The only other thing of note as they rode on to the fort was a large and rather inexplicable object left abandoned on the foreshore itself, perhaps two hundred metres east of the barracks walls. Little more than a rusted, skeletal frame, it had presumably once been some kind of vessel run aground – at least, Nev assumed that must’ve been the case based on its appearance, position and approximate size.
It must’ve been many decades old judging by the level of degradation, yet was clear enough that someone still considered it to be dangerous as the entire site had been cordoned off by white rope suspended by stakes driven into the ground at regular intervals at a safe distance around its circumference. Making a single mental not that the ropes and stakes appeared to be identical to the one’s she’d come across surrounding an overgrown mound in the middle of the field on that first morning after she’d arrived, Nev otherwise gave it no further thought as the troop continued on toward the fort and a good chance of more rest.
She was led into a small bunkroom fifteen minutes later. Situated inside the main building behind the watchtower, the interior comprised little more than a pair of bunk beds on either side with a plain wooden chair and a small writing desk in the centre of the far wall. High up in the stone wall above the desk, a narrow window allowed a bare minimum of sunlight to filter through to illuminate an otherwise dreary environment. Nev suspected it had perhaps been used by junior officers, that deduction mainly stemming from the fact that it was directly adjacent to the far more spacious quarters of the commanding officer, which had of course been made available to the queen.
There was no one in the short hallway outside as she poked her head out and took a quick look around, feeling distinctly abandoned and a little on edge over being left alone in a strange place. Godfrey was outside somewhere, helping to organise the troops at William’s request, while the queen had retired to her newly-acquired room opposite. Of Randwick there was no sign at all: he’d ridden off to the north within minutes of their arrival, having taken just enough time to make certain the queen was looked after and well-protected before his departure. She knew there’d be guards outside the door at the end of the hall leading out into the courtyard, but that section of the barracks otherwise seemed to be completely deserted.
Nev almost fell backward into her room with fright as the door opposite was suddenly flung open and the queen also poked her head out into the hallway with a broad and distinctly mischievous smile on her face.
“Not doing anything, are you?” Charleroi asked eagerly, casting her eyes up and down the hall to confirm her initial assessment that they were indeed alone.
“Um… no…?” Nev ventured cautiously, not at all sure she should be talking to a queen without others present… particularly one who seemed to be acting very strangely in comparison to the poise and demeanour she’d displayed every other time they’d been together.
“Excellent…!” Charleroi stated emphatically, immediately disappearing back inside her quarters as the door swung slowly closed once more, leaving Nev standing in her own doorway with a decidedly bewildered expression on her face.
“Um…” she mumbled again, not at all sure what to do next.
“Well come on then…!” Charleroi exclaimed, appearing just as unexpectedly for a second time and pushing Nev even closer to a nervous coronary. “Do I have to make it an order? That’s no way to become friends!”
“Um… okay…?” She managed eventually, drawing on every ounce of her public-speaking skills as the queen drew the door back even wider to allow her entry.
The room beyond that door was definitely fitted out for a commanding officer. A huge, leather-topped desk formed the centrepiece surrounded by a trio of large, upholstered armchairs, while a huge set of bay windows behind were bordered by long drapes in Huon blue. A large rack of swords, crossbows and other weapons stood against one wall – all of them dusty enough to clearly be for ceremonial use only – while against the other stood a rather ostentatious four-poster bed that by Nev’s reckoning was at least a king-single in size. Several large logs crackled merrily away in a large stone fireplace next to the weapon display and above the mantle, a large oil painting depicted some battle scene that was so generic it could’ve hung in the officer’s mess of any half-decent army anywhere back home. Several more works of similar design had been hung about the other walls with what appeared to be an equal level of disinterest.
“Boring, isn’t it…” Charleroi observed melodramatically, plonking herself down on the edge of the bed with her chin in her hands. “Stuck in here with nothing to do, surrounded by dull old men’s toys and even duller old paintings.”
