The High King: Book Two of the 'Riothamus' trilogy

by Rosemary Fryth

  ‘I guess that he is jealous of you…treat him gently but with caution. It would not do well to make an enemy of him.’

  “It seems that already he is my enemy,” Aran growled unhappily.

  ‘He may regard you as his enemy, Arantur,’ Sarana murmured, ‘But do not let it be seen that you see him as yours. You are the one who must set the example,’ she said softly, ‘The people can easily dismiss the frailty of an ordinary man, but they will be less generous if their king shows flaws in his character,’ Sarana added finally.

  Aran nodded, “Very well, I will be tolerant of him…although he does himself a great disservice by his actions.”

  *

  The day drew on and the column made good time on the hard packed dirt road. Once or twice they stopped to rest and water the horses, the second time eating a simple meal by the side of the road. Looking about him Aran noticed that the farmland that they had been riding through was very similar to that further south near Leigh, although in truth this land was flatter with wide alluvial plains which would flood given unseasonably heavy rains and high tides. However the very proximity of the river ensured good harvests, and an assured water supply. This far up the Titan River the water was fresh, for it was no longer contaminated by the tidal influences of the salt water of the Havart Bay. As they rode, Aran could see that most of the harvests were now in and farmers were busily preparing their fields for winter fallow or rotation. Occasionally the looming bulk of a haystack could be seen near an isolated farm or homestead, but mostly the gathered crop had already been sent to market or stored away in the tall barns which dotted the countryside. With the fields showing either bare soil, or dying stalks of harvested crop, and with a grey overcast sky above, the day seemed as hard and as uncompromising as steel.

  Aran sniffed, and to his dismay caught the unmistakable smell of snow in the air.

  “It’s going to be an early winter,” he commented to Darven who was riding with the banner at his shoulder.

  The Wolf Leader looked up and his nostrils flared, “Aye there is snow away in the distance. Not here and not yet…I’d say the first snow flurries are falling over Mount Solstice right now.”

  Aran stared ahead at the bleak grey sky and wished, not for the last time that this campaign had taken place earlier in the season.

  “Will it hamper the fighting?” he asked at length.

  Darven shrugged, “It will be cold, slippery and damn uncomfortable. However the Thakur picked this particular fight…it is certainly not our doing.”

  *

  The grey overcast had deepened by late afternoon, and the column was now riding almost in semi-darkness. The mages had brought with them some of the ever-burning lanterns of Glaive, however even these few lights seemed to enhance the darkness rather than alleviate it.

  “How far is Haul East?” Aran asked of Captain Taran when the older man rode forward to join the leaders. “If it’s still leagues away then we should stop now while we can still see where we are going, and there is light enough to make camp.”

  The Captain of the Guard peered ahead into the gloom and tried to discern the distant township. Finally he shook his head in bewilderment.

  “It’s almost impossible to see in this murk my lord,” he said unhappily. “As much as we’d all like hot baths and warm beds, I’d not risk a scout for fear of him coming to grief on the road.”

  “My lords…I was born in this district.”

  Aran turned around to stare at a helmeted and hooded figure riding a weary horse up from the ranks of the Guard.

  “Aye man, have you any idea where we are?” Taran asked twisting about in his saddle.

  Aran peered through the heavy darkness, to finally recognise young Ban as the speaker.

  “Aye my lords…we are barely half a league from Haul East.” He pointed ahead, “You may not see it for the gloom, but there is a copse of trees ahead. Directly after the copse the road swings to the left…the town is a mere twenty minute ride after that.”

  Aran smiled at the young Guard, “Our thanks Ban. You have saved us a cold and uncomfortable camp.” He turned to look ahead at the trees which he could now make out, “Will there be accommodation enough for us?” he asked.

  Ban grinned “Last time I came home, I noted three inns and taverns. Besides I know most of the town, those who can’t be accommodated I’m sure will be found beds and lodgings for the night with the local families.”

