by J Glen Percy
“That must be half inch steel.” Wyn noted the pierced throne as if a headless corpse was not sitting there. As if half the chair wasn’t painted red.
“Three quarters,” Lord Redmond answered proudly. “The steamarm can project a steel ball further than a long bow, with more penetrating power than a crossbow.”
Wyn’s unmovable expression was not exactly malleable, but it was moved. “What about reload time, my lord?”
The lord steward racked the lever once more, aiming downrange at the body.
“That’s not necessary, my lord,” Wyn interfered before another whistle rang out. “Fast is an acceptable answer. Very fast. What drawbacks have you found?”
“It’s a touch heavy, to name one, and without steam it’s nothing but an unwieldy club. The stuff doesn’t last long.”
“Neither do most battles,” Wyn remarked. “This weapon could carve the future.”
“Then perhaps I should not be carving the chair I hope to take up once again.”
Meryam swallowed her discomfort and avoided looking towards the gory scene. “Will you give us one of your steamarms as a show of good faith?”
“When Lord Starling signs the agreement with me, I will provide as many as you want.”
“Then you will sign?”
“Fighting the crown can’t be any more expensive for the North than living beneath it,” came Lord Redmond’s reply. “I will work with the nobles, and I will sign. For advancement and my people, I will sign. I’d like to test this beauty against real armor anyhow.”
“Not before everything is in place,” Meryam cautioned. “I will send details once we are certain of King Erick’s decision. Nothing of this to the queen, now.”
“Bring Ryecard’s word and I will bring mine.” The lord steward paused, looking from the peculiar weapon in his hands to the riddled and dripping chair that he had not occupied since childhood. “Old wounds will be sealed. Whitehaven will rise. The Iron Throne shall be made whole once more.”
* * *
Wyn was silent as he escorted Meryam through the metallic halls to her guest quarters. She would be a fool to think he was pondering anything other than her words, and that despite the horrid execution they had witnessed. She was committing treason before his very eyes, committing her husband and the ghostly man himself to treason. The Furmen woman probably hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“You were excited by Lord Redmond’s display,” Meryam said over the tapping of boots. “The weapon.”
A moment passed. “Frightened, my lady. Not excited.”
“Your many questions suggested otherwise.” The Fellsword remained silent, leaving Meryam to continue. “A year of good sleep won’t rid me of that poor woman’s end.”
“She is his enemy,” Wyn levelled.
“Then you condone murdering an unarmed captive?”
“I did not say that. Weapons and men are similar, my lady. Before dealing with either, you should know their capability.” Wyn hesitated once more. “Now we know Lord Redmond’s capability, and it’s frightening. Your room, my lady.”
Opening the reflective door, Meryam couldn’t help but take the man’s words as admonishment. His curtness too. She did not need to explain herself to him, yet she felt compelled to. It would have to wait.
To her knowledge, Ryecard was still in Rosemount with little to show for it. Well she had something to show for her efforts; both he and Wyn would have to credit her that. Securing the Fairfields and the Redmonds wouldn’t be enough, but they would help. So would those steamarms. Now, to keep her party out of trouble until their leave-taking in the morning.
“I’m not sure where Mykel has gotten off to, Wyn. Will you find him please?”
“Of course, my lady.”
CHAPTER 19
Where was he? Willa Romerian had arrived in Whitehaven the night before to a brisk reception, and had been anxiously awaiting the man ever since. As overseer of the North, it was expected that his schedule was crowded. Willa knew better. The man delegated many of his responsibilities to those more capable than himself. It was smart. It also allowed ample time for chasing women and pinching bottoms; favorite activities of the young lord steward. Favorite activities that he had always ceased upon her arrival. The afternoon was drawing thin and Lord Redmond had yet to stop by. Where was he?
