Weight of the Crown

by A. C. Cobble

  “I used to have that talent,” replied Ben. “It’s been nearly a year since I’ve done any sort of brewing. I suppose I could get back into it if I could find a good space down in Whitehall.”

  “You being serious?” asked the man.

  Ben met his gaze, unblinking.

  “I suggest you spend at least a week looking for that space, son. You understand me?” asked the soldier. “I really like your ale, but I got orders to make sure you stay around for a bit. There are worse things than staying in a place like this and drinking for free. I’d rather be your friend than your gaoler. Don’t make me and the boys over there have to remind you how easy you’ve got it.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” murmured Ben.

  Strange, lacquered armor that was a size too small rubbed against his inner thigh, chaffing him something terrible, but Ben supposed half a finger-width higher would have been worse. He shifted the naginata on his shoulder and peered at the guards who patrolled outside of the harbor.

  There were a lot of them, far more than he recalled on previous visits to Whitehall’s waterfront. Near midnight, they’d be sleepy, but they didn’t have the day’s business to deal with. The emissary’s departure would be the most exciting thing that happened on their shift. Still, under the cover of dark, it was the best chance to slip out unnoticed.

  O’ecca led the party with two score of her soldiers following in a pack behind. They wore full armor, including the intricate helmets that were favored on the South Continent. Perfect disguises for Ben and Amelie to slink away.

  The leader of one of the guard patrols, a sergeant by the tassels on his shoulder, stepped up to address O’ecca. “Where do you think you’re going, miss? All the ships down here are in the service of the king.”

  “All but mine,” responded O’ecca frostily.

  The sergeant shifted, like he was deciding whether or not he wanted to be a pain in the ass or to let her go and finish his shift quietly.

  “Let’s move this along, sergeant,” barked a voice, and Seth stomped around O’ecca’s arms men. “On behalf of General Brinn, I’m escorting the emissary of the emperor to her vessel so she can sail to Fabrizo. She’s going to meet King Saala. The quicker I get this done, man, the quicker I can get back to the missus.”

  “Of-Of course,” stammered the sergeant, sketching a quick bow to O’ecca. “Emissary… the king you said? I was merely, ah, merely wondering if a pilot was on duty to take the lady to her ship, sir.”

  “Of course you were, sergeant,” chided Seth. “Have no fear. I’ll get one of the lazy bastards moving in no time.”

  The sergeant and his men scampered out of the way, and O’ecca’s party continued down toward the pilot house unmolested. Ben grinned at Amelie from underneath his helmet. She wasn’t looking back at him, though. She was cursing softly. The extravagant, over-sized lobster-shaped helm on her head had slipped forward, covering her eyes and nose. She was using the haft of her naginata to try to push it up, but it only tilted the thing sideways.

  Ben raised a hand to help her with the helm but paused, thinking about the guards behind them. A real member of O’ecca’s soldiers would not need assistance fixing their helmet. Instead, Ben offered a hand held low and guided her until they were out of visual range of the soldiers. Then, he reached up and adjusted her helm. His grin was met with a scowl, which only made him smile bigger.

  Halfway to the dock, two shadowy figures slipped out from behind a storage shed. A slender cabin boy and a muscular porter. The larger one was pushing a cart stacked with heavy barrels. The man with the cart wore a sock cap, no shirt, and loose, salt-stained britches. Bare feet slapped on the stone of the quay as the man grunted and muttered, trundling the cart in front of him.

  “Wouldn’t just one of those kegs work as a disguise?” whispered Ben, nodding to the stack of barrels.

  “We’ve got three weeks of sailing ahead of us,” grumbled Rhys. “One of them is the disguise, the other three are for drinking. You want to grab the other side and help me drag this thing?”

  “Sorry. I’m pretending to be a solider.”

  “Hurry up,” chided Prem, poking Rhys with a finger. “I offered to help you, but you insisted I play the cabin boy.”

  “You’re too small to be a porter,” explained Rhys. “People expect porters to be big and strong, like me.”

