“What would you do in my stead?” Bart pressed.
The captain looked only slightly uncomfortable; they had shared a lot together since leaving Eracia, and the barrier between them was growing thinner every day. “I’d go back home and fuck those nomads bloody, sir. But I know you’re doing your best, sir.”
Bart felt his despair being replaced by fury, impotent fury. “How can people not care about their families, Paul? It’s not right.”
Paul made a poker face. “Can’t say how you—I mean rich people—think, sir. But the way we common people look at it, looks like children squabbling over honey, sir. No disrespect meant.”
“They only see themselves rising to the top of society, becoming the next duke or duchess. They don’t really worry about the thousands slaving under the yoke of the nomads. They don’t care about the damage. They think things will sort themselves out around them.”
“Well, sir, that’s how it’s been always. Can’t expect them to change their minds just so.”
Bart huffed. He had been one of them until a year ago. I did change, though.
They left the manse. Half a dozen sentries, armed with long spears, watched them go. The square in front of the palace was busy, merchants, petitioners, officers arguing with their soldiers, men and women alike, gawkers who had nothing better to do.
A man with shoulders as wide as a door was chiseling the features of King Sergei into a slab of granite, a new monument that would remind the citizens of Roalas who their ruler was. Several apprentices and journeymen were running about with tools and large brushes, cleaning up after their master. Any remnants of Emperor Adam’s legacy had been torn down, hidden away. Every building in sight had long streamers hanging from rooftops, displaying Parusite colors. One of the houses was being renovated, its front covered in scaffolding. There was going to be a temple there, Bart knew. A small price to pay, given the peace and order the king had brought with him. Commerce continued, the roads were safe, and the social structure of Roalas remained virtually unchanged; a token service of faith seemed only appropriate.
Bart headed for the Street of Lights, ignoring the bustle, when he saw a thick procession arriving from the nearby Victory Boulevard. Men riding olifaunts. Bart recognized the golden smile of the front mahout. It was Captain Speinbate.
The Eracian rich and posh scurried away from the big gray animals. The throng of buyers and ladies enjoying the sun rushed into small alleys and into shops, away from the monstrous beasts. When you spotted one at a distance, you could not really guess the sheer size of them. But when they lumbered through the streets, passed trees or horses, you got the right idea and felt the need to step aside. Their bulk amazed you every time.
The mercenary was back from scouring the countryside, where he hunted for irregularities, Bart knew, in the form of dodged taxes, fickle loyalties, and treason. King Sergei had even kept his promise to the Borei and granted him a meaningless title, but should he ever decide to settle in Parus, he would be one of the king’s lords. Even the Borei captain was better off than him.
Which reminded him…
“Come with me, Paul.” And he headed away from the White Swan, toward the lower parts of the city.
He found Junner at the West Gate, as he had hoped. The mercenary beamed as if he had seen his long-lost brother return home.
“Lord Count! What a surprise!”
Bart saw the mahout was trying to convince a girl too young for anything other than innocent childhood to come with him. She did not seem to understand much of what he was implying, but she was staring at the silver in his open palm.
“Let the girl be,” the count said. Junner straightened up. The child scampered away.
“Lord Count, you are hurting my business,” the Borei said playfully.
Bart saw a Red Cap woman saunter their way. Not walking directly toward them, no. She was probably in the City Watch, doing her routine patrol of the gates.
“Let’s go out there.” Bart pointed toward the muddy riverbank and fishing wharves. “How would you like to improve your business?”
Junner sat himself on a piece of rock, a siege leftover, and stared at the barefoot women hauling baskets of crabs around.
A barge loaded with timber was gliding lazily from the north, coming round the corner, tiny waves rippling off to the sides. People started yelling at the boat’s pilot, as he was steering too wide. The vessel started drifting into the rushes on the far side. Screeching birds exploded in flight, protesting their treatment.
“What do you have in mind, Lord Count?” Junner asked, his face turning serious.
