by Lara Blunte
"You have always hated me because of..."
He cut her short. "And yet, here I am, warning you. Because, madam, that is what I am doing."
Tameas had approached her, and she found that she could not move, and that it was hard to face the cold clear rage in his eyes. "And do you know what is a crime worse than any other ─a crime so heinous that I find it difficult to desire you any good? That your malicious plan involves my sister. That you think that you can take Agnetta from me and hold her up to the people who love her so that you might depose and kill her brother. It doesn't surprise me that the impudent lord you want to join should use any stratagem to get power, but you are a mother...and yet you would cause your daughter immeasurable pain."
The queen's eyes were stormy but now there was fear in them. "Who says that I..."
"Be quiet," he said in a very low voice. "I am not opposed to having your head cut off for treason. For the moment, I am trying to save you for the sake of that girl who cannot hate anyone, not even you."
Elinor had begun to tremble at his tone. She understood at that moment that a man like Tameas could be infinitely dangerous, probably more dangerous than any man she had ever met if he had a mind to it, because he would mete out punishment with rational mercilessness.
"I give you a choice, lady. Marry Lord Hamnet from Stonemount, and take the lands which I am offering. Otherwise, go as you were planning to the bosom of that snake in the east and accept the consequences. Today you have my generosity, you won't have it tomorrow."
She was staring at the ground. "What lands, what will my life be like..."
"I said I have been generous. Decide, because whether to one place or another, you will leave tomorrow."
"My daughter..."
"My sister stays with me."
After a moment she nodded in agreement. She would take his offer.
He dismissed her, and Elinor found that it took her a while to stop trembling even after she gained the relative safety of her room.
A MESSAGE
"Your Grace, I come as a messenger from my Lord DeGray, and beg your leave to deliver his word."
Tameas sat leaning back on the throne, his arms on the rest, "You have leave to speak as Lord DeGray intended, without fear of us."
The messenger motioned to the box he had brought, which had been set before the king, below the steps.
"Lord DeGray sends you this, Your Grace, which will make his meaning clear if you let me show it to you."
Lord Jollan, Sir Jochim and Donnet looked at the king, awaiting his instructions. No one liked what the box might contain.
"Open it," Tameas said to the messenger.
The man seemed to swallow hard before he turned to the box and lifted the lid. Inside there was a broken lute.
"Outrageous!" Sir Jochim cried.
Tameas lifted his hand to keep his counselors quiet, as Donnet seemed about to go forward to cuff the messenger on the head.
"If there were any word from Lord DeGray to accompany his present, I have no need of it," said the king. "I have understood his meaning plainly."
The messenger bowed his head.
"Now you take my meaning to him," said Tameas, his eyes boring into the envoy. "Tell him that I don't grieve for this broken lute, as there are many more here playing in harmony. Tell him that I shall now come to get his hollow head, and that of his friends, to fashion drums with them, and from their guts I shall make new strings, and the music thereof shall let everyone know that I have changed my tune ─ and it will be so terrible, that it shall frighten treachery and rebellion forever."
Tameas stood up and the messenger took a step back, as he had not expected a young king who could be sent an insult to seem so tall and strong, with eyes so hard.
"And if this message is too long for his short ears, just take one word to him which will fit: WAR."
The king turned on his heels and left through a door behind the throne, and his counselors followed him. The messenger remained for a second looking at the broken lute, fearing what was to come next.
THE FIELDS OF WAR
"Your Grace, it's impossible!"
Lord Adalbert was practically choking at what the king had proposed, as he and the other lords surrounded the table where a map of the terrain was set. Tameas had just put the wooden pieces representing their forces and the enemy's where he wanted them.
"You know how little I care for that word, Lord Adalbert," the king replied calmly.
"Your Grace," Duke Benedikt contributed in a reasonable tone. "I am afraid that Lord Adalbert is right in this instance. It would be a very foolish thing to do."
Tameas saw that the only person without a look of protest on his face was Donnet, who stared at the map as if he were carefully considering what might happen if they did what the king wanted to do.
"My lords, you know well that these men have chosen to rebel because they think me a weak ruler..." Tameas began.
"Then we will smash them into smithereens and other men will be frightened of thinking so in future," Sir Edon said decisively.
"At what cost?" Tameas asked. "Why have these lords, who are seasoned in war, decided to come against a superior cavalry?"
He gestured towards the flanks of his army on the map. "Etheld's men and others will be outflanking us. I'll wager my crown on it. They will be coming through the sides and they will finish our infantry, and then start making their way towards the mounted knights from the back. We have to send knights to their flanks, and do the same thing to them first."
"We cannot know this for certain!" Lord Adalbert said. "It would be mad to suppose this and attack their cavalry with a lesser mounted force! We cannot divide our knights! Most battles are decided right there, by them, and now we have the advantage!"
Tameas looked around the table, "I am surprised at how many times I am forced to remind you that I am a king untried in war. The men outside have a look of doubt in their eyes. For the past ten years all they have heard is that their prince liked wine, music and women, and never picked up a sword."
