Vesteal 01 – 01 – Ghost in the Yew

by Blake Hausladen

  “Did you finish it?” he demanded when he saw us, and he all but snatched the heavy satchel I offered. “What’s the count?”

  “8,680—and all is as it should be,” I told him tiredly while he thumbed through one of the ledgers.

  He said a thank you and hugged the books to his chest for a long moment. Relief softened his posture and expression and he chuckled. “The Zoviyans number 8,364. I never would have guessed them to be in the minority. I thought for sure Enhedu had been exaggerated.”

  I smiled weakly in return, but fatigue was drawing me toward the floor. “Do you know where the prince is?”

  “At Ojesti,” he replied. “The next set of greencoats begin their training tomorrow, so he went out to welcome them.”

  “Nothing yet from the chancellor?”

  “No. Whatever he intends, I expected it to arrive yesterday. I would bet my arm his men are just up the road waiting out the storm. When it passes, they will come.”

  He looked very tired then. Waiting had been hard for him.

  “You are prepared for their arrival?” I asked.

  “This was all I needed. Gern has lookouts stationed up the road, so we will have ample warning.”

  “Well enough, then. Go find rest,” I told him while more lightning flashed upon the horizon. “Both of you.” They went down, and I started up.

  The crash of thunder was loud. Drawn by the awesome sound, I climbed up the last flight, rather than retreating to my room, and stepped tentatively onto the roof. The rain had not yet come, but upon the horizon, the lightning stabbed back and forth through the clouds that tumbled slowly toward us. The forest swayed in the grip of the wind, and the first splatters of rain struck my face.

  I was about to flee to my room when I heard angry voices below. I looked over the edge of the battlement to see Barok stomping up the stairs and around toward the drawbridge. Gern, Leger, and Sahin were in pursuit.

  “Barok, please,” Leger said.

  He came to a halt beneath the lantern boxes before the open gates, and the way he turned I worried he would draw his sword. “What?”

  “You haven’t answered our question. The messenger awaits your response to your father. We need to know what you intend. Will you ask permission to marry Dia?”

  “And how is that any business of yours?”

  “It is very much our business.”

  Gern yelled suddenly, “This is not something for us to decide.”

  “Barok,” Leger said, “I do not understand your anger.”

  “Explain this,” he yelled at Leger suddenly, a crushed lettered extended in his large fist.

  “My Autumn Report of Standing to Lord Vall,” Leger replied simply. “Sahin and I prepared it last night. There is a problem with it?”

  “A problem?” Barok spat, and uncrumpled the letter to read from it. “It is also the case that the prince demonstrates no desire for marriage. A single girl who formerly served at the palace has been seeing to him, so have no fear of a child being born.

  “What does this mean?” Barok asked darkly. “No fear of a child? Explain.”

  “My lord, you must surely know. It’s a requirement for any common woman ...” he started but said, instead, “Whenever a new girl arrives at the palace, she is given a big fancy meal complete with a cup of mate.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The women’s medicine, of course. You did not know? It has a strong smell, but the mate hides it. Dia will never bear children. Not now, not ever ...”

  Lightning flashed, rain poured out of the sky, and darkness enveloped me.

  I awoke shivering, curled in a ball against the cold stone. The rain had stopped. I stood to find clear skies and the gray light before the dawn.

  I had gone unmissed.

  I thought to cry but could not. Leger had known all along. I had been hollowed by the women’s medicine. It explained so much: the season of failure, the Chaukai’s slow-growing disdain, and Leger’s loathing. There was no room for me in their plans for Edonia. I looked north through the gloom of the departing storm toward the yew and its ghosts.

  I hated them and what they demanded. I had no value to them. For a year, I had waited to be invited before the king. I knew why I hadn’t been, at last, but would wait no more.

  I marched down to the stable and was on my way toward the yew. I did not care how cold and damp I was. I did not care how tired.

  At the bridge, I was surprised to find a man and pony blocking my path. He said to me, “You may not pass, Lady Dia.”

