Of Limited Loyalty cc-2

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Her eyes flashed. “Not at all. I live to serve the Crown.”

  “It’s good to hear that in the Colonies, Catherine.”

  Owen looked at his wife. “The Prince has invited us to dine with him this evening. Hodge will be up with the Colonel’s things. I imagine we will head out inside the fortnight.”

  Miranda clutched his neck. “No, Daddy, don’t go!”

  Owen rubbed her back and kissed her head. “It will be okay, Miranda. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “I get scared.”

  “I know, honey. More nightmares?”

  Catherine folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, during her nap. The shadows in the woods are back.”

  Rathfield smiled. “I’m certain there is nothing to fear out there, Miranda.”

  The little girl hid her face against her father’s neck again and shivered.

  Oh, Colonel, you have no idea what lurks out there in the woods. Owen nodded. “You’re probably right, Colonel. But, for now, no shadows, Miranda. Just friends-friends from far away.”

  Chapter Six

  27 March 1767 Prince Haven, Temperance Bay, Mystria

  Prince Vlad retreated to his laboratory to open the packet from his father. When he’d built the new laboratory, he’d started with a barn so he had a massive open room that featured two lofts. The main floor contained his desk and drafting tables, dissection tables, closets for maps, charts, and equipment, and the largest or most recent of his specimens from around Mystria. The first loft had been ringed with bookshelves, which he had filled almost halfway with volumes from all over the world. A smaller bookshelf near his desk contained books he needed for current study, and piles of books supplemented its capacity. The highest loft, which he referred to as the attic, had a pulley and winch system on the main roof beam to help haul heavier items into the darkness. He’d thought he might store seasonal things there, like canoes, but he couldn’t fit them through the lower door and hadn’t yet opened a wall that high.

  He sat at his desk, and turned up the wick on a lamp. He pinched the wick much as he might do to snuff a flame, then invoked a spell, and pulled his hand back. The wick caught quickly and burned yellow-gold. The spell-a variation of that used to ignite brimstone in the breech of a gun-was common enough, but those who could not use magick were often wary of those who did, so the Prince did not indulge himself over much.

  Vlad turned the packet over and took a good look at the red wax seal. It bore the mark of his father’s ring, but he’d long suspected that the Queen had had the ring duplicated so she could read their correspondence. The outer packet showed no sign of tampering. Had agents softened the wax and scraped beneath the seal, the paper would be discolored around the seal itself. This did not surprise Vlad, since he doubted his father had packed the letters up anyway.

  The packet contained four letters, each folded, sealed, addressed, and dated. Vlad laid them out in order, then looked again at each seal. These did show signs of tampering. A heated knife blade had been slid under the flap and used to lift the seal, then a drop of wax had been applied to reseal the letter later. Those doing the reading, however, had no way of knowing how much information the seal itself provided.

  Around the edge of the seal ten symbols had been inscribed, appearing there similarly to the way numbers would have been displayed on the face of a clock. The symbols were astrological in origin, but only represented numbers. The number that stood on a line drawn vertically from the top of the letter to the bottom gave Vlad the cipher offset. A line drawn at right angles to that line at the level of the flap’s point would intersect two symbols. Their values would provide the word offset.

  In the case of the first letter he examined, the cipher offset was a four. He took a clean piece of paper and drew a five-by-five grid. He put the numbers zero through four across the top and five through nine down the left side. Then beginning with the fourth letter, D, he filled in the grid. He finished with the letter C, which also substituted freely for the letter K. This provided him the first key for the cipher.

  The word offset value came to eight. This meant every eighth word would contain the hidden message from his father-if there was one. If the date on the letter’s interior matched that of the outside, there was no message. The first two messages and the last had dates which matched, and Vlad chose to read them first.

  They were as many of his father’s messages: encouraging and positive, but not in the manner of a man advising his son. They came more in the style of a priest advising a parishioner in a difficult time. Vlad, who had not seen his father in over a quarter century, had come to expect such missives. Still, it bothered him that his father remained distant even when Vlad shared details about the man’s grandchildren.

