Trinian

by Elizabeth Russell

  “What?” She started as if he had slapped her, and an ashy pallor suffused her face. “Why would you say that?”

  He did not answer for a long time, just continued to look at her, as if he would search out with his gaze the depths of her being. She looked at the floor, embarrassed but pleased, and a rosy color slowly came back to her complexion. Once or twice she glanced up, but could not hold his gaze long.

  “I say it because it is true,” he said finally. “When I go about my day, I am the most important man in the world, but when I am with you, I matter nothing. I feel so insignificant and mortal. I feel not like a king; I feel only like a man.”

  “I am sorry,” she quivered. “I do not mean to do it.”

  “No, no, you misunderstand. But then, I do not understand.” He stood up, his natural propensity toward action reasserting itself. He paced the strip between the wall and the table, back and forth, and then suddenly rounded the table and brought them face to face. He stood so close he felt her warmth, her vulnerability.

  “I grow so overwhelmed with my responsibilities that I forget who I am – I forget I am a man, a husband. But even more than that, I forget the strength of a man in love. And I love you.”

  He expected her to melt in his arms. He anticipated the warmth of her body melting into his, the grip of her arms around his neck; he was moments away from wrapping her in his own when she suddenly twisted around and removed the simmering pot from the stove. She carried it to the table, putting distance between them once again.

  Adlena was as surprised by her actions as her husband. All she wanted was to meet him, forget herself in him, and lose the night in his arms. But not like this. Something was wrong – somehow, she knew this was not how Cila and Asbult fell in love each night.

  She served the food and sat down without looking back, so Trinian was left to do nothing but sit as well and eat his food in silence. Adlena expected to feel uncomfortable, but to her surprise, her heart rejoiced. She felt released, as if she could not be manipulated, and could only be truly, wholly, and completely loved.

  After a little while, she saw Trinian was about to say something, and she spoke before he could. “I hear you are sending emissaries to countries all over Minecerva. Have you had many responses?”

  She saw how surprised he was at her question, which confirmed her suspicion that he only intended to discuss pleasantries and passion. But she wanted more than pleasantries, and less than passion. She understood now that there was a very important level in between that they had somehow missed, and must discover.

  “Well,” he answered thoughtfully, “Kelta responded immediately. They have always been loyal allies to Drian, so their response was encouraging.”

  “That is good,” she nodded.

  “Today, I received South Drian’s answer; they possess a powerful army, and I knew that with their help, we could stand an excellent chance of blockading the east against the invading force. So I was overjoyed to learn that they have pledged half their army, and will be arriving here in three days. It was an enormous relief; I do not know why, but I am plagued by the fear that the enemy will get to our allies first and turn them against us.”

  “Do you believe the god is attempting to ally with human countries? I thought he wanted to destroy all of them.”

  “I do not know his plans. Only that he plans evil, and I must do all I can to prevent him. The more time progresses, Adlee, the more I feel a dark cloud gathers above our heads, waiting to strike. Astren does not sense it, and his mistrust weighs on me, obscuring all my decisions.” Suddenly, and all at once, he poured out his apprehensions, foreboding, plans, and predictions, admitting, as his words poured over each other, more in his communication with her than he had spoken of to any other person, or even thought in his mind.

  When he finally finished, his words and thoughts exhausted, he leaned back in his seat, surprised at his dissemination – and yet pleased. Her silent, patient listening awakened between them a deep bond he never would have imagined possible, and though he still did not grasp the need for verbal intercourse in the same way as she, he understood that there was something deeper between them now than there had been before. As he sat in the silence surrounding them, in the warm light of the brown room, watching her gaze at the floor with a mild crease in her forehead, a desire increased each moment within him to hear her opinion and glean from her insight. How had he never desired this before? Not realized how much he honored her intellect and perspective? He leaned forward vigilantly when she finally turned to him.

  “You carry a heavy load,” she said, reaching over and taking his strong, large hand in her delicate one, fondling it thoughtfully. “One that I fear I have too long allowed you to bear alone. But I will do so any longer. As the country needs allies, so do you. I will be your help and support as I swore to be before the gods when Gladier married us.

  “You must trust yourself – there is no one with a surer instinct than you, and you must trust it unflinchingly. It is as if the gods communicate their very plans to you; unless you listen, you will miss the next step. You have received an ancestral gift – one to which Astren is not privy, and his instincts stem from a previous age, one in which life was slow and sleepy. But I know – I know – that this world is not what it once was. It has awakened. And it is powerful. You have heard Gladier’s prophecy? ‘The Dryad will awaken and lie down with the mortal.’”

  Trinian, who had stared at the table as he listened intently, glanced up at her, eyes wide with astonishment and sudden understanding. “The Dryad has indeed awakened,” she continued, “and she has joined with the mortal. We, our very beings and our lives, are fulfilling the prophecies of the ages, moving toward a time we cannot, right now, foresee or understand. Fear too, and trepidation, have their place. But whether we are afraid, or whether we rejoice, our place is preserved in the timeline of history, and in each moment, we must prove ourselves worthy of it. I suppose, until I heard your fears tonight, I never truly understood the weight of our rule.”

