“It’s a shame he’s not here,” Teodora said, “but I’ll get rid of him anyway. With Princess Viviane back in charge, the nobility will be more cooperative in sending troops. I imagine within a week, we’ll have enough to put the rebellion down.
“In the meantime I’ll put out word that Braeden Terris is to be killed on sight. Same goes for Princess Gwynneth and her spawn. I’m arranging for a rich reward for anyone who kills them, and a pardon if they are involved in the rebellion.”
Elektra turned to stare at her mother, unable to conceal her shock.
Teodora laughed. “It’s a good idea, don’t you think? I’m sure the rebels are holding the princess hoping to get a large ransom from her friends. Far easier for them to kill her and gain an even larger reward, while being absolved of any crimes against the kingdom.”
Elektra shuddered. She couldn’t bear to think of Devyn and Stella—who had become her friends—being killed. She liked Princess Gwynneth too, and prayed that Braeden had somehow helped them escape before her mother’s proclamation reached those around them.
Teodora smiled broadly as they arrived back at the palace. “You must move to another room so Princess Viviane can have hers back. Is that all right?”
Elektra didn’t mind that at all, until she saw she was being tucked into a maid’s room next to her mother’s. No hope for privacy then. She’d have to hope for a long visit to the chapel on her own as soon as possible.
But even that was not to be. “I’m sure Father Stipan won’t mind if you put off your penance for a day or two,” Teodora said the next morning. “We have a lot to do if we’re to quickly put down this revolt and deal with our other enemies.”
So Elektra had to spend the entire morning in Princess Viviane’s study, staring at a spot on the carpet that might have been Prince Kendryk’s blood, while her mother and the princess plotted the destruction of his friends and family.
Braeden
Braeden couldn’t believe he’d let Princess Gwynneth talk him into this scheme, and young Florian Herbst was too smooth by half. Uncharitably, Braeden’s first thought when he’d seen the appealing young man and the still-beautiful princess side-by-side, had been that one had somehow seduced the other. But Gwynneth’s cool, businesslike tone made it clear the relationship was purely one of opportunity. Florian might have liked things friendlier, but the princess was having none of it.
The first order of business, once they’d made their plans, was to move closer to Kronfels. Braeden couldn’t tell the rest of his escort exactly what he had planned, so he settled for what seemed like a plausible untruth for Colonel Destler once he had Gwynneth. The colonel and his force marched behind the sledge in a silent mass.
“What did you tell him?” Florian asked Braeden, while he drove the sledge through a dark, snowy forest. Braeden sat beside him on the little bench, with Gwynneth and the children bundled up in back. He’d wanted to keep Devyn and Stella safe in the country, but Gwynneth wouldn’t hear of it.
“I can’t leave them.” Her voice had cracked, and Braeden knew she was thinking of the two she’d left behind in Galladium. Both he and Gwynneth had written to Gauvain, asking him to bring them to him in Allaux, but hadn’t yet received a response.
“There’s a safe place to keep them in town,” Florian said “If all goes as planned, there ought to be little trouble, except at the Maxima’s prison. Once we’re gone and Princess Viviane is dead, things ought to quiet down.” He’d promised to call a halt to the revolt once they’d killed the princess, while he and Braeden engaged in formal, public negotiations.
“Huh,” Braeden said. “I doubt it’ll go over well with the nobility.”
“You can blame it on us,” Florian said cheerfully. “As far as anyone else knows, you’re bringing the princess and her children back into town after rescuing them from savage peasants.”
“Ransoming,” Braeden said. “That’s what I told Destler I was doing. He didn’t approve but he’s happy enough to have the princess back.”
“The poor man,” Gwynneth said, her voice muffled by the scarf over her face. “He has no idea what kinds of illegal behavior he’s party to.”
“With any luck, he’ll never know.” Florian cracked the whip and the horses picked up the pace, the moon moving from behind a cloud and lighting the snowy path.
