirty-two shots and not one fish.’

  They all laughed at Mark’s admission except for Brynne, who continued to watch the front window anxiously. She was cross that she’d slept the day away and promised herself that dawn would find her scouting the riverbank to find some sign that Sallax was all right.

  Mark gripped her hand beneath the table. ‘I’ll come with you tomorrow,’ he whispered.

  At that moment she loved him, for knowing what she had been thinking, and for saying what she needed him to say.

  Garec finished the last of his dinner, examined the bottom of his wooden trencher and chucked it into the fire. ‘These bowls are too old,’ he observed. ‘We’ll have sores in our mouths if we keep eating from these.’ He watched as the wood burst into flames. Rising from his seat, he crossed the room to retrieve the worn canvas pack. ‘I think Gilmour had a few fresh trenchers in here,’ he said, unfastening twin leather straps.

  No one spoke as Garec started absentmindedly pulling out items, placing things on the wooden table like exhibits at a trial: a hat, one glove, a pair of wool socks, some tobacco in a leather pouch, a small book written in Pragan. Then Garec’s hand came to rest on a carved wooden pipe and he stopped short, appalled.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispered, almost crying, ‘I’m really sorry.’ He began returning the old man’s possessions to the bag. Brynne crossed and took him in her arms.

  ‘It’s all right, Garec,’ she said. ‘You’re doing the right thing. There’s no sense in you carrying two packs. Combine what you need in your bag and leave the rest here.’

  Garec hesitated, as if waiting for something to happen. His forehead began perspiring and he released the pipe, now moist from his grip, to fall into the bottom of the satchel.

  ‘Garec,’ Steven said, ‘his memory doesn’t live in those things.’

  Garec nodded, without looking at anyone, and, unable to reopen the pack, handed it to Steven. The young bowman picked up his quivers and started mending fletching.

  Steven looked quickly at Brynne before reopening Gilmour’s bag. Garec was right. The old sorcerer did have three fresh trenchers, and Steven stacked them neatly in the centre of the table. Not knowing whether to continue, Steven reached gingerly back into the pack and withdrew three pipes, two more packs of tobacco, a short knife, some lengths of twine, several articles of clothing and a small bar of clean-smelling soap. Mark grabbed one of the trenchers and began turning it over in his hands, ostensibly inspecting the wood for worms, termites or rot. The vestiges of Gilmour’s life looked like a pile of junk: his socks had holes in them, his knife was bent and its leather sheath was torn and useless. These were not the final possessions of a powerful educator and magician; they were more like secondhand items distributed at the reading of a homeless person’s will. Mark drank deeply from his goblet and hoped the unnerving ritual would end soon.

  Steven broke the silence. ‘That’s it.’ He fumbled about inside the pack for another moment before adding, ‘Except for these.’ He tossed a book of matches to his roommate. Mark caught it in one hand, flipped it over and read the advertisement printed on the back: Owen’s Pub, Miner Street, Idaho Springs. ‘And this,’ Steven removed several pages of old parchment, folded over and ragged along the edges. He placed it on the table near the trenchers and dropped Gilmour’s empty pack to the floor.

  ‘Sonofabitch!’ Mark exclaimed and Brynne looked at him curiously. ‘My paper and my matches, that old dog. He must have picked these up that night we went swimming in the river.’

  ‘Machess?’ Brynne asked, fumbling with the foreign word.

  ‘Matches.’ Mark tore one from the book and struck it into flame. Both Brynne and Garec gasped when the small torch ignited and Garec reached over to test the flame with a fingertip, as if somehow it might be an illusion. ‘It’s magic,’ he said in awe.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mark replied. ‘It’s chemistry, exceedingly simple chemistry.’ He handed the burning match to Brynne who watched as the flame crept closer and closer to her fingertips before burning out on its own. ‘I’m surprised the Larion Senate didn’t bring these back from one of their trips.’ He considered this a moment, then said, ‘Actually, they probably did. I bet they just ran out of them, or didn’t write down the formula to make more … who knows? Maybe some smoker there at Sandcliff used them up.’ No one laughed; so, Mark proceeded to unfold the parchment. ‘Damn, but I could have used this up there.’ He gestured towards the southeast and the Blackstone peaks.

  ‘Where did you find it?’ Garec asked, examining the burned match stump.

  ‘At Riverend, in the room where Steven and I were tied up. These pages were hidden behind one of the stones above the fireplace mantel.’

  ‘What’s written on them?’ Brynne leaned over to look.

  ‘It’s probably an ad for a Gore-tex parka and some snowshoes,’ Steven teased.

  ‘No,’ she went on, ‘it looks like a letter, a note to someone.’

  ‘Who wrote it?’ Garec asked, only half listening as he worked on his arrows.

  Mark handed Brynne the pages and she flipped through them quickly in search of a signature. She froze when she reached the final sheet. ‘Garec?’

  ‘What?’ he mumbled without looking up from his fletching.

  ‘It’s from Tenner Wynne.’

