Mordraud, Book One

by Fabio Scalini

  Carrying a child was a strange experience.

  Larois called on her often, and helped her with small everyday chores. Which amounted to practically nothing, as Adraman was always extremely thoughtful. Instead of delegating her care to the staff, he’d thrown himself headlong into his new role of expectant father. He even made meals for her. Sometimes he got his work out of the way in the morning, while she was still asleep, so he could devote the rest of his time to her.

  She’d got to the point, during the first few days, where she could no longer stand the sight of him. But it hadn’t lasted long. Adraman was such a solid and secure figure that he instilled in her a peace she had never known. She’d rediscovered a man who, once he’d hung up his guise of soldier and nobleman, was definitely not at all bad.

  ‘Instead, Mordraud...’ she mused as she stared at the rooftops moistened by the glow of the bonfires. She missed his hot-headedness, his energy, the embarrassment he felt every time he had to talk to her, and that vanished when he descended on her. He was similar to Adraman in some traits. Which didn’t help her get him out of her head.

  “Is everything alright?”

  Deanna turned and lowered her handkerchief to smile at Adraman. In his hands was a tray with a steaming teapot, and two cups.

  “Come inside, it’s not good for you to breathe that air.”

  He seemed far more tense than normal. Deanna knew he didn’t like his work now he no longer managed the front – in fact he detested it. Hardly surprising, since using soldiers to clear the fields of corpses was a foul task. And keeping order in the town was even worse. Adraman loved Eld, and seeing both the fief and its people reduced to that state was gnawing away at him. But he was usually good at concealing his suffering.

  “You seem worried,” she asked him, as she poured a cup of herbal tea. He did the same and smiled, with little conviction. He didn’t want to talk about it with her.

  “I’d like to know what’s upsetting you so much...”

  “They’re rather... unpleasant matters,” he replied. Deanna stayed silent and stared at him, until Adraman understood he wouldn’t be getting out of it all that easily. He gave in to her stubbornness in the end.

  “The plague’s worsening.”

  “How much?” inquired Deanna, concerned. The news reaching them from the countryside had already been tragic for months.

  “We’ve had our first cases here in town...”

  “What’s Eldain going to do?! Have you discussed it?”

  Deanna picked up on a flash of unexpected unease in Adraman’s eyes. The pestilence seemed to be not the only preoccupation troubling him.

  “Is something wrong with Eldain?” she asked.

  “I’m worried about him. I’ve never seen him so... so...” Adraman could not even get the words out, for his anguish. Deanna took his hand and waited for him to recover. “It’s as if the Long Winter never released him... He’s weary, drained, and says things I don’t understand.”

  “What does he say?”

  “I’m certain you won’t like this one bit.”

  “Try me anyway,” she returned.

  Adraman took another sip of tea and went on in a wisp of a voice. “He says I need to get ready.”

  “For... what?”

  She realised she didn’t want to know any more, but it was too late.

  “I don’t know... It could mean many things.”

  “You don’t have to go off again, do you?!” Deanna’s voice was broken and squeaky, as if driven out by her contracted stomach. “He won’t want to... attack?”

  “For love of the Gods, I really don’t know!” Adraman exclaimed in distress. “It’s a nightmare out there, Deanna... Even if the Long Winter’s over, the situation hasn’t at all straightened out as we’d hoped... We might not make it through the winter, if Cambria decided to invade right now!”

  “Don’t say that even as a joke!”

  Her flimsy and fleeting peace creaked menacingly. Her fragility pushed to resurface and gain control.

  “You mustn’t worry, darling.” Adraman got up and kissed her. “It’s all in hand for now... I shouldn’t have spoken to you about this business – it’s merely my speculation...”

  “But I want you to tell me everything...” she murmured, with tears in her eyes. “Because if you have to set off again one day... I...”

  “I’m not going anywhere, believe me. Eldain has taken me off the front. He told me I can stay home... at last.”

