by Megan Derr
Jader took the seat opposite. "Yesterday, I was speaking with a couple of your guards when I happened to pass them in the south-side aviary hall. Lord Kamir chanced by, and your guards took him brutally to task for wearing flowers in his hair." He explained the matter start to finish, still angry to see Lord Kamir treated so horribly. If it had been one of Kamir's siblings, Jader would not have been surprised. His sister was a hard-hearted woman, and his brother little better. Every time Jader interacted with them, it was hard to reconcile them with the sweet, shy Kamir. Why was it he knew the two unpleasant siblings, but not the pretty one with soft-looking skin who wore flowers in his long, thick hair?
Dennar's mouth flattened as Jader finished. "I apologize you had to see my guards behave so, Commander. It's true we've been instructed to be stricter about such things, but those rules are meant to curb regular abusers—those who steal the flowers in large bundles when they can damn well afford to buy proper bouquets. You know the sort: young ninnies who have all the money of kings but spend it in days or resent having to spend it at all, too used to being coddled by their absent parents."
"Yes, quite familiar," Jader said with a sigh. More than a few of them had tormented him through every step of his climb to High Commander, from his first difficult and humiliating days in Harken, throughout his military career, and even now there were some who smiled to his face and sneered behind his back. "I was reluctant to bring the matter up because you do not need me to tell you how to control your men—but I was not happy they were so needlessly malicious to someone as harmless as Lord Kamir."
"You're right to be concerned. I'll take care of the matter, and see that Lord Kamir is issued an apology. It may be too late to rescind the fine—"
"That's already been taken care of," Jader cut in. "You have my gratitude for attending to the rest of it."
"Of course, of course." Dennar smiled again, so brightly he looked much younger than his sixty-odd years for a moment. "High Commander you may be, but I still remember the reckless stripling knocking Mainland fools around my training yard."
Jader grinned. "You're the one who helped me improve instead of throwing me out as advised."
"And all rue that day except me and Lord Lesto," Dennar said with a cackle as he heaved to his feet. "I may be too old to administer discipline personally, but I can still bark at them. I'll send word round when it's done, Commander."
"Thank you, and fair winds, Captain." When he was gone, Jader returned to his desk and papers. Always there was paperwork. Sometimes, he almost missed the days when paperwork was something other people did. Most of the time, he was grateful for it because if he was stuck in his office fighting with paperwork then he wasn't on a battlefield killing people. It was a necessary part of almost every soldier's job, but he was just as happy for the army to forego it as much as possible.
At least the number of Islanders being killed had dropped significantly. It was one of the first things he'd noticed not long after he'd joined. People complained it was because the High King was fussy and weak and nothing like his steel-spined father and grandfather, but why should most of them care? Jader had spoken with every Islander soldier he'd crossed paths with, and nearly all of them had stories to tell of meeting Sarrica, or had a friend who'd met Sarrica, and how he and Lesto had no tolerance for the mistreatment of anyone.
Eventually, not long after meeting Lesto, he had witnessed it for himself—and been the one defended by Lesto and Sarrica over and over again, especially after his being named Deputy High Commander had caused an uproar amongst the nobility and officers. Fortunately, he'd always had almost complete support from the enlisted ranks, and combined with the weight of the High Throne, that went far.
Bit by bit, Islanders were carving out a place, despite their awkward position within the empire itself. Maybe someday he would see an entire mercenary unit of Islanders formed. Fighting was something Islanders traditionally preferred to stay out of, but at least if they formed their own band they would have more authority and choice about who they fought for and how.
Of course, forming a mercenary band required things the Islanders didn't have and were reluctant to pursue, largely for good reason—nearly all of them political, and therefore something Jader preferred to stay out of. His unique history and position made him too biased to take part in the discussions, anyway.
