Emissary

by Thomas Locke

  Though he woke to sunlight and birdsong beyond his bedroom’s open window, Hyam rose with a deep bitterness in his heart. It was not enough that he searched for an enemy whose name he did not know. He had been stripped of home and heritage. The fact that he belonged nowhere weighed on him like an open wound.

  Their sleeping chambers were on the wing’s upper floor and thus somewhat protected. The two larger rooms downstairs had been turned into offices. As Hyam descended the stairs, he glanced down the hall that connected them to the inn’s main chamber and saw it was filled with men and weapons and chatter.

  Trace greeted him with, “Your news has reached interested ears. The question remains—are these the ones we need?”

  “I want you to interview them first. Only send those to me who you feel are trustworthy.”

  The old man nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Where is Joelle?”

  “Still sleeping, I expect. We practiced with your orb into the wee hours.”

  “Why are you awake, then?”

  “Elders require less sleep. Or perhaps it is that sleep comes more reluctantly.” He smiled through his beard. “She is a thrilling lass to instruct. She laps it up like a kitten would fresh cream.”

  “It is good of you to teach her.”

  Trace shrugged. “It is a squire’s duty to serve.”

  “Despite the Long Hall code?”

  “My one remaining oath is that which I swore to you.” His eyes showed a guileless humor. “Of course, the fact that she is lovely as the dawn doesn’t hurt.”

  “Go and wake her. Ask if she will assist in these interviews. I want all who join with us to recognize her authority.”

  By noontime fourteen former officers had been chosen and assembled in his study. Another forty male foot soldiers patrolled around the inn or erected tents in the forecourt.

  Joining the male officers in his study were six women, hard-faced and formed into a tight unit by the window. Their leader was a former captain named Meda, a handsome woman in her late twenties or early thirties with a suspicious, knowing gaze. The senior officer among the men was a former colonel named Adler. He lounged with counterfeit ease by the opposite wall. He was older than most, with a savage cast to his features and a scar that clipped off the top of his left ear and ran above his eye and disappeared into his hairline.

  Hyam’s first act was to loose the knot on a heavy leather purse and upend the contents on his table. The gold florins glinted in the light and in the assembled warriors’ gazes. Their clothes were tattered, their features gnawed by hardship and hunger.

  He then unfurled the royal charter and anchored it with two candlesticks. “This decree is a thousand years old. It assigns me, the appointed emissary of the Ashanta, the rights and powers of a knight of the realm. The seal at its base is that of the Oberons, and the original charter was signed by the first king to bear that name. Some say that with the ending of the Oberons’ reign, the decree no longer holds power. Any who agree with this should now leave.”

  No one moved.

  “Let us be perfectly clear. The new king is not my enemy. I will not have these ranks become a haven for rehashing old quarrels or fighting old battles. Our enemy is real, he is out there, and I need your help in taking him down.”

  The leader of the women demanded, “Who is he?”

  “I have no idea. Nor do I know where he is.”

  The one known as Adler said, “If it wasn’t for the pile of gold there, I’d say you were the closest I’ve come to a crazy person.”

  “The enemy is real,” Hyam repeated. “Answer me one question. Who among you participated in the battle that brought down the Oberons?”

  “That’s easy enough,” Meda replied. “None of us.”

  “Not a single solitary soldier survived that encounter,” Adler agreed. “Not a camp follower, not a squire, not a blacksmith, not a healer. Every member of the army and its supply train were wiped out.”

  “How long did the battle last?”

  “No one knows,” Meda replied. “I led my liege’s forces on a hard march and still arrived at the battlefield after it was over and the Oberon king had surrendered.”

  “The king perished with his troops,” Adler pointed out.

  “Not him. The nephew, Bayard. The one who sued for peace.” To Hyam, Meda went on, “I’ll never forget that day, climbing the ridge and seeing there before me a sea of black ash and wasted bodies.”

