“Yes, Goddess forbid I should ever desire any more congenial company than yours,” said Gloriana, sarcastically although secretly very grateful for the change of subject, “but might I ask whether you have any specific reason for hating Lord Lycon?”
“I wasn’t aware I needed one. If I do, then I suppose I’d prioritise the way he looks at you like a drooling hound eyeing up a piece of raw meat.”
“Now you’re just … He does?” she asked, too surprised to feign any displeasure, prudent though that might have been.
“Invariably,” replied Saskia, with a reproving frown, “and I only wish that it offended you more than it seems to. It damn well ought to.”
“Well …” began Gloriana, utterly failing to conceal her embarrassment. “It’s just … Well, it’s nonsense, isn’t it? I mean … he wouldn’t, would he?”
“If you imagine he serves you out of noble principles, you’re more of a–”
“I don’t mean that,” she interrupted, irritably. “I just mean … this,” she declared, tearing the veil from her face and scattering dressing pins all over the floor. The chambermaid barely reacted, as she had been getting nowhere with it in any case. “I mean, who would look at me like that? You’re delusional.”
“Apparently, it’s catching, if you genuinely believe that scheming old fox is some starry-eyed, sex-starved boy who gives a damn about such things. In his eyes, you are the key to our people’s future loyalty, not to mention the source of these abhorrent new weapons. He will keep you as close as he dares, until he has disposed of all his enemies, then he will abandon all pretence and take you to wife, though for future reference, I will see him dead before I see him as king of the Alvere. If you actually feel anything for him, you would do well to keep him at a distance.”
“I see,” said Gloriana, dejectedly. “It’s just ambition, then? You think he just wants me as another war asset, is that it?”
“What were you hoping I’d say, child? That he worships the ground you tread on? Swoons every time you fart? It’s high time you woke up and smelt the stinking cesspool around you. If you were beautiful, it would make no difference: you will meet with nothing but greed and treachery in the circles you have chosen to move in.”
“You have a way with words,” she replied, attempting sarcasm, but her tone was broken, and it was enough of an effort just to fight back the tears. Apparently pleased at the effect her words had wrought, Saskia managed a small, grim smile.
“Be grateful you have one honest counsellor now,” she said, triumphantly. “You will have none in the days to come, if you continue this way. Reflect on that, Your Highness,” she concluded, and left the chamber as abruptly as she had entered it, without waiting for a dismissal. Gloriana was too miserable to object, but merely stood stock-still in her magnificent, borrowed clothes, wondering how ugly and incongruous she looked. Like a bloody embalmed corpse in its death robes. How could I have been so stupid? The chambermaid, still picking up the pins, noticed her mistress’s dejection with concern. Although few Alvere would take such liberties with their monarch as a hierarch, or Saskia in particular, they did not stand on ceremony as much as the other races, and so she ventured a few words of encouragement to her queen:
“Pay no heed to her, Your Highness. She’s just a bitter old woman who’s lost her faith. I know hardly any of us who would listen to her anymore. Maybe a few of the elders. The rest of us believe in you. You’re the future of the Alvere. Not her.”
“Thank you, Miryam. That means a great deal,” said Gloriana, sincerely, although it did little enough to lift her melancholy. “After all I have fought for, to admit defeat and let her kind lead us into nothing but slow decay …”
“It will never happen, Your Highness,” asserted Miryam, as she resumed her hitherto fruitless quest to find a pleasing configuration for the veil.
“I’m relieved to hear it. Only … those things she said about Lord Lycon. Do you agree with … ? You do, don’t you?” she declared, as miserably as before, having taken good note of Miryam’s extremely awkward expression. “You think as she does: that he could never want me except as some tool to gain power. No-one could. Saskia’s right: I was delusional to even imagine it.”
“That’s not what I … It’s him, not you that’s the problem, Your Highness,” protested Miryam, so earnestly that Gloriana was at least distracted from her despondency, if not exactly cheered. “Evādon take her, but Saskia’s right about him. He is ambitious, and ruthless. Can a man like that really love? Would you even want him if he could?”
Err, yes, said Gloriana’s mind. I thought I’d made that embarrassingly obvious. Apologies if you missed my utter humiliation. For future updates, please attend my wedding and try not to laugh too hard. Her body just sighed.