Not to mention it would all bring him more Pantheon-cursed paperwork. He sighed at the stack directly in front of him: requisition forms, which normally would not be his problem, but these were unusual requests for dangerous supplies, some of them illegal in certain parts of the world, all of them highly regulated everywhere in the world. He and his deputy were the only ones who could approve such requests.
Unfortunately, even after two years of being High Commander, he didn't have a Deputy High Commander. No one fit, though he had looked and looked. Some had seemed promising… but he remembered everything Lesto had said and taught him. It wasn't a position to be granted lightly, and until he felt absolutely this is the one, the position would remain vacant. He didn't care how often and loudly the army and Sarrica grumbled at him.
Though he did hope he found someone soon so he could maybe get a few more hours of sleep.
He signed off on two of the requisitions because Penance Gate might earn their name, but they were always honest and clear and damned efficient, but set the other three aside and wrote a note to his head secretary that the Captains of Shadow Bell, Howl of the End, and Bone Taker needed to speak with him. Jader's lip curled at the thought of dealing with Shadow Bell.
By and large, people no longer cared he was an Islander, assuming most even knew, which many didn't. But there were always a few bad fish in the net, and Shadow Bell was firmly of the opinion that Islanders—Farlander sluts—were best used as fodder and the occasional easy fuck. Captain Menari Norring never tried especially hard to change their minds and shared the attitude more than she let on in front of those with the power to punish her for it.
His purple hair, at that. The last time Jader remembered seeing him, Kamir's hair had been a beautiful ocean green. He could not imagine the time required to dye and maintain such hair, but he certainly admired the results.
Pushing the meandering thoughts aside, Jader moved on to his next stack of paperwork, official reports one of his secretaries had written from his much messier drafts. He read them over, pleased only one needed to have corrections made. The rest he signed before melting wax and pressing his seal into them. Once the wax had dried, he set them in the box meant for things that would need to go to Sarrica's office, after official copies were made for the imperial archives.
He glanced at the clock on his desk, a beautiful glass piece with seashells and glass fish captured within, the timepiece in the center of the side facing him, the whole like someone had somehow turned a piece of the ocean into a glass cube. The timepiece itself was a work of art all its own: mother of pearl face, the numbers and hands in gold, and it was so well made that he wound it once in the morning and it kept time almost perfectly the whole day.
It had been delivered to him two days after he'd officially been declared High Commander, with nothing but an unsigned note congratulating him and explaining little details about the clock. Jader had traced it back to a prestigious shop in the city, but the proprietor refused to divulge who had purchased the clock, claiming the customer wanted absolute privacy.
Why they felt compelled to remain anonymous, Jader could not fathom, but he hoped whoever it was had been in his office, had seen that he liked his gift.
Giving up on paperwork since he clearly was not capable of focusing, Jader stood, lifted his sword belt from the back of his chair and buckled it back into place, and grabbed the papers for his secretaries on his way out. Leaving the papers in the appropriate box on his head secretary's desk, smiling at the reproving look Axis gave him, Jader headed off for the banquet hall anticipating lunch.
Halfway there, footsteps came pounding down
the hallway, and Jader stifled a sigh at the lunch he would not be getting as someone called out, "High Commander!"
Jader turned, stared at the two soldiers in uniforms of the imperial army, the harbor bird patch on their right sleeve indicating they were assigned to the harbor garrison. "What's wrong?"
"A lifeboat's come into the harbor carrying Bentan citizens—nobility, we think, but when we left they were still looking for a silver tongue who could speak Bentan, and none of the Bentans seem to speak Harken. But from the state of them, they were lost at sea and we don't know what happened to the rest of the ship."
"Damn. Get my horse." Jader motioned to the second man as the first ran off to see to his horse. "Inform High Consort Allen at once. It's likely we'll need his golden tongue once we've returned to the palace. Return to me once you're finished."
"Yes, Commander!" The man snapped a salute, turned on his heel, and ran off.
Jader strode through the halls of the palace headed for the main courtyard. By the time he'd arrived, his horse was waiting, along with the first guard on a horse of his own. "Let's go."
