by Lana Nielsen
Though Glorun paid little attention to her eldest brother’s ten-minute monologue condemning her other brother, she did take note of the exceedingly venomous tone that characterized the final declaration: “By the power vested in me by the Gods themselves ten centuries ago, I, King Wulfdane the IV, henceforth banish my kinsman from the realm of Paden for the remainder of his life. Meldane is to be stripped of his title and his inheritance. He will be permitted to take with him only two horses, his slave, and the clothes upon his back.”
He addressed Meldane directly in a lower voice: “Do you accept this decree, Meldane, as penalty for the crime of treason? Do you realize the generosity I have just bestowed upon you?”
“Yes, my King, my brother, I do. I accept,” Meldane said. He stood up as Wulfdane motioned with his sceptre for him to rise.
Glorun emerged from behind the shadows of Wulfdane’s throne just long enough to catch Meldane’s eye. There was little emotion on his face and his jaw was firmly set. She stared into her brother’s grey eyes; they were the same color and upward-tilted shape as her own. It was a famed Dusaldr trait that their eldest brother didn’t share. His eyes were bulbous and sky-blue, half-mad in appearance, really—like their mother, Anika’s, had been.
“I’m sorry,” Meldane mouthed to his sister before he kissed the five-pointed star emblazoned into the seal of Wulfdane’s ring. Glorun nodded once in understanding, and mouthed the word, “return.”
This interaction did not escape Morden’s shrewd gaze.
“Morden, would you escort Meldane out of Staska?”
“Aye, my King, your will is my command,” the doctor said as he stepped out into the open, his steel-plated boots clacking against the granite floor. He summoned his men, and they somberly guided the former prince outside the city walls.
***
Arithel had a restless night before leaving the capital. She had resolved to visit Portreath one last time before the long journey to the Lost Isles. She planned to convince one of her family members to go with her, even a cousin if she were desperate enough. She did not want to sail two hundred miles into the Tethyan Sea alone. The only person who would not be allowed to join her under any circumstances was her brother. Alarius could sit and rot on their pitiful middling estate forever, for all she cared.
Everything is so damned backwards now, Arithel thought while lying restless in bed. If all were right with the world, the deed to the Nicose estate would still have her name on it, she and her old lover, Ronan, would be married and legions of recently homeless would be tending an early harvest instead of begging and loitering. Troubadours would parade through the streets instead of mystics, flagellators, and charlatans. Every night she had to endure the same street preacher’s mad, bombastic ramblings—her shutters were just too thin. Most of the time his message was that the dimming sun was punishment for sin, but the biggest crowds gathered to hear about how it was a sign of an impending final battle between Agron and the pent-up forces of Hell.
When Arithel finally fell asleep, she was beset by vivid dreams that left her sweating and gasping for air. Each one was the same. She was hunting, pursuing three red deer, when the changeling woman, the same one who had menaced her three years ago during the incident, appeared in the road. At first, she seemed an ordinary woman, her face shrouded by a hood and a heavy shawl wrapped about her thin, tottering frame. When she turned around, she grew to a giant of eight or nine feet with glowing silver skin and terrible big black eyes. She grinned, the sky darkened, and the deer fled. She winked at Arithel and hissed through her bloody, crumbling teeth: “I’m still waiting on you.”
When Arithel awoke, it was already dawn. She quickly made herself busy and tried not to dwell on her dreams. She furiously packed her things, stuffing clothes haphazardly into the same trunk she had once toted from Portreath.
Just as she fastened her belt around her waist, she hesitated. It would be a long journey in less than optimal conditions. One day on the ferry, another on foot. There were raiders, louts, and all manner of unscrupulous sorts lurking in the woods just beyond the capital’s gates. Given the danger, Arithel decided to garb herself in menswear. She put on baggy riding breeches, a long homespun tunic, and a bulky grey coat. She buttoned and laced the coat, turning sideways in the mirror to check that her breasts were sufficiently concealed. She tied her dark hair in a low knot, before stuffing it under a rough and ugly cap. She looked somewhat mismatched, but her dusty reflection showed she passed handily as a fourteen or fifteen year-old youth.
