Keethro hoisted his readied supplies onto his back and set out for the journey with his best and only friend—the one he sought to kill.
THE MIDWIFE
Many Years Ago
A banging on her door had awoken Janin from slumber. It was not unusual for her to be called upon in the dead of night, but the urgency with which her summoners had insisted she come worried her greatly. By Peace’s grace there had been no miscarriages or stillbirths since the Rivervalians overran their kingdom. What will they do to me, she wondered, when I fail to deliver one of their own?
As they rushed to an undisclosed residence, Janin prayed in silence. The near panicked men who’d roused her now compelled her to move at a pace that had her almost tripping on her skirts. Given the direction they led her, they could be headed to the estate of any number of noble houses. If forced to guess, as it seemed she was, she would have assumed it was the young princess who was in need of her services—the one whom she had helped through a pregnancy just two years prior, back when the queen sat the throne and Crella was still the very young princess…and unmarried, at that. Crella had come to term a week ago by Janin’s best estimate, and she visited the girl daily.
She was eager to confirm her suspicion, but her mutes for escorts refused to tell her to where they were headed on account of an archaic tradition. Commoners were not to be told who’d summoned them. This was not the first time she had been troubled by this predicament, but the nobles always seemed to forget to give special instruction to forgo such idiocy in, of all times, those of emergency.
“It is important I know beforehand so that I may best prepare myself to tend to the needs of my patient. If you will not speak her name then at the very least give me some sign that my assumption that I have been called to care for the young Lady Crella is correct.”
One of the half dozen men escorting her made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a cough. It was not uncommon for these men to make such noises for no apparent reason, but she believed the glare from the noisemaker’s commander to be proof enough that it was the sign she’d requested.
Freed from her burden of not knowing what to expect, Janin became aware of the oppressive heat. Even during the night, the summers of Adeltia felt little different than leaning over a pot of boiling water. She glanced around, hoping to not be alone in her discomfort, but she could not discern any of her escorts’ expressions, let alone any beads of sweat. Their lanterns directed the light downwards, and the only visible detail of interest was the authoritative crest of the Protectors of the Realm that glimmered upon all their chests. Known more commonly as The Guard, these men foreswore their allegiance to any kingdom and were bestowed a duty of service first and foremost to the realm. First and foremost to the king who pays their wages, Janin thought, disgusted that they now bent to the will of their Rivervalian conqueror.
As they neared their destination, Janin could hear muffled moans of pain and suffering coming from inside the home. It was, as expected, the home of Crella and her new husband.
Crella looked to be in great distress, but perhaps not so much as did the young father. It was the first time Janin had been in the same room with Alther, the son of Adeltia’s new king, and she was surprised by his vulnerability. He knelt at Crella’s bedside, looking eager to hold a hand she would not give him, his face pale with apparent concern for his wife and unborn child. The sweat on his brow was unlikely to be from the heat. Janin was relieved to be inside this home cooled by means beyond her comprehension.
“My lady,” Janin addressed the princess. Despite her pregnancy and current state of misery, Crella remained quite stunning. The glow from several sconces shone on her golden hair which fell in waves, and lit the delicate features of her face that one would expect and desire in royalty. “You must tell me what ails you, and please, be precise in your detail.”
The princess’s emerald eyes flashed annoyance. “What ails me is that this pregnancy has gone on for long enough.”
Janin noted the young woman’s ferocity with heartache. She was an entirely different patient than she had been two years prior, but Janin did not judge her for it. To have endured what she has…
“It is time for it to be over with. I will not suffer another night of back spasms and utter discomfort.”
“My lady, are your spasms in your back or your belly?” Janin asked with the utmost respect. She knew how to deal with highborn in distress. She was direct but humble and obedient.
“Have you become deaf or merely stupid? Did I not just tell you it was my back that spasms?” Crella turned to her husband. “Must I repeat my every utterance to this fool while your heir grows cold and dies in my womb? I warn you now—I will not be made to suffer another pregnancy.” The venom that came from such young lips would have been shocking to Janin had she not heard much the same during her other recent visits.
“Apologies, my lady. I had to be sure. It has great bearing on the child’s delivery. Please, sit back and try to rest. I must have a look.” Janin turned first to the few of her escort who yet lingered. “I would ask that all gentlemen leave the room.” There was no need for the princess to suffer any undue embarrassment during delivery, the entire process of which was decidedly unladylike.
“I would wish to stay and comfort my wife from her bedside, if there would be no ill-effect on the child.” Alther was a fair-looking man, not notably strong in chest or chin but neither weak. He was several years Crella’s senior with a rich head of short brown hair and a thick beard to match. The prince looked to the midwife for response as a son does to a mother.
“Just do as she says and leave.” Crella waved her hand toward the door. Her pain must have subsided considerably—had it truly been there to start—as she was no longer concentrated on drawing attention to her discomfort.
“It would not harm the child in any way if you remained, but please do not stray from her side if you choose to stay, my lord,” Janin responded, shuffling the remaining men out of the room.
