Their time with ‘the Operators’ been an experience full of the wrong kind of excitement and an example of what it is like to be ‘nearly cargo’. Not a princess, a lady or even a human being, but something less than livestock. A complete contrast to the journey to Tranmure surrounded by soldiers.
She remembered arriving to pomp and ceremony and suddenly realising her traditional Nearhon travelling clothes made her look like some kind of wild outlaw compared to the finery of the ladies and gentlemen lined up to welcome her. She had nearly refused to get out the carriage. When she had plucked up the courage to step outside, there had been the slightly nervous smile on a handsome face with brown eyes framed by tumbling dark hair. She recalled Cory kissing the back of her hand and escorting her the way a lady would be to dance. She had quite forgotten how she was dressed and begun to feel like the princess she was. That’s how it started. The ‘ladies of the night’ (and, it seemed, the day), when they stopped overnight in Norvale, often joked that men generally wanted a quick rut and to be on their way. Julia knew that in Cory’s hands she still felt like a princess even after animal passion had taken over.
Think about the journey you’ve just had — easier to deal with! she thought, silently admonishing herself, suddenly feeling hot and flushed.
The Bandit Country Operators only know how to look after cargo. She had to admit they were good at that. They were here and alive, after proving too tempting a target for bandits to ignore for kidnapping and (she hoped) ransom demands. There had been only fifteen Operators once they had left Norvale. Not the same deterrent as forty soldiers on her trip there. Jaygee had bragged one of his men was worth more than six soldiers. The Operators believed it, too.
Daylight had faded on their first day of travel as rolling hills rose about the road before it lead to the great plain. Julia and Pico had looked out of the carriage, starting to fear the dark as the men stopped talking. Worse than that, they had only seen six out of the fifteen with them and they had crossbows out and loaded.
Jaygee had ridden close, winked at them and then closed the sliding shutters over the carriage windows. Iron shutters. Infuriating man. The window on the other side had closed with a clank. The carriage had had an odd smell to it and the air inside felt damp. Sounds had echoed in the enclosed space. The walls were made of iron. It turned out there was a reason why the wheels were covered with metal plates. The reason had announced itself with a sudden dull thud and a momentary flexing of the metal walls, then a second thud on the other side. The carriage had stopped abruptly and Julia and Pico looked at each other, eyes wide in alarm. It sounded like they were under attack. They had heard barked orders, and men had quickly taken cover behind the carriage and the solid wheels. They seemed to be scrabbling and thumping about under the carriage floor. Then the twang and clank of crossbow fire began. There had been thuds on the carriage walls — smaller and more frequent this time, as if someone had thrown a bucket of rocks at the carriage. There was a battle going on around them and they were blind in a metal box. Julia had wished they were in the concert hall playing for all her life was worth, or out on a hilltop under a tree somewhere watching waterfalls. Pico might have preferred to be browsing the markets in Tranmure or walking in the hot house with sunlight streaming through every pane of glass. Anywhere but in a claustrophobic coffin on wheels with no room to do anything but cling to each other. There had been shouts of alarm, in the Nearhon language, further away from the carriage. The thudding ceased, replaced by the dying wails of whoever it was out there in the hills.
Julia had reached for the shutters then snapped her hand back as if scalded by a hot kettle. Jaygee could put on a menacing glare if they disobeyed his orders. The man apparently liked to be in control and was used to having it. When he gave commands to his men, he never looked up, knowing they were being carried out. Then the shutters opened.
‘You can come out now. Get some air.’
Julia opened the carriage door and stepped into the aftermath of a small war. They were spared the sight of dead bodies close up. They could be seen, heaps of makeshift armour on the crests of the hills. On the same hilltops, standing out against the darkening sky stood giant crossbows mounted on wooden tripods.
‘We’ve been trying to nail this bunch for months,’ Jaygee had declared, a broad grin on his face revealing gold teeth glinting in the light. He had then barked some more orders and the formerly ‘missing’ operators began pulling the bodies down to the road and dismantling the crossbows. Jaygee had picked up what looked like a giant crossbow bolt with a thin rope tied on one end and then pointed out the impact point on the carriage where the oversized bolt had punched a hole in the wood, only to be turned back by the iron plate. Julia had simply stared at the tip of the bolt. Around the shores of the great plain lake in Plain Lake City, men would sit for hours on the bank staring into the water with thin fishing poles propped up by their side. Every once in a while, one would whip back his pole to see if a fish had taken the bait. She would watch them work the hook out of a fish’s mouth before dumping it into a keep net. Then they would hold the hook up, dig into a wriggling mass in a box and pluck out a maggot to impale on the barbed hook. Likewise, the barbed tip of the oversized crossbow bolt was meant to snag inside a carriage or cart so it could be hauled to a halt. Julia had shivered, feeling like something small and wriggly just pulled out of a box. Jaygee had given orders to make camp.
Insufferable man, she thought, surfacing from her memories.
The Operators’ office appeared deserted now. She wondered if they had packed up and left town. Part of her wanted to follow them, but she was rational enough to know that trip would lead to capture, death or worse. And worse might be in Tranmure itself. She pushed down the inner fury that threatened to bubble up and consume her.
