“And what is she to do?” she asked. “She barely has any friends at the court. She is not well acquainted with foreign royals and she has almost never had contact with her people. Your rule, your father’s rule and his father’s as a matter of fact, have all been mostly peaceful and prosperous because of your ties with the trusteds and the love and trust your people have for you, all because they know of you, of your kindness and fairness, and you know of them. What is she to do? She has none of that!”
“There is time Silifia,” the king said gently. “She won’t be crowned until I’m passed. And we are still young and vigorous after all.”
He winked at her.
“Aren’t we?”
“Oh, for Hethens’s sake, Hedgard!” the queen exclaimed, frustration in her voice.
But her eyes smiled, and her cheeks reddened slightly.
“Anyway, if it comforts you to know, Aria has a rather extensive knowledge of her people, at least here in Syndjya. She has been sneaking out regularly, and lately almost every other night to go spend time with Cassien, the boy from the temple.”
The queen sat up at that.
“What? The weapon master’s apprentice? She goes by herself in town, at night? You never said a thing!”
She looked back and forth between Baccus and the king, obviously horrified at the idea.
“That’s… It’s… How did you…”
“It’s alright, Silifia. I have an elite following her at all times.”
“But, how does she even sneak out without anyone noticing?”
“She disguises herself. Not as well as she thinks she does, but the guards have standing orders to let her out.”
“You never said a thing!” the queen repeated.
“I know, Silifia, but you would never have agreed to it. And as you pointed out she had to get to know life outside the castle, know her people, how to relate to them.”
The king smiled to his wife, fully aware that it was a lot for her to digest at once. He felt bad for having manipulated her into a position where she would have to agree with his doing if she cared not to contradict herself.
“But that boy, Cassien, he’s not suited to be a princess’s company! He’s just a commoner, an orphan! How could you let her spend time with someone like him! We know nothing of him.”
The king looked at Baccus and gave him an imperceptible nod. The old man cleared his throat, leaned on his elbows and looked straight at the queen.
“My queen,” he said ceremoniously, “I have been training Cassien since a very young age, both in the teachings of Hethens and in the ancient art of my people. He is a fine young man, very perceptive, good natured and wise beyond his summers. With him Aria has learned much that she would not have gotten to know firsthand from her tutors or her life at court. I also assure you, if that is a concern, that he is more than capable of protecting her if the need ever arose. Though, as the king mentioned, an elite is always close by as well.”
“But, Aria is a young lady. Spending her nights with a commoner, a boy at that, is highly inappropriate! What if…”
A bothersome thought that had been floating just out of the queen’s grasp for the past couple of minutes suddenly coalesced into an icy realization that sunk heavily in her stomach. She froze, mouth opened wide in an ‘O’, a horrified expression on her face. She snapped toward the king.
“She hasn’t… Oh, Hethens no! Tell me they haven’t…”
The king smiled. He knew exactly what she meant.
“No, dear, they haven’t. Aria is to learn from the world and that is all. She is not one of them. She and the boy are friends and that’s it. The elites have standing orders to intervene if things devolve in that direction.”
The queen seemed to deflate a bit in her seat.
“Oh, thank Hethens. That’s quite a fright you gave me there.”
The warmth from the spirit the queen had during dinner started to fade away. She shivered, crossed her arms and rubbed her bare shoulders for heat. They sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. When the queen eventually addressed the king she felt calmer and resigned. Resigned to something she knew she could not prevent, something she knew was right despite her fears for her daughter. She had hoped Aria would be spared a life of politics, power and struggle. For, keeping the peace was a draining balancing act one had to indulge at all times.
“Dear,” she asked softly, “the person she will marry will become king. Have you thought of that?”
The king nodded slowly.
“I have; many times. There are a few good matches I can think of.”
“She will have to marry into power,” the queen said sadness in her voice.
“Yes,” the king said soberly.
“How I had hoped for a marriage of love for Aria,” the queen thought.
She, herself, had married Hedgard when he was still a prince, before the passing of his father, King Rhegard. She barely knew him at the time. Her family was from the northern province of Horlan, old nobility close to the line of the trusteds of Horlan while the GrandJoys originated from the southern province of Rodan. Since their ascension to power, in the wake of the Rising of the People, a more-or-less consistent rotating schedule had been unofficially put in place, kings marrying their sons into families of power and dissent, all in the name of tightening the allegiance of the different provinces to the throne and thus securing further cohesiveness of the kingdom. Queen Silifia was born Silifia Hauthart to a small lord who had a rather large sphere of influence in the northern regions of Alymphia and who tended to disagree with the throne. She had been married to Hedgard at the young age of fourteen as a mean to reduce frictions between the throne and that province. Hedgard was a good man, if not an excellent king; she had come to love him and their marriage was mostly happy. But she had always wished for her daughter to have the chance to marry for love; a small lord perhaps, who would take her to his mansion in the country and make her a happy wife and a happy mother, far from the tumult of court. But that would never happen now and it saddened her.
