The Savage War

by Esther Wallace

  Weeks went by without Valoretta seeing the islander and then, crossing one aisle in the library, she spotted him sitting on the floor, his back pressed against a shelf as he wrote on the paper supported by his knees. As she approached however, Arnacin threw the quill feather, hissing in sudden pain as he did so. Sinking down beside him, Valoretta retrieved the quill, placing it back in his hand and gently wrapping his fingers around it, before looking up into her friend’s simmering gaze. Those dark eyes reminded her of liquid in a pot under full boil, bubbling and swirling without ceasing.

  “Arnacin,” she sighed. Attempting to lighten the mood, she half-joked, “Surrounded by books and so much information no one could ever learn it all if they ate, slept and breathed in here… Where else would you wish to be?”

  “Anyone within this city could tell you that,” Arnacin quipped, resigned to scribbling out paragraphs in frustration. As she placed her hand over his, he sighed, whispering, “I’m afraid, Valoretta, terribly so. I can’t even move my right arm with any swiftness without seconds of intense pain—”

  “You have six months, I’m told,” the princess explained patiently. “And you needn’t even fear never being able to use a weapon again, since Father has no intention of returning you to the field.”

  Shaking his head, Arnacin turned his face away, but Valoretta easily recognized the cold stiffening in his pose. For a moment, she studied him, pondering his reaction before she tried a guess. “Will it impede your return to your home?”

  It was with the softest breath that he replied, “I won’t be going home.” During her sympathetic silence, he turned back to her, adding, “If it doesn’t heal, I will have no strength to do all that is necessary aboard a ship and there is no one who could do it for me.”

  Feeling guilty at the stirring of hope she felt deep inside, Valoretta whispered, unable in that moment to meet his gaze, “If I wasn’t chained here, I would volunteer to be your sailor.”

  After a moment of silence, the islander exhaled. “Partial use is hardly better than no use at all. It’s simply a ruse meant to taunt you.” He slammed his left fist into his knee, but with that movement, it appeared all his energy vanished as he rested the back of his head against the books behind him. “Valoretta, what am I going to do?”

  The princess had no answer to that helpless, lost question, but slipping her fingers into his, she carefully rested her head on his shoulder. It was not an answer or anything resembling a solution, but it was a gesture of understanding and sympathy, and comfort lay in that movement of love. Clearly recognizing it, Arnacin squeezed her hand in return.

  Several days later, the princess again found the islander on the floor in some corner in the library, thinner and more tired-looking than before. Lifting her skirts slightly so as not to trap them beneath her, she knelt beside him, whispering, “Arnacin, you can only take one day at a time.”

  As he looked over at her, she pressed, “You have not been eating lately, have you?”

  Studying her almost warily, the islander challenged her, “Perhaps I am simply too sick due to injury for eating to do anything.”

  With a smile, Valoretta admitted, “I had Sara ask the kitchens if you had been down there lately.”

  Rolling his eyes, Arnacin muttered, “Spy.”

  Slowly, the princess’ smile faded in the ensuing silence. “The future is the future, Arnacin. Worrying about things that are out of our hands only kills us. I should know since I have found that leaving it is the only way I may live.”

  He turned to her questioningly and she admitted, “My life has been written out for me, beginning to end. I’ve never even been outside these walls, except for when I sneak off through the city or Sara takes me to the market now that she deems me old enough. I have no choice in the matter, and you could say I’m afraid of everything, Arnacin, if I allow myself to be so. I’m afraid of the war continuing, that the longer it continues, the more likely the savages will bleed us dry. I dread rulership, in reality. I could drop dead at the thought of Father choosing a king for me to wed, and I’m even afraid of the day peace ends the war.”

  “How could you be afraid of the end of this stupid war?” Arnacin demanded.

  “I’ve lived practically all my life in this war, Arnacin. It’s become fairly comfortable to me and, when it ends, everything I know and anticipate about every day will disappear. Father will be able to concentrate on finding a king, the war will no longer keep ambassadors out of Mira during the seasons when the fighting is more aggressive, which will mean more stately dinners and grand balls. And…” She could not speak her worst fear, the thing she dreaded to think about more than all the rest—Arnacin’s return home.