A rattle and a bump captured her attention. A lean horse pranced in front of a chariot jolting over the rutted road. Two soldiers gripped the chariot’s rails to keep themselves upright. Sunlight flashed off curved blades strapped to the outside of the chariot. On the end of the blades there were sockets enabling them to be fixed to the hub of the wheel; they seemed an efficient tool for harvesting the legs of soldiers and horses. Julia was always thrilled by chariot races — but there were never blades on the race circuit.
Julia wiped her hands down her leather cloak, removing crumbs and the worst of the remaining meat juices from her fingers. She collected Pico’s arm as they both stood then ambled down the road towards the lake. It seemed as good a place as any to go. At the water’s edge, the breeze flowed without interruption from buildings and the tannery odours returned in full force. They turned their back on them and set a course along the bank of the lake back towards the palace.
‘My mother lives here,’ Pico said.
‘You should go and see her for a while.’ Julia released her arm, managing a small smile as she did so.
Pico returned the smile then disappeared down an alley between wooden buildings where fishermen lived.
Julia sighed, alone for the first time since returning ‘home’. The lake used to be beautiful. Maybe it still was, but it lacked the comforting embrace of the mountains around Tranmure. Everything here was exposed and she felt vulnerable.
She could see the wooden platform built out over the lake from the palace. Her father would often stand there watching the sunset or listening to her play the violin. She liked playing out on the platform. The open air lent a different acoustic quality that was interesting to explore. It was not something she often did as the music would carry along the shores.
She missed having Pico’s arm to hold onto.
The walk back to the palace was still long, just not long enough. There were ways that messages from scouts could travel faster than even a Nearhon Plain horse. Everyone had their scouts. Valendo had scouts in all sorts of places in Nearhon. Her uncle had scouts watching her father ‘just in case’. Paranoia. Probably well founded. Her father had scouts watching her uncl
e and most likely watching her right now. Father would be furious that she was walking home alone, but she didn’t care. Julia thought of a palace she would rather be heading for in Tranmure — the one she now knew had burned to the ground. Her jaw and fists clenched and her eyes closed, forcing back her tears, but not her pain. I wish I had not let Pico go, she thought glumly. It was the least of her wishes. One foot in front of the other, step by step. One hour to the next, minute by minute. She sighed, thinking that this was no way to live.
She decided to lose herself in music and ran as fast as she could along the lake shore towards ‘home’. By the time she arrived at the front doors to the palace, her legs felt wooden and heavy and her breath came in harsh pants. She entered and passed through the palace like a ghost intent on haunting some other place. She collected her violin then floated on through the palace main reception room. Her parents were there. She caught her father in the edge of her vision and the fury inside her boiled again. Snatching up a chair, she fled the reception room and set it down on the platform. She stared out over the lake while tensioning her violin bow. Then she began to play.
She had returned home only the day before.
‘Father, Mother, it’s wonderful to see you!’ She had cried, hugging them both in turn. ‘But why have you summoned me home?’
Prince Karl had detected a subtle acidity to Julia’s tone and paused with confusion. ‘For your safety,’ he said slowly.
‘What do you mean for my safety? I was safe in Tranmure.’
‘I have reason to believe you are not safe there any longer.’
‘Nonsense. Tranmure is perfectly safe, I have been able to travel around freely the whole time I have been there.’
Karl had braced himself for the storm he knew was brewing. ‘Sometimes you have to accept your father knows what’s best for you.’
‘What do you mean? I had a life in Tranmure, a life that was my own.’
A sense of grief at the change in his role in life had quickly washed over him; he was a father attempting to explain matters to a girl that no longer accepted Daddy’s judgement in all things. ‘You talk as if the plan was for you to stay in Tranmure indefinitely. It was necessary.’ He had made it sound so final, like the closing of a gate on a herd of wild horses destined to jump over it or batter it down with their hooves.
‘How can it be necessary? Everything was perfect there, more than perfect. I had everything I needed — and some things that I never even knew I needed. If there is no good reason for me to stay here you will order your security team to take me back tomorrow.’
Karl had walked to the darkest corner of the room where a tapestry hung on the wall. The needlework was exquisite, with faded yellow and shades of red thread twisting around each other and spreading horizontally in both directions. He didn’t try to comprehend the picture it made. He had admired it many times. ‘You were happy in the orchestra here. You will be happy here again.’
‘It’s not the same, and it’s not just about the orchestra.’
‘You can’t go back, Valendo is no longer safe for you.’
‘I will judge that for myself. No one I know in Valendo is a danger to me and there are people there who care for me.’
Karl had sighed and addressed the tapestry. ‘It’s not the people of Valendo that worry me.’
‘Father, you are being evasive and that worries me. What is going on?’