“Arithel? What are you doing? You’re never up so early. And your clothes...” Maeve, her boardmate, sat up in her bed, rubbing out her eyes and yawning.
“I’m leaving today, Maeve. I’m dressed as a man for the road. Does the effect work?”
“I suppose,” Maeve muttered. “You look more odd than boyish.”
Arithel sighed. “It’ll have to do. I don’t have the time to go out and buy anything else.”
“All right,” Maeve said flatly. “Goodbye.”
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m leaving?” asked Arithel, annoyed by Maeve’s nonchalant response. They weren’t friends by any stretch, but they did speak once a week or so.
Maeve shrugged sheepishly. “People come and go in a boardinghouse; seemed pointless to question. I just figured you were too old to live here now.”
“Too old?” Arithel scoffed. “I’m only twenty.”
“That’s three or four years more than most of us,” Maeve said.
Arithel lifted her eyebrows and nodded in uneasy acknowledgement. “I’m moving on to greener pastures now—literally, you could say. It was nice sharing a room for a while.”
“Good luck.” Maeve collapsed back into her bed and shut her eyes.
“Thanks,” Arithel said quietly. “I shall need it.”
***
It was raining lightly when Arithel arrived at the docks. The ferry bobbed gently in the glossy waters of the Black River, with many passengers already huddled onboard. Most appeared to be itinerant laborers and their families.
She lugged her trunk down the steps to the ferry pier. The toll collector scowled as she handed him the usual fare of four bronze cuplets.
“Not so fast, young man!” he said in a rasping voice.
His muddy brown eyes looked to be slowly drooping towards his nose.
“What?”
“That trunk weighs at least as much as a child. You’ll need to pay passage for it. The ferry’s got a weight limit, y’know, boy.”
“Of course,” Arithel answered in a manly tone. She fished an additional two cuplets from her coat pocket. She dropped the monies in his leathery palm.
“Er, we don’t take child’s fare anymore. Everyone is charged the same now. Two more coins’ll do the trick.”
Arithel groaned and paid the remainder.
She hoisted the trunk off the wide wooden planks of the pier and the ferryman drawled, “Thank ye, boy. Maybe ye’ll think twice ‘fore totin’ around ladies’ trunks like a queer. All a lad yer age needs for a journey are a few apples for the road, a good knife, and the shirt on his back.” Arithel noted several passengers laughing at his observations.
“The trunk is for my sister,” she muttered.
The ferryman kept chuckling to himself.
The flat-bottomed ferry dipped under her weight as she stepped aboard. She situated herself near the front of the boat, beside an old woman wearing a wimple. The crone paid little attention to Arithel as she cursed to herself and sprawled her belongings across the hull.
The final passenger to board looked to be a mercenary of sorts. He was garbed in shoddy black clothing, with a longsword and knives at his belt. His boots were fashioned handsomely from the finest polished leather. Arithel supposed he had recently stolen them from some lordling. He wore a peculiar Ialorian-style hood that left only his eyes and the bridge of his nose visible. It looked uncomfortable and impractical. It was clear he had something to hide. He sat down
not far from Arithel, and proceeded to stare at her for about thirty seconds with piercing blue-green eyes.
The oarsmen boarded the vehicle last and quickly filed into position. The ferryman released the moorings and the boat gently drifted away from the dock. Within a few minutes, the rowers were busy at work, heaving the long flat paddles with their burly arms. The soaring steeples of the temple, the dark towers of the King’s castle, and the wooden palisades surrounding the city soon disappeared. The Black River was smooth and swift.
The ferry passed many other vessels—cargo ships, galleys full of soldiers, fishermen in tiny dinghies. Each time another boat drew near, the ferryman would ring a set of hand-bells and amiably shout: “Hey, ho, with Agron’s good speed ya go!”