  Realizing she had to finish her thought somehow, she tried to make it sound less important, shrugging, “And then of course, you’ll go home.”

  “I hope so,” the islander whispered, fiddling with the fingers of his right hand in contemplation. For a minute, they sat in thoughtful silence before Arnacin glanced up at his companion, asking, “Do you really want freedom from your cell, My Lady?”

  Grinning as if she thought it was a joke, the princess inquired, “Oh, did you steal the keys from the only person who holds that right?”

  “You already have them,” the islander said. “Live like the natives. When you become queen, demolish everything more permanent, and wander under the stars and leaves like them. The natives would no longer resent your presence. They would hardly realize you were any different from themselves.”

  “How would we defend ourselves against our neighboring kingdoms, who would want the riches of this city?”

  “The natives would defend you and their land themselves. They’d attack every ship in harbor, burn it, poison everyone struck by the shafts until all learned to fear this place as it should be feared. They would soon realize Mira, as a kingdom, was nothing more than a nightmare, a hellhole, believe me.”

  Valoretta jabbed him in the ribs, but otherwise remained silent until he added, “At which point, I don’t even think you would need to stay, at all.”

  “Yes, I would,” the princess whispered. “We could not accept their gods as our own, and therefore would need someone to judge, to hold people to the law. A queen, or king, would still be imperative. No matter what I do, I’m still chained here.”

  “Chained, Valoretta? Only if you make it so. Queen or not, you’d have free range of this entire continent without fear of attack, you’d be able to run through woods, splash in the rivers, dance and sleep in the grass. No one can dictate all of your life, Valoretta. Do with it as you please.”

  Although Arnacin left then and Valoretta did not see him the next day, she found, on the lower library shelf against which they had sat, a roughly carved wooden key with a string looped through it. Smiling, she picked it up, running it through her fingers. No words or patterns decorated it, yet she knew all the same that it was a reminder of her sovereignty, not just over her kingdom, but over her own life and, lovingly, she slid it up her sleeve. Her islander had stolen her a key indeed.

  It had been while contemplating Valoretta’s advice that Arnacin busied himself with aimlessly shaving wood off a block. Sitting on his ship’s rail, too restless to return to the work that still remained before the ship’s reloading could start, he had simply dug holes into the small piece of wood he was holding.

  Only as he looked at the three crude holes his left-handed carving had achieved did the princess’ question about a key echo in his thoughts. With a sigh, he reworked his carving. Slowly, it began to take shape, even as he conceded the princess’ point. He could only live one day at a time. Had not Carpason said the same once in regard to how Charlin lived? One could not control the future, and only very little of the present.

  Therefore, leaving the finished key in the library as a gift, he slipped off to talk to Gagandep about actions to which the natives would agree. Looking up at the islander sitting on the edge of his table while the family worked on grinding wheat, Mir
a’s adopted native smiled hopelessly. “Their trust was broken, Arnacin. Sometimes, I think a celestial messenger would need to threaten them with the gods’ desertion before they forgave enough to agree to peace.”

  “That can’t be the only answer,” Arnacin insisted, not looking up from his task of taking the heads off the sheaves. “Outside of near-annihilation, there must be something they would look on as either useless to resist or something that would stop Mira from being able to expand.”

  Laughing, Gagandep joked, “Well, no one will stop you if you want to cause lightening to strike the mountain boundaries, and cause Mira to split into two separate continents with an ocean between them.”

  Rolling his eyes, the islander muttered, “I’m serious.” He met Firth’s fond smile and looked away, reading the thought that agreed with the healer’s view.

  “I am also serious, Arnacin. I know of no course that will lead to peace,” Gagandep whispered, putting aside the bowl of wheat he was sifting to give his full attention to their phantom. “But I know that if you put your heart to it, you will think of something.”

  Shaking his head, Arnacin contradicted, “I’m not a deity, Gagandep. If there is nothing, I can’t make it something.”