Willa paced over to a small circular window in her tower quarters, looking out through the dreariness that blanketed the city. Queens were not made to wait. If it was solely her husband’s weapons that needed discussing, she would have marched into the great hall and demanded the juvenile man’s attention. But since Erick had forced this trip – a trip Willa desperately did not want – her business had become two-fold. The second matter was personal, required more discretion, and so she would wait on the lord steward’s schedule.
The metal panel to her room opened without prior knock, and in walked the lord steward. He closed the door quietly, sliding the lock into place, which drove several more bolts across the sill by way of exposed rods and gears. Turning, he strode deliberately towards her.
“Do not touch me,” she commanded, her heart quickening. She wasn’t scared, but rather, exhilarated. Defined muscles swelling against their clothing wrapper, Ahmet Redmond’s healthy frame was the extent of similarity to her husband. Where Erick was rigid, Ahmet was relaxed. Where Erick was plain, even probable in his stately appearance, Ahmet was a specimen of striking beauty. Flowing hair a shade from the invisible golden sun bordered features that could be called boyish if not for the matching beard. “Where have you been?” Willa demanded.
“Tending to guests,” he replied, frowning at her greeting, yet continuing his advance.
The hunger contained within Ahmet’s paralyzing gaze more than suggested he felt the same for her. Many men did. Attractiveness without men was like a dull blade; sure it was less dangerous; it was also less useful. Willa preferred her blade sharp. The gods had seen that Ahmet Redmond’s was as well, and he used it similarly. Another facet she admired in the man.
Willa just managed to fend him off. “Is that what you’ve taken to calling your gaggle of goose-brained sell-skirts? Guests?”
“Meryam Starling is neither goose-brained nor a sell-skirt,” he replied.
“Meryam Starling? What is that woman doing here?”
Instead of receiving an answer, Willa was dodging the man’s lowering head and pushing back with extended arms. Her legs pinned against the bed, another step and she would fall helplessly backwards. Fortunately, the mattresses here were not made of iron. One of the few things. Blessed Five, but his chest was powerful.
“Why the struggle?” he asked with that boyish grin. “The door is latched and nobody saw me. Your Highness,” he added playfully. She kept her arms stiff.
“You left something behind in Rosemount on your last visit,” she said accusingly.
“Oh? Three months ago, was it? What did I misplace?”
She dropped her arms suddenly, her hands coming to rest on her stomach. “A child, and as I recall, you very deliberately placed it there.” The lord steward staggered backwards, the first Willa was able to lower her guard.
“H-h-how do you know?” he stammered.
“Because unlike some, I am not bedding every creature with two legs and a surname. It’s not Erick’s.”
The lord steward did not acknowledge the slight, if he heard it at all. After a long, thought-filled moment, hesitation morphed to happiness in the man’s countenance. “Then the Five have truly blessed us,” he exclaimed, approaching once more.
“Or cursed,” she offered, her tone matching the grayness outside. “No amount of prayer is going to fix this.”
“Fix? This fixes everything. I am ready to be yours, my queen. Wonderfully and exclusively yours.” Placing hands gently on her waist, he stared into her eyes with something Willa had never witnessed before. Something beyond desire. Something she doubted Ahmet Redmond had ever mustered. Something Erick Romerian most assuredl
y had not.
His response took Willa by surprise. She had expected his reaction to mirror hers; chewed nails and a knotted stomach. “And my husband?” she asked.
“You have grown to love him, then?” the man refuted.
“You know marriage is not synonymous with love, and the less likely the nobler the blood,” she replied.
“Or the more wealth behind a name,” Lord Redmond agreed.
Willa laughed. “I have both. Where do you suppose that puts my fondness for the king? Where does that put you and I?”
“You and I are different. The Five have brought us together, not political convenience.”
“Well that political convenience will start a war,” she countered. She wished he would stop looking at her that way, switch off whatever he had turned on. “You will start a war.”
His fond smile took on a knowing overtone. “A war may already be in the works.”
“What do you mean?”
