by JF Smith
Gully was still lost in these thoughts as they walked when Dunnhem asked, “Sire, I was wondering if it was true...”
The guard’s voice trailed off, but he had gained Gully’s attention.
“Yes, Dunnhem?”
Dunnhem pursed his lips in the fast fading light. “Never mind... forgive me, Your Highness. It is not my place to ask such things.”
Gully stopped, causing the others to stop with him. He knew the question would come up sooner or later and he preferred to address it rather than let the Guard arrive at a bad conclusion on their own.
“You wish to know if Roald knew of my thieving while he was a guard, do you not?”
Dunnhem dipped his head and almost seemed to shrink back from him a step, and Gully knew he had guessed correctly. Dunnhem said, “It is not my place, Your Highness, to demand—”
Gully said, “You are not demanding, Dunnhem, and I prefer the chance to explain in my own way.”
Gully began walking again, more slowly this time, Dunnhem next to him and Gallun and Gellen on his other side.
“I have been a thief since I was about twelve years of age, even before Roald entered training to become a swordsman,” explained Gully. “The day he told me he was going to enter training to become a swordsman of the Kingdom Guard was a nervous, uneasy one for both of us, because he already knew what I was doing. It was Roald, bless him, who finally sat me down while his mother was away and told me that while we were at home, we would always be brothers, not Guardsmen or criminals, but that out on the streets of the city, he would take his loyalty to the law and the crown very seriously. I accepted that arrangement... happily, in fact. And that was how it was for us. I had a couple of near misses where he almost did catch me since he knew me better than anyone. Mostly, he was concerned with my run-ins with other guards, equally for my safety at their hands and for the safety of the swordsmen at my hands.”
Dunnhem listened as they walked and did not interrupt.
“Roald never willingly allowed me to slip away, and the only reason I managed to is because I’m a rather clever thief, if I do say so myself,” said Gully, earning a chuckle from the guard. “Roald’s conscience is clear. He has always been a good and honest soldier, every day of his service. As for me, well... I give you leave to form whatever opinion of me you wish.”
This time it was Dunnhem who stopped momentarily as they neared the building where Roald’s apartment was housed.
“I’ve expressed my honest opinion of you already, Your Majesty,” said Dunnhem. “Although, truth be told, I’m relieved I never had a run in with the Gully Snipe personally. The swordsmen who were humiliated by the Gully Snipe’s exploits were usually teased without mercy by their fellow guards, and I had no desire to join their ranks!”
This time, it was Gully’s turn to laugh out loud.
Dunnhem added, “Thank you, though, for that explanation. Some have wondered if Lord Marshal Delescer was some sort of an accomplice at times, now that the truth of your relationship has come out. For those of us that know him well, it is impossible to imagine, but you know how rumors have sturdy legs.”
“Aye, indeed they do, Dunnhem,” said Gully, hoping the truth would protect Roald.
When they arrived at Roald’s apartment in the building that housed the Offices of State, Dunnhem wished the prince a pleasant evening and took his leave with a deep bow.
Gully knocked on the door and a moment later there was an impatient voice inside that said, “Can it wait? It’s late and whatever it is, it surely can wait. Come back tomorrow!”
Gully pushed the door open and stepped in with Gallun and Gellen right behind him. They walked through a foyer and then into the private office of the Lord Marshal. Roald was leaning over the massive carved wooden table with quires of papers and parchments, bound codices, and ledgers spread all around.
Roald would have looked very dashing in the sharp uniform of the Lord Marshal, with its charcoal-colored cape, deep scarlet doublet with gold buttons, and black boots and snug trousers. As it were, though, he looked tired and frazzled and very preoccupied.
“I said, whatever it was could—” Roald looked up and realized who was standing in the doorway to his office.
Gully hoped Roald would finish his admonishment, but he was disappointed.
Roald snapped upright. “Your Majesty!” he exclaimed as he came around the desk before kneeling briefly.
Gully said, “Roald... you know that you don’t need to do that, don’t you?”