“You know what, Miryam?” she said, after a moment’s consideration. “Screw this veil. I don’t think it’s in the mood to cooperate with us. Let’s just go with my mask, shall we? Polish it up nicely, and it will make a better match with my crown, anyway.”
“I’ll second that, Your Highness,” said Miryam, as she gratefully deposited the troublesome piece of silk on the nightstand. “If I could make a suggestion, though … if that wouldn’t be too bold of me.”
“Of course.”
“Your crystal eye: it is a bit … well, scary with the mask on. It might not be the best thing for putting your guests at their ease, but I think if you were to wear a lighter veil under the mask, so that it covered both your eyes–”
“I’d have to suffer colour-blindness on top of my lousy depth perception? I think not. Let them be scared.” In any case, call me a heartless bitch, but for some strange reason I feel just in the right frame of mind for making someone else feel small and weak.
************
“Give it a fucking rest, Gudric,” said Colgrim, miserably failing to keep the stress out of his voice, “or I’ll make you eat that damn thing.”
Sure you will, thought Gudric, sceptically and contemptuously, but he stopped fidgeting with his loose signet ring all the same. His fingers were beginning to ache, and it was doing little enough to alleviate his own stress. He settled it back into its proper position, with the three-armed, varg-headed cross of Lycon’s house staring up at him from his index finger. A fortnight ago it had seemed an honour to wear it, to say nothing of a relief, but those nine tiny ruby eyes staring up at him now seemed to have a mocking glint to them. Then again, even at the time he had wondered if the thing’s original owner had been inwardly laughing at him …
He had waited anxiously outside Lord Lycon’s office, pacing and sweating the minutes away, starting at each approaching footstep only to relax again as another guard or servant passed by. He had almost been ready to write the whole idea off as reckless folly when the Third Sealord himself stepped into the corridor, his tread so silent that Gudric had heard not the faintest echo of his approach. With no opportunity to further rehearse his words, the best he could do was to snap to attention, although he knew that terror was written all over his frozen face and posture. Lycon regarded him with vague interest for a few silent, tense seconds before speaking:
“Were you waiting for me, Mariner? Do you have a message?”
“If it pleases your Lordship … it’s something I can only say in private,” answered Gudric, hardly believing what he was saying. Then again, it’s not like I’ve got much to lose. A few more seconds passed, while Lycon’s frown subtly alternated between states of surprise, indignation, and amusement, before settling for something more akin to a keen, but cautious curiosity.
“As you wish,” Lycon replied, gesturing towards his office. Gudric, his heart doing its best to hammer a hole clean though his ribcage, entered the room first and moved to stand before the desk, while Lycon immediately followed, closing and locking the door behind him. Nowhere to run now, not that this was ever a particularly realistic backup plan. Gudric breathed deeply. There was nothing else for it now.
“Well, Mariner?” asked Lycon, walking
to the desk and lowering himself into the high-backed oaken chair. “What is this, err, private matter of yours? I can’t say people bring them to me very often, so you have my full attention.” You had to hand it to Lord Lycon: unlike his counterparts on the Convocation, he could threaten by presence alone, without even slightly altering the tone of his voice, or compromising his icy cool demeanour. Still, here goes nothing …
“Respectfully, your Lordship … it’s about that mission you and Master Cædmon was discussing earlier. I guess I wasn’t meant to know about that,” he added, while the slight but definite hardening of Lycon’s expression seemed to lend confirmation to that assumption. “I couldn’t help it, sir. They had me cleaning out the bilges of that lofdreki, when the two of you met in the lower deck. I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop, I swear, but–”
“I get the gist,” interrupted Lycon, calmly but with a decidedly cutting edge. He leaned forward across the desk, his eyes narrowed and piercing. “So … you think you heard something … accidentally, of course. And were you planning on telling anyone about this, Mariner?”
“No, your Lordship, it’s not like that, I … I wanted to volunteer … if you’ll have me, of course.” There, wasn’t so difficult, he thought, completely ironically, while Lycon’s eyes widened again in frank astonishment, although he managed to compose himself back to a mild, dignified curiosity in mere moments.
“You wished to volunteer?” he asked, sounding almost indifferent again. “Might I enquire for what reason?”