  “If you’re so big and strong, then stop complaining like a little girl,” suggested Prem.

  Rhys said something foul under his breath, and Ben wondered if he should cover Prem’s ears. Finally, the rogue got the cart rolling, and they fell back in line with the soldiers.

  Captain Seth moved to walk with them, and Ben felt a flutter of nervousness. The captain’s presence had not been part of the plan.

  “Thanks for the help with the guards,” said Ben.

  Seth, lips tight, nodded. He walked a dozen paces before speaking. “If Brinn found out I was here helping with this, he’d be apoplectic.”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  Holding up a hand, Seth cut Ben off. “He’d be apoplectic publicly, and he’d slap me on the back and buy me an ale privately. The general supports you, Ben. He knows that without you, it could have gone much worse. He just can’t make a big show of it. He can’t let the Veil know where our heart lies. I came to help, but I also came to make sure you know we’re behind you. We’ll sail within days for Fabrizo. It seems the storm above Whitehall and the Veil’s personal involvement was enough to tamp down the discord in the city. Every highborn in the Citadel is eager to support King Saala now, and we haven’t had to deal with a rumor since the… that day. If you need us, we’ll be right behind you. Anything you need.”

  “Can you help stop this war?” asked Ben.

  Seth shook his head. “I’m not sure anyone can do that, Ben, even King Saala. It’s gone too far to turn around now.”

  “Someone has to try,” replied Ben.

  They walked in silence until they neared the end of the pier. A man was standing there, dressed in the livery of Whitehall’s harbormaster, flanked by two soldiers. Evidently, the pilots had been informed of the emissary’s departure and were waiting to see her off.

  “I’d best turn around in case those soldiers recognize me,” murmured Seth. “Sail safely, Ben, and good luck.”

  Ben gripped Seth’s hand and shook it once. “Thank you, Seth, and I hope we meet again.”

  The captain nodded then dropped out of the column to let them pass.

  “Is that the ship?” wondered Prem, looking past the pilot at a flat barge tied to the end of the wharf.

  “No,” explained Ben. “That’s what we’ll use to get to the ship. That’s our ship out there.”

  Ben pointed at a huge vessel which towered five stories above the water. It had three giant masts supporting sails that spanned the width of Prem’s old village. Lanterns outlined the deck in flickering, bobbing light. Sailors scurried about on the deck and in the rigging, preparing to sail.

  “Oh my,” murmured Prem.

  “When you travel with me, you travel in style,” said O’ecca over her shoulder.

  “You’re doing well with the emperor, I see,” remarked Ben.

  “I helped save him from the Red Lord,” reminded O’ecca. “Without my assistance, things could have turned out very differently. The emperor is generous toward those who are his friends.”

  She fell silent, and Ben’s friends didn’t respond. All around them were soldiers of the emperor. The men would know who they were, eventually. There was no way to hide it, even on a large sailing vessel, when at sea for three weeks, but the men didn’t need to know every detail about their departure from Shamiil. Mentioning the flight out of the emperor’s window and then hiding in an empty ale barrel didn’t seem prudent, for example.

  As far as these men needed to know, Ben and his companions were heroes. Even O’ecca could play ignorant if the emperor pressed her. No one else knew she was the one who’d warned them to
flee. When the emperor heard she had encountered them, she could convincingly claim she didn’t know why they’d left before hearing the emperor’s offer to serve.

  Without speaking, they boarded the pilot vessel, pressing close to allow room for all of the heavily armored men. Within moments, they were cast off and rowing toward the towering South Continent cog, which would take them on to Fabrizo.

  A hemp net was thrown over the side when they reached the tall vessel. O’ecca, her men, and Ben’s friends scaled up, moving slow in their heavy armor. As soon as they were on board, O’ecca gave a signal to the captain, and they began to make way out of Whitehall’s protective harbor, passing between the two rock towers that guarded the way.