  “Loyal Chaukai, I come to speak to Kyoden. Stand aside.”

  “This is not wise. You will be slain. Same as Emery.”

  “I mean to take the oath.”

  “I cannot give you the oath.”

  “I know. Kyoden will give it to me, or I will die. Stand aside.”

  “I will not let you pass.”

  “Then you will have to kill me,” I replied and turned Clever in a circle as he reached for the reins. I got ready to ride through him.

  “Lady, this will be your death.”

  “Do you know of me?” I spat. “Know what the women’s medicine did to me?”

  He bowed his head between his shoulders. “Yes.”

  “Then you know that unless Kyoden himself bids it, I am unwelcome here.”

  He hesitated but haltingly asked, “Can I say nothing to dissuade you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then I shall go and tell the prince you are dead and that he should come retrieve you. Farewell, milady.”

  And with a bow, he rode south and left me to continue north across the bridge.

  I navigated the trail’s twists and turns, and tied Clever to a thick tree well out of reach of the yews’ poisonous needles and seeds.

  I looked back at him once but could not bear to say goodbye.

  I marched down the last of the trail but slowed when I spotted the twisted limbs and moss-speckled trunks. The open ground beneath the ancient yew forest was a spongy bed of brown needles. Mushrooms, clover, and the thinnest shoots of bright green grass dotted the brown carpet. The air was heavy. It was terribly quiet. What must Emery have thought when she saw this place?

  Kyoden’s tree was just ahead; its divided trunks reached up like broken, angry fingers. Upon them were hundreds of barkless limbs too low to find the sun. They seemed gray hairs left uncombed beneath the tree’s thick, green crown.

  I stepped to the ancient tree and set my fingers upon it.

  Nothing.

  Nothing came but the shiver caused by the cool, hard wood. I waited, but still nothing. It was the last thing I had expected. I turned and tried to listen for something new. I encouraged a hope that Kyoden would drift reverently into the space and embrace me, but the forest seemed ambivalent.

  But when I turned again, I lost all my wits and words. Kyoden was there, half in, half out of the tree, his broken body forming from a pour of hot black smoke. His eyes were dark and full of hate.

  I fell backward onto the soft earth, and a cry escaped me. I bit my lip. He advanced, grim and terrible. I heard a crying in the forest—dead, dry, mournful sobs of the dead. His kin appeared and swooped in to surround me. Their grip squeezed and pinched like smoke-washed tools of iron. I was a doll chewed by their anger. The unwelcome touch was everywhere on my body.

  “Here I am,” I spat and stood up through them. “Zoviyan whore. Barren bitch. Your heir’s lover. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me, or I will be your queen.”

  The wailing of the dead rose above the tiny noise of my anger, and the horrible sound rang in my ears. Kyoden pounced on me, knocked me off my feet, and pinned me to the ground. He forced me flat, and his broken hand came up onto my throat.

  “You,” the murdered king seethed, “are corrupted. Your love is a lie.”

  “No,” I screamed. “I love Barok, and he loves me. You ugly beast. You were supposed to be wise. What a hollow thing you are. I love your heir. Kill me or bless our union.”

 
; “Zoviyan,” he wheezed, “you are a false being. You are unfaithful.”

  “No,” I growled at his lie. “Never.”

  “You would put a second in his bed. How long until you take one for yourself?”

  “Fana?” I choked and found new tears, startled by his accusation, “What is she in this? My prince wants her, and it is his right to have her.”

  “Then you are false,” his dry moan declared as his grip upon my throat tightened. “One-for-one until death. That is the vow you seek, but you are already corrupted against it.”

  A gurgle escaped me as I fought to make words through the grip of his fingers. “One-for-one? How could a man be capable? You are the one who is false.”

  “Your church has poisoned your mind and your body.”

  “My church?” I choked. “Ha. I curse Bayen and his priests. Zoviya and its church is an abomination.”