“But I do!” said Roald emphatically. “Forgive me, Thayliss, I know I have been inattentive, but there is so much to learn and understand. And now I believe that it’s possible that Jahnstlerr was claiming a few extra swordsmen on the payroll just so he could pocket their salaries in his own coinpurse! It is absolutely shocking! I’m trying to reconcile these salary records with any other soldier records to see if these men exist or not.”
As Roald walked around the table to once again begin reviewing the papers he had been studying earlier, he smiled tiredly at the wolves and said, “Oh, and Gallun, Gellen... it’s good to see the both of you as well!”
Gully didn’t really care about the other criminal endeavors of the old Lord Marshal, but he wasn’t surprised, either.
He watched as Roald’s eyes buried themselves in a tableful of paperwork.
“Did I do right by you, Roald, in making you Lord Marshal?” he asked after a few seconds.
Roald looked up and blinked a couple of times as he thought through the question.
“Yes, Sire, of course you did,” he replied, “unless Your Highness is having second thoughts...”
Gully frowned and said in disappointment, “Roald... It is not Prince Regent Thayliss veLohrdan asking this question. It’s me, Gully, asking it.”
Roald’s shoulders relaxed and he smiled more warmly this time. “The answer remains the same.” He stretched tiredly and said, “I do not want to disappoint Prince Thayliss or the Gully Snipe, and there is so much to assess and give attention to!”
“I am certain that it would be all but impossible for you to disappoint, Roald. Your mother and father look down on you from the heavens at night and are probably the only people that could possibly be more proud of you than I am!”
Roald stared for a moment, biting at his lip. Gully hoped that he would come out and say his true thoughts, and for a brief moment, it looked as if Roald would do so. But then Roald nodded once and said, “Thank you. It has taken time and effort to work out troop rotations in East End to look after our Maqaran prisoners. And we still need to fill out the ranks of the King’s Guard since so many of them were arrested. It’s nice to know none of this has gone unnoticed.”
Gully wondered if it would be worth arguing with Roald that his comment had nothing to do with troop rotations or recruitment strategies.
Instead, he asked, “Have you even had dinner, Roald? I will go get us some food and bring it back here if you like.”
Roald started to say something and then looked confused. “I thought you were supping with the noble families of Iisen this night. Have you not eaten?”
Gully stuck out his bottom lip. “Those people have all the charm of the rogue end of a field ox! They are vacuous and condescending and I suppose I should be glad they do not come to Lohrdanwuld very often. I had no appetite around them at all. Thaybrill was the only person in the room worth engaging in any kind of discussion. But now, here with you, my appetite has come back some.”
Roald scratched the back of his neck. “I’m afraid I have already had my dinner, earlier. “
Gully nodded and said, “That’s good. I was afraid you would allow yourself to get so twisted up in your reports and your troop rotations and your what-not that you would forget to eat.”
“Thank you, though, for the offer,” said Roald.
Gully looked at the table piled with the papers begging still for Roald’s attention. He took a deep breath and said, “Roald, as a favor to me, d
o not feel like you must now personally handle every detail of the Kingdom Guard. You have people you trust and who are capable of helping you and who are eager to do exactly that. Put them in places where they can do so. Rely on them. Rely on them the way I rely on you.”
Roald nodded silently and said, “Yes. Thank you, Gu— Thayliss. I promise to do exactly that.”
Gully’s heart felt pierced by the use of his own name, the one that still felt foreign to him, and despite his attempts, he was unsure how to get his brother back.
~~~~~
For the hundredth time, Gully turned over in the bed that was now his and tried to sleep. The bed, as exquisitely crafted as it was, he told himself, was too big. It was too soft, he imagined. The linens felt too silken to his touch. It was too everything.
The events from dinner circled through his mind again, and he gave up. He got up out of the bed, put on the thin blue robe, as soft and as cool a wool as he had ever felt, and stepped out onto the balcony outside of the massive oriel window in his private rooms. The stone floor of the balcony was cool on his bare feet, the heat of the summer day having evaporated into the night.