  Ben watched from the rear of the ship as they moved further from Whitehall. The city rose like a pale shaft of silver, the moonlight reflecting off the white walls that climbed up toward the Citadel. Ben couldn’t help but think it looked like a shining blade, stabbing up from the Blood Bay into the dark cliffs and forest that lined the coast. It wasn’t the first time that Whitehall was at the center of a continent-spanning conflict, and he doubted it would be the last.

  “What are you thinking about?” asked Amelie, looping an arm around his waist and drawing close.

  “I’m thinking about what Lady Coatney said to me right before she left. War is part of us, she said. She admitted that she and the Sanctuary have been steering the Alliance and the Coalition toward this battle. It will bring peace for a hundred years, she claimed.”

  “Peace through untold suffering,” replied Amelie.

  “I know, I know,” agreed Ben, “but, what if there is something to what she said? What if war is a part of mankind, if it is something we cannot run from? Whatever we do, we’re locked into this cycle of violence. She’s been alive a long time, and she’s had time to think about it. Why do we think we are right, and she is wrong?”

  “You think she is right?” wondered Amelie.

  Ben was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure. We are capable of violence, and some of us are even inclined to it, but I don’t think it is inevitable. I hope it’s not inevitable. I do know one thing. As long as people like Lady Coatney foster conflict, there is no avoiding war. If, instead, our leaders only turned to violence in self-defense, then maybe war isn’t necessary, at least amongst men. There are real threats in the world, like the demons. It’s foolish that the men of this continent may cause just as much chaos as those creatures. The highborn and the Sanctuary played politics, all the while ignoring the real threat of the demons. Our leaders are our own worst enemy.”

  Amelie hugged him tight but did not respond.

  Watching Whitehall disappear into the horizon, Ben kept speaking. “There is no reason for wars like the one we’re rushing to stop. Back in Farview, there was the occasional scuffle at the tavern, but nothing ever got any worse than a busted nose and a missing tooth. People worked it out. They worked together, and if things were getting out of control, everyone would jump in and stop it. Fights were just brawls, and it never escalated to where the entire town thought they had to get involved. No one was ever killed. It’s appalling to even think about it. Farview is just a small town, though, and I’m just a small-town brewer. What do I know about continent-spanning war and politics?”

  “More than you think,” responded Amelie. “More than any of us, maybe.”

  “Lady Coatney wasn’t the monster I pictured her to be,” said Ben. “In fact, she seemed quite reasonable. I mean it, Amelie. What if she is right and we are wrong?”

  Amelie snorted. “She earned her position as the Veil by trying to assassinate her predecessor, and you think she’s reasonable? Ben, she painted a picture for you, but it was a false one. Don’t listen to what she said. Look at what she’s done. That’s the true test of a leader. War doesn’t bring peace. It only brings more war. Trust me, I spent years studying the histories. I think you’d be surprised at how reasonable your hometown wisdom sounds after the stories I’ve read.”

  “Really?” asked Ben.

  “People are capable of terrible things,” replied Amelie. “They’re capable of great things, too. I think that’s what we need to do. We need to prove that there can be peace without war, that there can be cooperation without fealty, that mankind doesn’t have to live like we did over the last several millennia. I believe it’s possible, Ben, but someone has to show everyone how to do it.”

  “You can do it, Amelie. If anyone can, you can.”

  Amelie stepped back, slipping from under his arm. She punched him in the shoulder. “I’m not doing anything, Ben, you are!”

  “Me?”

  “When this is over, people will believe in you, not in me. Not in Towaal, and not in O’ecca either. We’re the old guard, Ben, products of the political system we want to overturn. You are the change. You’re the one we follow, the one everyone will follow.”

  Ben frowned at her, uncertain how to respond to such a charge.

  “If not you, then who else?” she asked.

  “Rhys?” asked Ben, earning himself another punch. Rubbing his arm where her small fist had struck him, he said, “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t know if it will be enough.”

  “That’s all any of us can do,” responded Amelie. “It has to be enough.”

  7

  Fabrizo

  “Tomorrow, just after dawn,” declared Ben.

  “It’s too bad we can’t arrive at night,” responded Rhys.

  “You think we need to sneak in under the cover of dark?” wondered Ben.