  Garec returned the arrows to his quiver and reached for a wine goblet. ‘Tenner Wynne? The Tenner Wynne?’

  ‘Mark found these in a third-storey chamber at Riverend. How many Tenner Wynnes lived there before the fire?’ She continued scanning through the parchment for additional evidence that the letter she held was authentic.

  ‘Who’s Tenner Wynne when he’s at home then?’ Steven asked, nibbling on what he guessed was a dried apricot.

  ‘Was,’ Brynne corrected, ‘Tenner was a prince of Falkan, a descendant of King Remond.’

  Garec said, ‘But he abdicated the Falkan throne to his sister—’ He groped for her name.

  ‘Anaria,’ Brynne supplied. ‘Princess Anaria. She was a Barstag by marriage.’

  ‘Right,’ Garec said, adding sheepishly, ‘Brynne paid attention in school better than I did.’

  ‘Too bad you missed me on the Stamp Act,’ Mark told him, ‘you’d have been sound asleep before the end of first period.’ Garec grinned and raised his goblet. Mark responded in kind and said, ‘To the Stamp Act.’

  ‘The Stamp Act, whatever that might be.’ He emptied his glass and reached for another bottle. Lahp, who had been listening in silence, shru
gged before crossing the room to stoke the fire again.

  Steven refocused the conversation. ‘So Tenner was at River-end the night of the fire?’

  ‘He lived there,’ Brynne explained. ‘He was a famous doctor, probably the most famous healer in Eldarn, but he was known throughout the world as Prince Markon’s best friend and closest advisor.’

  Uncorking the new bottle, Garec said, ‘Tenner organised the medical programme at the university in Estrad and students came from all over to study.’ He poured for everyone and gestured to Lahp, who shook his massive head and began rolling out blankets on the floor. ‘He was a great leader, but he’s remembered more as an advisor and protector of the king.’

  ‘King?’ Mark was confused. ‘I thought Remond was already dead.’

  ‘He was,’ Brynne continued, ‘but Remond ruled Eldarn from Rona, from Riverend actually, right there in the forbidden forest. Prince Markon was the eldest son of Waslow Grayslip and rightful heir to Eldarn’s throne.’

  Garec chimed in again, ‘He actually died while hosting his cousins, the royal families of Falkan, Malakasia and Praga. They were all at Riverend when the virus killed Markon and several guests. I think it was Anaria, the Falkan princess, Tenner’s sister, who killed herself when her son died, and Prince Draven of Malakasia died of the same virus in the next Twinmoon.’

  ‘The virus we now suspect was Nerak?’ Steven queried.

  ‘In one Twinmoon the descendants of King Remond and the ruling families of Eldarn were toppled.’ Brynne leaned towards Mark; he wrapped an arm around her waist.

  ‘But not Marek,’ Steven said hoping he was beginning to get the family genealogy organised in his mind.

  ‘Correct,’ Garec confirmed. ‘Marek Whitward was the first Malakasian dictator to rule Eldarn from Welstar Palace.’

  ‘But his legitimacy was questioned.’ Steven remembered their conversation atop Seer’s Peak.

  ‘Right again,’ Brynne said. ‘Marek was believed to be the bastard child of Princess Mernam and a member of Prince Draven’s court.’

  ‘So any Malakasian claim to the Eldarni throne is illegitimate,’ Mark said thoughtfully.

  ‘Some believe so.’ Garec sipped from his goblet. ‘Although it’s been nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons and no one really thinks about it any longer.’

  ‘Sallax does,’ Brynne said quietly.

  Mark continued trying to understand. ‘Tenner gave up the Falkan throne to be in Rona. He built a career there as a doctor, but he was really there to protect King Markon?’

  ‘Not King Markon,’ Garec corrected. ‘Markon never wanted to be a king. He wanted the five lands to unite, to share resources in education, commerce and medicine. He was happy to rule Rona, but he wanted to see Eldarn reunited under the collective governance of King Remond’s descendants.’

  ‘Parliamentary government,’ Mark reflected. ‘Good for him.’

  ‘But he was killed before it could be established,’ Brynne snuggled in close to Mark, who tightened his grip around her slim form. ‘Tenner was one of the most powerful people in Eldarn at the time. If he hid these pages in the fireplace, they must mean something.’

  ‘Brynne, read it out, will you?’ Steven asked. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, as Brynne looked over the brittle pages.

  To whomever finds these notes:

  I will not stand on ceremony; there is no time. If these documents are discovered after my death, they should be considered my last testament. Their contents do not supercede or nullify anything I have written in an official context or in my personal papers. Those can be found in the Falkan archives at my family home in Orindale. These notes are my last testament, because they contain information critical to the continuation of the Ronan and Falkan family lines. The royal houses of Rona and Praga lie in ruins. With my sweet sister’s death, I alone am left to carry on the Falkan line and to date I do not have a living heir. Word has reached us here in Estrad that the Larion Senate has been destroyed and only the Larion Senator Kantu remains, but his whereabouts are unknown. He no doubt waits, gathering information to combat this virus that hunts us all down. But in my capacity as Professor of Medicine, I state here that the deaths of Prince Markon and Princess Anis were not caused by a virus. There is no virus that is so selective as to limit its impact to members of one family. Their deaths are the direct result of something sinister, something evil, something that seeks to supplant Eldarn’s leadership with terror, chaos and fear.