“The Queen’s been good to me and mine, your Lordship,” answered Gudric, with more confidence. “Been good to others as well, I know. If this is what it takes to keep her in power … to keep her doing good, then I want to serve her.”
“Ah. To serve her, I see. Not me,” said Lycon, his amused, ironic tone not sparing Gudric another horrible rush of anxiety, but he quickly relieved him of it. “Forget I said that, Mariner. That was beneath me. You and I both seem to know, she’s a … compelling sort of person. Very well. I think perhaps the safest course would be if you did go on this mission. Report to Cædmon immediately.”
“Thank you, Milord. How will he know to trust me, though?”
“Hmm … Show him this,” replied Lycon, and tossed Gudric the signet ring he had been wearing. “I think Cædmon knows me well enough to realise that if you’d tried mugging me for that, you’d have come away with one less head. Dismissed.”
It was of heavy gold, studded with rubies: an extremely valuable heirloom even by the standards of Lycon’s august lineage, and he had given him no arrangements for its return. Even at the time, the more pragmatic part of Gudric’s mind had strongly argued that the only sensible course would be to desert, sell the thing at the first Lucinian pawnshop he could find, and never look back, but noble principles had gotten the better of him …
Thalassa save us, what was I thinking?
A minor consolation was that for once in Gudric’s short, mostly unwilling naval career, the able mariners were also tasting their fair share of his fear, and not only that blustering craven Colgrim. Even Cædmon had taken an instant and powerful dislike to the jungle clearing they had selected for their campsite, and he was no craven, although Gudric was by no means able to account for the feelings of deep unease that the place stirred in them all. The ruins were certainly strange, dominated by a terraced pyramid some fifteen metres high. It would probably have been half as high again had the square, pillared temple at its summit not been in a state of complete ruin. The pyramid was partially overgrown with vines and mosses, as were all of the lower structures: cracked pathways, colonnades, foundation platforms, not to mention statues and carvings that certainly could not have lent the place a cheery air even in the days before it became this grey, grisly husk of a former settlement. Leering, serpent-headed idols jutted out of the sides of the pyramid, while at the foot of its stairway a pair of grotesque stone sentinels stood vigil: deformed creatures with huge, skull-like heads on top of short, stunted bodies with naked breasts and raised, clawing hands. No birds or animals stirred within the glade, although thick jungle was never more than fifty metres away at most. At any rate, there were no animals that Gudric could see, although he found himself having to scratch so often that he did not doubt some hungry little pests were in the vicinity. Unfortunately, he could not locate them to kill them, and even donning his jacket again did nothing significant to keep them off. How in the Abysm are we supposed to get any sleep in this accursed place?
Such, however, was the plan. The sun was going down, and the mariners who were not keeping watch or raising the tents were marking out a boundary to their campsite under the supervision of Ensign Ashbyrn. Rothgar was measuring out five-metre intervals with a surveyor’s wheel, while Dagmund and Eadwulf were cutting and burning patches of ground at the specified locations. When that was complete, Ashbyrn would consult the mission notes, then scratch an intricate sigil in the ashes. Unlike the hard, angular runes of Brythenedd, they were complex and flowing, almost like patterns in disturbed water. Upon finishing a sigil, he would impregnate it with a pinch of tiny, salt-like crystals from a small pouch, before moving on to the next location in sequence. They were close to having completely circled the site, not that this ritual was doing wonders for anyone’s morale. Cædmon in particular regarded the whole process with a mixture of scepticism and aversion.
“Bloody elf-magic,” he grumbled, as Ashbyrn painstakingly traced the final sigil. “As if we didn’t have enough troubles.”
“So, you do believe in the ghosts and revenants, but you don’t believe in the stuff for keeping them away?” asked Ashbyrn, rhetorically, as he carefully compared his dirt-and-ash tracing to Gloriana’s original picture. “Isn’t that a little inconsistent of you, Mister Cædmon?”
“Ain’t a question of belief, sir. No good ever came of magic.”
“I think the Alvere might disagree with you there,” Ashbyrn replied, while slightly adjusting a couple of his flourishes. “The histories say they used to have a civilisation founded on it, that covered the whole of Lucinia and beyond.”
