Noble Beginnings

by D. W. Jackson

  "She was aware of the danger," Adhara said. "Myriel may not be a fighter, but she may well volunteer to continue doing dangerous things in the future. She is a valuable asset to us, so we're not going to deter her."

  "What do you mean?" Dorran knew that she was an ear to the ground for the Duchess, but this sounded like something on an altogether different level.

  "Myriel's...well, the blunt way to put it would be spy," Adhara explained quietly. "She doesn't do anything too drastic, for the most part, but Thea trusts her with affairs she wouldn't entrust to anyone else. She's an extra set of eyes and ears for the whole family. She has spent years making friends with the townsfolk. When we need to know what is going on with our subjects it is Myriel who we turn too."

  Dorran was taken aback. "Then..."

  Adhara continued, her voice gentler. "Didn't it ever seem strange to you that Myriel was the one who always knew when meetings would be held?"

  Dorran frowned. "I knew that she was extremely loyal and knowledgeable, but..."

  "Myriel is one of our most valuable agents in the castle," Adhara said. "I can't explain everything that she's done for us; I suspect that even I don't even know all of it. What I do know is that she has Mother's full trust, and that's enough for her to have earned mine, as well."

  Dorran thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Yes, I can understand that."

  He already trusted her implicitly, he realized, and had done so for a long time.

  One thing he hadn't expected, he reflected as he lay in bed that night staring at the dim canopy of his bed, was how calmly Myriel had reacted to the situation as a whole. He hadn't gotten any sense from her that she was trying to recover from the shock of having been attacked in the castle where she worked, just for having overheard part of the wrong conversation. Indeed, he hadn't seen any surprise from her at all, or at least not any related to what had happened. He suspected, in hindsight, that she had considered the possibility of being harmed beforehand. Dorran knew that it couldn’t be easy to spend all your time with the knowledge that at any moment you could be killed for simply knowing the wrong thing.

  It occurred to him for the first time how much courage it took to live in a situation like Myriel's. She willingly served the ruling family and, through that, put her own well-being in danger without knowing how to fight. He imagined it would take a great deal more bravery than he himself possessed..

  Indeed, when viewed from that light, it wouldn't be hard to argue that the unassuming but loyal servant was one of the bravest people he knew. Dorran laughed as he thought about her stern face giving him her famous stare. As he drifted off to sleep Dorran’s mind remained on Myriel and what all she must have went through over the years.

  CHAPTER XIV

  It was slightly before dawn when Dorran was awakened by a knock on his door. As wearying as the previous day had been, Dorran found the strength to rise from his bed and stumble to the door in seconds. When he yanked the door open, bleary-eyed and disheveled, he found Adhara on the other side, looking at him strangely.

  She was fully dressed, if pale and red-eyed, remembering that he was only covered by his smallclothes he instantly felt embarrassed. "Yes?" he mumbled.

  "Mother wants to talk to you," she said quietly, not meeting his eye. "It's not an emergency, so you can make yourself presentable first."

  "All right," he said, surprised for the second time in as many minutes. "Do you, uh, want to come in?"

  She waited a long moment before finally nodding, the action seeming almost automatic, and he ushered her in before realizing this meant he would be changing in front of her. It was too late to worry about that now, though, and he'd changed in rooms with women before, so he turned to his wardrobe and shrugged out of his nightshirt and into a simple, neat shirt and breeches.

  "What's going on?" he asked as he fiddled with the laces down the shirt's front. "Do you have any idea?"

  He finished tying off the laces in the silence that followed; when Adhara still hadn't answered, he turned back to look at her, wondering if she hadn't heard him. She was staring at a corner of the room, and looked reluctant to speak. "I do," she said slowly. "But I...I'm sorry, brother, but I don't really know how to explain."

  He felt anxiety flutter in his chest as he ran his fingers through his hair hurriedly to straighten it. "Well, I'm ready," he said.

  She stood immediately and led him out of his chambers and into the hallway. Despite being half a head taller than she was, he almost struggled to keep up. He almost wanted to ask again, to beg her for any hints about what was going on, but found himself holding his tongue.

  They rounded several corners until they came to their mother's private chapel. It hadn't been used for religious purposes for generations, and was now mainly used, so far as Dorran had heard, for very small or private counsels. He didn't know whether to feel more or less tense.

  Adhara rapped three times on the door and then opened it, moving her head inside. If she said anything, Dorran couldn't hear it from out in the hallway, but a few moments later Nora joined them, slipping past Adhara and then holding the door open behind her. Both of his sisters looked at him expectantly.

  "I..." he looked between them, confused. Why couldn't they give him some warning about what was going on? His right hand flexed with the desire to grip the sword at his hip for security, but then forced himself to relax and rest it against his hip. "Seriously, you two…"

  "Mother will explain it to you," Nora said quietly. "I know it seems suspicious, but you'll know the reason for our silence soon enough."