They rode as quickly as the horses could safely manage, bypassing the public city gates for the private one reserved for the imperial family and the military. Once in the city, the man with him surged forward and started bellowing for people to move, clearing a path for Jader to travel unhindered. He clearly had experience at it, because he was loud and clear and unflinching, and people moved as quickly as their feet could obey.
That meant they reached the harbor garrison in record time. Though the palace wasn't far, the duties of the soldiers overseeing the immense, complex imperial harbors were so consuming and nonstop they required a garrison that paled every other garrison in the empire. It dwarfed even some of the warehouses, which was no mean feat.
Jader stopped in the middle of the main yard and dismounted smoothly, his belt and armor jangling.
Captain Tamith was waiting for him, and she turned sharply on her heel to lead the way inside the garrison as he reached her.
"Have you learned anything more?" Jader asked.
Tamith shook her head. "No, we're having a damnably frustrating time finding a silver tongue. Usually it's not a problem, the ports offer plenty of steady work, but Bentan…"
Jader nodded. Silver tongues who knew Bentan had been in high demand during the war, and there hadn't been all that many to begin with. Too many had wound up dead, or too injured to work much, and many of those who survived had turned to other occupations.
The number of total silver tongues was increasing, thanks to the presence of a High Consort who was the finest silver tongue in the empire, but it wasn't the kind of change that happened quickly. "The High Consort has been notified; if we must wait until we are at the palace to learn anything, we will do so."
"Yes, Commander." She stopped in front of a large set of double doors that led to a guest area, pulled out a heavy ring of keys, and unlocked the left-hand door.
Jader followed her inside, eyes sweeping the room, right hand resting lightly on the hilt of the sword on that hip. A woman and two men sat in a circle of chairs set near the middle of the large general gathering room. They looked up almost as one at the sound of footsteps—and the woman made a choked, scream-sob sound before covering her mouth with one hand.
One of the men leapt to his feet, and even at a distance Jader could see his hands trembling. The other man remained seated, but he stared at Jader like he'd seen a phantom.
Jader slowed his steps, frowned, and looked at Tamith. "What in the Mother Ocean is the matter with them?"
"I have no idea," Tamith said, staring bewildered between Jader and the Bentans. "Something about you alarms them, clearly, but I couldn't imagine what." She started to say more, but a pounding knock came at the door. Crossing the room, she yanked the door open—and a guard and a harried looking woman in the garb of a city clerk stumbled into the room.
"Silver tongue, Captain—Commander!" the guard added hastily as he saw Jader.
"Thank you, Myler," Tamith replied and dismissed him. She turned to the silver tongue. "Your Bentan is passible, I assume?"
The woman cast her a frosty look over the rim of her spectacles. "My Bentan is impeccable."
"Good," Tamith said, and dragged her across the room, all but throwing her toward the Bentans. "Start talking. I want to know why they came here in a lifeboat, if there are other people in need of rescue, and if we're about to have some international incident on our hands."
Casting Tamith a look that would have gotten her put in stocks if she'd been a soldier, the woman adjusted her spectacles and turned to the Bentans—who were all still staring at Jader as though afraid of him.
After a few minutes, the silver tongue turned to them and said, "This is Lord and Lady Beacher, and Lady Beacher's brother, Lord Harmony Stow. They were part of a diplomatic envoy to Illiar and were on their return voyage to Benta when a hurricane struck. Many of the crew and passengers were lost, and the ship is too damaged to move. They are keeping it afloat, but Lord Beacher fears soon that will be impossible. He and Lord Stow volunteered to come for help, since they have some sailing experience. They did not want the crew to leave, given they're all that keeps the ship floating."
"Get me Admiral Chief Mazen," Jader barked, and Tamith ran off without a word, yelling out orders as she reached the hallway.
Jader went to follow after her but was stopped as the silver tongue called out, "High Commander!"
He turned sharply back. "What? Time is of the essence."