“Any idea where Randwick’s gone… Ma’am…?” Nev asked cautiously, taking care to add a title to the end of the sentence just in case.
“Oh, somewhere up north around the bay, I think…” she replied with a casual wave of one hand in that general direction. “I do hope he won’t be too long… and for Crystal’s sake, no need to call me ‘ma’am’ or anything silly like that when we’re alone: that’s all just for appearances! My name is Charleroi… Charli…” She added, correcting herself, then losing her outward good humour for a moment as the memory of her father came rushing back at the mention of his preferred pet name for her. “Just… Charli…” she managed eventually, mood noticeably dulled but nevertheless still determined not to let any sadness spoil things.
The change in temperament was marked, and Nev figured it didn’t take a genius to recognise that having lost her father just days before and at the same time be forced to take over the reins of an entire kingdom in the middle of an enemy invasion would be an unimaginable amount of stress even for an adult, let alone a teenager who – although clearly pretty sharp and well-educated – had probably grown up in a pretty isolated and sterile environment.
“You don’t mind if I call you Charli…?” She ventured, feeling as if she were negotiating an emotional minefield while blindfolded (in a completely dark room).
“It… um… my father calls – used to call me that…” Charli admitted finally, looking like she was about to burst into tears as emotions welled up from within. “I – I don’t have many friends… not real ones, anyway. I wasn’t ever allowed out of Cadle, and it wasn’t protocol to mingle with the children of the palace staff, so there was only really a handful of noblemen’s sons ever around to talk to…”
“Are teenage boys as dumb in this world as they are in mine?” Nev asked with a conspiratorial grimace, thinking she saw a way to break some of the emotional ice.
“What’s a ‘teenage’…?’
“Oh – uh – it means someone who’s between thirteen and nineteen years old – thirteen to nineteen summers, I think Godfrey would probably say…”
“Oh… oh…!” Charli frowned, the brightened again, grasping the concept quickly. “…’Teen-age… that makes sense…! Oh…!” She exclaimed, now thinking about what Nev had actually asked. “And you don’t mean ‘dumb’ as in ‘can’t speak’ either, do you?” She added, extrapolating. “Oh, yes… so, so dumb…! All they ever want to talk about is how good they are at riding… or swordsmanship… or archery (like I couldn’t best most of them at that anyway)… or how much land their fathers own. It was all I could do sometimes to stay awake…” She added with a giggle, her whole face brightening with the smile that followed.
“Yeah… sounds like boys are pretty much the same all over…” Nev grinned in return, pulling around one of the armchairs on that side of the desk and sliding down into its cushiony comfort. “Always going on about football, or what cars they like... bragging about how many girls they’ve… uh…” she paused then, realising that the rest of that sentence might not be appropriate for the teenage queen of a medieval alternate universe. “Well, they talk too much, basically…”
“Oh, they brag about that here too…” Charli admitted, knowing exactly what Nev was talking about and rolling her eyes. “They think I don’t hear them, but I do… it’s disgusting, t
rust me! Randwick always says that chivalry is dead: when I hear the way some of those supposed future lords and nobles talk about women, I’m inclined to believe him…”
“My friends call me Nev… everyone does, really…” she added with another grimace. “I don’t have that many friends either… where I come from, I mean. I had a friend… or, at least I thought I did… but she ended up betraying me, tricked me into coming here and nearly got me killed into the bargain.”
“Not much of a friend then…” Charli agreed with a serious nod.
“You’re not wrong.” Nev nodded, giving a wry smile. “You said you were never allowed out of Cadle…?”
“Never… at least, not as far back as I can remember…”
“But… but, you’re – what? – sixteen…? That’s not even unfair… it’s insane…! Why would… they do that…?” Nev asked in bewilderment, managing to divert away from the word ‘father’ at the last moment.
“Surely you know about the Keepsakes…?” Charli asked sourly, frowning.