  “That’s where I saw you before,” Adler said. “You were with House Rideau.”

  “I was. And you?”

  “Count Grafton.”

  “A good man, by all accounts. How is he faring?”

  “Not well. The taxes, the oppression.” Adler shrugged. “We are here. That says it all.”

  Hyam asked, “What if I were to tell you that it was not the army of Ravi your king that defeated the Oberon forces?”

  The room had been quiet before. Now it was clenched in the alert stillness of warriors who had known the closeness of death.

  He went on, “What if I said that the forbidden forces of magic were once again released into this realm?”

  “There have been rumors,” Adler allowed.

  “The rumors,” Hyam said, “are true.”

  “If that’s so, what do you want us for?” Meda gestured toward her group. “I’ll not have my troops become your sacrificial lamb.”

  “Let him speak first,” Adler suggested. “We can walk away after.”

  Hyam described his encounter with the prince’s forces on the Ashanta field, the crimson rider, the Ashanta’s response.

  There was a lingering silence, then Meda said, “My question still stands.”

  “I do not expect you to go up against the crimson one,” Hyam replied. “That’s my job.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The Ashanta’s appointed emissary,” Adler replied. “He’s already told you that.”

  “So their power of battle is assigned to him?”

  “If it wasn’t, he’d be a fool to go after a crimson mage.” Adler revealed a warrior’s grin, steel and teeth and no humor at all. “And I’m beginning to think the lad here is no fool.”

  “I need two things from you,” Hyam went on. “First, I need scouts to locate this mage. And second, I want to draw together a force of trained soldiers to take on whoever accompanies him.”

  34

  Hyam spent the afternoon and evening paying his new soldiers and forming them into units. In truth, what he really wanted was a chance to know them a little. He had never been around soldiers before and never been in a position to hire a farmhand, much less a trained warrior. So he took a page from Norvin’s book.

  The mayor had always insisted upon paying the harvest workers half in advance. Too often these landless workers carried hostility from landowners who had cheated them in the past. Norvin wanted them to know he could be trusted. The mayor also sought to identify those he could trust in return. So Norvin paid half, then he gave them the night off. Those who were too drunk to rise the next dawn were assigned the worst duties, out where there was nothing for them to steal, and they were never offered work again.

  The standard pay for a foot soldier was a gold florin per year. Those who supplied their own mounts received two. Officers, four. Senior officers, eight. Booty was at the discretion of the master, though the tradition during the long Oberon reign was for the house to receive half and the rest to be distributed in accordance with pay. Hyam paid each man half a year’s salary in advance, accepted their oaths of allegiance, told them to report in the morning, then sat and observed and learned.

  The troops gathered around tables that filled the forecourt, while the innkeeper opened barrels and hired a roving band of minstrels. An entire hog was spitted and roasted. The innkeeper was kept both busy and happy, for her establishment was filled with paying customers and officers to keep them in line.

  As darkness cast its cloak over the clear night, the men spoke i
n easy longing for the Oberons. The last king was a massively fat wastrel and roundly despised. But these were soldiers, and most had endured any number of bad officers. Their respect for the lineage and their history of the realm was instructive. The new Oberon, Bayard, was by all accounts a good man. Though he had been reduced to ruling a fiefdom at the border of the realm.

  The women drank little and spoke less. Meda and her sergeant sat at Hyam’s table and studied him hard. The one time she spoke was when Joelle slipped onto the bench beside her and asked, “Would you teach me to fight?”

  Meda studied her as she would a rank recruit. “What do you know?”

  “Almost nothing.”

  Meda sipped from a tankard that Hyam knew held only water. And waited in silence.

  Finally Joelle said, “I have studied books. I have taught myself the knives.”

  “Throwing or combat?”

  “Both. But it’s from books. I know nothing of real combat.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Her gaze was tight, measuring. “On the training ground, I am the only authority. The man seated across from you there holds no sway.”

  “Agreed.”