“And who do you have in mind, may I ask?”
The king shifted in his seat and leaned back. He was tired, more than he had been in a long time. The day had been an exhausting affair of shallow court dealings while the previous night was a sleepless, tense and arduous debate. He was drained, but he wanted to answer all his wife’s questions and concerns. He owed her that much.
“Well, I think Horm Earlong’s nephew, Harl, would be a good match. He is of the right age for Aria and his uncle is the most reluctant of the trusteds. Plus, Harl’s family has a wide influence in the coastal regions and ties beyond the Narrow Sea. Their marriage would both bring Horm closer to implementing the reforms I need him to implement and would also tighten our relations with La-Shem.”
Queen Silifia did not say a word as her husband named three more potential matches for their daughter. The callousness with which the subject was breached saddened her. Yet, she knew there was no other way to deal with it. It sickened her to be selling Aria that way. The least she could do was not lie to herself and pretend that what they were doing was anything else but that: they were selling their daughter, for the good of Alymphia, as she had herself been sold.
Baccus stayed mostly silent throughout the whole meeting, interjecting only when asked to do so by the king. They had both expected the queen to be more reluctant to the idea of Aria being heir to the throne instead of Hob. Though, to be fair, they had discussed with the queen many a time the ways women could rise above their actual station and be given the same rights as men. To assume that Silifia was not aware of the difficulties in implementing such reforms and the potential need to change the laws of throne inheritance in order to achieve that goal was unfair to her. She was a bright woman who had been surrounded by politics since a young age and had been part of the inner circle of the royal court for most of her adult life. She had wished for a different outcome as any mother would have. But once her initi
al maternal reaction subsided, she had known what had to be done. The work they were starting today was only the beginning of many summers of reforms that they would slowly unfold as they garnered support for the change. It would be a hard road ahead, but the king was determined. Baccus felt sad for Silifia, and for Aria. He was indirectly the reason why King Hedgard ever considered this drastic change in Alymphia’s societal order. He had sought refuge in Alymphia, a lifetime ago, and eventually the Sisterhood had found him. They had crossed the Great Barrier forty summers after he had. Their coming had been known to him as soon as they had arrived in Alymphia. He still had the strength and sensibility to sense them back then. The Other World had rippled madly, announcing their presence. He had convinced King Rhegard of the danger they presented. And so they had gone to war, Prince Hedgard and an army in tow. What they experienced that day forever changed Hedgard’s views on women. It opened his eyes to what they could be and achieve without men around to rely on. In time, he understood what women could bring Alymphia were they given the opportunity. It still impressed Baccus to no ends that the then-young prince managed to see past the horrors he witnessed that day and into a truth few men could possibly admit to themselves. The memory of that fateful day made him shudder. He was getting too old. Too much was on his shoulders. Memories could be so painful and some could drive a man mad if he spent too much time pondering what-ifs. There was so little he could do anymore. His grip on the Other World had almost vanished. And although his counsel was still sought out, the truth was that the major impact he was to have on Alymphia was behind him now. He smiled to himself.
“You changed countries, old man. Now be happy you can still help people.”
He would focus on the orphans at the temple and the smaller things.
“Each time you teach someone how to breathe right is a small victory over the world,” he told himself.
Silence had fallen once more over the meeting room. The queen was pale, eyes lost beyond the wall of her thoughts. The king sat immobile, looking at his wife. His face seemed sunken and the dark circles under his eyes accentuated the groove of his cheekbones into a mask of exhaustion.
“Poor Hedgard!” Baccus thought. “How tired he must be.”
He waited a few more seconds and, when neither the king nor the queen said a thing, he stirred in his chair and stretched through a yawn.
“My queen,” he said nodding to her, and then, turning to the king, nodding to him as well, “my king, It has been a long day for all of us. If you will excuse me, my old bones do not support me like they used to. I believe it is time for me to retire to my sleeping quarters.”
“Indeed,” the king said, “Beveline will have readied the Raven Room for you.”
He turned to the queen.
“Shall we as well?”
“Yes, dear. You must be exhausted.”
They stood up after Baccus. Without another word the old man walked out into the hallway and headed toward the foyer and the stairs beyond. Once he was gone, the queen walked the length of the table and stood by her king. They stayed silently side by side for a moment longer. Then the queen grabbed her husband’s hand and squeezed it gently. She rested her head on his shoulder and asked:
“When will we tell Hob?”
The king looked at her, teeth clenched, eyes pained and narrowed.
“Soon.”
He looked away and continued.
“I did not want this, Silifia, for either of them.”
The queen turned his head toward hers and pressed her lips onto his. It was a long, soft kiss that left the king warm and stirred. When they parted, the queen held his hand up and kissed it as well.
“I know, my love,” she said, peering into his eyes. “I know.”
Never had the king been more grateful for having her at his side. He blinked slowly in acquiescence. He caressed her cheek affectionately, and then, holding her hand, he slowly led her out of the room.