Janin was predisposed to disliking the nobility she served, and certainly bore no love for Alther’s father and the war he’d waged on her people, but Alther seemed a man of honest compassion. She almost pitied him for the rudeness of his wife, though the princess was far above his station in appearance. “Seek a mate above yourself and be forever beholden,” her grandmother had always told her, and thus Janin remained unmarried.
“Yes, please stay.” Crella’s tone had softened, but only for the moment. “I may need you to spur this midwife with the back of your hand should she fail to deliver this baby with haste.”
Janin examined the princess quickly and was not surprised by what she saw. “My lady, I beg your forgiveness, but you are not meant to have this baby tonight.” She did her best to not vex the highborn as it would only make things worse. “Things have not progressed to that stage. It could be another week or more, in fairness.”
The princess sat up, placing her hands upon the top of her swollen stomach and glowering at Janin from between her own legs. “I will have this baby tonight—the one you said would come a week past. The only question that remains is whether you will deliver it or I will be forced to push it from my belly by strength of hand. Should it be the latter, I assure you I will be delivering your head shortly thereafter to whichever lowborn is in your closest acquaintance.”
She believed Crella to be speaking the truth, for if there was one thing highborn learned at an early age, it was the importance of following through on a threat. Janin bowed her head and turned toward the husband. His look of worry bade her do as his wife demanded.
“I will do as you command, my lady. Though I would not recommend we induce for yet another week, I do not feel that doing so now would be of much harm to the child. We must have a horseman fetch a tonic that is necessary to hasten the process, and you will hold in your arms your child by midmorning.” Alther still wore a look of concern, but it seemed both he and Janin were of like mind in knowing that there would be n
o bending of Crella’s iron will.
Seven hours later, the wailing of the princess was replaced with the wailing of a very small, very frail-looking infant. He was nevertheless crying with great strength—a good sign of health. The new father was the first to reach for the swaddled infant.
“He sounds so strong and hearty. My wife, you have given me the greatest of gifts, a son. I think we should name him Leofwin after my father’s father. He was a great and noble king.”
His wife reached out her arms, and he gave her their new child. She looked at the babe and haughtily proclaimed, “We will not name him after some wretched Northman. We will name him after my beloved brother who died as a young boy to the sweating sickness. His name will be Stephon.”
ALTHER
Dusk fell upon the wooden tiles of the rooftops causing the specks of sap to glow as if self-illuminated. It was the mightiest city in the mightiest of kingdoms—the kingdom his father had taken when Alther was a boy not much older than his own son now was. Adeltia spread out before him as he gazed from the castle walls of its capital city, taking a reticent pride in the fact that it was Rivervale’s banners that now hung from every turret of the distant outer walls, boasting the sigil of many tributaries converging into the mighty Eos. He recalled not his first trip to this kingdom, but his first trip here as a conqueror. How differently I then envisioned my life would be, helping to rule this kingdom.
Alther looked to his son beside him and exhaled, knowing it was a mistake to have brought him. Stephon stood tall for his age of fifteen in his high-collared leathern tunic, his tournament foil kept proudly at his belt, admiring the view of what would one day be his kingdom. He had his father’s spry frame and his mother’s bright golden hair, prized among Adeltians, but where hers was long and wavy, his was short with tight ringlets. Alther imagined Stephon must be having the same thoughts of glory and grandeur he himself had imagined as a young man. I have seen little of either since becoming a joyless custodian of that which these walls protect.
The two resumed their stroll along the wall walk, hearing what sounded to be children at play below. Had Alther been told two decades prior that his father would be allowing children in the courtyards, a place where knights should be swinging swords and hurling insults, sharpening steel against steel and mind against mind, Alther would have considered it madness. But King Lyell had seemed to have softened over the years, at least in terms of military preparedness. Having conquered all the civilized lands of consequence on their continent, the apparent need for such military strength and readiness dwindled.
Having been raised during the height of his father’s zeal, Alther could still feel the blows from the intense training. “An angry opponent is an easy opponent,” said his father. “Revel in the joy of taunting your foe to the point of him defeating himself, and then you will know true victory, for a sharp mind can cut even an armored man to the quick.” But Alther found himself to be the one provoked to anger, always losing to the larger, nimbler, and more experienced swordsmen his father put before him. He learned to endure the abuse with detachment, as any whines or wincing only furthered the length and severity of his training. And he had become a fine swordsman, even by his father’s measure, able to withstand the barrages of slices, thrusts, and insults all aimed at fresh wounds and tender flesh. But Alther had learned above all humility—a lesson he did not think his father had intended to teach, a trait not befitting a future ruler.
“Grab the pig-wizard’s cape,” cried one of the boys from below. “Come on, show us a trick!”
Alther peered over the parapet to see four tall boys surrounding a fifth who was small only in height. The pig-wizard, as they called him, had the shape of a ham in truth, but this ham had upon its back a violet cape of a renowned Adeltian house. The boy may have been royalty, but it made no difference to the four surrounding him, who in all fairness were likely just as royal given their access to the courtyards.