  Adraman smiled tenderly, but didn’t share the full conversation. Eldain had hinted at something else. That her husband was too old to live on a battlefield. That Eldain didn’t want to see him burnt out and sucked dry far from home. That he should savour a spot of tranquillity for once. He’d practically ordered him to stay at Deanna’s side. His life as a soldier had come to an end along with that accursed winter.

  He was happy he’d received those instructions. But he couldn’t erase certain things from his memory so easily. His men, the decisions to take, the constant danger of committing a mistake. He was still a soldier, but he struggled unsuccessfully to forget this. For he was very much one of Eldain’s men, beyond any other futile desire of his own.

  Deanna wept quietly, her cheek resting on his chest.

  “I love you, Adraman...”

  “I love...”

  Her voice faded. Adraman thought she’d dozed off.

  In the room’s silence, he heard a drip patter on the floor. Then another. He placed a hand between his wife’s legs, automatically, striving not to let panic overcome him.

  Fresh blood. Gushing.

  “FOR LOVE OF THE GODS!” he wailed, terror-stricken. “ADRINA! ADRINA!”

  Noise in the hall. Footsteps on the stairs.

  “HELP! SHE NEEDS HELP! SHE’S NOT WELL!”

  Deanna could hear these sounds muffled and far-off, as if through a heavy blanket. She was no longer in her lounge. She had no belly.

  She was naked, and stained with blood from head to foot.

  Around her, only rubble. Eld was in flames.

  Before her, two men in armour, as tall and hulking as tree trunks. They were playing with a newborn baby. Tossing it to one another. Punching, hitting and slapping it.

  Hands grabbed her from behind, throwing her to the soaked ground strewn with innards and lumps of charred wood. Something penetrated her, and burnt like acid.

  Nobody could help her. Because she knew they were all dead.

  “ADRAMAN!” she yelled voicelessly, but no reply came. Her son cried and moved his tiny arms broken by the blows.

  They’d abandoned her. They’d left her on her own forever.

  “MORDRAUD!”

  ***

  ‘Deanna...’ Mordraud mused sadly.

  Since the fighting had finished, he’d had too much time to think about her. And about his family, and his brothers. Gwern, Dunwich, Eglade. The Stranger. Not that he had anything better to focus on. The Rampart was in such a crippled state as to leave no refuge for the imagination.

  The soldiers were decimated by the epidemic. Whole battalions had departed, fleeing the areas hit by illness, without following specific orders or planned strategies. It was a chaotic migration, fuelled purely by the fear of having to die. The Allied forces were in shreds.

  The only meagre consolation was that the Imperial Army didn’t seem much better off. Since the Long Winter had come to an end, the battles could be counted on one hand. Six months had gone by, and now another winter was on its way. Despite the warmth, the clear sky and the abundant season, the soil had yielded few fruits, and the pestilence and famine stood together as the new war fronts. Those soldiers who were still alive and in vaguely good health had some hateful and repulsive duties. Protect the food sent from the Allied territories in the east, isolate the contaminated villages and smother the constant uprisings. Practically nobody was thinking about the front now. The war against Cambria seemed over.

  But if it all started up again sudden
ly, then that really would be the end. Of everything.

  ‘Maybe that’s why Eldain has called a general assembly...’ Mordraud pondered, while, with Berg and a couple of section captains, he crossed the fiefdom’s drawbridge. It wasn’t the customary meeting at the front, which he’d attended only twice. This was something bigger. He represented the assault regiments, since Adraman had handed over command of the Rampart operations to Berg.

  A lightning career, his, helped along by Adraman, but especially by a spate of events he had survived within the span of just a few years. The Battle of Fire. The Long Winter, even if he certainly wasn’t to credit for its dismantling. The plague.

  He hadn’t seen him in a long time, he considered. Rumours told of an Adraman in family-father version – incredible to believe for all but the man himself. They’d talked much, during the long days of snow and cold in that accursed winter, and Adraman had often confided to him how much he wished to spend some time with Deanna, live with her, and at least attempt to salvage what little still remained of their marriage. Mordraud hoped he’d succeeded. Adraman deserved it, after an entire lifetime of sacrifice.