  She nodded slowly. “Then you’re welcome.”

  Meda turned away, pretending to ignore the taut excitement that pulled at Joelle’s features. All save Adler and his aide had left to dance with the barmaids and carouse around the central fire pit. Meda set her elbows on the table and asked Hyam, “Why am I here?”

  Their table held space for twenty. Now there were just seven—Adler and his aide, Meda and her subaltern, Trace, Joelle, and himself. When one of the other sergeants brought over a fresh mug for Adler, the senior officer waved him away. And waited with the women.

  “I don’t understand,” Hyam replied.

  “Women are forbidden to bear arms,” she said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “How could a royal emissary not know about the king’s edicts?”

  “I am not a royal anything,” Hyam said. “Until a few weeks ago, I had never been outside my home region.”

  “Which is where, exactly?”

  “Three Valleys. Beyond the Galwyn Hills. East and south of the great forest.” He pointed in the direction of the Havering walls. “I have never been inside a city, including that one. I heard there was a new king. But it mattered little. We in the Three Valleys pay our taxes. Otherwise we are left alone. The world passes us by. For most villagers, that is how they want it.”

  She examined him with the cold gaze of a seasoned warrior. “My question still stands.”

  “How I came to be here is a story for another time. For now, all I can tell you is this. I don’t care what the king makes for edicts. Everything about my duty is probably illegal in his eyes. If the crimson rider is allied to him, as I suspect he is, then the king is my enemy.”

  Hyam had not expected to say aloud what he had been thinking. But the truth sounded good to his own ears and seemed to settle well upon the table.

  “But you told us that you were not attacking the monarchy,” Adler said.

  “That is correct. I am going after the crimson rider. Once he is vanquished, I want to go home.” But even before the words emerged, they sounded hollow. Vacant. “Now I have a question for you. Why did they ban women from the ranks?”

  “It is a question,” Adler replied, “that has been argued over for three and a half years.”

  “It’s simple enough,” Meda countered. “He wanted to strip away his enemies’ best warriors.”

  “Well, now,” Adler said, and displayed a smile that did not touch his eyes.

  Meda went on, “The Ravis have taxed to death the houses once loyal to the Oberons. The king has pared away their warriors. He reduces female combatants to the ranks of weavers and healers and courtesans.” Her boiling ire gave her the confidence to turn and demand of the silent figures across from her, “And now is the time to know exactly who these three are, and what role they play in it all.”

  Adler cautioned, “Steady, lass.”

  “It’s a fair question,” Meda insisted, “and the night is made for answers.”

  “She’s right,” Hyam said. “Can I count on your silence?”

  “You give us the chance to bear arms with honor once again, I’ll offer you a blood oath,” Adler replied.

  Hyam gestured down the table. “The gentleman is Master Trace, the former head of the Havering Long Hall.”

  A soft gasp was shared around the table. “A mage? For truth?”

  “You heard what the emissary said,” Trace replied. “Wizardry has been unleashed into the world. It feeds upon death and destruction. We who have preserved the hidden mysteries for a thousand years are now forced to respond.”

  Hyam felt a subtle shift in the air, a hidden whisper that he could not detect. Yet Trace’s words left him certain he was missing something vital.

  He pondered on this until Meda pointed to Joelle. “And this one?”

  Hyam caught the desperate plea in her grey and violet eyes and said simply, “The Lady Joelle comes from the Long Hall as well.”

  “Two mages,” Adler murmured.

  “Three,” Trace countered, gesturing at Hyam. “For there sits the strongest of us all.”

  Meda squinted at him, a warrior taking aim. “You said you were a simple farmer.”

  “I am. I was. Now . . .” He shrugged, then found himself pushed to his feet by the unheard warning in Trace’s words. “I don’t know what I am.”

  He bid the group a good night and started away, only to be snagged by Trace, who called after him, “You know exactly who you are, lad. And it’s time you accepted it. For all our sakes.”