Even in the middle of the night, he could see out across the majority of the Folly and then across the city of Lohrdanwuld. Towards his right, he could see Kelber Peak and Thayhold against the stars of the sky. Beneath them, in the northern section of the city, was Roald’s apartment, now unused. He had half a notion to leave the Folly behind for the night, to sneak his way to Roald’s apartment and to spend the rest of the night there, in the bed he had always found to be perfectly comfortable, even when Roald shared it and crowded him.
He leaned against the balustrade. If the noble lords and ladies he had spent time with that evening were the kind of people that made up the ruling class of Iisen, then he despaired a little more at what his life was going to become in just over one more day. He looked up at the stars above and wondered if perhaps he should have taken Thaybrill, Mariealle, and Roald when he had had the chance, gone to the Mercher camp, and fled with them to somewhere else... and leaving Iisen to the Maqarans.
Gully rubbed his temples and felt deeply ashamed. He felt guilty and ashamed for indulging in such an abhorrently childish and selfish thought. And yet, the noble class of Iisen seemed to have no realistic concept of what the invasion would have brought, how Iisen would have ceased to exist. He wondered if the concept of slavery was so utterly foreign to their way of life that they could not conceive of it happening to them.
He sighed and saw how perfectly he had been maneuvered into the spot in which he found himself. He could not have chosen any other path without abdicating the basic morals that he did have, the ones his father Ollon had put into him. For all of his faults, his conscience had chosen the path that now led to his punishment. The wealth and power that so many others would crave every day of their life and never see was the very thing that formed the chains of his sentence. Others saw only the wealth and power, but Gully saw the truth. He saw the responsibility and pressure to lead, the requirement to balance the needs and constraints of an entire kingdom. He saw the impossibility of succeeding at this — at always pleasing those that were expecting so many things from him — no matter what he did or how carefully he tread.
He turned and walked back inside. He put some slippers on and decided to make his way around to see if he could find some more mead or some ale to drink to help sleep take him.
As soon as he opened the carved wooden door that led out from his personal rooms of the royal solar, Gully found Gallun and Gellen sitting in the passageway on either side. Both were sitting up, and suffering from the opposite problem of his own. Both wolves were trying to stay awake and fighting off sleep as best they could with uncertain results.
Gully immediately wondered how long this had been going on. When he had settled in, he had assumed they had left to go to their own rooms to sleep, but here they were in the middle of the night.
Both balmors jerked more fully awake at Gully’s unexpected appearance.
Anger flared within Gully and he said to the wolves, “Both of you... inside in my rooms, right now.” He turned and walked back inside without waiting to make sure they followed.
Gully took a seat in front of the massive hearth in his room on the large damask sofa, eventually followed by two sheepish wolves. Unlike earlier this evening when there had been the playful wrestling between them, the balmors would not dare to cross him at the moment.
“I want an honest answer. How long has this been going on?”
The wolves exchanged glances. There was a brief stutter in the image of one of them, and then Gallun stood there before Gully. He looked embarrassed and began counting on his fingers.
Gully did not allow him to arrive at an answer. “Every night? Have you been forgoing sleep to keep watch outside of my room now every night since you’ve been here?” he asked, his voice sharp.
Gallun did not flinch, but he stopped counting on his fingers and then meekly nodded in response.
Gully closed his eyes and shook his head as he thought about what they had been doing out of loyalty for him.
“This foolish—” he began angrily. He stopped his tirade short when he saw the hurt, pleading look of repentance in Gallun’s eyes. Even Gellen, normally so defiant, had the identical look in his own wolfish eyes.
Gully stopped, gritted his teeth for a moment, then said, “What you are doing is noble, and I do appreciate the devotion you show towards me. But it is also foolish and unnecessary. You cannot simply now forgo sleep forever just so you can be close at hand for my benefit. I would not dream of demanding this kind of devotion from you, and you should not demand it of yourselves! You cannot be expected to be at my side every hour of every day! You must have your rest and I insist that you have it.”