“Why is your tail draped about your neck and not sprouting from your ass, pig-wizard?”
“Careful, he might turn you into a toad or something.”
“I’d be more afraid of him farting a fireball!”
The children laughed at the stout one in the middle and began their assault. The one closest grabbed the boy by his cape, jerking him backwards so that he fell on his ass. He turned and got to his feet slowly only to have a different boy pull him down hard again upon his backside. By the third time, they had dragged him far enough that he nearly smashed his head upon the stone forming the perimeter of the gardens.
“That is enough,” Alther called down to the boys. They quickly dispersed when they realized they had an audience. The tortured boy continued to cry, not seeming to have heard Alther’s intervention. He stood up, dragged the top of his arm all the way down to the finger across his snotty nose, brushed off his cape, and limped off.
“That was poorly done, Father.” Stephon spoke as if lecturing a servant. “A man must learn his place.”
Half his blood is mine, thought Alther as they continued toward the king’s chambers, but it seems he is pure Adeltian, in truth.
Alther and his son entered his father’s study and proceeded down the long entryway that led to the seated king. Aside from the grand desk and ornate topographical carvings on the walls, it was a simple room with simple furnishings. His father preferred to do his work of import within the comforts of this room adjacent to his bedchambers. It had none of the regality of the massive throne room, which saw little use by Lyell, but the nature of the study lent it an air of muffled secrecy. A man could enter a room such as this, never exit, and none would be the wiser. I must maintain composure and show discipline so that I may walk out the same way I walked in. Alther did not truly fear his father killing him, but it never hurt to be scrupulous.
“Ah, my son and his,” said Lyell as he looked up from the maps and papers on his desk. “Come to tell me of the wealth and riches they have secured for my kingdom, no doubt.” Lyell was by all accounts an old king, yet he had the look of a man that retained enough strength from his youth to gladly throttle a man should the need arise. His skin sagged slightly around the eyes, but his short and cleanly cropped beard of thick white hair and his penetrating stare made him a formidable presence. Alther was much the younger reflection of his father, with darker hair, firmer skin, and a more lithesome build, but where his father was all steely resolve, Alther was troubled apprehension—a fact he was especially cognizant of when in his father’s presence.
“I am afraid not, Father.” Alther knew he must look how he felt, sour and melancholy, the way he always felt when having to report his failure to his father. I was trained to wield swords and lead men into battle, not to manage the finances of a foreign land where all despise me and plot to ensure my downfall. “The merchants of the Spicelands have once again increased the price for transporting pepper and poppy. Worse yet, the price of salt has increased tenfold without cause, and they report supplies of juniper and corian—”
“No need to list every spice in the cook’s kitchen, my boy,” interrupted the king. Alther had carefully planned this speech, ensuring that it would detail the multitude of obstacles that stood in the way of him meeting his own modest goals, which were but a fraction of his father’s lofty requests.
“Yes, Your Grace. What I mean to say, in short, is that Westport will not be producing the, ehm, amount of revenue for the Throne that we had anticipated. The amount we had agreed upon, I mean to say.” Alther spoke meekly and stumbled with his words.
He immediately regretted calling his father by the formal title for a ruler as he knew it was like to only incite the man to anger. “I am your father and your king,” he had reminded Alther in the past, “and there is nothing unduly graceful about either.”
The king returned his gaze to his papers and let out a sigh of displeasure. He then allowed silence to linger as he was prone to do. It was far easier for Alther to endure his father’s discourtesy when alone, b
ut Stephon had been adamant about getting a chance to show his newly acquired prowess for politics to his grandfather.
“Perhaps you could explain to me, Alther, how it is that Westport, the richer of the sister cities before we took the Throne, the richest city in all the realm, has now come to be evermore poorer while Eastport’s incomes grow with fervor?” Lyell still looked down at his papers.
Alther was prepared to trade ill words in regard to the merchants but was not ready to answer any questions of substance as to his continued failure. He had been so engrossed with his own finances that he had little time devoted toward righting the problems with his city’s income. Crella spent more than he wished on unnecessary luxuries, but the true source of his troubles came from using his own money to help pad and conceal the disastrous state of his city’s lack of revenue. That was a solution, however, that could not continue; he had nearly consumed all his own once substantial monetary reserves. If left to the devices of my lovely wife and these merchants I shall be a pauper and worse yet, an embarrassment to my father.
“Your Gr—.” Alther caught himself and began anew with a deep breath, cursing his father for having had him trained in Adeltian customs only to later discourage their use. “Father, it has been difficult to maintain order in the city. The Adeltian people resent my rule more than that of Cassen’s, as I am an outsider, and he is not. The conditions near the docks are poor, and sailors I hear prefer the cleaner bars and brothels of Eastport in spite of the extra distance. They fear the waters near the Devil’s Mouth as well and favor the more southerly route.” Alther thought it best not to mention the demon ships the sailors claimed to have been attacked by. Even Alther knew they were pirates at most.
The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1) Page 10