Arithel noted that the mercenary kept his gaze on her. She wondered why he had chosen to take a ferry amongst peasants and peddlers. What sort of business could he have in the rustic lands downriver? The coup, and thus the sellswords’ chief reason for stomping about Neldor of late, would most certainly occur in the capital and the crowded cities of Northeastern Neldor—Lochwynne and Evona. She feared the man might somehow be connected to the bribe she had accepted not twenty-four hours ago. Was he a bounty hunter? She drummed her fingers in her lap and turned her back to avoid scrutiny.
She attempted conversation with the wimpled crone next to her. The old bat would smile and nod in return, but her gaze went straight through Arithel. “Did you see them pretty birds at the fair last week?” was her only response to Arithel’s polite chatter. Of course, there had not been any fairs or festivals in Northglade for months.
Bored, Arithel decided to nap.
***
“Get up, ye dandy boy, it’s yer only and final stop,” called a harsh voice. Arithel awoke to the ferryman prodding her back with his cane. She rolled over and saw that they were docked again. The pitiful peasant families were already pouring off the vessel.
“Hurry up. My oarsmen can’t get a drink until everyone is off!”
“It must be barely mid-afternoon,” Arithel said as she stretched and sat upright. “It takes until nightfall to reach Verdana.”
“The ferry don’t go to Verdana no more. We stop at Talbot now,” he said.
Arithel surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings. There was a dilapidated wooden staircase snaking down steep bluffs, meeting the single pier jutting into the river. A small house, the watchman’s station, teetered on stilts beside the pier.
“Why doesn’t the ferry reach Verdana anymore?” she asked.
“Too dangerous,” the ferryman said.
“The outlaws getting rather bold?”
“Not just outlaws—slavers. They patrol the wild parts of the Marches in droves,” he answered darkly.
“Hmmm.” Arithel pondered, thinking it strange she had not heard any news about slavers until now. Slavery had been illegal in Neldor for over a century, but it was experiencing something of a revival in the Empire. The Neldorins had nothing to fear from Nureenian slavers, though—they placed only heathens and criminals in bondage. The heathens—nomadic fire-worshippers from the steppes of Ialori or the savage warriors of snowy Paden and Ilsey—had many slaves too, but there was no way they were suddenly capable of abducting folk from the heart of Neldor.
The ferryman must have been trying to frighten her.
Carrying her hefty trunk up the stairs to Talbot proved a cumbersome task. Her heart was pounding by the time she reached the final creaking step. Talbot was a rustic, backwater place, smaller than even Verdana where she was accustomed to stopping. It consisted of little more than a tavern, a trading post, and a dozen cottages with thatched roofs.
She decided it was best to spend the night at the tavern.
Smoke curled from the building’s crooked chimney and the smell of fat frying permeated the air. It was rather empty inside apart from the oarsmen carousing over their drinks. Behind the counter, a thin, middle-aged man was making griddlecakes. The young woman beside him greeted Arithel.
“How can I help ya, sir?” she asked in a chirpy tone.
“Just want a room for the night, miss,” Arithel said. She observed the old ferryman in the corner, gesturing towards her and laughing. She shouldn’t have been offended considering her disguise, but her eyes narrowed with indignation nonetheless.
“Your name?”
“Arthur Bell,” Arithel said, hardly batting an eyelash. The woman scrawled the name at the end of a tattered piece of parchment.
The taverngirl explained the curious practice. “It’s for safety, in case we need to report something to the nearest constable. We’ve had a few incidents lately.”
Arithel was surprised that a mere tavern wench was learned enough to write—out here in the middle of nowhere, no less.
“Four bronze ones,” the maid told her. Arithel handed the coins over, and in exchange the young woman presented a rusty key. “It’s the first room on the right upstairs.”
***
Arithel hit her head on the low ceiling as she walked into her bedroom. Water dripped from the roof. It was not surprising. Thatched roofs were prone to leaks; Ronan’s apartment above the butchery had been the same way. She pushed her trunk under the bed and collapsed on the woven rope mattress. It swayed under her frame but was comfortable enough.