  “Will Adraman be there too?” he asked Berg as they dismounted from their horses to proceed on foot through the streets of the fiefdom. Many other captains had already arrived, journeying from every station on the front. The war had condensed on the Rampart in recent years, and it was often forgotten how precious the work was by the other units positioned along the line of conflict. It was also thanks to them if Cambria had never managed to penetrate their lands.

  “I don’t think so. I heard his son was born, a few days ago.”

  “Really? It’s a boy, then...” Mordraud answered, showing little apparent interest. Instead, inside his stomach was in tumult. They were speaking about his son. Thinking about him was a torture he was yet unable to bear. He hadn’t the faintest idea what being a father could mean, yet by contrast he was fully tasting the suffering of being one while nobody could find out. Of not being able to cradle his own son in his arms. He didn’t even know what they’d called him. He hoped it was at least a fine name.

  “Deanna had a few complications, but the healers say she’ll pull through,” Berg informed him. “Believe me, I was also in a sorry state after that battle against the Imperial Lances and look at me now... They’ve made me as good as new!”

  Mordraud nodded, gazing elsewhere, struggling not to show how much he want to race to her to see how she was. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure he’d hold out when faced with her and his son together, with Adraman at their side.

  The streets of the fief were in order, yet empty. Most of the houses had been sealed up – a sign that who’d lived there had died or had been sent away due to the plague. He had never seen Eld so weak, wounded and oppressed by pain. The passers-by’s faces were dark, and bruised from hunger and anger. The few stray dogs were fearfully scrawny, and almost as bony as the rag-clad children who sat out on the doorsteps and stared at them bleakly as they went past. Mordraud wondered how Larois was, but preferred not to investigate further. She was likely dead, and he didn’t want to see her tavern shut up and mauled.

  It seemed as if the population had lost their nerve, ground down by too lengthy a series of harassments. The Alliance’s backbone was at breaking point.

  “Or perhaps I was wrong... I wasn’t expecting to see him outside his love-nest...” blurted Berg with his usual straightforward tone, raising a hand to greet Adraman, who was approaching them briskly. He was alone, free of armour but with his sword secured around his waist. Mordraud wasn’t accustomed to seeing him in civilian clothing. Although the signs of time had all left their mark, he was still an attractive and vigorous man, except for a slightly awkward gait from the leg he’d broken in battle. Mordraud had never seen him so radiant.

  “Lads, I was hoping to bump into you... I trust your journey went well,” Adraman exclaimed. He beamed at everything and everyone. In one fell blow, he’d knocked off twenty years of hardships. “Mordraud, I was looking for you...”

  “First a proper greeting, Adraman!” he replied, stretching out his arms. The two friends hugged each other tightly, without speaking. They hadn’t seen each other since before he’d set out with Gwern. It seemed like a century had gone by.

  “Congratulations... on what you did for all of us.”

  Mordraud promised himself he’d explain the truth to him, but preferred to put it off to a better moment. That wasn’t the right occasion, he told himself. Adraman should be allowed to think only of his family.

  “I’m the one who has to congratulate you! I heard about the baby... You must be very pleased, I imagine.”

  Adraman slapped him gently on the shoulder, confirming with a grin as broad as the sky. Mordraud returned the smile, attempting to appear just as happy, even if he wasn’t. All he was hoping was that Adraman didn’t suggest one thing.

  “Come home with me... I want you to meet him!”

  That Adraman didn’t ask him to see his son.

  “We have to go to the castle now, the assembly will be starting shortly... Perhaps later, what do you say?!”

  “Eldain has asked me to attend, so he’ll wait for me before beginning. We’ve got all the time we want. Come on!”

  Mordraud dithered, and Berg didn’t come to his aid. “Go on, Mordraud! So you can tell us if he’s as lovely as his mummy or as ugly as his daddy!”