Bart licked the inside of his lips. He let his mind rethink its decision, looking for any alternative, any other option that might stop him from making a business deal with the mercenary. He did not like the idea, but there was nothing else he could think of.
“You are awfully silent, Lord Count. Junner might think this is dangerous,” the mercenary teased.
Bart looked at Paul. The captain nodded. There was no need saying it. Loyalty, earned through simple respect.
“First of all, Junner, I need your promise you will keep quiet,” Bart began, his heart hammering. What he was doing might be considered treason. But how could it be treason if he did it in the name of his country?
“Lord Count, you insult me. I can keep secrets so dark I wouldn’t tell them to myself.”
“This is no joke, friend,” Bart insisted.
Junner sobered completely. “I swear it. On my dead mother’s soul.”
Bart knelt by the Borei, staring at him. “I need some people removed.”
The mercenary tapped his chest. “Dead?”
Bart hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded. “Dead.”
CHAPTER 15
Amalia was going home.
Well, not really home, but back to her realm. She had only been to the north a few times in her life, accompanying Father on his tours, when he wanted and needed to show the locals that he really preferred peaceful solutions to their quarrels.
The column was slowly rumbling away from Pain Daye, following the turns and bumps of the Northern Road. They should turn west soon and strike for Athesia, she knew.
It was midday, warm but not too hot, with the sky deep blue and dappled in clouds. There was a fine cover of dust billowing from the thousands of hooves and feet smacking the hard-packed earth and the odd cobble still remaining. Three legions moved to the front; the fourth trailed far behind, after the straggling bulk of refugees. Moving them was a cruel business, but it had to be done. Even she would have done the same.
Both Agatha and she were privileged to travel with the soldiers. They could rely on good food and protection, day and night. Amalia could only imagine what happened half a mile down the road.
Their cart plodded on stubbornly, its one ox moving the cargo inexorably closer to the border, the hunched driver too busy watching the land around him to pester the two girls in the back. Behind them followed his son, his wagon carrying a fletcher, a bowyer, and a boy with a pretty voice who sang all kinds of army songs. Wire cages stuffed with geese banged against the wagon side with the uneven roll of the rear right wheel, and each time, the birds complained, honking mournfully. To their left, a robed, barefoot man walked, seemingly unconcerned by the thorny bushes and cracked stones. Whoever he was, he kept a decent pace with the animals.
One of Pete’s soldiers cantered by, riding in the opposite direction, his crossbow resting against the pommel. He nodded at the two of them, then vanished from sight, obscured by dust and the hulking wooden bones of carts.
“He likes you,” Agatha chirped.
“Another one?” Amalia said, feeling exasperated. Trying to stay invisible was becoming more difficult.
Just a month ago, she had wondered why her half brother was lingering at the mansion, why he did not move. Now, she was regretting her silent wish. The travel conditions were far from gentle, and she was hardly used to the harshness of the road. With this
new strange experience came all the fresh dangers of blundering and exposing herself.
Well, she was going back to Athesia, and that meant something. She could perhaps start formulating her plan to get control back in her hands. But it also meant more familiar faces and a much higher chance of being spotted, recognized, betrayed. Even by accident.
They were coming upon a village, one of dozens they had passed in the last weeks, a dot on some rich councillor’s map, a dot that produced milk or cotton, or provided herbs and turnips or maybe tools.
People, a sorry lot of them, stood at the entrance to their tiny world and waved. Everyone was there, men, women, children, the elderly, dogs, sheep, a lone mule. One of the soldiers detached from the convoy and handed over two baskets to the village head. Whatever was inside struck a chord, because the villagers blessed the soldier as he rode back into the main body.
Subtle, Brother, very subtle. Soldiers usually took, never gave back. Her half brother was a smart man.
Bastard.