He swiveled a hand to her belly. “If not our relationship, then a yellow-haired bastard would certainly do it. There’ll be no mistaking the child for a Romerian if its appearance takes to the North.”
Willa chose to solve problems with beauty more often than wits, but that did not mean she went without. The response did not satisfy. “Then you and I will meet the headsman and a war would matter not anyway. Meryam Starling said something, didn’t she? What did she say?”
“Rebellion,” Ahmet admitted somberly, “though in a lot more words.” He took a step back. “Your husband’s judgment seat rests between the hammer and anvil on this one. Sparks will fly in Cairanthem, whichever way he decides with the Starling lad.”
“Damn the Starlings. If the monger boy had been anybody else, he would be swinging from a tree by now and that would be the end of it.” The queen had caught word of the predicament while on the road north, coincidentally as she passed the camps beneath the impressive yet foolhardy aqueduct. Men thinking they could channel water like the gods, it was another bur in her boot. Rebellion though? She felt instantly sick, sicker than discovering she was pregnant with a bastard child. “What did you tell her?”
“What she wanted to hear,” Ahmet said coolly.
“Which I expect is precisely what you are telling me,” Willa said, arms crossing.
“And no more,” he replied with a flaring bow. The sharp jadestones set to either side of the queen’s nose narrowed menacingly. “Come now. It’s no different than Force and Fortune. Sometimes bluffing is the best move.”
“Are your feelings for me a bluff? A move in your game?”
“My dice are exposed and open on the table on that front. Lord steward or king, I am sworn to my people. That doesn’t change you and I. In fact, it may help us. A rebellion might be our way out of the little predicament in your belly.”
Willa searched the polished floor for answers. As the queen, a lady raised as much by political dealings as parental advice, she was an expert at hiding her thoughts. Mostly it involved batting her eyelids to the distraction of her opponent. The technique wouldn’t work here, nor was she up to it. She wanted to share in the man’s excitement, his spontaneous and youthful vision for their future, but could not. “Then the weapons my husband demands won’t be making their way to Rosemount?” she asked absently.
“I’ve made no formal agreement one way or the other. What troubles you, queen?” The lord steward stepped in once again, taking her wringing hands in his. Warmth had returned to his eyes. “We can do this. Doesn’t every woman dream of a war fought over her?”
Willa stared into that beautiful, welcoming gaze with a cheerless smile. “It shows how little you know of women, my lord.” The cheerlessness on her lips was downright sorrow in her voice. “I am the queen, the most powerful woman in the civilized world. I would love to dream of love, of romantic gestures and sun-haired lords.” She hesitated. “I dream only of maintaining my station. A station on which millions upon millions of girls dream. A dream I achieved.”
Her feelings for this man were a threat to that dream. The child inside was a threat to that dream. Rebellion was a threat to that dream. Like the city he ruled, Willa’s sadness cast a cloud over the lord steward’s eager brightness. Her hands trembled as he gently released them.
“I need to know where your loyalties are, Ahmet. Would you be willing to die for my husband? For the crown?”
Swallowing her rejection, Lord Steward Redmond’s response was distant. “No.”
“For me?” she followed. Her voice quivered. Sadness or unease, or both.
Lifting his head, the power in his sincerity nearly buckled her knees. “With every drop.”
“Good.”
A questioning, deeply hurt expression took root on the lord steward’s face as he looked from Willa’s tear-filled eyes to the knife hilt protruding from just beneath his ribs. Deep crimson filtered through the man’s shirt like parchment soaking up dribbled ink. He placed his hands on her shoulders, but her aim was true, his strength sapped with a single plunge. Cut the mainstay and the mast lost its power.
Lord Redmond slumped to the floor. Willa followed him down, taking his upper body in her arms and holding his face. She had shared so many memories with this man over the years. Perhaps her happiest. Secretive splashes of joy that dreams and royalty could not destroy. No more. Moisture filled her lids to capacity and spilled over, snaking down her face to where they formed steady droplets.