“Might be as they did, once. Be interesting to know what became of it,” said Cædmon, portentously, while looking around the eerie, desolate ruins and clearly forming his own opinions. “At any rate, it doesn’t seem to have done the buggers much good in the long run.”
“Well, I’m not the Queen’s greatest advocate, as you know,” said Ashbyrn, now carefully sprinkling the crystal dust within the small furrow, “but she seems to know what she’s on about. These notes of hers: they don’t read like the works of some great sorcerer or visionary: more like those of some pedantic scholar, truth be told. Lousy reading, actually, but at least she seems to have thought it all out. As long as we stay within the perimeter, we ought to be safe enough … from intangible threats, that is. As for the tangible, that’s what the gods made watchmen for.”
“As you say, sir. I don’t mind admitting I’d have been more at ease if we’d just set up camp in the forest, though.”
“And been prey to serpents and spiders and Thalassa knows what else? Do you see any animals around here, Cædmon?”
“No sir, that I don’t,” replied Cædmon, clearly drawing as little comfort from that fact as Gudric did.
“Well, then,” declared Ashbyrn, briefly but decisively. “I think that should be sufficient. Are those tents ready yet, Kynric?”
“Yes, Captain,” answered Able Mariner Kynric, whose team had finished their work some time before the perimeter team had completed their long and tedious ritual marking. “Ready whenever you are.”
“Good,” said Ashbyrn, stowing the pouch in his pocket as he made his way to the nearest of the three four-man tents. “I’ll be a revenant myself if I don’t get some sleep now, or at least indistinguishable from one soon enough. Watches in order of seniority,” he ordered, much to Gudric’s dismay. “Two hours, then wake up your relief. Whoever’s got the watch at first light, wake me immediately. Preferably w
ith something that isn’t stale ship’s biscuits.”
“Might be as we’ll struggle with that, sir,” said Cædmon, doubtfully. “We picked a few fruits on our way. Hardly had time for hunting or fishing, though, never mind for looting that village we sneaked passed,” he added, with a hint of shame. Creeping by undefended peasant townships without even stopping to say hello, never mind indulging in rape and pillage, was not the Brython way at all, but there were too few of them to brazenly ravage the country and still hope to achieve their objective, so needs must. “I’m guessing you won’t be wanting us to leave the perimeter and hunt before first light.”
“Correct, Mister Cædmon. Fruit will be fine,” declared Ashbyrn, as he closed the tent flap behind him. The rest of the men who were not Gudric were quick to follow suit, except for Cædmon, who approached the young mariner with a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. Since they had expected very humid conditions, and had so far not been disappointed, they had geared up accordingly, taking with them no weapons that would turn into useless ballast in the absence of dry gunpowder.
“You know how to use one of these, lad?” asked Cædmon, handing him the weapon. Gudric merely nodded in affirmation, irritated at the senior mariner’s constant micromanagement of him but aware that complaining about it was unlikely to raise his estimation of Gudric’s abilities. The old guy means well, and I guess I am the youngest. Not that the lordling’s much older than me. “Good. You got your seax handy as well?” Gudric turned just enough for Cædmon to see the long, round-handled, single-edged dagger slung from his belt. “Looks as if you’re good to go, lad. Come for me in an hour, though,” he added, in a slightly lower tone. “I’ll take the rest of your watch. I ain’t likely to be sleeping much, anyway. Not here.” Shaking his head, Cædmon turned and made his way to the tents. Although grateful to have his workload halved, Gudric did not lament the absence of the veteran’s haunted, battle-scarred face. Fierce as a wyvern in battle, but put him in the middle of some mouldy old heathen graveyard, and he’s as jittery as my grandma, he thought, trying and failing to suppress his own nervousness. The sound of muted conversation from the tents was already fading with the last light of the sun, leaving him in silence and the near-darkness of an overcast, starless night. At least the insects now seemed to be leaving him alone: it had been some time since he had felt any itching or stinging sensations. Little sods have probably had all the blood they can take. No doubt they’ll be back for breakfast, though. Wearily, he sat down upon the nearest broken pillar-stump and began loading his crossbow: a task that offered the three key benefits of encouraging wakefulness, distracting him from his fears, and making sure that he was properly tooled up should those fears prove tragically justified.
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