  The king’s murderous grip lifted, but his tortured brow squeezed his fiery eyes onto me. “You are tainted by Zoviya. Taught by its illness. Child of its lies. Wounded and hollowed by its poisons. You turn those around you to murder and counsel against fidelity. You are false.”

  “Murder? Fidelity? Ha,” I screamed, jumped to my feet, and pointed at him through the hot swirl of his shrieking kin. “I defy you to tell me how Lady Emery was any less a threat to us than the men Gern so heroically killed in Bessradi. I defy you to tell me how it is so different for your precious Chaukai to scheme to set another in my place. Where is the fidelity in their actions? And I call you liar, Kyoden of Edonia, a liar and hypocrite if you claim that all of you led such righteous lives. Men are not capable.”

  The ghosts came to a halt around me. The forest fell silent. Kyoden’s mouth and face twisted, sad and full of hurt. Anger flared in his eyes, and his sons raised their swords and started toward me.

  Men. The world is ruled by selfish, dishonorable men. I closed my eyes and waited for the calm of death. I stopped wanting to live, and gave Kyoden the words that had once sustained me.

  “Walk lightly, dear king. You and all of yours. May you walk lightly.”

  68

  Colonel Leger Mertone

  The 84th of Summer, 1195

  I had seen more than my share of breastworks and palisades raised over the years. A day’s ride while on campaign ended with each man digging out a section of trench around an ordered square of tents. The earth from the excavation was tossed in and up to form breastworks we would reinforce with the tall wooden stakes we carried. The trench and wall around Urnedi were different only in size and the time they would take to complete.

  The enterprise had interrupted Barok’s timbermen but not the rest of the town. The greencoats and the recruits did all the hard work. The sergeants delivered the entire camp to my supervision after the morning march, and a third of their day went to the construction.

  We had dug first a deep and narrow trench around the south and east sides of the keep and then all the way around the town while the timbermen delivered to us countless tall, thick pines. The hardest part was standing the first few trees straight up in the trench and getting them properly lashed together. But once done, the work became very mechanical—roll a log into the trench, stand it up using ropes fed across the tops of those already standing, lash the new one to its neighbor, and fill in the trench around its base. The construction took us just five days.

  Forward of the wall we then dug a second massive trench as deep and wide as an Akal-Tak. The heavy earth from it was thrown up as extra foundation for the wall. This work, too, was going quickly, and the rest would be done in a few short days. The gatehouses were nearly complete, and the braising and platform behind the wall were up. All that remained was to finish the deep trench along the east wall.

  The morning of the 84th was the second day of training for the next group of 150 recruits and their first working in the trench. Barok was there, ostensibly to inspect the new recruits, but he had little interest in them. We had misjudged his feelings for Dia. Gern had managed with a great deal of yelling to get him out of bed, but the prince was entirely detached from the greencoats who worked around him. I’d decided early to let him be. There was no easy recipe for departing from someone you loved. I regretted it, but his feelings for her had no weight when compared to our duty.

  The recruits, thankfully, could not tell the difference. Everything around them was new, and they worked tirelessly to earn our praise. And they were young—painfully young. Most were just of age, but as had been so often proven, it was the right time for such training. The group that was twenty-five days into their training had made an excellent showing of themselves so far. A few might not make final muster this time around, but it was an otherwise exceptional group of lads.

  Each had been paired the previous morning with one of the new men, the senior responsible for every word and action of his junior. This addition to the chain of command was what made it possible for thirteen sergeants to train and manage 300. Half would have a set of eyes on them every second, and the other half would be too busy keeping an eye on someone else to make any mischief themselves.

  I heard the gallop of a horse and stood up from my work. A greencoat emerged from the trees, his face a dark mask. The man had left his post. The bridge was unguarded. I dropped my pick and rushed to discover what had caused his ugly urgency.

  “Dia rode out ...” he started but checked himself. The Chaukai did not speak of the yew, even when surrounded by those sworn to Edonia.