“I have another,” he whispered suddenly. “Another child.” His breathing grew heavy, fear of the approaching unknown taking his vision. He fought back. “You and our child live in my heart, as does she.” Blood pooled in his mouth, choking off further communication. A moment later, the man lay still.
“Null take you home,” Willa prayed through her sobs. “The Five grant us a life together when I arrive on that side.”
* * *
The road had been long for young Mykel Starling. Upon arrival to Whitehaven and the Iron Bastion, the first place he sought was the library. Next was the kitchens, followed immediately by a confined place with just enough light to transmit printed words to eyes. Steel beams meeting at odd angles and rigid panels less workable than wood planks, the fortress contained more nooks and crannies than weathered walnut. A few rising stairwells and a short hallway had Mykel settling in to a hidden pocket in the upper corner of a servant’s closet. Fennel and Shri could hold down the waiting room chairs on their own.
Reading of adventures and having them were two very different things, the boy had discovered, just as watching distant storm clouds and actually weathering their fury was. He had some definition of his place now – thanks to Wyn’s encouraging and discouraging words – and was feeling much better for it. Learning, finding enjoyment in learning, was a talent much the same as wielding Gabryel’s bow or Wyn’s eerie blade. It could be as useful too. Contented with his location, his loaf of sweetbread, and himself, Mykel opened the leather-bound History of the Peoples of World’s Wall, and dug in.
Hours and hundreds of pages later, sudden voices pulled Mykel from the text. Inside the mostly black closet, the need for light had required him to climb several shelves to reach his present hideaway. It was through open joints in the sheet metal that a thin sliver spilled in from the adjacent room. It was through these joints and from this room that the voices came as well.
From the moment his mother’s name floated through the gap, Mykel riveted his senses to the man and woman there. He could see only torsos where they stood, but it did not take long to identify Queen Romerian and Lord Steward Redmond.
The boy only understood half of what he heard. The half he understood, he understood well. The queen was carrying a baby that did not belong to the king. Volumes upon volumes documented countless wars over this very thing. The innumerable dead, the devastation wreaked, all for a single royal bastard. Gods be told, the book he had just set aside would likely get to it if enough pages were turned.
The conversation was ominous, then agai
n, so was their discussion of his mother’s purpose here. War on a woman’s tongue meant boys beneath banners and fathers on the front, the old saying went, and the queen and his mother were no tavern maids. If his mother was right, that war was unavoidable, he hoped Wyn was right too; perhaps his knowledge and talents were better suited for the rearguard than the vanguard. Or better yet, the planning room.
Mykel was already trembling under the weight of the exchange when a dagger appeared at the queen’s side. An instant later, the blade was buried in the lord steward and both individuals became perfectly clear as they sunk into his field of view. His own quivering hand unknowingly fastened itself over his mouth, preventing the gasps and cries that waited just behind his lips from escaping. Horror held his eyelids wide and unblinking.
The scramble from the hidden recess was cumbersome, and his unsteady limbs made good on their threat to spoil the climb down. His grip failed. His hand shot forward, clearing off an entire shelf in a deafening reaction of clangs and clatters. The silence that immediately followed was louder still.
Planting shaky legs on the floor without further incident, he pressed an ear against the closet door. Slowly, he turned the steel sheet on its hinges.
“I thought I heard something,” the queen said, standing casually in the hallway. “I did not know the Bastion had opening windows for little Starlings to flutter in. What were you doing in there, young man? Not sneaking, I hope.” His eyes met her hands and she quickly moved them out of view behind her fitted blue dress.
“No, Your Grace,” Mykel answered softly. The sweetbread was one missed swallow from coming back up.
“You can meet my eyes, young Starling; I’m not the First King. I’ve known you since you were a babe.” Her voice was melodious, every bit in control. Not the hurried tones leaking from the room. A side-to-side glance revealed a regrettably empty hallway.