  Though she had spoken with surety and strength throughout, she ended at last with innocent humility, and uttered those last words, “our rule,” with a simplicity that stabbed Trinian through the heart. Suddenly, he got off his chair and bent to the ground before her on one knee. Still grasping her hand in his, he gazed up at her with a new delight. The old passion blazed within him, burning his breast and smelting his gaze, but it was ennobled now with true love. First and foremost she was his queen, and he had forgotten this simple fact.

  “Forgive me,” he begged, his bearded chin trembling with unadulterated ardor. “It is your rule, as well as mine, and I have allowed our hearts and purposes to grow apart. I left you at home to raise our son while I stayed away to rule a kingdom. I decided, without deliberation, that one was your duty and the other mine. I allowed you to grow tired and sad, alone and abandoned as you were, while I grew distant and cold, pacing uselessly in my vast, empty chamber.” As he proclaimed the truth, sobs rose in Adlena’s throat and shook her lovely frame. He reached up his hand and caressed her fine cheek so that her tears spilled over his fingers. “I never want to be apart from you. We must pursue life together, supporting and uplifting as we are meant to do.

  “As king and queen; as husband and wife.”

  After that, words were no longer necessary. Now, at last, did they melt into one another’s arms and spend the night together, sealing each other into their hearts. And it was through this renewed ardor of love that the queen came, once more, to bear fruit in her womb.

  V

  RORDAN

  “I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river

  Is a strong brown god – sullen, untamed and intractable,

  Patient to some degree, at first recognized as a frontier;

  …The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten

  By the dwellers in cities – ever, however, implacable,

  Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, remind
er

  Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated

  By worshippers of the machine, by waiting, watching and waiting.”

  - T.S. Eliot; The Four Quartet

  28

  The Monsters Approach Drian

  Merciec, first bowman of Drian, stood upon the southern rampart, his sturdy legs mounted like pillars on the stone. He had stood for hours, like a tree on a hill, bent against the wind, defying anyone else to stand against the forces of nature with his endurance and rigidity. Fully iron clad, he wore the traditional curved blade of a hunter, and a rounded bow on the curve of his back. At the moment, his helm was at his feet, and his long, blond hair burned golden in the sun; a beacon of hope, an example of the type of man who followed Trinian, a stalwart warrior against the encroaching forces from the east.

  He scanned the southern horizon. He had done so intermittently for the entirety of the morning with no result, but now, at last, his watchful eyes met a mark. A shadow in the distance that could have been anything, and so he thought it was what they had waited for, and his heart lifted in hope. But it was larger than he had expected, and curious, he squinted at it, lifted a spyglass, and then, with a deep frown that would have alarmed a fellow soldier had there been one to see, leapt to the alarm bell.

  “The South! The South!” his voice rang out as he pulled the southern bells. “The enemy approaches from the South!”

  Trinian heard the bells from the throne room and gripped the sides of his chair, for a moment stunned into inaction, then leapt up and ran to the southern wall, meeting Afias on the way, and rushing on together. He ran until he hit the raised wall and leaned over it, peering into the far distance.

  “The South? Surely not. That must be South Drian advancing to aid us.”

  “I thought so too, sire,” said Merciec, handing him the spyglass. “But take a closer look.”

  “Fate help us, they are the same monsters as the Mestraff host,” Trinian breathed. “But how? Are they closing in on both sides?”

  Afias shook his hand. “We’ve heard nothing from Saskatchan. We would know if they crossed the Rordan.”

  “We should have heard from South Drian. What happened to their army?”

  Afias looked out over the vast mass of advancing beasts. It filled the entire Kernan Valley and still more streamed endlessly over the horizon. “I don’t think they are coming, Trinian. We are alone.”

  Trinian hurried back to the throne room where Astren waited for him, as stoic as the marble table at which he sat. The steward had heard the cries of alarm but, minister-like, refused to budge, and sat quietly for the tidings to be brought to him. When Trinian relayed, shaking with the fear of a youth and the anger of a soldier, the sheer size of the invading host, the old man’s gnarled face went gray.

  “How many?” he breathed.

  “Thousands. I cannot say for certain.”

  With shaking hands, he gathered a handful of papers before him into piles. “We have to retreat. This is worse… this is unthinkable… We have no army for this.”

  “To where would we retreat?” asked Trinian, not believing what he heard.

  “Saskachan? Yes, Saskachan. We shall go there.”

  Trinian struggled to understand his mentor, and he grew more infuriated, trying to find make some sense of his words. “My lord, Saskachan is barely large enough to hold our army, let alone the entire city. Drian is the most fortified city in Minecerva – to leave is suicide.”

  “Yes, it is,” proclaimed Gladier, who had entered the room. “You must fight.”

  Astren drew himself upright, ashamed of showing weakness in the wave of the first shock. He crossed his arms over his robe and resumed his customary stateliness.

