by Greg Curtis
But all that effort and security had come with a price. Some days he wasn't completely sure whether this place was a fortress or just another more comfortable prison. Did it keep the bad men out, or keep him securely locked up inside? Then again, the fact that it came with sunshine and fresh air meant he was unlikely to complain. He tried to turn his head around to see his visitor but winced in sudden pain, and no matter how he tried to hide it, noticed.
“Your wound is troubling you?”
“Not so bad. Janus' skill is impressive.”
But not as impressive as the healer's ability to castigate him repeatedly for his pitiful attempt at healing his wounds. Some days he simply would not be quiet as he lectured him again and again about proper wound treatment. The healer was truly upset with what he'd done. But maybe he had reason. Edouard's back still hurt. It burnt when he was warm and ached when he was cold. Worst of all the skin on his back was too tight. It restricted his movement and if he forced it the skin tore. Some nights when he undressed for bed his shirts and vests were sodden with blood. His jackets too. Janus seemed to think he was lucky to have survived.
“It is that.”
“His knowledge too?”
Edouard asked the obvious question. He still wasn't sure he completely believed the healer about Vesar being a Cabal wizard. Let alone the thought that he might actually be Vesar the Corrupt, someone who had lived thousands of years ago. True, he matched everything they knew about him. But it still seemed too fanciful. The Cabal were a myth from the mouldy old tomes of ancient history. A scary story told to children at night to make them stay in bed. And even if they had truly existed what would one of them be doing among them, thousands of years later? Of course it was probably foolish to expect the handmaiden to know.
“Maybe.” Kyriel shrugged helplessly. “I don't know. Word was sent back but no one has responded. I'm not sure anyone would really know.”
And that was the sad truth of the matter. He had no idea at all who might know. There were no records left of the time. Only legends. It was simply too old. They had come, they had started great and terrible wars. They had been defeated and they had left. That was all anyone really knew.
“Don't your people have records dating back that far?”
He wasn't actually sure. He just remembered reading somewhere that the Tennari had a history older than that of any other people in the world. Records going back thousands of years. Of course knowing them, that history would likely consist of accounts of battles and duels. Her people were ancient and they had developed some interesting machines, but the warrior blood in their veins had held them back. The Seven alone knew how much further they could have advanced had they actually worked together instead of constantly warring with one another. Each war, each battle destroyed much of what they had achieved. Periodic revolutions destroyed the rest. And if they had truly advanced any art then it was sword making. Tennari blades were considered the finest in the world.
“Not that far back.”
Edouard didn't ask her any more about it. She was skilled at maintaining her composure but beneath her calm exterior he could sense a troubled heart. Troubled because however incidental it might be, he had asked her about her past. That he guessed was normal enough among the handmaidens. Many of them came from unpleasant backgrounds. It was why they fled to Tyrel. It was why they championed her cause.
“So how much longer do you think my brother can afford to blockade the town?”
He decided to turn the conversation to more mundane matters, and he was curious about it. Surely the half dozen camps dotted around Breakwater preventing people from entering or leaving, had to hold at least three hundred soldiers between them. That was a lot of gold he had to pay out each week for them to simply sit on their backsides and harass the locals.
“Forever?”
Kyriel came over to stand beside him and lean against the railing. He wasn't sure which surprised him more. Her answer or the unexpected closeness. But he was suddenly aware that she smelled very good. All that work in the backyard beautifying the shrine had obviously been good for her. Some of the scent of the lilacs and roses had rubbed off on her.
“You aren't the only one he has sent soldiers to blockade. The temple is blockaded too, with easily twice as many soldiers camped around it as here. Of course they don't dare to actually enter the grounds as they do here.”
They wouldn't! Edouard almost laughed at the thought. They wouldn't dare if they had any sense. No one with any wit left to him would annoy the hamadryad. Just doing what they were doing was likely to be risking more than any sane man should. If Tyrel should get angry … Edouard didn't like to think what she might do. Of course she was like the other local powers; a homebody. The soldiers were probably careful not to bother her. As long as they didn't harm her handmaidens or enter her home they thought they were safe. Perhaps they were.
There was one question though that he desperately wanted answered even if he couldn't raise it directly with the handmaidens. Were the powers actually bound to their homes in some way? Because it was the only explanation he could find for Tyrel's lack of action.
“He's also sent more soldiers to blockade Ascorlexia's cavern and Yule's castle. But again they don't dare enter the grounds. They just prevent those inside from leaving.”