  “Then in that case I only hope the Haulgard Legions did not come this way, else we will be still camping out in this damp cold,” said Darven resignedly.

  “No fear of that,” Captain Taran replied, “For I asked before we rode this morning. They took the southern route through Helmsgard… we will almost certainly have the town to ourselves.”

  “Good!” Aran said, turning his horse’s head to the road. “Let us be on our way, this is as uncomfortable a night as I’ve known in a while. The sooner we ride, the sooner we are warming our bones in front of a fire.”

  *

  At first glance Haul East seemed closed and shuttered against the cold and the night, however Ban’s friendly face and voice soon had doors opening, and with word quickly spreading that the king had ridden in, hostels and inns were hurriedly readying rooms to accommodate all the travellers.

  The Trout may not have been the finest of the inns of Haul East, but it came with Ban’s recommendation, and Aran was pleased only to be seated on a comfortable chair in front of a roaring fire. The warm friendliness of the place was no illusion, and the creeping chill outside had been long banished by the warm mulled wine and lashings of roast duck and vegetables. Slipping off his boots, he wriggled his toes in front of the fire, and for a moment wished never to leave. Leigh was very like this place he mused, small and homely, and full of honest, farming people. Although he was now the king, he knew that he felt most at home in the small towns and with the ordinary, everyday folk of the province.

  “Looks like we two will be bunking together my lord.”

  Aran looked up and smiled at Darven who took the opportunity to sit himself down on a vacant seat near the fire.

  “Seems we’ve overstretched Haul East’s accommodation by our numbers and we will all have to bunk two to a room.”

  “That is no problem,” he assured the Wolf Leader. You have my thanks for arranging the accommodation. Did you find a bed for everyone?”

  Darven nodded and with a sigh, stretched out his long legs, “Eventually, although we have had to put a few in with local families. Ban is of course staying with his folks here. It was good luck having him knowing the town. He did a lot to help ease the way with some of the more obtuse locals.”

  “I will thank him tomorrow,” Aran replied, “And of Alissa? Did you find her a room?”

  Darven pulled a face, “Aye, she is staying with Kiaia. These middle Andur towns seem to be a lot more prudish about men and women sharing rooms.” He stared regretfully down at his hands, “Only those who have the marriage tattoo upon their hands are allocated rooms together.”

  Aran grinned and clasped his friend’s arm, “Cheer up. The girls will most likely gossip together all night, and we men will sleep and try to ignore each other’s snoring.”

  “You snore?”

  Aran laughed, “No, at least I don’t think so.” He laughed again, “However enough of this. Have some of the mulled wine…it’s warm and sweet and has done my chilled bones no end of good.”

  *

  With the inn warm, and crowded with locals and the party from the north, the inn-keeper and his workers soon recovered from the shock of the royal invasion and immediately set to serving out heaped platters of meat and vegetables, with the local mulled wine being a favourite amongst all present. Soon a local harpist was roused out, and set up beside the fire to entertain the gathering with local songs and ballads. As soon as he put hands to his harp, the background hum of conversation died away, and everyone strained to hear the lilting melodies. Sitting back with mull
ed wine in hand and feet propped up near the fire, Aran was feeling the most content in days. For a while he could relax and forget that he was a king leading an army to war. Forget the demands of power and office. Forget even the constant presence of the sword and Abilities. Cocooned within this haven of warmth, comradeship and pleasant atmosphere, Aran for a while returned to the simple country man he originally was.

  “He’s a fine harpist,” a voice murmured at his shoulder.

  Aran half turned and encountered the intent grey eyes of the Archmage.

  “Aye Maran,” Aran replied, “It’s been a while now since I’ve heard a skilled bard and musician.”

  “Should I ask him if he would consent to be the king’s musician?” the Archmage asked

  Aran shook his head, “What, and deprive these good people of their entertainer. No I think not. Perhaps we should instead ask if he would like to visit and play at Andur’s Keep for a week or two. I would guess that it has been many generations since a harpist has played at the great hall.”