  “I’m not even going to wonder what you are, Arnacin, but don’t try to tell us that you can’t work the impossible. You still draw breath, you know.”

  The islander did not comment as his shoulder burned, seemingly in protest against that statement.

  The king continued to call for Arnacin from then on, asking the islander’s advice on army operations, even which group to send forth in search. No encampment had been seen and there had been little native movement in Mira since Lord Carpason annihilated their large gathering—yet they attacked in small bunches here or there to remind Mira of their refusal to surrender.

  Apart from those audiences, Arnacin spent much of his time staring toward the mountains from some vantage point or another, with his own words and Carpason’s questions echoing scornfully back.

  This is not a war they’re willing to lose—it’s for their home.

  Tell me, is freedom worth the lives of all their children and wives? Does it hold that high a price?

  For some, it alone is life.

  Mira would bleed itself to death with the natives’ poison, he knew, unless it found a way to restore its honor. Along that line of thought, he had copied and hung the original map of Mira’s borders and the oath that had accompanied it on the south-facing wall in his room. Mira was too large to return to that promise and with it died the easiest answer.

  He knew that no promise to make a new sworn boundary would satisfy the natives. They would see it only as a cunning way to gain peace until Mira wished for more land once again. The tired, sarcastic side of him wondered if they would agree on wars only at specified times, to thin Mira’s population.

  And with that thought, he sat in the library, staring at the map of Mira’s borders, old and new, when the door opened.

  “No,” the sigh of exasperation jerked Arnacin out of his reverie to see Valoretta attempting to toe a fox-like creature back out the library’s doors. It persevered however and, with a hiss, the princess left it to wander the room as it pleased, while she shut the door with a snap. Then, striding over to the table, she said, “I am not sitting.”

  Grinning, Arnacin turned back to the map of Mira’s oldest borders, muttering, “As is your prerogative. Don’t let me deter you from standing on ceremony.” Hazy along the edge of his vision, he saw Valoretta’s fingers clench and he wickedly glanced up to meet her simmering gaze.

  “That thing, Arnacin, that thing! I would gladly strangle it with my bare hands if it wasn’t one of the queen’s precious companions. You have no idea the agony it puts me through, simply because it has decided I am likable. Oh, why she even needs their company is far beyond me.”

  Inwardly laughing at the extent of her wrath, Arnacin pulled his sword out, laying it on the table. Pushing it toward her, he suggested, “Well, if you are sure you would like to dispose of it, you may do it more swiftly and be certain of its demise, should it appease you.”

  Looking at the blade, a smile finally graced her features and she broke into laughter. “The moment I sit, Arnacin, it thinks it must warm my lap. It decides at every opportunity that I hardly look a lady without its fur adorning the bottom of my skirt, where it catches its abominable hair at the slightest touch. It’s not that I would particularly mind, but that its taste vies so completely with Sara’s. In contrast, she is of the opinion that one single strand is a blemish that must be eradicated on sight and therefore has me stripped down without further delay, to repeat the four-hour process she must do every morning to dress her goddess. And for some reason, the minute my gown is altered, my hair must be similarly altered because, in her mind, one hairstyle is only fit for one color, or something.” Pausing in her long rant, she finished, “Furthermore, the dog always makes me think Rosa is spying on us through its gaze.”

  Glancing at the creature nosing through a bottom shelf of scrolls, the islander conceded, “She probably is.”

  “I suppose the dog is capable of speech,” Valoretta teased.

  Arnacin shrugged. “If you call that a dog.”

  “Oh, what is a dog in your mind?”

  “An adult dog…” For a minute, the islander trailed off, but as his companion waited, he ended, “Their backs rise to your waist, or at least did when I was shorter.”

  “Were they not dangerous?” the princess breathed, receiving a shake of his head.

  “Most of them would never even show their teeth to a human… unless one caused another harm.”

  “You say most of them?”

  “Well,” Arnacin grinned, “never ask about Tevin’s family. His father’s dog thought it was his sole responsibility to keep, shall I say, his pups in line. No, he never bit any of them, but it was not rare to see the dog and Tevin wrestling with each other, whether in play or reprimand. That dog died shortly before I left, though.”