Amalia wondered what he intended to do once they crossed into Athesia. The loyalists would surely follow him, but what about the Caytorean mercenaries? He was leading paid soldiers into battle in a foreign land. Sooner or later, they might get tired of glory and dying and want to go home to their families. What would he do then?
Agatha said Pete liked the man. Everyone liked him. Some even swore by his name. He had won the hearts of the younger men. Amalia wasn’t so sure about the older ones, who had served many years in private armies and respected no value other than money. Would he keep them indefinitely, feeding them money, or send them away once his task was complete? What would they do then, if he dismissed them from his ranks? Worse, what if they refused to let go of the succulent prize called Athesia?
It all sounded painfully familiar. Her father had done the same thing. Then again, he had been an Eracian, leading Eracians into war, defending his realm. And then, he had carved his own piece of sanity from the realms and offered hopeless men a second chance for life. Not all had stayed, but most.
Was James trying to mimic Father’s success? Surely he must not be that desperate.
What if he does succeed? her inner voice hissed.
How do you earn love? How do you make people follow you blindly, devote their lives to you? she wondered. She knew she had no answer, and it pained her. Because she could have been her father’s daughter and done things like him, only she had wasted her one opportunity.
They obeyed me, but they never really believed in me.
She missed Gerald.
The day stretched, and she sat there in silence, too morose to talk. As the dusk began settling, the convoy slowed, getting ready to camp. Another day, another stride of land covered. The carts moved off the road, against the grove of wild chestnut trees, forming small, defensible circles. Then, there would be fires lit inside the rings of wagons, sheltered from wind and sight, and people would converge to talk, drink, listen to music, gamble. Amalia stayed in her cart, sulking, alone. She would sometimes walk the perimeter of the camp, to get her numb legs moving, but her heart hammered with dread each time. Most of the soldiers already knew her as Pete’s second favorite, so they did not bother her, but there could always be some fool, bored or drunk or newly recruited, who might not know the rules.
In the morning, there was a wispy mist veiling the earth, and it left a damp kiss on everything. Amalia rushed into the bushes, peed nervously, then came back to rinse her mouth with salt water and eat whatever the mess offered. It was a lean but practical diet. Good food, all considering.
For the next three days, nothing remarkable happened. Caytor rolled away in hot, sunny silence. In the next village, three of the local youths asked to enlist, and James’s captains gladly took them in. Farther down the road, they met a pair of Borei mercenaries who asked for a chance at war in his ranks. How they got that far north, no one really asked. No one cared.
Agatha relayed what stories Pete told her, but Amalia was feeling worried. She had not personally seen her brother in many weeks, and she was getting frustrated. She knew nothing of what he planned.
The two Borei proved to be a menace. She saw them everywhere, trying to sell trinkets, trying to buy women, trying to cheat people out of their money. They had this baby bear traveling with them, locked in a cage in a small two-wheel cart lugged by a third, riderless horse, and it brayed annoyingly, loudly all the time, sometimes into the night. You would think bears roared; not this one, it made a sad sound, like a broken war horn.
She once saw that poor animal perform, dancing on its hind paws to the beat of a shaker, with a chain leading from a ring in its nose to the Borei’s wrist. If the bear slacked or refused to dance, the second mercenary would flick it with a leather switch. Amalia would have expected people to be horrified, disgusted, but they only laughed merrily, entertained to boot.
Amalia knew her father had never tolerated animal abuse. This James did not care.
Bastard.
Then, there was rain, a midsummer torrent that came suddenly and vanished. All it did was settle the dust, but Amalia felt refreshed by the cool drops, felt cleansed somehow.
Then, there were the hangings. Close to a mining town called Varip, James’s scouts found two ragged, starved Oth Danesh hiding in a shanty at the outskirts of an abandoned iron shaft. Then, the town mayor asked them to hang a boy charged with rape. That monster Xavier took charge of the execution and set three nooses round a fat branch of an oak. The boy wept, so they hanged him first. The pirates did not say anything; they were too weak to care. Most of the people seemed to approve of these harsh methods, and loved James even more because of them. The mayor gave them a wagonful of iron bolts. Amalia was a little worried. She knew how her father had dispensed justice, and this wasn’t it.