  “No,” answered the rogue. “Fabrizo’s taverns don’t really get started until evening. In the morning, we might find a few open, but the only people there will be locals and drunks.”

  “You’ll fit right in,” muttered Ben under his breath. He shook his head. In a normal tone, he insisted, “We will not time our arrival for when the bars open.” Trying to ignore the rogue, he turned to the rest of the party. “We know the Veil has a several day head start on us, and Saala was weeks in front of her. According to what Brinn told us just before we left, they’ve moved forces to near Murdoch’s Waystation because there’s more room there, and the army was starting to irritate the Merchant’s Guild in Fabrizo. Logistically, the bottleneck is still moving through the port. Brinn and Seth were unable to say whether the king would stay to deal with that or if he’d move ahead to the staging grounds. It’s possible that both Saala and the Veil could still be in the city. If they are, we should expect a great deal of difficulty meeting with Saala without catching her notice.”

  “You still think Saala will listen to you?” asked Prem. “From what we saw in Whitehall, no one seems eager to lay down their swords.”

  Ben shrugged. “We have to try.”

  “I don’t think Saala will stop this war, Ben,” advised O’ecca. “Perhaps he is different now, but when he left the South Continent, it wasn’t because he loved peace so much. He was plotting a coup against the emperor, remember?”

  “He was accused of plotting a coup,” challenged Ben. “It’s not clear he was really planning to overthrow the man, was it?”

  O’ecca shrugged. “The emperor believed it. He still does.”

  “You know him best, Amelie,” said Ben. “What do you think?”

  “If he proceeds to fight the war, he risks losing to the Coalition and of course dying in battle. If the Alliance lost and he survived, he’ll have to go into hiding to avoid execution. I’m not sure where he’d go, but I suppose there are always places like Free State he could hide for a few years. It’s not the first time he’s been on the run, and I don’t think the prospect would frighten him. Death might, but he’s danced on the edge for a long time. How many fights has he been in? Hundreds? If he wins the war, he’ll be the king of nearly all of Alcott. It’s hard to turn down a chance to become king.”

  “I would,” claimed Ben.

  “Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t,” retorted Amelie. “You were talking about br
inging peace to the lands a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to do that as king instead of as a brewer? If someone offered you a crown, would you really turn it down? Saala may be pursuing the war to increase his personal power, but he could also do it for altruistic reasons. He might honestly believe the Coalition is a scourge on the land and that by opposing them he is doing the right thing. I know my father thought that when he decided to ally with Argren. Lord Jason made similar claims about his own motivation, and you already told me what the Veil said. Ben, all of them believe what they are doing is right.”

  “When you put it like that…” mumbled Ben, running a hand through his hair. “We have to try, though. Regardless of how little chance of success we have, it’s worth trying, isn’t it?”

  He glanced around his friends, and none of them offered an objection. What could they say? If the war started, the best case was hundreds of thousands dying. At worst, it could be millions. No matter how small the odds, they couldn’t sit and let that happen.

  The next morning, the sun sparkled on the water, and the low-slung buildings of Fabrizo rose from it like timid turtles barely poking their noses above the surface. From a distance, Fabrizo appeared humble compared to the soaring edifices of Whitehall, but as they sailed closer, the canals between the islands that made up the city shone with sparkling light, like brilliant veins pulsing through the structures, carrying life between the colorfully painted buildings. Ben knew that throughout the day, the water would shimmer brightly, reflecting the sun’s light, and then when the sun went down, the buildings would blaze with their own scintillating aura. It was beautiful when you took the time to look at it.

  “There,” said Prem, pointing to the south end of the city.

  A high-castled vessel floated half a league from the islands of Fabrizo. No flags hung from the back, but it didn’t need them. Wide windows dotted the wooden sides, where a merchant cog would have room for storage. It had none of the weapons of warfare on deck which would be expected for a man-o-war or even on a highborn lord’s personal craft. The women who sailed on that ship had no need of transporting merchandise, and their will was a stronger deterrent than any number of artillery weapons.