  Then again, he is always guarded.

  He had to be. Prince John had never been suited to the throne, and had willingly entered a monastery in his youth. When it became apparent that King Richard was unable to father children, John was recalled from the monastery, married to a Princess of Strana, and sent to Mystria to act as Governor-General. Vlad suspected this was less to teach his father to govern than it was to keep him free of court intrigues. When Richard died in 1740 while campaigning in Tharyngia, Margaret-the youngest of the three siblings-assumed the throne and sent for John. He returned to Norisle, abdicated in her favor, and again entered the monastery.

  And Vlad, at the age of twenty-four, was made Governor-General in his place.

  These letters, as with many others, amounted to sermons on the virtue of service to the Crown. While suspicious men might think John wrote them to disguise a loathing for the woman who usurped his rightful place, Vlad was convinced of their sincerity. His father would have ruled had he been forced to, but he truly welcomed a chance to return to the monastery where he could resume his theological studies. Moreover, the fact that the Queen had produced five children, all of whom had lived to adulthood, meant that Vlad would be saved the burden of ruling. That fact made Prince John-whom many referred to as Saint John-very happy.

  The third letter contained a hidden message, so he refigured the keys and began to coax information out of the note. He picked out the words involved in the code, then broke them down, letter by letter, replacing them with the numbers from the key. Each word produced a three-number combination which corresponded to the page, paragraph, and word in a particular book. His father’s choices were limited, and after a couple of test runs, Vlad realized that A Treatise on Magick was the volume his father had chosen. The resulting note, while not wholly grammatical, managed to convey its intent.

  “Sun, no word of dead walking. Proof required. Ranged magick whispers. Church rules black art. Eye shall learn more as directed. Instructions required.”

  Vlad’s flesh puckered as he read. The message confirmed two things, and neither of them brought him joy. The first was that the code he shared with his father was compromised and that this third letter, though written in his father’s hand, had been composed and dictated by others. While the covering message matched his father for style, the coded message did not. His father was a passive being. He would have urged caution. Use of the word required wouldn’t occur to his father, neither would making a strong declaration as he did with Eye shall learn more. The request for direction was a clear solicitation of treason. The warning about the Church’s opinion about ranged magick would have been couched in terms of his beseeching Vlad to return to the ways of the Church.

  The warning confirmed hunches Vlad had harbored of a conspiracy so monumental that it forced him to see the world in an entirely new but hardly flattering light. His researches, including the study of the du Malphias papers, confirmed what he’d have dismissed as insanity had another tried to convince him of its veracity.

  Until the advent of brimstone and guns, magick had been severely limited and of little power. Because magick could only work by touch, and because iron and steel completely deadened magick, a man armed with a sword could easily kill a wit
ch, warlock, or sorcerer no matter how powerful. Magick would have been rooted out of the Auropean population entirely down through the years, save that most who revealed talent-oddly enough referred to as “the curse”-exiled themselves to the fringes of society and did their best to appease those inclined to dislike them. The Church, while condemning the sin, bestowed charity upon the sinners and invited back into their ranks those who promised to refrain from using magick.

  Once brimstone had made magick useful in the theatre of war, the Church reinterpreted certain teachings, and then condoned the use of magick. Most people who could use it were not terribly powerful, and magick use had its price. The Prince’s indulging himself in lighting the lamp through a spell would raise a little blood beneath his thumbnail. When he’d fought at Anvil Lake, he’d been black and blue to the elbows because of his efforts.

  But then, he was of royal blood. It seemed to him rather curious that within a generation of the Church sanctioning the use of magick, all the royal houses of Auropa revealed strains of strong magick use among their scions. Soldiers were ranked by how many shots they could get off before exhausting their magickal ability. Most were twos or threes, yet the majority of nobles ranked five and above.

  Marry all that to the fact that the miracles performed by saints in service to the Church could be duplicated by spells, and add in the fact that the Church often accepted into its ranks the lesser sons and daughters of nobility, and it suggested that the Church had, down through the centuries, secretly enshrined magick and preserved it. A case could be made for their having used it to influence world events.