“Oh… that sexist b- uh – rubbish…” she replied, again catching herself at the last moment and thinking it best not to swear in front of a queen regardless of their growing familiarity. “Yes, Godfrey and Lester told me all about that when I first arrived. Had to hide in the back of wagons right across half of the Blacklands before we got on the boat that brought us here... well, most of the way here, anyway. What is it with this place? Is everyone really so scared of ‘witches’ that they make up this kind of crap, or is it just this ‘Brotherhood’ mob giving the rest of the men here an excuse to treat women like second-class citizens?” Oh God, I’m starting to sound like Perce! She added silently, not at all happy about the idea.
“They… um…” Charli faltered, not exactly sure how to answer that question, particularly considering her own vested interest. “I… ah... used to think it was all just made up. That is…” she continued hesitantly, desperate to share the burden she’d been carrying for so long but also agonising over whether to share her one, huge secret with an almost complete stranger, “…until I saw one earlier this week…”
“Wait, you saw… you saw a Keepsake…?” Nev hissed excitedly, managing to keep her voice down enough to not make things awkward as Charli glanced self-consciously around the otherwise empty room as if they might be overheard. “You really saw one of these stupid things?” She almost giggled in the moment before the seriousness of the situation actually struck home. “So what: you’re a ‘witch’ now…? You’re actually a witch…?”
“I’m not a witch…!” Charli snapped instantly in return, forced to moderate her own volume midway through the statement. “I’m not…!”
“No…no…! Or course you’re not – that’s not what I meant at all!” Nev backpedalled desperately, shaking her head furiously in apologetic denial. “I don’t believe there is such a thing as witches – I just meant that they – this stupid Brotherhood or whatever it is – would think you’re one because you can supposedly see these ‘Keepsake’ things…”
“With Randwick’s help, Father managed to keep that quiet, thank The Shard…” Charli sighed, staring crestfallen at the wooden floorboards below her feet.
“Is it really true that only women can see them?”
“As far as I know…” she answered with a shrug. “That’s what everyone believes: what we’ve always been told, anyway… No man can see them, and neither can most women… but those who can are witches; evil through-and-through and an offence to the Shard Gods. That’s why they have that awful rule about women not being allowed to travel outside their own safe areas without covering their eyes – they can’t risk the chance of someone seeing something they shouldn’t.”
“And they really burn women – these ‘witches’ – at the stake if they catch them?”
“Those that make it that far…” she nodded sadly “…the ones that don’t kill themselves first, or die while ‘resisting arrest’… I’ve seen it happen, right there in the middle of Cadle courtyard where we waited for you yesterday morning. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s still far too many times to see such a thing! Father hated it, but he couldn’t say anything against it – even as king, he didn’t dare – and I know he didn’t believe any of it deep down.”
“That’s horrible…” Nev whispered in horror, almost numb with the thought of innocent women and girls being dragged to so terrible a fate that some would rather suicide than go through with it. “Just horrible…!”
“They’d have done it to me too…” Charli stated with a hollow tone, still staring at the floor. “Wouldn’t matter for a moment that I was a princess, and there wasn’t a thing father could’ve done to stop them: all because I could see some stupid old boat down on the Burnii beach…”
“…Like that old wreck on the beach…?” Nev asked almost absent-mindedly, so enthralled by what the queen was saying that she wasn’t thinking anywhere near deeply enough.
“What… the one right outside...?” Charli asked in return, a chill rippling through her as she locked eyes with Nev for the first time in a while and the hairs rose unbidden at the back of her neck. “The old wreck up on the foreshore there, about two hundred yards beyond the walls…?”
“Uhh… yeah, I guess…” Nev shrugged, apprehension setting in late as she began to realise too late that she’d said something significant. “Saw it as we were riding in: had those white-topped stakes around it and the rope…”
“Save us from Nethug, that’s one of them!” Charli exclaimed, leaping to her feet in a mixture of fear and excitement, reaching out to grasp Nev’s hands and hold them tight. “That’s a Keepsake! You can see them! You can see them too…!”