Edouard was surprised by the news, but again not by the fact that the soldiers didn't try to enter the lands of the powers. If they had they wouldn't have left them alive. But still, Kyriel was talking about thousands of soldiers involved in the blockades at the least. That was an awful lot of gold spent on nothing. What madness could drive his brother to do something so wasteful? He was normally the most spendthrift of all men. But a second later he realised the truth. It wasn't his madness. It was his advisor's. Vesar, the Cabal wizard or black priest or whatever he was. And yet it told him something about the wizard he suddenly realised.
“My Lady, you studied your blades?”
“Of course!”
He knew she had just as he could see the sword strapped to her waist. A Tennari steel duelling sword. An odd thing for a handmaiden to carry, but exactly what he would expect a Tennari maiden of noble birth to wear.
“And the dance of battle? The circle of melee?”
“Yes.”
“Then have you considered that these actions of my brother, or more likely the foul black priest that stands beside him, are following a similar pattern?”
She turned to face him directly a white gold eyebrow delicately raised in question.
“Consider the circle. The dance. What you strike at is what you fear will do you harm. What you protect from your enemy's blade is what you fear being struck. This is the same.”
“Simon or more likely Vesar has struck against both magic and faith. So the temples and shrines have been emptied. The priests sent running. The sparks have been imprisoned until they could no longer be held. And at the same time he sets his guard against the powers. Those that he knows he could not defeat, but which he cannot allow to strike at him.”
“It becomes clear that magic, whether of the faithful or the innate, is his greatest threat. He spends exorbitant amounts of gold to defeat it where he can and to protect against it where he can't. Gold that my brother would sooner not spend. Gold that he could use to rebuild the walls of the city. To restart the economy. He has sent much of his army away to man these blockades instead of defending the city and maintaining order in the rest of the realm. Vesar fears neither bankruptcy nor revolution. Not even attack from outsiders. Yet magic is seldom used in war. The temples are not enemies, and the powers have never posed any threat to the realm.”
“And?” Kyriel understood what he was saying but not the point behind it.
“We must learn what it is that Vesar fears so greatly about magic, because that is his vulnerability.”
The handmaiden thought on his words for a bit, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in concentration. He had to admit that she looked very pretty l
ike that. But still he would have liked an answer. Perhaps she needed to think some more on it. Instead she turned her attention once more to the road and studied the confused soldiers as they lined up and prepared for yet another charge. One thing was certain; they weren't going to give up.
“You know Lord Severin, the more I watch the soldiers, the more satisfied I am with my ward.”
Edouard was too. But in all that she'd said there was one word that stood out for him. 'My'. She was admitting to having crafted the ward. Finally. For the longest time none of the handmaidens had said anything about it, save that it was Tyrel's beneficence. He had to wonder why she'd admitted it now, though it did open up the conversation to further questions. And after all this time and with no answers forthcoming he had many questions.
“So Mara talks to mammoths and you twist thoughts around. Surely there is more to your temple than meets the eye.”
Edouard had to admit to being impressed, even after so many days of watching the false king's soldiers gallop up the hill, wheel about and then gallop straight down again for no obvious reason. He didn't understand it, but then his magic was not of the mind. But he did understand that the handmaidens like any priests and priestesses were only supposed to have minor magics. Healing charms and the like. This was a major casting, enchanted into the land itself, that worked on scores of minds at once, no matter from which direction they came, and which never seemed to fail.
“The Honoured Mother's blessings are wondrous.”
Kyriel smiled knowingly and he knew that behind that serene expression she was laughing at him. She was amused by his ignorance. It was an expression he was slowly coming to get used to. He was also coming to realise that he was never going to get an answer to his questions. Any of them. The handmaidens had secrets and they were keeping them.
“And does she have a wondrous plan too?”
He figured they needed one. After so many days of being trapped in his own home, he was starting to become a little frustrated. The townsfolk had to be frustrated as well. After all, the soldiers had ringed them in as well and from what he could see they limited their movements. Travellers weren't allowed in or out of Breakwater. Farmers weren't able to harvest their crops and take them to market. And even those toiling in the nearby fields were subject to regular harassment. Sure, his home was comfortable enough, and it was nice being safe even when his brother could field an army against him. Still, it would have been nice to have a plan. To have some hope of defeating Simon and getting his life back to normal. To get Breakwater working again.
“Actually yes. And we will be receiving a guest tonight to tell us something of them.”
That caught him by surprise. So much so that he actually straightened up and turned around to see if she was being honest with him and not just teasing him with a jest. Of course the sudden movement tore the skin on his back a little more and he couldn't keep from wincing again.