  Dorran noticed a dim glimmer of metal in her left hand, and saw that she was holding a small dagger, turning it over and over deliberately in her fingers. He repressed the urge to swallow nervously and instead looked at them, nodded once, and walked pass them into the room. Nora quietly shut the door behind him; he fought to not flinch at the soft and normally nonthreatening sound.

  His mother was dressed in the plain gown she had changed into the previous afternoon, after the attack. She looked tired, but not at all disheveled; not a hair was out of place, and her face was utterly unreadable. There was no table in front of her, only a single high-backed chair. He stepped in front of it to kneel before her, counting the seconds by force of habit, and then stood and sat in the chair at her glance.

  There was a long silence, during which his mother examined him and he felt himself start to sweat.

  Finally, able to take it no more, he decided to speak. He kept his voice carefully quiet and controlled, as respectful as he could manage. "Mother. If I may ask, why have you summoned me here?"

  She didn't respond right away, but she didn't look disapproving, either. Dorran took as deep a breath as he could and tried not to fidget visibly as he waited.

  When she did speak, she startled him. "Dorran...what are your thoughts on the King?"

  Dorran's heart thudded. How should he answer such a dangerous question? And yet she seemed to expect an answer immediately. "I...I believe, from what I have heard, that his dearest interests are far removed from ours. Honestly I believe he is madly chasing after things that are no longer possible."

  She nodded approvingly. "A wise answer. But I suspect that growing up, you expected to fight for him."

  It wasn't really a question, but Dorran nodded respectfully anyway. "For the honor of my people, I did, Mother."

  She seemed to measure him for a long moment, and then sighed, shaking her head. "I must imagine that you have foreseen death on a battlefield, like your father and grandfather before you. This war is too cruel to our sons."

  He didn't know how to answer that, but he sensed that speaking slightly out of turn would not go amiss. "Mother...are you planning to go against the King?"

  Her look was sad. "Yes, and quite a bit more than that. You have told me that you intended to fight for the honor of Farlan, son, and that makes me more proud than words can say. But I have another question for you. Will you fight for Farlan itself?"

/>   Yes, he cried inwardly, but knew it would be wisest to check what she meant before saying anything. "Against the King?" he checked.

  "Yes."

  It wasn't what he had expected. He was surprised, even with all the hints of discontent culminating in the attack earlier that day. But he decided to answer with the simplest truth he knew. "I will fight for Farlan," he answered. "But most of all, I will fight for you, Mother...and for Addie, and Nora, and Myriel, and Father, and Grandfather, and everyone that has come before you and will come after. Though my opponent may change, I do not believe that my allegiance ever will. I stand for Farlan now and forever."

  "Strong and honorable words," Thea said more emotion in her voice than he had ever remembered hearing before. "My son, you have already made me proud. But what I would ask of you would try even the stoutest son's loyalty."

  "What is that?" he asked carefully.

  She paused briefly, as though trying to determine how to phrase the question. "If you had to give one reason for the reason we are at war, what would it be?"

  "The succession," he answered promptly. That much, from what he had read and heard, was obvious.

  "Yes. I wish to free Farlan from this dispute by breaking off its ties with all parties involved; my intention is to declare Farlan an independent nation. I have talked with enough advisors to be confident that we can support ourselves, though the first few years may be difficult it cannot be as difficult as allowing the king to continue to bleed us dry. But as a ruler..." she paused. "I must consider what options lie before me to ensure that Farlan does not make the same mistakes as the empire it was born from. Consider Lyrre; it was likely that an aspiration for my place influenced her involvement in today's attempted coup. Is there anything I can do, from where I stand, to begin a precedent more certain than that of the former Empire, than that of our current King?"

  Dorran thought for a moment, but knew it would take him too long time to figure out what his mother was aiming at. "I don't know, Mother."

  "Bloodlines." She said the single word quietly, decisively. "What if the questions of parenthood and legitimacy were to disappear, if the validity of inheritance could not be questioned?"

  He was taken aback. "That would be...amazing. But..." He was supposed to know what she was getting at, he sensed, but he hadn't figured it out yet. "What are you suggesting?"

  "Dorran...do you love your sisters?"

  "Of course," he answered immediately. Several of his oldest memories involved his father telling him that it was his duty to protect his sisters.

  "Would you do anything for them?"

  Not anything, but he couldn't imagine them asking anything of him he would be unwilling to give. "Just as I would for you, Mother."

  "That is a wiser answer than you know. Dorran Farlane..." Thea took a deep breath, and Dorran felt his shoulders tighten in preparation for what was coming. "I would ask you to relinquish your title as my heir apparent."

  The room echoed with silence for a long minute as Dorran's mind raced, considering the implications of what his mother had just said. It felt as though there should be a greater impact tied to the sudden realization that your entire life's purpose was about to change, but at the moment the only thing running through his mind was one practical consequence after another.

  "Well," he said numbly, almost without thinking, "I always figured I would be giving control off to Addie sooner or later anyway, to go and fight. This isn't really all that different...and," he added, looking his mother in the eye, "if I've learned anything in the past few months, it's that Addie and Nora are far more capable than me when it comes to affairs of state. Honestly the country would be far better off in their apt hands than my clumsy ones."