  “Not since Queen Alicia’s reign,” replied Maran remembering. “I recollect that she was very fond of music. There was always a welcome at court for any travelling bard or musician. Aurac and Alexi were less fond of music, and so the practice fell away, perhaps it would be good for you to reinstate it.”

  “We have to get through this war first,” Aran said, his mind always turning back to the practicality of the future. “However once we are though fighting we might have leisure again to foster the arts. I would very much like history to see me has a man of peace, not a soldier king.”

  Maran nodded, “The war. Even here it is impossible to forget it.” He looked about him at the fire, the musician, and the happy gathered crowd. “Yet this is what we are fighting for,” the Archmage said softly, “Our lives and the liberty of the province.”

  Aran smiled a grim smile, “So much we all take for granted. Yet you are right in that. It’s not just the high and lofty ideals for which we fight, but equally the small common and honest things as well, values and ideals which the ordinary folk trust and believe in, ideals that we must fight to keep our own.”

  *

  It did not take long to rouse the men from their various inns and hostels, but Aran stamping his feet against the early morning cold, wished only to be already in the saddle and again on the road. Overnight yesterday’s overcast had deepened, with the ominous threat of first snowfalls for the season. Light, overnight rain too had succumbed to the plummeting temperatures, and had quickly frozen upon the ground, leaving the cobbled road covered with thin sheets of treacherous ice. Aran, hunched into his fur-lined cloak, walked carefully about the icy square and waited for his small army to assemble.

  “This weather does not bode well for the war,” a distant voice floated clearly into the still, freezing air.

  “Aye…it is shaping for a very early cold winter,” another said in reply.

  “We have so many Weathermages riding with us,” the first voice stated, “That it’s a wonder that they don’t do something to improve the situation.”

  Aran stopped his pacing at that and stared into the distance, trying to identify the speakers.

  ‘That is true,’ he thought to himself. ‘Surely the Glaive mages should be able to break this early, unseasonable cold. Maran has himself said that the Mages are along to aid the army…’ Aran immediately turned mid-step to search out the Archmage.

  *

  “Oh aye, we could certainly break this weather.” Maran was carefully adjusting the girth strap on his mount. “But I ask you Lord…why should we?” He gave the strap an extra pull and it tightened another notch. Pulling it into place he straightened and looked up at his king.

  “We will be in Leigh for the next night or two, and all of the army will by then be under canvas,” the Archmage explained. “It would be foolish to waste the magepower of the Weathermages so early on, when we will need the fullest extent of their powers in the battles to come.”

  “The army will travel much more easily if it is not so cold,” Aran replied shortly, irritated that Maran had reckoned the plan foolish. “Besides the roads are hard and icy, and the horses will slip and lose their footing and we will lose many hours and imperil the mounts.”

  Maran stared at the sky, “I may be Archmage lord, but under this white robe I am still a Weathermage of Glaive. This bitter weather is driven by masses of cold air which only days ago cast first season snowfalls over the Trident Range.” He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared, “There are a number of days of warmer weather following, I can sense it behind the snow, but this cold will not yet break for a week or two.”

  Aran frowned, “Then nothing can be done?”

  Maran shook his head, “To reduce the cold now would mean using our mages here. Our power is not so great that we can heedlessly throw it away at the first opportunity. We do not know what lies ahead of us that we can afford to waste the mages now.”

  “Very well, you have made Glaive’s position clear,” Aran growled turning away in some disgust. “I was only hoping to keep the army fresh for the battles to come. I warn you now that we will soon have tired and sickening horses and troops if they have to labour though all this cold.”

  “Then it will have to be borne!” Maran replied with some asperity. “We have both Healer and Earthmages who can attend to any illness or injury, but I will not reduce the power of the Weathermages when it is not necessary.”