  “Were you not at all scared of their dog?”

  “Him? If his master’s boys were not afraid of him, none of the rest of us could possibly be either. He used to walk through anyone’s doorway as if he owned the world, and if you happened to be on your stomach—playing with a little child for instance—he would drop his fifty-plus-some weight directly on your back and proceed to doze there. Therefore, you would be stuck for so long as he decided to sleep and yip and snore and whatever else he felt like doing in his dreams.” His smile distant, Arnacin breathed, “It caused a toddler I knew to roll on the floor in hysterics.”

  “Your brother?”

  Softly, the islander confessed, “Charlotte and I sometimes split the shepherding responsibilities in order to help Mother and Father once William was born, depending on how tired they were. Will was so easily satisfied, so ready to laugh at any and everything. He fed off our small frustrations and we intensified it for him.”

  Arnacin’s voice drifted off and the image of home burned ever more fiercely. Little William would be near five, and hopefully he was as happily energetic as he had been at one, when he had been a round little child laughing in the sun that bounced off his black hair.

  Watching him, Valoretta asked, “He didn’t lose any of that laughter when his father died?”

  Dragging himself back to the library, both metaphorically and in reality dim, Arnacin whispered, “He never fully realized what happened. About three days after Father’s death, it finally seemed to register that he was no longer there, and he cried for a whole day, asking in his wordless way… He only wanted to be held by… that missing person. Charlotte and I fled the village, cowards as we were.” Bitterly, he whispered, “We both pretended that nothing could bother us, that if tears had been shed, we were beyond that by then.”

  Valoretta dropped her gaze to the desk beneath her fingers. Understandingly, she remained silent, letting his thoughts take the conversation where he allowe
d it, whenever he allowed it. As the dog pushed himself against her skirts, however, she dropped down to pick it up with a sigh.

  Watching the princess as she rose, Arnacin opened some of his thoughts to her. “My father would have put all the nobles in the world to shame.”

  Glancing back at the map occupying the desk, Valoretta asked, “How so?”

  Coldly, the islander whispered, “Standing next to them, he would make them all look like spoiled youths trying to pretend to be men, to be human.”

  “Your father looked noble?” the princess asked lightly.

  “To the day he died,” Arnacin insisted. “His hair might have been gray. I never remember a time when it was otherwise, but instead of making him seem old, it had a way of making him seem…” He paused, staring far away in a search for the right word. “Wise and ageless,” he finally whispered. “Certainly he never acted old.” Meeting Valoretta’s gaze, he added, “Laughter fell like moonlight from his eyes and his smile was insight itself.”

  Laughing, the princess corrected, “Don’t you mean that insight lit his eyes and laughter warmed his smile.” At Arnacin’s serious, slow shake of his head, her laughter cut off.

  “No, he smiled and you would swear that he knew every dark secret you and the world possessed, and acknowledged them with fearless grace and love. I never even considered that he could be wrong, never pondered whether it was right to do as he asked. He only ever asked what was right and true. He spoke and we did…” Arnacin smiled slightly, “Or at least, we made an effort to obey. Certain things, such as ‘pardon your sister’s obstinate pride,’ were harder to carry through.”

  “I’m sure she was asked the same regarding you,” Valoretta chuckled. Slowly, Arnacin’s smile faded and with a sigh, he returned to the map.

  Yet his thoughts were no longer on the war or even on Mira and, after a long time, Arnacin again whispered, “Why is it that nothing ever happens to one without them being a fool first? Why is it they always choose their own disaster in reality? In the stories you are so fond of, people land in adventures because some person simply walked by and handed them some hunted article. It then leads to a lost treasure trove or the rescue of some great noble. What happens in real life? Some idiot sells his home to search for diamonds or they run away from their families because life was too boring, and then they’re arrested in some foreign land for possessing no money to pay the taxes, or for hunting the king’s deer.” His voice cracked and he again fell silent. Softly Valoretta slid around the desk to place her hand on his arm.