Chapter Ten
Near the slopes of the Great Barrier, Alymphia.
Year Hundred and Thirty of the New Age.
The sun had reached its apex in the cloud-strewn sky and the quickly graying overcast ahead foreshadowed the coming of heavy rain or worse. The quarter mile-long column of city watchmen, castle guards and soldiers had been on the move since the early hours of dawn. The previous day as many horses as possible had been requisitioned and the two-hundred-strong column had left Syndjya full haste.
Besides the short breaks they took to rest the horses they had stopped only once, late the previous evening, for a few hours of sleep hardly any of them were able to find. Given their pace it was clear that getting to their destination as fast as possible was of the utmost importance; getting back, however, not so much. By the time they arrived the horses would be near exhaustion and in no shape to undertake the return trip. The endurance of the men will have been stretched thin as well, and more, much more, would be asked of them. A rumor had been going up and down the column that there would be fighting. Very few of the men had ever been near a battlefield. It had been decades since the armies of Alymphia were involved in a conflict and only the most seasoned of the men were around at that time. The city watch was used to dealing with thieves’ rings and tavern fights, and the castle guards to breaking up fights between peasants or merchants in the triage area, but none of that had prepared them for what was to come. The men were weary and tense. Whispers of Cythra’s agents attacking the kingdom had surfaced as well; troubling nonsense of dark magic and obscure arts that the men jokingly dismissed out loud, but that rattled their bones to the rhythm of their mounts and weighted heavily on their minds.
Prince Hedgard was riding with his father, King Rhegard, and Master Baccus at the head of the long column.
“If the temple runner is right, the return trip is the least of our worry,” he thought, his mood as dark as the men were weary.
Despite being ahead of the troops, he could sense the tension in their ranks. It had been rising ever since they left camp that morning. The initial thrill of their impromptu departure the previous day had turned into puzzlement as the day went on and the officers could not answer questions regarding their destination or endeavor. The loud shouts and songs the men would strike up every so often were gradually replaced by quieter, concerned conversations. And later, with tiredness and lack of answers, rumors had spread like wild-fire across their roadside camp. Prince Hedgard almost physically felt the atmosphere darken around him. Its heaviness weighed uncomfortably on him. Had he been in charge, he would have explained their situation to the troops. But his father had refused to inform even his closest officers about what they were to face. In all honesty, they themselves did not really know what they were to find on the slopes of the Great Barrier. Perhaps it was that uncertainty that the king did not want to spread to the men.
“Maybe it is for the best,” Prince Hedgard reflected. “That way, regardless of how tired and unsure the men are, they can still look up to their king for unwavering guidance.”
It might have been the only way to prevent the whole expedition from falling apart. The uncertainty about what they were to face also loomed large in Prince Hedgard’s mind, and the fact that there had been no time to call for reinforcement from other provinces did not sit well with him. They might find themselves outnumbered or overpowered, or both. They could have arranged for the transportation of some of the army’s engineering marvels as well, but Master Baccus had pressed for as early a departure as possible.
“Reaching the slopes of the Great Barrier as fast as possible is of the utmost importance,” the temple runner had unabashedly insisted.
And so they had left without the bulk of the Alymphian Army and rushed south toward the unforgiving frozen peaks.
“There is very little time to act,” Master Baccus had assured them.
The unknown enemy, he apparently could not say much about, had entered Alymphia early the previous day and would advance toward Syndjya at a fast pace soo
n enough.
“Once they leave their camp at the base of the Great Barrier and start moving again, there will be no stopping them!” he had pressed, a frightening light in his eyes; not quite madness, though it seemed close to Prince Hedgard. Maybe that was the light of primal fear.
“Madness!” Prince Hedgard had thought. “The Great Barrier cannot be crossed!”
Every child in Alymphia old enough to speak would have said so. Hundreds of folk tales, books of knowledge and temple accounts found throughout Alymphia testified to it. No one in recorded or oral history had ever crossed the mighty mountain range. Its peaks were said to be almost vertical mirrors of treacherous ice. And around fire pits many a grandfather told tales of storms of unimaginable violence with winds faster than arrows that tossed around finger-sized icicles sharper than a butcher’s knife, and with thunder so loud and lightning so bright that anyone foolish enough to dare the climb would lose both sight and hearing before reaching the half-way point. Many around Alymphia were convinced that after the Last Rising, Hethens had condemned Cythra to spend the Long Breath on top of the Great Barrier.
“Until the Earth turned back to mud and the heavens into fire,” the Holy Book said, although without mentioning the Great Barrier per se.
Many folks, especially those living of the land, believed that Cythra’s rage was what caused the deadly weather, that her mad screams carried death and Undoing and caused the violent storms, that her hateful heart spewed its coldness around like a deadly venom that froze men’s hearts and breaths. Many an old-timer would have told you that no man could cross the Great Barrier, no man.
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