They drove in silence for a while, then Braeden asked the question that had been bothering him for a while. “Why are you doing this?” he asked, keeping his voice low, not knowing if Gwynneth was still listening.
“Helping you and Princess Gwynneth?”
“No, all of this. The revolt for starters. Kidnapping the princess and then agreeing to help her with this. You don’t seem crazy, but you sure do a lot of crazy things.”
Florian drove on for a while, whistling under his breath, and Braeden figured he wouldn’t answer.
Finally he said, “I had an awakening of sorts.”
“A religious one?” Braeden hadn’t taken him for that type, though he was tight with the Maxima.
“Not entirely, though I converted to the Quadrene creed along with everyone else a few years ago. That didn’t make quite the impression you might expect. I still kept to my old ways.”
“Which I assume were not helping peasants revolt,” Braeden offered.
“No. Not at all,” Florian said with a laugh. “No, I’m doing this because I hate my father, and by extension, everyone like him.”
“That still seems extreme,” Braeden said, though knowing Count Herbst, he didn’t blame Florian one bit.
“Might be, but my father is an extreme person. He probably showed you his good side.”
“Ercos help us.”
“Exactly. He’s much worse when it’s just family. He beat Mother and his children regularly, though that’s not what did it.”
“That’s reason enough,” Braeden said, though he worried there was more.
“Maybe, though not for me. In fact, I was well on my way to turning into him. Aside from my time with Antonia Maxima, I’d known only brutality. But because of her, I realized there might be a different way, though I didn’t think it was for me.”
“So what changed you?” Florian seemed the opposite of his oily, unpleasant father.
“My sister.” Florian’s voice was little more than a whisper.
“I didn’t realize you had one.”
“Not anymore.” He paused and Braeden kept the silence. He sensed Florian hadn’t spoken of this in quite some time, if ever.
Florian drew in a deep breath. “Katia was only a year younger than me, and my best friend. We did everything together from the time we were little and I always joked that when I inherited the estate, she could play lady of the manor. I didn’t want her to go away and get married, even though I expected she would.” He paused again, the only sound at that moment the hissing of the sledge’s runners in the snow. Destler’s troop must have fallen far behind.
When Florian spoke again, his voice was rough. “All the same, Katia spent years saying no to all the suitors my father proposed. He’d fly into a rage, but she’d laugh at him and he’d get over it. But when she finally fell in love, he didn’t get over that.”
“Someone inappropriate then?” Braeden thanked the gods for the thousandth time he hadn’t been born a count.
“Very.” Florian took a deep breath. “Freddi Bauer, a young tenant farmer on a neighboring estate. Katia and I had known him all of our lives. I’m not sure how it happened, or when they took up together.
“She didn’t tell me until after they’d already secretly married. I was shocked but decided it was all right. Freddi was a good man, very much in love with her, and Katia far better suited to farm life than lady of the manor, for all of our joking.”
“I imagine your father didn’t like it,” Braeden prompted, though he doubted he wanted to hear the end of this story.
“He didn’t.” Florian paused and swallowed. “In fact, I’ve never seen him so angry. He
threatened to have Freddi driven off his farm, but he didn’t have the authority. The neighboring landowner hates my father, so was happy to take part in his daughter’s disgrace. Mother and I did our best to smooth things over, but we couldn’t do it. Katia finally left in a huff, off to live on her farm, and we hoped Father would come around in time.
“But he didn’t, and one night, about a year ago, on a night much like this one, he took all his household guard out to Freddi’s farmhouse. They nailed the doors and windows shut, then set fire to it.” His voice shook. “And that was the end of it.”
They both stayed silent for a long time.
“Next time I see him, I’ll kill him for you if you like,” Braeden said at last.
Florian barked a harsh laugh. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that. But before my father dies, I want him to see the downfall of everything that matters to him. I want his house in flames, and the system that allowed him to get away with this overthrown.”