  Aran’s face was set hard as he walked away towards his men, his mind filled with the now familiar hard anger. The Archmage stared after the young king and shook his head in perplexion. Every day Arantur seemed to be growing ever more like the long dead Warleader Andur. Casting back through his long memories, Maran recalled times when that same cold, hard look would fill his father’s face, and everyone from the highest to the lowest of the court would walk quietly about the King. Maran too was not wholly immune from the Andurian temper, however years and mage-training had tempered and controlled it, until it only was revealed in the most trying of circumstances. However Arantur was young and new to his kingship, and as much as his previous life had taught him a peasants’ stoicism, the Andurian blood was in him and it seemed that the same temper was beginning to reveal itself.

  Maran shrugged, centuries before he had endured his father’s outbursts. Now it seemed that he would have to weather new ones from Andur’s descendant. Shaking his head at the strangeness of it all, Maran only hoped that Arantur had enough sense in his young head to realise that Glaive was his friend, not his enemy, and that the decisions that seemed so unfair now, in the fullness of time would be understood to be the correct ones after all…

  *

  The uncompromisingly grey day did not improve, but grew only duller with the clouds lying heavily overhead, increasingly threatening snow. A westerly wind had quickly picked up; a wind that blew loose secured cloaks and hats, and reduced the temperature of the day to a bone numbing few degrees above freezing. For the first hour of the morning, the horses slid and slew their way across the town’s icy roads, each step threatening injury to either horse or rider. Finally Aran ordered the column off the road until the day warmed enough to melt the ice.

  Finally, with the frost now just chilly puddles on the paved road, the column remounted and successfully navigated their way out onto the less treacherous dirt road to Leigh.

  Despite Aran’s forebodings about the weather, the group made surprisingly good time on the road. The horses impatient and cold, proved eager to keep the pace set by the leaders, and soon clouds of steam were seen rising from their warming bodies. The riders unfortunately did not have this exercise to keep warm, so they sat huddled on their mounts, trying to avoid exposure to the biting wind, and inwardly cursing both the weather and the mad Thakur who would war in winter.

  *

  Aran rode silently, enveloped in his thoughts, and tried unsuccessfully to quell the anger which churned within him. In the past he had thought himself to
be a mild man, slow to anger and quick to forgive, but now it seemed that everything that he had known himself to be was changing, and Aran was understandably concerned. He guessed that it was partly due to the responsibilities of kingship, and he remembered with a grimace that his ancestor Andur had been known to have a temper, but that kinship was centuries old. Surely he could not be so like the long-dead Warleader? Aran guessed that this new side to his personality had always been present, but quiescent, dormant in the quiet, peaceful existence before Glaive had claimed him.

  “You’re very quiet today? You’re not set to sickening, are you?

  Aran looked up from his melancholy thoughts, and met Alissa’s concerned face. Briefly he shook his head.

  “No…I feel fine. I guess that the weather is getting me down.”

  Alissa pulled her hood closer about her face, “Aye…there seems no let up from this cold.”

  She glanced at Aran’s tight face, “I hear you and the Archmage had an argument this morning.”

  Aran’s face grew bleak, “I suppose it’s all over the column by now. What are they saying about me? That I am a fool I expect,” he finished on grated breath.

  She shook her head at that, “You only asked what the rest of us have been thinking for the past twenty-four hours.” She grimaced, “Since you’re the only one here with the rank to command Glaive.” She frowned at the memory. “I think I understand why the Archmage could not commit the Weathermages to breaking this cold, but he could have been a little more diplomatic about it. Calling the king a fool is not a good idea. Not even for the Archmage of Glaive.”

  “I expect Glaive thinks itself a kingmaker,” Aran replied bluntly. “Although my blood is of the Andurian lineage, and thus the crown rightly belongs to me, I cannot thank Glaive for its actions in all this. They had no choice I expect, but this has all been too fast. It is all very well knowing how to behave as a king if you are born to it, but having it suddenly thrust upon one…” his voice trailed off bitterly, then he looked across at Alissa. “Don’t get me wrong, there have been huge benefits to being king. You, the Keep, the Guard, my new friendships…I would not renounce a single one of those things. Yet with it has come this hardness and anger…”