“Someone's going to try and breach the blockade? That's dangerous.”
And it also wasn't necessary. It had already occurred to him that the handmaidens had some way of speaking over long distances. They kept telling him things they couldn't possibly know. Not if they were locked up here with him. And after all, how else would she even know that a visitor was expected? There hadn't been any mail. Messengers weren't getting through the blockade. So if they could get messages through then why would they need someone to visit them in person?
Of course he was still curious as to how they were doing it. He'd been looking for carrier birds for a day or two, but none had landed on the fort. And it didn't have a roost anyway. Nor for that matter, had any birds been raised in the fort to know to call it home.
Secret messengers were also not an option. Even if someone had somehow snuck through the blockade, the front gate had not been opened in three days. He would have heard it. So they would have had to have climbed over the wall. That was no easy task, especially when the cast iron railings were barbed. Besides, there was a watch kept. They would have been seen.
Flags and signal fires had also occurred to him, but the only place to do either would be from the tower. There was no sign of a fire pit in it, and flags could only be used during the day. He'd been up in the tower regularly for the last couple of days.
That of course left only magic. Perhaps some sort of mental connection through the Mother. And given that someone – Kyriel according to her – had created the ward that sent the soldiers turning away, it was his best guess. But if she could hear Tyrel's voice why did she not hear entire conversations? Why did she need messengers to come? So many riddles. So few answers.
Of course he'd probably been standing there too long, lost in his questions and forgetting that there was an actual world out there. He realised that when Kyriel started discretely coughing his way. And then not so discretely, until he finally noticed her again.
“I'm sorry Kyriel. There is more?”
“Anatha asks for you to report to the kitchen if it's not too much trouble. There are potatoes that need peeling and pots that need scrubbing.”
Despite her carefully composed expression, Edouard knew she was laughing at him, or rather, at the thought of a noble doing dishes. But it wasn't a choice. Even if the ward didn't prevent people from the town wandering up the hill – people like his servants – he could not have let them make the journey. Breakwater wasn't protected from the soldiers, and he could never have let them be seen entering his home. It would have made them targets. So everyone, himself included, had to help out.
He should probably be grateful he hadn't been assigned to cleaning the floors. Though since he couldn't cook the others might have preferred that he was, rather than having anything to do with food. Even peeling potatoes.
“Some people will do anything to see me with my hands in soapy water!”
Chapter Thirty
The throne room was empty again and Simon was glad of it. He had grown sick of the court. Sick of all the problems the people kept bringing before him. All the complaints. And especially sick of the way the various members of the court whispered among themselves when they thought he wasn't looking. But he was looking. And he did see. He saw far more than they realised.
The complaints though were only a symptom. The disease was failure. Incompetence. The things that separated a successful king from a soon to be deposed one.
But the problems kept mounting for him. The city was short on food. Destroying the stores had been such a good way to put pressure on King Byron's rule and distract him, but now it was putting that same pressure on his rule. And with the city locked down, no food supplies were able to enter it. They faced the very real prospect of famine. And that in a farming province in the springtime!
Water supplies to the city were also compromised. Many of the wells had been contaminated following the destruction caused by the mammoths. Water pipes and sewer pipes had been broken. It could be repaired and normally it would be. But most of the city's artisans who dealt with such things had left the city after the attack by the sprigs. They had skills and could find work easily enough elsewhere.
For the same reason the houses and the wall weren't being repaired. He didn't have the artisans he needed and what few he did have, Vesar was stealing to build his accursed temple. It was the agreement they had reached and for the moment he still needed the man so he had to honour the agreement. If nothing else he needed the priest to keep him informed as to what the nobles were plotting. The man had a genius for finding out such things. And of course he needed him to raise his promised armies. But there was a cost to keeping that promise, and his rule was paying for it.
Fire was becoming a problem too. Normally the city could put out their fires quite quickly. But the water mains were smashed and they were forced to rely on wells and buckets. And there were so many naked flames in the city. Candles, oil lamps, braziers. It was a never ending problem.
Worse was the fact that the nobles had somehow learned that he was the one respo
nsible for the attacks on Theria. That he had brought the mammoths and the sprigs to their doors. They couldn't prove it, but they didn't need proof. They knew it. He could see the silent accusations in their eyes. For the moment they didn't bring it before him. They were afraid. But fear could get him only so far. In order to be afraid a man had to also have hope. Something to be afraid of losing. And they were fast running out of hope. And as they ran out of hope so too did he.
Time was running out for all of them.
“You sent for me Your Majesty?”