Lennart
It was both confounding and embarrassing, but Lennart wasn’t able to locate the bulk of Mattila’s army. It didn’t help that the openly hostile population refused to give him any information, and likely provided false reports instead. Lennart didn’t understand it. Mattila and Teodora would bring them nothing but grief, while he offered hope for a better future.
“It’s hard to see a better future when your house has just gone up in flames,” Leyf Lofbrok pointed out as he and Lennart walked the walls of a fortified town in northeastern Tirilis. Lennart decided against going further north, and met up with Lofbrok before turning back toward Richenbruck.
“You’re right. I just don’t see another way right now.” Lennart stopped and stared across the snowy countryside. A smudge in the distance was likely the cook-fires of Kersenstadt. That city had never been rebuilt but a few hundred folk lived there now, scratching out an existence in the rubble.
He wondered where the enemy had gone. Surely you couldn’t move thousands of troops across the country without someone seeing something? Unless those who’d seen weren’t telling him.
“This is the best way,” Lofbrok said, also squinting off into the distance. “Folk just don’t realize it now, and might be they never will.” He punched Lennart in the arm. “Good thing you didn’t get into this war to be popular.”
“Good thing,” Lennart muttered, and kept walking. While he didn’t expect popularity, he wouldn’t deny that he’d at least hoped for it. He usually tried to push the feeling aside, but pride and vanity lurked in the corner of his mind. He wanted to be remembered as a great king, not just of Estenor, but as the liberator of an entire empire.
Lennart wanted people to like him, and so far he’d done pretty well on that score, except for his enemies. But these people weren’t his enemies, though they hated him anyway. That seemed rather unfair, considering they didn’t know him at all. Lennart wondered if he could rebuild goodwill by handing out food to the poor in Richenbruck, or some other virtuous, yet public task.
But he wasn’t needed in Richenbruck. Tora Isenberg had the situation well in hand, and spoke highly of the burgomaster and city administrators. Faced with the emergency, they organized housing for people, and storage for livestock, fuel and foodstuffs. All able-bodied citizens and refugees took part in work details, building up the city’s fortifications.
The biggest concern right now was that the Tira River had frozen over solidly, meaning it no longer created a natural defense. Ever industrious, Isenberg had earthworks thrown up along its banks, stretching for several leagues from the city. If Mattila wanted to cross the river ice, she was welcome to walk its length while facing musket fire from the tops of the earthworks.
Lennart and Lofbrok worked their joint forces back west, hoping to come across Mattila sooner or later. Scouts ranged for dozens of leagues in all directions, looking for any sign that a large army had passed. Here, the land had been devastated for some time, so the going was unpleasant.
Every house and barn had been burned, offering no food or shelter for man or beast. Lennart kept his supply lines from Richenbruck strong; all the supplies designated for military use were piled outside the city, constantly reloading a steady stream of wagons. He didn’t know how Mattila was getting by, but didn’t much care.
After a few weeks of scouring the countryside, Lennart received a clue, though it wasn’t a pretty one. An officer who’d been leading scouts galloped into Lennart’s presence, looking rather green.
“What’ve you found?” Lennart asked, hoping it wasn’t some atrocity. Gods only knew what Mattila might have done to anyone who refused to leave.
“Soldiers,” the officer said. “Imperials, as far as I could tell.”
Lennart jerked to full alertness. “How many?”
“Hard to say. Twenty or so. I think it’s best if you come look.”
Lennart wondered if they’d been taken prisoner, though judging by the officer’s peculiar manner, he thought not.
He was right. The man led him to a copse of trees near a village and pointed to a snowy pile. There was no doubt the bodies, frozen stiff, were those of soldiers. Lennart dismounted and walked over for a closer look, though he didn’t want to. It seemed the wolves had already been at them.
“Mattila’s tabards,” he said. “You’d think she’d remove those if she didn’t want us to know she was here.”
“Might be she wants us to,” Lofbrok said, walking up beside him.
“That her troops are freezing to death? Maybe starving?” Upon closer observation, a few of the corpses looked rather gaunt.