  Thus far, it has proven effective. Over the last Twinmoon, the arable lands of my beloved Falkan have been razed and farmers murdered, unfairly suspected of growing the grain or harvesting the fruit that killed Prince Markon or that drove Princess Anis to murder. I say now, though it is too late for them, that they are not the guilty parties. There have been riots at the markets. Flocks of sheep and herds of cattle have been slaughtered and left to rot in the Ronan sun and the harbours at Southport, Estrad, Strandson and Orindale have become battle zones as ships carrying wine, fleeces and foodstuffs have been summarily boarded and sunk, or burned to the waterline by terrified citizens.

  Princess Danae waits quietly in her chambers to die. She will never rule this country now. Prince Danmark remains confined to his chambers, a mad shadow of his former self. He too will never recover from his encounter with this virus. The Ronan people have demanded an audience with their new ruler and I do not know how much longer I will be able to convince them that he is alive and well, but remains in private, mourning for his father. My ruse will certainly not last through the next Twinmoon.

  By the gods of the Northern Forest, I am tired.

  Princess Detria struggles to maintain order in Praga, but her people know she and Ravena are too old to produce new heirs. Anis was Ravena’s last child, and Ravena, in her grief, confines herself to her country home. Detria is strong, but she is old and I worry that the uncertain future of Praga will kill her if the virus does not.

  I must return to Falkan to salvage what is left of my sister’s court and bring peace to my people, but I will not leave until I have assured the future of the Ronan line. It is of this I need now to write. Regona Carvic, a servant of no noble birth, has lain with Prince Danmark for this last Moon in an effort to produce an heir to the Eldarni throne. It has been an ugly business and I know I will one day be held accountable for my actions over these past days. Regona ranks among the most strong-willed and loyal people I have ever known; it is my misfortune that our acquaintance came so late.

  At long last, this very evening, I am confident she carries a child and I have asked my valet to escort her north, where she will give birth in hiding as an adopted family member to the merchant Weslox Thurvan of Randel. When the current turmoil surrounding the royal family subsides, I will return to Estrad and stand by the child as he or she assumes leadership of the Ronan court and the Ronan people.

  I have given my support and duty to the Ronan prince for my entire adult life because he was the rightful King of Eldarn. His vision to see Eldarn reunited in a representative government shall not die while I live.

  Finally, I recognise that I too am a target for the virus that has killed my friends and relatives. If it has sought to kill the heirs of Eldarn, as I believe, I am certainly at risk and might be taken at any moment. Therefore, in the wake of Markon’s death last Twinmoon, I took Etrina Lippman of Capehill to wife. Although we have done this in secret, it is a lawful union. She is a Falkan noblewoman of good family and I can think of no one better able to carry on our work to bring peace and prosperity to Eldarn. She does not love me, but these times demand sacrifice, and her bravery and commitment are a model for us all. One day we may have the luxury of time and love may follow, but for now we are content that Etrina and I have succeeded in conceiving an heir to the Falkan throne. Should I perish, a victim of this demon plague, Etrina will go immediately into hiding and ensure our child will grow up safely, that he or she may eventually take on the mantle of rulership of my beloved Falka
n.

  I wait now only to hear of Regona’s safe arrival in Randel. A court doctor has been ordered to force-feed Danae while I am away, and I will pray daily that she comes through her grief to find something for which to live before I return.

  I have put these things in motion. My own efforts, and those of my two brave, patriotic, loyal women, Regona Carvic and Etrina Lippman, may be the only way to ensure Eldarn’s future. Prince Draven survives in Malakasia and young Marek stands to inherit the throne should his father pass on as well. Marek is a good-hearted, well-read young man. I have sent word for Draven and Marek to meet me in Orindale next Twinmoon. Perhaps, together with Detria and Kantu, we can rebuild what has so quickly fallen into ruin.

  May Prince Markon’s vision for Eldarn become reality.

  In my own hand, by me,

  Tenner Wynne of Orindale, Prince of Falkan

  For several moments, no one spoke; only the crackling fire and Lahp’s resonant breathing could be heard. Then Brynne paged back through the document, in case she’d missed something. Finding nothing new, she carefully folded the pages and passed them across the table to Steven. ‘We need to keep that,’ she said, embarrassed she had broken the silence with something obvious.

  Placing the parchment in his inside jacket pocket, Steven asked, ‘Did Tenner die before he knew about Marek?’

  ‘He did,’ Garec replied. ‘Riverend Palace burned before Draven died so Nerak must have gone from Estrad to Malakasia.’