  “You have to ride out and meet them,” said the wizard. “Because you have only two choices: ride out and fight until you surrender, or surrender now. But if you surrender now, you will be teaching your people that fighting is not worthwhile, and it will be much harder to rally them a second time.”

  “A second time?” asked Astren.

  “Yes! When you drive them out from the inside. Through rebellion, through resisting their rule. The people must believe that their king supports them – that he believes in their freedom and welfare above all else. This will give them courage during the coming occupation.”

  Trinian’s face was red as a tomato, his neck muscles bulged and the veins popped – he had never been angry at Gladier before, but now his vision was red. “Occupied!” he roared. “Never! This city will not fall, do you hear? If you repeat that before anyone, I will strike off your head, so help me, I will. My men will fight as they did in Mestraff – they will mow down the enemy and drive them from our walls. Those beasts know not what force they have awoken!” And without another word, he fled from the company of his mentors and descended to the barracks.

  That was where Lady Adrea found him shortly after. He was donning his armor with Commander Garrity, and both men were deeply involved in planning their defense.

  “My father says we should not fight, and that he told you the same thing,” she yelled at him. Whenever her anger rose – and that was often, for it always boiled just beneath the surface – she yelled at anyone. “He says we should retreat to Saskatchan.”

  “Well, clearly I’m not listening,” said Trinian, as a page tightened his shin guards.

  “And what do you think? Will we fall?”

  He leaned forward, his eyes blazing to meet the fire in hers. “I think we’ll drive them from the city walls and rise victorious.”

  With a strong effort of will, his face only inches from hers, she did not kiss him, but instead, nodded with shining eyes. “They will follow you! They believe in you as I do!”

  “Yes, on the battlefield – yes! But,” he paused suddenly, his habit of listening to Astren reasserting itself over the first flush of his anger. “Adrea, what of my family? What if your father has some wisdom in his words about Saskatchan? Do I plan well if I subject my family to this threat, without trying to protect them in case of invasion?”

  She grew sober, suddenly willing to accept the idea of retreating to Saskatchan because Trinian, and not her ever-frightened father, suggested it. “I will not leave the city,” she said after a moment. “It is always the place of the stewards to remain behind and keep the throne for the king, and Saskatchan would never accommodate the whole population of Drian. We could never get them all there in time, anyway. But if you want to send your family to the fort, just to be certain of their safety, then I see nothing wrong with that. They are the royal family, and I think it shows prudence.”

  He smiled at her in relief. “What would I do without you?” he asked. “Gather them together, and send them immediately.” His trust filled her chest until she felt it would burst, and she, feeling bound to him by bonds stronger than words, nodded her proud head and sailed out of the armory.

  After seeing the Nian’s safely on their way to Saskatchan, Adrea joined her father on the tallest tower of Korem to watch the impending battle.

  “Who are these enemies?” demanded Lord Astren, shivering in the wind of the high tower.

  “They are the same monsters that attacked in Mestraff,” said his daughter, well aware that he had been told many times already.

  “Oh! And I suppose they just decided to circumvent the Rordan and go the long way around for no reason? How do we know they are the same enemy? Where have they come from?”

  “I do not know why they came the long way,” Adrea said deliberately, “but I think we can assume with reasonable certainty that they come from Karaka.”

  Rapidly the army of Power advanced and filled all the valley before the red city, encamping itself there, a black mass signaling the impending doom of Drian. “Look at the size of that host. Surely we can never hope to defeat them! What shall we do if they invade the city?”

  Adrea, whose impatience with her father’s fears and slow ways never showed in his presence, laid her hand upon hi
s shoulder and watched Trinian ride out at the head of their army. “We will face whatever comes with honor, bravery, and steadfastness – as we have ever done.”

  29

  The First Battle for Drian

  When he rode forth at the front of the line in the bright light of day, though every able-bodied man of the kingdom assembled on the field, King Trinian led an army of meager hundreds against a horde of uncountable thousands. The gold and blue flag of Drian with its white dove nesting in calm comfort faced itself against the black banner of The Enemy with its white smile and sharp scarlet arrow. Kellan rode high on a black horse with a fiery red mane to face the bronze-clad king of Drian.

  Queen Adlena and Adrea stood together upon the rampart of the palace, and saw the king’s sword catch the light of the sun as it rose high above his head.

  All was silent.

  The hearts of the citizens of Drian were valiant as they waited in that awful moment. Their faith in him had swelled in an unbounded expanse after the battle of Mestraff, and they believed in their king as if he were the god of Drian himself. If King Trinian, descended of Destine, emperor of Minecerva, and divinely appointed by Fate, chose to face the ambitious god risen in the east, then they would, with all their strength, back him to the last man. They must fall; how could they not, outnumbered seven to one? But no one believed it. They would not fall so long as Trinian led them with his might.

  His sword dropped –

  And the armies flew to meet…

  And clashed with a clash that shook the heavens.

  It was not long before either side was indistinguishable as the blue and gold of Drian’s soldiers melded with the black and red of the enemy’s horde, obscuring all but Death, whose godlike visage seemed to take on mortal appearance in the clash of the armies of good and evil.