"But Sire, if they don't fight for you, they will fight for themselves. They have to!" Lord Adalbert said.
"In times when every man worthy of the name has been in war, their king has not," Tameas insisted. "If we do as I say not only will we have victory with fewer losses, they will know that I am going forward to spare them, that their lives are important to me!"
He looked around the table and motioned again to the pieces on the map, "This is what I would do, if I were Bullyon, Bolbeck or DeGray. I would outflank the king's army with savages who are much better at fighting than our soldiers, and I would then double back upon the mounted knights. What would be the point of bringing barbarians into their lands otherwise?"
Duke Benedikt was now combing his beard and nodding. Donnet's voice was heard, "I dislike for the king to go into danger more than any of you, and you know it. But he is right."
Tameas could see that Sir Eldon had been won over as well, and only Lord Adalbert was still shaking his head. "Your Grace, it is my duty to protect you..." said the old knight.
"And it is my duty to protect my people," Tameas said quietly, because he knew that he had won the argument, “If this works, and I know it will, we will have earned the loyalty of my subjects, and that is priceless to me. We will also have defeated powerful foes. After that people will think not twice, but a hundred times before coming at us."
There was more to discuss in terms of the placement of their forces, and contingency plans had to be put in place. Duke Benedikt then went off to speak to his own commanders, including Harry, and the others to prepare the king's men.
Donnet was looking at Tameas with a frown on his face, "You are daring much, my friend."
Tameas was thinking of Agnetta's arms around his neck, of how she wouldn't let go of him, and how, when he had managed to break free she had said, "I wish you had never understood that you must fight yourself ─ though I know you must!"
"Birdie, I swear to you I will be back, and by swearing I make it so, for a king cannot break an oath!" he had replied.
She had bravely tried to contain her tears, and then said goodbye to Donnet, who kissed her for a long time on the forehead. She knew that he was skilled in war, and had seen him go many times, but she couldn't help crying to see both the men she loved off to battle.
Then there had been Isobel, with her serious face and her low voice, who had not said much. "Be safe," she had whispered.
Isobel worried for him, for her father's army and for her brothers, who had stayed behind in Stonemount, but she had too many times borne these dangerous departures, and she bore his.
Yet when Tameas had been about to leave the castle, he had heard steps running after him, and had turned to find her arms going round his neck, and her lips seeking his. "Be safe," she had repeated.
"I shall come back," he had said, his forehead against hers.
It was with the thought of them both, and of his kingdom, with the thought of all the people who had died for years, or been forced to move, or to work on dead land, that he now walked to the entrance of his tent and considered the light of the fires, far off in the enemy's camp.
That these lords should want more people to die, and the land to be black and barren again, for nothing but greed when they already had so much. He felt rage, but a cold rage which would not cloud his judgment.
"Everything will depend on how long we take to go around the back of the rebels," Donnet was saying. "A delay, a mistake..."
"It will work," Tameas said quietly.
Donnet came to stand at his side. "I pray that you are right." He put his hand on the king's shoulder. "I'd hate it if..."
Tameas cut him short, "You must not worry. I know I shall be all right."
"Aren't you afraid?"
Tameas smiled, "If I had not become such a model of a man, I would certainly be having a good swig from a bottle now!"
The two of them laughed, and Donnet helped the king put on his armor, pulling at the buckles to test them and checking all the other parts.
"It's almost dawn," Donnet said then. "It will begin soon."
"Yes. I must go and address the army." He embraced Donnet. “Stay safe, and for God’s sake, don’t be long! I haven’t had much liking for my throne, but I’d hate for those bastards to put their arses on it!”
Donnet went to get ready, and Tameas looked down at his sword, the present he had received from his wife's people. He knelt for a moment in prayer, holding Hellcat before him, then kissed the hilt, which was in the form of a cross. Again he thought that they would prevail, and that he would get back to Agnetta, and to Isobel.
Half an hour later the king rode toward his army, which was lined up to hear from him. There were the foot soldiers, who sometimes bore the worst of an attack, the crossbowmen, and the flower of knighthood on horseback.
What could a king who had never fought say to men who were hardened by war? How could he make them trust him? He wasn't his father; he had never led them into battle before. He knew that they would believe deeds, not words.
Tameas rode to higher ground and looked down at his people. Their faces were turned up to him.
"Today we do something we had hoped to do no more," he began in a strong voice. "We go to war, because of men who want what is ours.
"I do not ask you to fight for me, or for my standard. I ask you to fight for yourselves. Fight for the life you were meant to have, for the peace whose sweetness you have tasted. Fight for your women and your children, for your sisters and mothers, that they may see you again, and that they may know no harm.
"Fight, and make it bloody, because each time we fight and win, there will be less envious men who will dare to come at us.
"I do not ask you to fight for me because I have not yet fought for you, but know that today, as you go into uncertainty of your lives, I shall not be behind you, or above you ─ I shall be ahead of you, or by your side!