That week proved to be full of activity. Close to the border with Athesia, bandits felt free to roam the land, and they did not expect four legions of army to come their way. You could not even call the few quick, bloody engagements skirmishes with the speed they had ended. But more tree branches were left sagging with condemned men.
Amalia caught a glimpse of James when he called for a two-day stop about a week from Athesia. He claimed he wanted his men well rested before moving in, and that meant repairing broken equipment, replenishing missing tools and weapons, and expanding the security perimeter.
Her bastard half brother almost came close enough to touch in one of his morale-boosting tours that evening. Surrounded by his lackeys and killers, he steered into the thick of the baggage camp, cheering the small folk and laborers, reassuring them in his victory. Overall, the mood was high, and people seemed to trust him. His gimmicks were paying off. The little gestures of generosity and the brusque treatment of criminals resonated with the simple people.
Amalia stood and watched, and he drifted past her. She knew she should have turned away, looked away, bowed, pretended to be busy, but some inner need froze her solid, and she stood paralyzed, her eyes locked on his smiling face. For a moment, the emperor’s eyes touched hers, and then he glided past as if she did not exist.
She noticed Agatha watching her with pale terror, her eyes bright and wide in the gloom. Amalia only shrugged and went back to working.
Amalia’s hands were full of filthy laundry those two days, her skin red and flaking and painful to the touch. Her lower back hurt, two pinpoints of warm annoyance budding just below her kidneys. Even Agatha was forced to stay with her and sleep in the cart, because Pete was engaged with checking on the troops and preparing for the incursion into Athesia. A serious mood descended on the camp. You could feel the anticipation, the fear, the excitement. You could hear the clamor for revenge from the Athesian refugees.
On the morning of the third day, she expected the army to break camp and head west, but they stayed. She was not sure why. The sky was clear, there did not seem to be anything wrong, but the followers were told to remain put and keep mending gear and tools.
Amalia
wished she could be a bird so she might fly over her half brother’s tent and listen. She was desperate to learn more about his intentions, his fears, his doubts, his reasoning. She found her hopeless state maddening. After years of being the focus of importance and news, her insignificance chafed like a raw mosquito bite, tiny, persistent, growing more painful with every little scratch.
Then, her wish was answered.
Two of Pete’s men wandered into their camp and sat down for a quiet smoke, leaning their heads against the wheels of a cart, legs stretched out and crossed, weapons rested casually across the lap. Amalia found herself on the other side, folding dried-out blankets. At first, she felt an urge to walk away, but these were Pete’s men; they would not bother her. So she stayed.
“Saw one of them on the hill early this morning, just after dawn,” a gruff voice spoke.
“Really?” the other one asked, his tone nasal.
“Yes,” the first one said. “Sure about that. That was a Parusite, all right.”
Amalia stopped folding the blankets, exhaled slowly, and perked her ears.
The one with the clogged nose coughed, hawked, and spat loudly. His voice came out the same. “Damn. Bloody Parusites. So what the fuck they want?”
“Dunno. Looks like a fucking scout. Wanted to check on us.”
“So that king allows himself to send his troops into Caytor, eh. Thought he would know better after we defeated his pirates the last time.”
“I heard he was after them himself. They got out of hand with all that burning and pillaging.”
“Fucking animals. So now what? He wants a go with us, then? We gonna teach him a lesson.”
The gruff speaker said something unintelligible. Amalia crouched, pretending to check one of the blankets still awaiting folding.
“And I said so,” the man continued. “Well, he knows ‘bout the emperor, so he sends his horsemen out, ‘cause he don’t fancy a surprise, right. Now he knows we’re coming.”
“You reckon there gonna be more fighting?”
The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) Page 15