  “What? When did she get back?” I asked before the import of his words sank in. Dia had ridden into the yew. She was dead. I found that I was glad. She had become useless. The town resented her. The greencoats did not trust her.

  But then the prince pressed forward, and when I whispered the man’s message into his ear, he erupted, dragged the man off his pony, and began to beat him.

  Sahin and I took hold of him, tried to pull him off the stricken man.

  “Barok. She is gone.”

  His eyes came around. “Then I will raze this place and everyone in it until ash clouds the sea.”

  We tried to take hold of him, but he spun, shed Sahin’s grip, and tossed aside both of his bodyguards. I got hold of his arm but was slammed to the ground. I lost my vision and breath.

  Someone sat me up. My ears rung, and my shoulder and head throbbed.

  “Where is he?” I asked. The sounds of the prince’s rage were gone.

  “He rides north,” someone told me. I tried to steady myself.

  “I must follow him,” I said and tried to stand. Then I was sitting down. Others were sprawled around me. My face was wet. Blood dripped onto my boots.

  “None could hold or stop him,” the same voice said, and I found Thell crouched beside me with a cloth pressed against my wound. “He thinks her dead.”

  “Did any follow?”

  “None dared.”

  “We are better off without her.”

  Thell withdrew the cloth and tossed it on the ground. “Fool. He loves her as much as you do Darmia. You should be ashamed. All of you. Do you hear me? You should be ashamed.”

  Another of the greencoats said, “What are you? Her father?”

  Thell rushed the man, punched him to the ground, and began to kick him mercilessly. “Damn you. All of you. Led by your cocks and jealous of your lord’s lady, deciding things no man has a right to. Do you care that she has worked every waking moment to preserve you and your families? Did you know it? No. You do not care. Too busy meddling to think upon such things.”

  Thell kicked the man one last time. “Shame upon every one of you and your dark eyes and your evil chatter. Shame on you. If she is dead, her blood is upon you. You best get down upon your knees and pray she is safe, because if she is not, our lives here are over.”

  Then he spat and stalked away.

  69

  Matron Dia Esar

  Family

  I woke weeping and uncertain, but the dreams that jolted me did not fade.
They were the memories of the dead, a gift from the king. The quiet forest watched while the visions slowly taught me why I had been spared.

  My secret prayer, learned from an upturned stone, was how the Edonians bid farewell to their dead. Adanas was the name of the murdered kingdom’s religion—a way of life that kept men close to the Spirit of the Earth and guided their souls to a peaceful end. For knowing it, I was forgiven my corruptions.

  I wept from the sickness I saw in myself through his eyes but learned more still from my glimpse of how they had lived and how they had died. How can I explain a lifetime of loss? Friends, kin, kingdom, wife, sons—all had been taken from him. Kyoden’s spirit and memories of it all were as strong as the evil of his death. But this torment was only the story of how his life ended. His life was a picture of love. One-to-one until death was the vow he had kept, the vow kept by those around him.

  “How?” I asked. “Adanas?”

  ‘Family,’ Kyoden whispered from deep inside the tree. ‘Alone you are without anchor. The corruptions of the world are quick and sticky. Alone you are lost.’

  I felt the wealth of knowledge from which he spoke and the depths of his secrets. Their struggle was dark, ugly, and ancient. There was a reason they were hunted and slaughtered, a reason they had been preserved after death, and a reason their line could not be allowed to end.

  New tears retraced the furrows down my dirty face. How selfish I was.

  “Dear king,” I wept. “Forgive me. I love Barok with all my heart, but I am barren. If I marry him, your line will fail.”

  ‘A druid, child. A druid can heal you.’ he replied in a fading, friendly whisper.

  I did not know the word. Fleeting images came, memories not my own of those the Hessier had murdered first—the healers and teachers of Adanas. Kyoden could not mean Bayen’s fools and their blue lights. I called on the king to tell me more, but the images avoided my grip like a fog. I let it go, content that I could be healed.