  While a prisoner of Guy du Malphias, Owen Strake had witnessed the Tharyngian Laureate using magick in a manner that did not require direct contact. The Shedashee Mystrian natives likewise did things with magick that appeared to circumvent the need for direct touch. Du Malphias had told Owen that when the Tharyngian Revolution overthrew the King and destroyed the Church’s power in Tharyngia, they uncovered evidence of the Church’s conspiracy.

  Vlad might have considered that all fanciful save for a few chance comments his Norillian magick tutors had made. He’d begun instruction at the age of eight and progressed quickly. He’d been a keen learner and having inherited his father’s studiousness helped him greatly. His tutors had praised him lavishly for his abilities and hinted at his being able to work great magicks. And then, when he turned ten, those tutors departed for Norisle, and the others sent out were neither so enthusiastic nor intelligent. Vlad already knew more than they did, so they remained for a year, declared him hopeless, and left Mystria.

  Vlad had always consigned his memories of the first tutors to fantasy. Even when he noted that their recall coincided with the birth of his cousin, Edward, he’d not suspected anything sinister in it. But with evidence that greater magicks existed and the knowledge that the Church and Crown both had a vested interest in keeping them secret, he began to wonder. He began to question his father about things, gently, and the directness of the replies had kindled one other memory.

  It had been back when Vlad was twenty-three and just returned from what the family referred to as his pirate adventure. He’d awakened one evening and found his father pacing in the library of their home in Fairlee. John would walk, then try to write something, get up to walk again, then sit to write. Vlad watched him, then just took up his father’s place at the desk and told him to dictate.

  The resulting message, though lacking in specifics, was his father at his most direct. The letter was to his brother, King Richard. John urged him to abandon his foolish quest. He predicted dire consequences for them all if Richard persisted. He begged his brother to reconsider and refused to tell Vlad what it was all about. “For your own good, Vlad, you should forget this evening.”

  And so I would have if they had not chosen to use you against me, Father. To engage Vlad through his father, someone hoped to trap him into revealing a plot against either the Church or the Crown-perhaps both. His inquiries, however, had not involved politics and certainly were within the bounds of normal curiosity. To someone who had something to hide, however, even the most innocent question invited suspicion, and his father might be an unwitting dupe in the entire plot.

  At another time, in another place, Vlad might not have cared at all about the plot. After all, weren’t the nobility proven superior to the common man? Were they not ordained by God to rule? That was certainly what the Church taught-which was quite a trick if the Church and nobility were an oligarchy of magicians. If they were not the best, would not God strike them down?

  Vlad would have accepted that as the truth, and likely taken his place among them, save for his time in Mystria. The colonists had been the dregs of society, cast onto a far shore to live or die. They didn’t die; they thrived. They created a vibrant society that encouraged free thinking and exploration. Their energy created an economy that kept Mystria alive. At Anvil Lake they proved themselves the equal of Norillian troops in terms of courage, and perhaps just a little bit better in terms of warfare in the New World.

  Isn’t that proof that they are the better men?

  A hand tapped lightly on his door, bringing him out of his thoughts. “Yes, beloved.”

  “Your guests, darling, have arrived.” Gisella came to his desk, picked up a brush, and removed the dust from his coat. “Your good shoes are just inside the house. I think you will be fine otherwise.”

  “Owen’s wife?”

  Gisella smiled and gave her husband a quick kiss. “In Colonel Rathfield, she has a distraction. I gather he is willing to indulge her taste for court gossip.”

  “I’m sure.”

  She stepped back, eying him carefully. “Out with it.”

  Vlad laughed. “Forgive me. I grow suspicious in my old age.”

  “You are not old.” She playfully threatened him with the brush. “What are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking that Colonel Rathfield is here to observe more than the land to the west. If anything amiss is said about my aunt, he’ll relay it to her. Likewise any news about Owen will reach his uncle. I’m not certain whether Rathfield is playing at politics, or just trying to do his duty as he sees it. Either way, he could cause trouble.”