He eyed them in turn to make sure they were listening to him. He expected Gellen to be stubborn as usual, but even Gellen this time nodded his understanding at his reprimands.
Gully got up and threw another log into the fireplace and stoked it a few times.
He jerked his head over towards his bed and said, “Come, if you must be nearby, at least stay in here and sleep. That bed is far too large anyway, and you can sleep and know that I am not sneaking off again without you.”
His lecture complete, he offered them a smile and added, “It will almost be the same as the three of us sharing your shanty out in the camp in the Ghellerweald.”
Gallun huffed in his amusement as he looked around at the wealth and extravagance of the sovereign’s private solar compared to their shack in the woods, and then he pointed down a corridor which Gully took to mean he was going to visit the garderobe to relieve himself.
Gellen looked at the bed unsurely, but Gully said, “Go on...”
Gellen trotted over and jumped up on the bed to settle in.
Gully had to push him over further, getting a small growl in return, before he could get in bed. He gave Gellen’s tail a quick tug and got another tired growl in return.
“This is my spot in my bed! You sleep on that side!” said Gully, secretly pleased with the obstinance he knew so well from Gellen as he climbed under the covers next to him.
Gallun came walking back into the room sleepily a few moments later, his thick arms raised up over his head in a mighty yawn. As he approached the bed, he jumped up in the air, flickered in the firelight, and landed on the bed as a wolf once again. He turned in circles two or three times and settled in to go to sleep.
Gully lay there for a few more minutes, feeling the slow breathing of the two balmors pressed up near him in his bed, which no longer felt too big. In his mind, he thought back to how it felt so much like his days in the woods with his father, Pe’taro, curled up in his bed next to him, soft and warm and secure and at peace.
It was only a few seconds before he joined Gallun and Gellen in a deep and undisturbed sleep.
Chapter 32 — Upon Kitemount
“...And then, noblesirs and
nobleladies, you will be escorted to your places on the courtyard, five families each along the facing sides. Let me show you so that you know where you will be stationed during the ceremony...”
The Archbishop busied himself with rehearsing those involved in the coronation, by reviewing, for the third time, precisely when everyone would be led into the ceremony in the Courtyard of the Empyrean, and where they would be located.
Gully stood off to the side, largely ignoring the instructions this time around since he had grasped them the first two times the Archbishop has recited them. He wished to go speak to Roald, Raybb, and Exoutur, who were standing off by the armillary sphere and having a pleasant conversation, but knew he would be dragged into the rehearsal again in a few moments.
He fidgeted briefly, then caught his attention pulling to the arcade on the far side of the courtyard. He had tried to keep his eyes from drawing to that spot, the one that hurt so deeply, but the pull was inexorable and he was weak and he stared at it as everything else dwindled to nothing around him. He felt the familiar but undiminishing wound stab into his heart when he stared at the place where Mariealle had fallen to her death. Where she had been murdered.
He caught himself in a sigh when he heard a voice next to him say, “My brother, I have never seen anyone put fear into Strafe veWarrnest the way you so easily managed last night.”
Gully turned to Thaybrill and thought for a moment. He knew what he wanted to say about Lord veWarrnest, but instead he said, “I think I disappointed you last night. I know you begged me to build a trust and a bond with them for the good of the kingdom, and I failed rather miserably at it. I warn you that I will be no better at the other duties assigned to the king. It is still not too late for you to take your place on the throne.”
Thaybrill chuckled and admonished him, “The throne is yours, my dear brother, in spite of your attempts to give it away to passers-by. I was rather proud of your comments last night, in honesty. As for Strafe, he is very opinionated and very traditional and very, very headstrong. He and his family are still fiercely independent given that their fief is the farthest of the lands to the west. You probably did well to remind him of his place up front. And I fain say, you accomplished that in spades! Our father in the Trine Range constellation knows the number of nights I’ve lain awake wondering how I would manage to keep Strafe loyal and obedient!”