“See what too…?” A different, deeper voice asked with mild interest, and both of them jumped and turned in fright as Randwick stood expectant in the now-open doorway, hands on hips and giving a deeply suspicious glare as he took in the scene of two unlikely new friends who’d just discovered they had something very special in common.
De Lisle had never seen Cadle in such a state. He’d visited that huge fortress, that spiritual centre of Huon innumerable times over the years, and now it seemed barely a gutted shell of its former self. Corpses lay strewn about the main courtyard and hanging from its shattered ramparts, little more than food for hungry crows now as small bands of Blackwatch troopers moved this way and that on cleaning detail, dragging the limp and shattered bodies of Cadle’s former defenders across to the middle of the courtyard where a huge and rancid bonfire burned furiously.
Standing atop a relatively untouched section of rampart near the ruined main gates, De Lisle could stare out over the entire main courtyard and the brutal devastation it contained. The stench of death hung everywhere, mingling with the foetid odours of filth and rotting garbage that were the other obvious remaining after-effects of a battle that’d finally come to an end just hours before. The defenders had stood fast and fought as hard as they were able, but there’d been no way they could’ve held out against the 5,000-strong army Harald had brought south from Burnii.
It’d been the cannon that had really been the difference of course. De Lisle knew well-enough how strong the Cadle defences were, backed up by months of supplies and a plentiful supply of fresh water pumped from fast-running underground rivers that cut through the basalt, far below the fortress foundations. Cadle could’ve held against a force ten times that of Harald’s army and not even blinked had there not been solid shot and explosive shells to shatter the ramparts and blow apart its thick iron gates.
“That’s an interesting fragrance they’ve discovered there…” Percy observed sourly beside him, her voice muffled by the thick, cloth wrap she’d tied across her mouth and nose in a vain attempt to deaden the stench. “Really makes me homesick for that refreshing country air…”
“There was no need for such a waste of life…” The cardinal growled testily, angering over the situation rather than anything she’d said. “I pleaded with them for hou
rs in the hope of some amicable solution…”
“Mmmh…” Percy observed dubiously. “I’m sure Harald would’ve been very lenient, had they all just up and surrendered right from the start.”
She’d seen enough of the Blackwatch’s atrocities, both before and after the invasion, to be fairly certain none of Harald’s officers or men were likely to make the shortlist for the Nobel Peace Prize any time soon. She’d become accustomed enough to the violence to no longer be shocked by what she saw, but it nevertheless left her under no illusions regarding the brutality of the regime, nor any regarding how carefully she needed to tread for the time being.
“There would have been casualties, yes…” De Lisle conceded with mild annoyance “…but far fewer that the wholesale slaughter that’s occurred here today. A small mercy they were at least able to evacuate most of the women and children…”
“Oh, I’m sure freezing to death in the mountains from hypothermia will be far better than finding yourself at the wrong end of a Blackwatch sword…” Percy pointed out darkly, pulling a face.
Blackwatch scouts had reached Burnii Crossroads just after noon the previous day, and access to the Merchant’s High Road heading south had been cut soon after, leaving hundreds (if not thousands) of refugees trapped north of Huon’s forbidding central ranges. It’d been a particularly cold spring so far that year and many peaks were still capped with thick layers of snow. Nevertheless, many had chosen to test their fortune against the unforgiving environment of southbound mountain trails rather than risk being captured by Harald’s inexorable advance.
“…Maybe not as rapey, at least…” she added with dark sarcasm as a pair of particularly backward-looking individuals tromped past, their armour rattling in time with the march of their feet. She’d momentarily caught the rather unpleasant stare each man gave her and had returned a defiant, side-eyed glare of her own that covered up the shudder she felt ripple through her entire body, making her skin crawl.
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