  Thea sighed. "I hope you know that I think no less of you for that."

  "No...It would have been better if I had taken more initiative and studied politics and diplomacy," he admitted. "If I really believed that I'd be taking over for you someday, I should have prepared better. It was irresponsible of me."

  "Your father never had much patience for such things, either," Thea murmured. "I wonder whether he suspected how convenient I found that in him."

  "How many years have you been planning this?" The question was more frankly curious than Dorran would normally have asked, but at the moment neither of them seemed to care.

  "I've been planning it in the back of my mind for longer than I can really remember," Thea said. "I wonder whether my own father had hoped Farlan would end up taking this path, but there's no real way to know."

  "I think he would approve, Mother," Dorran said. "Your reasoning seems sound, and no one can deny that you act in the best interests of the people."

  "Well..." Thea leaned forward. "That depends on whether we win."

  "Win?"

  "The King won't agree with my decision," Thea said mildly. "His Majesty has always had difficulty separating his passions from his sense, and when I declare my intention to cease my support, I suspect he won't take my decision lightly."

  Dorran's heart sank. Fight for Farlan... "You think he will attack us," he guessed.

  "I suspect it. He was probably at least partly behind the attempt on my life today, and I've covered my tracks as best I could. I doubt he has heard more than whispers of discontent. If he's willing to go so far to combat rumors...he may well come after us despite all sense. We should prepare to fight as mighty a force as we are able...which leads me to the second part of my question. Dorran, I want you to be my right hand in combat. Will you lead the men in the defense of Farlan?"

  “I will do whatever I must to protect the people of Farlan. It doesn’t matter if it be as a soldier or a simple farmer. You wish is my command mother.” Dorran said bowing deeply.

  CHAPTER XV

  Thea's formal announcement of the previous day's events occurred in the first hour after dawn; by mid-morning, the capital was in such an uproar that hints of it could be heard outside the castle windows. Even within the patient silence of the council chamber, it was impossible to forget that outside there was a castle and, beyond that a city, and beyond that a whole land falling into chaos.

  It felt strange to be at the center of the turmoil, but even within the quiet restraint of the court there were too many raging emotions; fear, anticipation, pride, loss, and more, all whirling around too fiercely to be hidden by the composed demeanor of the council's members. She smoothly steered the topic in the meeting that morning from that to her surety of the King's involvement to her intentions to establish Farlan's independence so quickly that Dorran wondered whether the other council members would even notice in the uproar. Until one of them stood quietly, bringing the rest of the mad whispering around the table to a halt.

  "My lady." The speaker was an old man whom Dorran recognized as Lord Goldwood. One of the few men present, he had been a part of the council for as long as Dorran could remember. A weakness of the blood kept him from fighting in the war, but his mental faculties were acute as any. "I cannot abide this," the man continued.

  "What do you mean, my lord?" Thea asked coolly. "I believe I have given you the reasoning behind my decision."

  "You have, my lady," he said stiffly, "and I cannot agree. The King fights for the rights of Farlan and beyond. What of the duty we have to our far-off fellow states, to protect them from the oppression of the would-be Emperors? And do you believe that our King, who above all else expects honor and loyalty to his subjects, would take kindly to such a betrayal?"

  "I suspect he will not," Thea said calmly, "but it seems clear to me now that he already sees me as a threat, and that Farlan has far more to lose than she has to gain by maintaining her connection with the Kingdom."

  "If that is truly your intention, my lady..." Goldwood said, hesitant.

  "It is," Thea confirmed.

  "Then I must give up my seat on this council in protest. I am a loyal subject of the King, and while I am grateful for the years Farlan has sheltered me and mine, I will not remain now tha
t you and she have become traitors to him." With that, the old man gathered up his things and swept away. Before leaving, however, he turned at the doors to survey the rest of the council. "As for the rest of you, I hope you know what you are doing. Any who decide to accompany me to the King's side would likely be wise indeed."

  There was a stony silence as the rest of the table stared him down. Not a single member of the council moved.

  Goldwood eyed them all carefully, and then, with a small sigh, turned and left the room. The door creaked shut behind him, and in the same moment, Thea returned her attention to council. "Now, then," she said, as though nothing had happened, "I happen to have drafted a declaration of Farlan's intent to become an independent nation, as well as a basic outline of the rules of succession in our new nation and the rudimentary beginnings of standards for trade agreements with the rest of the Kingdoms."

  They spent several hours reading out and arguing the finer points of each of these documents, during which Dorran tried his best to be interested; but it was harder than ever, now that he knew that the King's army would soon be bearing down on them. Finally, he gave up on understanding their debates and focused on his soldiers how he would tell them what was going on, and what challenges might arise in convincing them to prepare to fight for Farlan rather than the King. He wondered what he would do if some soldiers wished to go home, and decided he would simply take a leaf out of Thea's book if it came to that. Farlan wasn't going to need those who were not devoted to her, he thought. After all, wasn't that what this entire separation from the Kingdoms was all about?