  Hyam carried the mage’s words to bed that night. He tossed and turned for hours, while below his open window patrolled his only sober troops. He had no idea why Trace’s comments gripped him so. He knew wizardry had been released. There was neither surprise nor new alarm to the warning. But the talons of worry and dread did not release him. He slept in the end, dreaming of a crimson orb and wasted valleys filled with ashes and charred bones.

  He felt sore and mishandled the next morning, which meant he fit in well with the courtyard’s atmosphere. The kitchen fire was still cold, and the inn’s maids were nowhere to be found. He breakfasted on bread and cheese and pickles, and fed Dama with strips of meat cut from a smoked ham. He washed like a farmhand, dousing himself in the stable trough and rubbing himself dry with a strip of burlap. Which was where Adler found him, drinking a ladle of well water and watching the light rise in the east.

  “The question,” Hyam said, hanging the ladle beside the bucket, “is where to look.”

  Adler took his time around the dog, giving her a chance to sniff his hand and decide whether she wished to be stroked. He then drank his fill and declared, “Maps.”

  “Yes?”

  “Lay out what evidence you have in a pattern you can see,” Adler said. “Maps are the key to any good campaign.”

  “I don’t have evidence,” Hyam said, nodding a greeting to Meda and her silent aide.

  “You mentioned a chest of booty. You’re certain it came from battle?”

  “The gold was bloodstained, and some rings still held parts of their former owners.”

  Adler asked Meda, “You heard of such raids?”

  “Nothing.”

  Adler mused aloud, “A single officer on patrol carries a chest of gold. Behind him rides an army led by the king’s brother. Which means two things. First, the prince will be carrying the richest treasures of all, and second, other knights in the force will have gained their own booty.”

  “Most knights will hold the booty of their soldiers, which guarantees they watch for his safety,” Meda explained.

  “This wasn’t a single raid on one lone Ashanta settlement,” Adler went on. “And wherever they were attacking had to be far enough removed for word not to carry.”

  Once again Hyam felt the rise of dre
ad. The certainty that he was missing a vital clue turned his belly into a lava-filled vessel. “I don’t . . .”

  “The army came from these raids, following new orders,” Adler explained. “They were commanded to attack an Ashanta settlement. Which means wherever they were before then had no Ashanta. Otherwise why go to Three Valleys?”

  “We’re a wealthy region,” Hyam pointed out. “Good land, prosperous holdings.”

  “Farming hamlets don’t interest the likes of these, not when they’re carrying gold.” Adler looked from one to the other. “A region rich and yet cut off from the realm. Whose closest Ashanta town is Three Valleys. They ride in through the great forest . . .”

  “The badlands,” Meda said, nodding slowly.

  “That’s my thinking as well. Where do the badlands lie closest to the Three Valleys?” Adler squinted into the distance. “Twelve days’ hard ride?”

  “More like twenty. They run north to south far to the east. Where the Iron Cliffs meet the sea.”

  “I never served in those parts.”

  “I did. I was just a lass when I entered the badlands.” Her countenance melted with grim recollections. “I wasn’t when I left.”

  “Hard duty, was it.”

  “They earn their name, the badlands do.”

  “Did you ever visit the fiefdom now assigned to the Oberons?”

  “Falmouth Port. I did.” Her gaze went distant. “Clannish, they were, but held in check by loyalty to their earl. A dire region of black rock and terrible seas and worse winters.”

  “Those loyal to the Oberons who survived often wondered why Bayard accepted Falmouth without more of a struggle.”

  “He was not sent,” Meda replied. “He asked for Falmouth as his holding.”

  “I had heard that,” Adler said, nodding slowly. “And discounted it as myth.”

  “He asked, he was granted, he went,” Meda confirmed. “My liege was there when it happened. Why, no one knows but Bayard. And he’s not saying. Since his arrival in Falmouth, no one has heard a word from him.”

  “I have no idea what you two are discussing,” Hyam said.