  “You wouldn’t dare...” thundered Adraman, threatening him in jest with his open hand.

  “Okay... let’s go.”

  Mordraud surrendered. It was the worst thing that could happen to him, yet he was dying to see Deanna and the child. Two different moods that had already gutted him by the time they reached the house.

  “They’re upstairs. Deanna’s resting, so we have to be quiet...” Adraman slipped off his boots and sword, and Mordraud copied him. They went up in silence, opened the door to the room, and entered. Adrina was sitting on the side of the bed, crochet hook in hand. When she saw the master, she got up without uttering a word and went out to leave them alone, not without shooting a piercing glance at Mordraud. The look of someone who’d guessed.

  But in that instant, only she counted.

  Deanna was asleep, stretched out on a mound of white pillows. A light sheet covered her up to her chest, which rose and fell slowly, following her breathing. She was pale, strained and dishevelled, but she was fine. And she was beautiful, as always. Resting on her, snuggling up between her arms and the sheet, Mordraud saw his son.

  He was ready to resist any angst, all the pain in the world, envy, rage.

  But not joy.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood. The midwife said it can happen with a first child,” whispered Adraman as he approached the bed. He stroked her hair with a gentleness Mordraud thought impossible. His mind was in turmoil. That image of peace was the loveliest thing he’d seen in his whole life.

  Adraman untangled the newborn from his mother’s arm, kissed him on the forehead and went back to Mordraud.

  And held the child out to him.

  “No... I can’t... I don’t know what I’m supposed to do...” he stammered in shock. The last time had been with Gwern, when he was just born. Too much time had passed since then. Too many different lives.

  “It’s like walking. You learn straight away,” Adraman replied, smiling. Mordraud took a step back, but in vain. He had his son in his arms. A lovely chubby healthy little boy.

  Eyes as deep as the sea.

  “In our lands, we say a child’s true name is the first name pronounced by its mother after giving birth,” uttered Adraman. “It’s a custom that hasn’t been used for a good while, except among humble folk, who don’t have to respect certain rules regarding relatives. But I want to honour this tradition.”

  “What’s his name?” Mordraud whispered with barely a voice. He was a gorgeous baby. With hands as small as chestnuts. He opened and closed his mouth, yawning, disturbed by that intrusion int
o his peaceful nap.

  “Deanna screamed a single name, right when he was being born.”

  A shiver ran up his spine, invaded his skull and pulped his brain. The baby grew huge and heavy, like the shame he was feeling at that moment.

  “Mordraud. That’s what I’ve decided to call him.”

  No longer able to hold out, he burst out crying. Tear after tear, as he went on smiling for joy.

  His son was called Mordraud.

  XXX

  “I haven’t seen Ice yet. Is he late?”

  Adraman looked about. The hall was bristling with soldiers, and each one represented a unit in the Alliance’s army. Eldain’s call had been answered by nearly all. Only the commanders’ deputies had remained along the defence lines. An extremely hazardous risk, however necessary it might be.

  “I haven’t seen Ice for ten days,” Berg replied. “He went to coordinate the men of the eastern allies he acts on behalf of, and when we set out, he hadn’t returned yet.”

  “I fear you won’t be seeing him again...” Adraman exclaimed. “He can’t have taken well to what he’d have viewed as an insult from Mordraud and I during the meeting at the front... when we forbid him to carry through the withdrawal of the troops he represents.”

  “You think he’s gone back east?”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard.”

  Eldain sat on a tall-backed wooden chair. An emaciated throne, like the man it belonged to. When they’d all settled to their places, he stood and greeted those present with a movement of the hand.

  “The Rinn family has ordered its troops to leave the front.”

  The room was shaken by an unrestrained buzz. Eldain had opened by going directly to the point. Adraman looked at Berg in dismay, but the man knew nothing of this, and likewise all the others. Dramatic news. Many covered their faces, pale and drained of all hope.