"By the grace of God who anointed me and gave me this office, we shall win today, and every day, because justice is on our side, and we fight not for glory or anything but peace, and the love we bear one another!"
The men cheered as the king, done with words, rode to the head of his battalion, and placed himself where he had said he would be. Dressed in mail and armor, his crown on his head, the phoenix rising on his tunic and his lance in his hand, he was a man to follow.
HELLCAT
"They will come, they will come," the king thought.
The arrows from his side had disbanded the men who had been waiting in formation to stop his cavalry with their sharp pikes, and he and his mounted knights had thundered through the rebel defenses, only to find their heavy cavalry.
It had then been knight against knight on horseback, with both sides using lances and javelins at first, then swords and shields.
Tameas had thrown his broken lance on the ground after he had unseated several of the enemy, and unsheathed Hellcat with a rallying cry. The sword was, as Donnet had said, light to wield, but sharp, strong and deadly.
He couldn't stop to think, as he almost severed a man's neck, that this was the first time he killed anyone. His eyes and mind registered the gaping wound, spouting blood, the muscles and arteries showing, the man's open mouth and glazed eyes as his body fell sideways and was carried away upside down by his frightened horse.
There was no time to think about it, he had to parry, thrust, turn one way and another, slashing at his opponents. Dancer stepped away from danger easily, but was not nervous or skittish when it came time to attack.
The infantry would follow the knights, as they had little chance against the rebel cavalry, but Tameas knew that behind the mounted warriors there would be the dreaded barbarians, fighters of extreme ferocity who yielded battle axes and broadswords with great skill.
The only way to do avoid a great number of deaths among the Lathians had been to meet the rebel cavalry without his full mounted force, and to send Benedikt and Donnet around to outflank them. If they fell upon the barbarians from the sides and the rear, they would be able to defeat them. Tameas had to engage a superior force at the start, hoping that half his knights wouldn't be dwindled to nothing before the other half joined them.
The crossbows were of little help in the melee, but they would come into play again, once they cut through the cavalry and reached the rebel infantry.
"They will come, they will come," Tameas kept repeating to himself, as he locked shields with a knight and used Hellcat's hilt to hit him in the face. The distance between them had been too small to wield the sword, but now that their shields were unlocked he moved back and swung the sword in the air, landing it at the height of that man's ear and slashing through his jawbone.
He couldn't think of his people falling around him. It was a miracle that he had not been killed yet, when, as he had promised, he had been leading the attack and the enemy must want his head most of all.
It might be the instinct that Sir Eldon had sworn he had, the ability to anticipate a move, to see things about to happen, to know when a blow was going to land and avoid it, to raise his shield at a javelin, to almost leap between his friends and his opponents on his swift horse.
His blood was up and only the battle existed, and the knowledge that they must win, or everything good would be lost.
DeGray was there as well, surrounded by knights who were protecting him. There was no trace of Bolbeck or Bullyon, though they must be somewhere in the middle of the fray. Tameas started cutting his way to DeGray.
A battle was a messy thing, with spears, pikes, horses, armor, shields and men going at each other, in a general pull and push. There was the smell of blood, the clash of armor and swords, the screaming. It became difficult to see beyond one's immediate opponent, at least for Tameas, who was fighting for the first time. He concentrated only on defeating whoever was on his way, but the triumphant war cry coming from DeGray told him that they were being beaten back
by the rebels.
“Forward!” DeGray shouted to the rebel cavalry. “Surround them!”
But then there was a thundering of hooves that made the earth shake, and a whole column of DeGray's knights seemed to collapse. Behind them he could see men with his colors and standard, and Sir Harry was leading them.
In a heartbeat, slashing his way through the rebel knights, Harry had reached the king, "Sire?"
"Harry! Good man!"
There was no time to say anything else, as the rebels were now fighting desperately to save themselves. The king's forces had made it impossible for them to retreat, as Tameas had intended, and now they were outnumbered.
Tameas and Harry fought back to back, then shield to shield to get to DeGray. The older man slashed viciously, knowing that he was surrounded. He was trying to escape to the woods, using the men in front of him as shields.
It was Tameas who got to him first, with a quick side step by Dancer that avoided a thrust from one of DeGray's protectors. The man slid forward and was cut down by Harry's sword.
DeGray looked around and saw there was no running away from the king, who was bearing down on him.
"Do you think you can beat me, boy?" he shouted.
He urged his horse forward and raised his sword, but the king bent sideways on his saddle, avoiding his blade and, pulling himself up again, Tameas turned back swiftly on Dancer and swung his arm with all his strength. Light but sharp, Hellcat did its deadly business, and the rebel lord’s head was severed at the height of his jaw.
Blood spouted from DeGray’s headless body as it swayed in the saddle. His horse kept running until it was stopped by Harry, who had watched the encounter, and who looked at Tameas with wide-eyed surprise.
DeGray’s horrible end and the greater force on the side of the crown, now coming from all sides, disheartened the rebel knights. It wasn't long before they put up their arms.