Karl had closed his eyes accepting the inevitable, not daring to look up. He braced himself for an angry outburst. ‘Klonag and Magnar have resumed their ambitions to conquer Valendo. They have killed and corrupted Prince Pragius with dark magic and transformed him into the walking dead, an undead necromancer. Pragius is now a mage with the power to raise the dead that fight for him. I hear he has destroyed the palace in Tranmure, killing most of the royal family and the military command. It seems he knew when to attack.’
Julia had stood there, unable to move, caught in the eye of a fiery cyclone blasting at her face with the heat of grief and fury. ‘What happened to Cory?’ she croaked.
‘Who?’ Karl had turned to look at her as he spoke.
Pico had replied, ‘Prince Corylus. He uses the name Cory.’ Julia had not noticed her presence before.
‘He and Prince Sebastian were not in the palace. That’s all I know.’
‘I should be there standing with them,’ Julia had hissed. ‘The only reason I came home is to avoid a diplomatic incident… to keep the peace.’
‘You planned to stay there forever?’
Julia had simply glared at her father and stood in silence for many heartbeats. Then she had turned away, left the room and quietly walked through the palace to her room.
Karl had looked at Pico. ‘What interest does she have in Prince Corylus?’
Pico had been about to speak, then stopped and carefully considered her words. ‘It is a long story, Your Highness. In short, he asked her to marry him and she said yes.’
Karl had blinked, looked back into the tapestry and thought of his daughter, Julia, and his brother, King Klonag. Two out of the three people in the world he could not reason with were in a head-on collision. The third person — his wife, Mianna — had then put a comforting hand on his shoulder that failed to provide any comfort at all.
***
The scout commander stared into the fire on the remains of the royal palace in Tranmure. The flames reflected in his brown eyes did not curl restlessly like a wood fire. They shimmered, danced and crackled with impatience. The booming roars of the explosions still echoed in his mind, making him flinch involuntarily when he thought of them. It was the sound of his failure and he never failed. His scout network was too robust; it was thoroughly background checked and as undetectable as anyone could make it. He knew how to pick his scouts. He knew their life histories, their family, their family connections, their friends and their friends’ family connections. He knew how to get answers from people when they didn’t even know they were being questioned. He knew how to uncover people’s weaknesses and fears to ensure they couldn’t be used against him. Or he would move on and find another potential candidate.
He had a face no one really remembered. The few who did remember it did so inaccurately. He had a different face in every place — a face everyone expected and thus ignored. He had voices to go with the faces. He was fluent in the old Ruberan language that Valendo and Emiria shared in all its dialects and accents, and also fluent in the Nearhon language with all its tribal slants and idiosyncrasies.
Nothing could go wrong.
He thought of the mad window cleaning woman Prince — no, King — Sebastian was fixated by. He’d checked on her. She was from Ostenza. She had always been unstable; a lover had jilted her at the altar. When it came to the crunch the lover decided he couldn’t cope with her, whatever he might feel for the pretty smile. It sent her over the edge and wandering. His network had checked her right back to childhood. You can’t fake that much crazy for that much time.
He had been taught by Emiria’s finest and then offered the job of building Valendo’s scout network. It was a unique opportunity to build a magnificent intelligence machine. Twenty years on the job so far, the first five far more challenging and frustrating than he had imagined. He started with nothing except what information came out of the Emirian network. He built while Nearhon continued its war. There had been setbacks, surprises and assassinations, but all were excusable while he was still building. There had been fifteen years of peace to perfect his machine, and perfect it was. A perfect failure. There must be a weakness. Spying on the elected representatives and the royal family is forbidden. It is written into Valendo’s new constitution. He didn’t like it, but the representatives were under so much public scrutiny that they could barely catch a cold without someone knowing. The royal family were considered beyond suspicion; their backgrounds were known and their lives were watched with as much, if not more, scrutiny as the elected representatives. And that
constitution secured in the palace was now burned to ash and blown away by the wind.
The destruction of the palace, much of the royal family and the military command was timed with the commander’s annual dinner. Too many people would have known when to strike, so there was no secret to uncover there. There did not seem to be any leads to follow. He decided to wait in his childish hiding place in the bushes opposite the burning palace; a fitting spot for failure to hide. Few people came near the fires, and when they did it was the flames they looked at.
Patience, he thought, my job is not done.
He would allow time to flow and ride its currents. Something would happen in time. Closing his eyes, he listened to his ally, the darkness. The flurry of the fires masked much. However, in time, morning birdsong broke through and he listened to that. Birds moved if people came and changed their call. As the sky grew brighter many people moved and the birds retreated. He slowly and quietly took dried bread from inside his jacket and chewed on it. The sun broke between the mountain peaks and bathed Tranmure in its light and warmth. An eclectic pair of men arrived in the palace courtyard, one dressed in a wafting set of blue-green robes and the other in a suit of armour, with the all the stealth of scrap iron tossed down a flight of stairs. The scout commander heard Prince Cory coming above the noise of the fire. Zeivite performed one of his rituals reaching for the sky and then the ground. The flames finally dwindled and ceased their merry dance. The silence seemed to shout in his ears. The ruined palace stonework still glowed like giant coals from a fire grate.
The General's Legacy_Part One_Inheritance Page 16