"They know you. They say—"
"If it's not a matter of life and death, it will have to wait. Get all the information you can on where that ship might be and come find me in the yard." Jader didn't wait for her reply, but strode off back the way he'd come.
Tamith had already assembled soldiers and was handing out orders: soldiers to take the Bentans to the imperial palace, messengers who scattered in the next moment to locate Admiral Chief Mazen as she obviously was not in her office.
Jader mounted his horse. "When you find Mazen, send her to me at the Temora. I am going to have it ready to sail within the hour and I do not want less than Mazen herself commanding such a situation."
If he could go, he would, but as High Commander he was not allowed to go into such situations outside of wartime unless there was absolutely no other choice. The High Commander was far too valuable, though he still had a hard time reconciling that statement with himself. He'd earned his post, but occasionally he was still dumbfounded and awed he'd actually managed it.
He rode through the bustling harbor surrounded by half a dozen soldiers. Rare was the person stupid enough to attack the High Commander, but it had happened before—more than once. Lesto had gotten so fed up with it, he'd refused to go to the harbor unless Sarrica explicitly told him to go or else.
The imperial army retained three emergency imperial galleons, made by the finest ship builders in the empire and fit to travel as far away as Nemrith on a moment's notice. There were three full crews for each, rotated regularly so there was always a fit crew already aboard and ready to set sail.
He headed straight for the nearest of the three ships, and the one always put to sea first: the Temora, named for an Islander deity, the youngest daughter of Mother Ocean. Everyone's Harken accent usually had them saying it wrong, Tey-mora instead of Ta-mora, but Jader was long used to it. They'd said his name closer to Jee-der than Jay-der for months. Some still said it wrong.
Reaching the ship, he bellowed for the captain and officers. Once they were assembled, he gave a brief of the situation and sent them scurrying to make ready. By the time they were calling ready to sail, Admiral Chief Bella Mazen had arrived.
She saluted smartly as she reached him. "High Commander, I apologize for my late arrival."
He waved her off when she would have continued. "I'm sure you had excellent reason, Admiral. If you're ready to depart, your ship is waiting, and I appreciate the swift react
ion times of you and your sailors. As commendable as always."
Mazen smiled. "Thank you, Commander. I'll send message by falcon once I have something to report. From what I've been told, the ship is stranded about three days out. We'll reduce that as much as we possibly can."
He clasped her hand and sent her on her way, watching until the ship was well out to sea.
Then he mounted again and returned to the palace. When he arrived, it was to find the pavilion had turned into chaos.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to involve their new guests. He looked over the mess again: an upturned carriage, a broken carriage and the ruined contents of at least five crates of military food supplies, roughly twenty angry guards and soldiers, a tall, thin man with an ugly goatee and mean tone of voice screaming at the servants and guards, a woman crying, a horse that looked like it would have to be put down, and those were merely the most obvious bits. Jader grabbed a nearby guard and shook him. "What in the Mother Ocean is going on here?"
"Master Theoren Masterow entered the pavilion going too fast and didn't slow down when ordered. He ran into Lady Vyna's horse, and when he tried to back away and go elsewhere, he hit a cart being pulled by the guards, which sent the contents of it scattering and destroyed at least half the food in them. I think someone went to find Captain Dennar."
"Go after them and tell Captain Dennar I have the matter well in hand."
"Y-yes, High Commander." The guard bolted off, clearly relieved he was not about to join everyone else in suffering the wrath of the High Commander. When Lesto had retired, they'd all made the mistake of thinking Jader would be softer, easier, without Lesto towering over him.
Nevermind Lesto had chosen him in part because he was just as ruthless and hard. There wasn't much softness left to be found in a man who had started life as a boy of approximately eight years, washed up on a beach with no memory of his previous life, not even his name. A boy with bone-white skin who'd been raised as an Islander but looked foreign and strange everywhere he went and had climbed all the way to the peak of the imperial army.