Lofbrok nodded. “She knows what you’ve done to make it hard for her soldiers to survive. Maybe she wants you to know she doesn’t care.”
“By the Father,” Lennart muttered. “I’ll kill her myself.” He loved his soldiers and couldn’t imagine being so careless of their lives. Death in battle was one thing, but this was an unnecessary and nasty way to prove a point.
Lennart looked up and took a deep breath. “At least we can be sure she came this way. Somehow, she got around us again and is headed for Richenbruck. Let’s catch up to her before she can cause any more trouble.”
Anton
Even though they moved quickly, it still took ages to get across Tirovor. Especially now he knew Maryna and Natalya were alive, Anton couldn’t wait to see them and make them safe. But he had to wait, and so did the rest of them. They changed guides every now and then, since Trystan insisted on hiring only those who knew the immediate area well.
“Folk don’t travel far from home around here,” he told Anton. “Even the guides hardly venture over forty leagues from their own villages.”
“I don’t blame them.” Anton looked up at the towering, snow-covered peaks. “Too much work.”
They were visiting a marketplace in a small town when they heard the Maladene convoy had been stopped at a village near the Cesiane border. It seemed Trystan couldn’t stop grinning. “They’ve been there for almost ten days,” he said. “The burgomaster came up with an excuse about paperwork, and has kept them tied up. Now we just have to find out where they’re holding the captives.”
This required more planning than they’d done in a while. “We can’t just march in there with everyone,” Trystan said. “I say a few of us sneak in and find out where they’re being held. Once we work that out, we’ll plan a rescue.”
“I’ll go, since I know what both of them look like,” Karil said.
“Me too.” Anton realized Karil had spent nearly as much time in Allaux as he had, though he hadn’t gone to the Maxima’s school, or become good friends with Maryna.
“Of course.” Trystan looked amused. “Though you’d better hope neither one of them lets on they recognize you, if you see them.”
“They’re too smart for that.” Karil shook his head. “You’ll see.”
They traveled on, coming to a halt in a village just one valley away from their target. Trystan found accommodation for everyone else, and the thr
ee of them made ready to move on.
“We’ll need a story,” Anton said. “Because I’ll bet those scary guards will watch for any strangers. These small places don’t see many this time of year.”
Trystan looked thoughtful. “Let’s visit the burgomaster first, and keep it quiet.”
Taking no escort, the three boys reached the village, then asked their way through to the burgomaster’s house. They spoke a peculiar brand of Olvisyan here, but Anton had become used to talking to the guides, so he could make it out well enough.
Arriving at the front door of a pretty two-story house before sundown, Trystan gave their names and they were let in by a fat maid. She led them to a comfortable parlor with a fire blazing in the hearth. They were still warming themselves when the burgomaster came in. She was also fat, but much taller than the maid. Anton reckoned it was the delicious local cheese that did it.
“I’m Resi Tardin,” the burgomaster said with a polite, though efficient air. “I received your message and have done my best to delay the Maladenes, though we don’t like having them in town. The Cesiane guards are even worse. Please tell me you’re here to get rid of them.”
“We’re here to rescue the captives,” Trystan said. “Do you have any idea where they are? We’ll get rid of the guards while we’re at it.”
“I haven’t seen the captives, but there’s only one inn, and I imagine that’s where they’re keeping them. You might have some luck questioning the workers there.”
“Good idea,” Trystan said. “We were hoping you might help us appear less suspicious to the guards.”
“Hah,” Tardin said. “Not so easy, soldierly and foreign as you lot look. You can stay here tonight and I’ll think of something. Best to start your investigation tomorrow.”
Anton had hoped to start that night, but found he was getting sleepy, sitting by the fire. Wonderful smells wafted from a nearby kitchen and his mouth watered.
Trystan and Karil had no objection either, so they stayed, sleeping in a large room under the eaves with enormous feather-beds after eating an enormous meal featuring vast amounts of the expected cheese.
Winter of the Wolf (The Desolate Empire Book 4) Page 50