She lay back, staring at the fuzzy skies beyond the tiny damp windowpane. She watched the raindrops trail down the glass as she pondered her life. She was so lonely, detached. Would that change when she settled in the Lost Isles? She wanted someone to listen to her, someone to touch. She wistfully recalled making love to Ronan three years ago. She had not been embraced since. The few men of Northglade who had expressed interest were too old, too mundane, or dull for her liking—a widowed scribe with demanding daughters, the chubby, unkempt apprentice to the apothecary, and finally the young carpenter who was handsome enough but never had anything to say. None of them held a candle to Ronan—brave, dashing, trying Ronan, the boy she had grown up alongside, the boy she had roped into her many frivolous adventures, the boy who had sworn he’d marry her when they were just ten, standing amidst a sunny field of wildflowers. She sighed heavily and indulged in daydreaming and fantasy.
Darkness descended over Talbot and Arithel ventured downstairs for a meal. She eased down the staircase where a boisterous scene awaited her. The tavern was brimming with villagers and travelers. A fiddler played tunes atop a table, stamping his foot with the beat. An auburn-haired girl whirled in circles as she shook a tambourine and a fat fellow drunkenly garbled the lyrics of some local ballad. It was a merry sight, the sort of sight that was rare in the capital these days. Arithel had to weave her way through the laughing, chatting throngs to reach the bar.
“Hi, Mr. Bell.” The taverngirl smiled warmly upon seeing her again. “How can we help ya? Sorry about all the noise.”
“No, the noise is lovely. What’s for dinner?”
“Trout,” the girl answered. “Me or Da will bring it out to ya when it’s done.”
Arithel kept a low profile and situated herself on a bench in a shadowy corner of the restaurant. She watched the folk of Talbot interact with one another. Part of her wanted to join their mindless carousing, but she remained seated and removed from it all.
Within ten minutes the taverngirl appeared with Arithel’s supper in hand. The bowl overflowed with cabbage, fish, and potatoes, all swimming in melted butter. A pint of ale was set beside the dish.
“You didn’t ask for a drink, but I figured ya’d need one.”
“That’s generous,” Arithel said and tipped her.
The girl looked down at Arithel with wide hazel eyes. “You know, Mr. Bell, if there is anything else you need tonight, you just let me know, personally.” She emphasized the last word as she tucked the monies into her apron pocket.
“Tildie is my name,” she finished with a wink.
“Nice to meet you, Tildie,” Arithel responded in a careful tone, unsure if the woman had just offered herself up
to ‘Arthur.’ As Tildie left, she kept looking back at Arithel suggestively.
“Odd,” Arithel muttered to herself before spooning up a mouthful of potatoes. She ate like an animal, not realizing how hungry she was until now.
She noticed the mercenary from the ferry. Even though his ridiculous-looking hood was still on, he seemed to be blending in well, enjoying the company of some fair-haired woman. She was draped across his lap, gulping ale as he engaged her in light-hearted, animated conversation.
Why did he leave that awful hood on inside the warm, humid tavern? He was obviously up to nothing good. His outfit projected an aura of mystery that enticed the gullible country ladies. Arithel was amused by her own observation. She briefly fantasized that the man in black was Ronan. Too bad his eyes weren’t the right color and his frame too slight for that wish to be true.
The mercenary took heed of Arithel. He whispered in the ear of his blonde girl, and she left for another man’s lap. Arithel averted her eyes, not wishing to draw further attention to herself, but the mercenary marched towards her nonetheless and sat across from her. He silently appraised her.
“Hello,” she said cautiously. “What do you want?”
“I have a question for you, lad,” he said, his voice distorted by the cloth covering his mouth.
“Aye, go on,” Arithel said, taking a sip from her mug.
“Do you know Arithel Nicose?” he asked as her heart thumped in her chest. No doubt her suspicions had been right. This man had something to do with Enoch Vandive’s missing tax records.
“No, I don’t, but the name sounds familiar,” she said. “Would it be too much to ask why you’re asking?”