  Gisella applied the brush to his shoulder, then slipped her arms around his neck. “But you are loyal to the Crown, my Prince. The Queen has nothing to fear from you, so you have nothing to fear from her.”

  Vlad hugged his wife tightly. “Let’s hope it is as you say or, my dear, that the ocean can insulate us from her baseless wrath.”

  Chapter Seven

  5 April 1767 Prince Haven, Temperance Bay, Mystria

  As the members of the expedition gathered on the lawn near the wurmrest, Owen could not help but smile. Seven men of disparate backgrounds and inclinations were bound for lands unknown to them, in service to a distant ruler that none, save one, had ever met in person. It took Owen back four years. A journey measured in more than miles or time.

  Nathaniel Woods, slender and of above average height, with long brown hair ungathered and light brown eyes, would lead the expedition no matter what Colonel Rathfield believed. Born in Mystria and more at home in the forests than in town, Nathaniel had a keen love for the land. He wore beaded buckskin leggings and a loincloth, moccasins and a leather tunic with fringed sleeves. The knife at his belt was the only weapon on him; his rifle and a tomahawk had already been stowed in his canoe.

  With him stood Kamiskwa, a prince of the Altashee, one of the Twilight People. Rathfield tried not to stare at him, but to no avail. Owen could understand, as the Mystrian native looked unlike any human being in Auropa. Shorter yet more heavily muscled than Nathaniel, Kamiskwa’s flesh had a gray cast to it with greenish undertones, which all but made him invisible in the forest. His long, evergreen hair had been braided and knotted off with a beaded leather cord. Restless amber eyes moved quickly, as might those of a predator. Like Nathaniel, he wore moccasins, leggings, and a loincloth, the latter woven with a bear
-paw design that proclaimed his descent from Msitazi, the leader of the Altashee. He wore a knife and had a warclub slung over his back. A variety of tattoos and scars marked him, but his coloration made them difficult to see.

  Count Joachim von Metternin of Kesse-Saxeburg had attired himself most ostentatiously. He wore bleached buckskins as close to white as possible. The tunic had been beaded in the Shedashee style by Ishikis, one of Kamiskwa’s sisters, but the image was of lion rampant in coral-the von Metternin family crest. Perched on his head, hiding all but a few errant locks of brown hair, was a white foxskin cap with the ears still upthrust and the tail dangling at the back of the neck. The Count had shot the fox himself and was inordinately proud of that fact, so he wore the cap at every suitable opportunity.

  Though von Metternin was not a small man, Makepeace Bone dwarfed him. Tall and powerfully built, the first thing anyone noticed was a trio of scars raking forward from his crown to his left eyebrow. They were a memento of an encounter with an angry bear that Makepeace managed to kill with his bare hands. Born of a family professing the Virtuan faith, Makepeace, along with two of his brothers-Tribulation and Justice-had helped win the battle at Anvil Lake. Makepeace wore buckskins with no decoration and, save for the smile splitting a thick brown beard, one might have thought he would be given to considerable melancholy.

  Owen and Hodge Dunsby had also donned skins for traveling. Owen chose to wear the leggings, loincloth, and tunic given to him by Msitazi. His tunic featured a beaded bear paw. Hodge’s clothes were more modest but he’d killed the deer himself, tanned the hides, cut and sewed them together with minimal help. Though his inexperience showed, his pride in self-sufficiency lit his face brightly.

  Owen found Rathfield’s outfit distressing. When Owen had headed out for the first time, he’d insisted on wearing his uniform. Beginning with his boots, it had begun to deteriorate almost immediately. Nathaniel and Kamiskwa managed to convince him to adopt more practical attire. I was a complete fool, and had they not coerced me into sensible clothes, I should have been naked and humiliated three weeks out of Temperance. Owen had been hoping that Rathfield would be as foolish and arrogant as he’d been-a petty desire, he acknowledged, but he’d revel in the man’s ignorance.