Conquests and Crowns

by S E Meliers

  Charity was a thought she could not abide to have. Later, she promised herself, later she would mourn.

  Her school had officially opened; Patience’s Hallow having provided the necessary religious teachers by assigning four of her ilk to the duty. Three of the Hallows were available for the school due to injury incurred in performing their roles: one was blind, one missing a hand, and the other had trouble with a badly healed leg injury. The fourth Hallow, a young girl just out of her training, was pregnant. Patience had spent considerable time talking with them and found them to be remarkably un-Hallow-like. As her Hallow had said: not all Hallows were made the same, and some Hallows, under the Hallow garb and brutal training, were just people trapped in situations they could not escape.

  Although she had been pleased by her interviews, and was coming to trust her Hallow’s judgement, she could not trust the children’s fate entirely to strangers with such savage and unbalanced histories, therefore she had instructed them that she would visit regularly and any sign of excessive severity would be disapproved of, though what she could actually do, she did not know. One of the Hallows, however, the man with the leg injury, Rake, struck her most as trustworthy. There was something frank and honest in his eyes, she felt, and compassionate.

  It was a beautiful day, bright and blue skied, so to allay her idleness, she took Joy and Charm out into the gardens with Rue and the handful of the ladies who attended her. The children needed the freedom to run and play, to explore and just be children far from peril for a short time. She sat on a stone bench in the shadow of a copse of ornate purple flowered trees that had wound their trunks into a secret bower where she and Charity had wooed many years before, and watched the children play chase with Rue and her companions.

  She was tired, and unwell.

  She seemed to be unwell with frequency, she thought, and decided to be more careful about what she ate. After all, her source of poison had to come from somewhere – maybe Gallant used a little against her, to weaken her. She pondered the potential uses of poison to improve her situation, ruminating over the difficulty of administering the poison without actually being implicated in its use, when a large shadow fell across her. Looking up, she recognised the blonde man as one of the EAerymen currently staying in the castle as guests of the Prince Cinder.

  He bowed low. “My Lady Patience, may I introduce myself? I am Asherryn of Tilsyn Deep in the lands of the EAery.’

  She bowed her head in acknowledgement and considered the name. ‘Gyltharn of Tilsyn Deep was a friend of my father’s. Do you know of him?’ she enquired wishing she did not need to squint up at the man but the sun was directly behind him and to stand would indicate an end to the conversation which would be unwisely impolite.

  ‘My father is also a friend of Gyltharn, though he is not of our family,’ the man squatted companionably at her side, in a manner most men would find undignified, but with him served to display the muscular power of his legs. He was a mountain lion at ease, but his smile was amicable. ‘I have not been in a position to introduce myself previously, things being as they have been, and apologise for the unintentional rudeness.’

  ‘It has been a trying time,’ she acknowledged. He was a stunningly beautiful man with an overwhelming physical presence that made her aware of herself as a woman for the first time in weeks, and wish she had taken more time in the morning with her attire. ‘Your caution was wise.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I wish to assure you that my twin and I have watched you, and continue to do so. We have not been in a position to assist you, however the time may come where we may be able to offer you aid when you need it, and I wish you to know that we are prepared to do so.’ The man watched the children benignly. ‘Your children are very beautiful.’

  She remembered the Hallow warning her of potential alliances being offered to trick her into a plot which Gallant would then expose. ‘Thank you. I think so, myself, but I am their mother,’ she smiled pleasantly. ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘though we hope that we will in the near future.’

  The EAery belief, she remembered dredging the childhood lesson from deep in her memory, that twins shared a soul and therefore were two halves of a whole, led to twins also sharing a mate and a family. She wondered what it would be like to have two such omnipotent males as husband, and thought that the woman to attract and take them to mate would be impressive of her own accord. Economically, she thought it made a great deal of sense to have two providers for a family. ‘You will be in a hurry to return to her, then,’ she noted absently to fill the space of the conversation whilst she considered the risks inherent in his offer of aid and what she could do with it if she accepted it.

  ‘Our chosen mate is not of the EAerys, so in that we are lucky, as we cannot return to our home until our task is complete.’

  ‘Your task?’ she pulled herself back to the conversation.

  ‘We lost a tribute to our god, and must find her if we are to return to our people in honour,’ he replied ruefully. He did not seem overly concerned, as if finding his missing tribute was a given.

  ‘What happens to the tribute?’ she wondered, then remembered herself. ‘I am sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I did not mean to pry into your religion.’

  He smiled gently. ‘The question is permissible, my Lady, as I cannot answer it – I do not know. We take her to the Oracle, and what the Oracle does with her from there…’ he shrugged.

  ‘Does your search go well?’ she asked. She hoped not, for the sake of the girl.

  He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘She seems to have disappeared, and I suspect that even when we find her, she will no longer be pure and therefore of no use as a tribute.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Patience did not know what to say. She had to agree with him, however. If she knew her virtue would lead her to an unknown future as a tribute, she would get rid of it as quickly as possible, too.

  He shrugged. ‘She has done us a service by bringing us into Rhyndel where we have found our mate, so I bear her no ill will.’

  ‘You will let her go then?’ Patience wondered.

  ‘No,’ he shook his head firmly. ‘We still need her if we are to return with honour.’ He seemed content to squat at her side watching the children play and hold a conversation that really had nothing to do with her. She wondered at his motives.

  ‘Your mate is Rhyndelian?’ she asked, trying to determine the path of the conversation.

  ‘No, she is Shoethalian.’ He looked back at her. His eyes were suddenly keen. ‘She will take some convincing to leave her Prince and come to the EAerys with us.’

  ‘Maybe you will need to stay with her people, instead,’ Patience replied. ‘Why is it always the woman who must leave her family?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ he was amused.

  She had learnt over the last months that most discussions were about more than one thing: the topic discussed, and the topic not discussed. If you knew what the latter was, the reason for the former was that much clearer. The man had confused her with his conversation, with the apparent directness of his offer followed by the banality of one inclined to linger. She was not sure she understood what he truly offered, or wanted, whether he was an ally or an enemy as she had no idea what they were not discussing, and thus was only hearing half the conversation. Or was she overcomplicating a simple gesture of kindness and goodwill from a man who was on neither side? She did not know, and not knowing terrified her; there were so many ways to fail Charm and Joy, so many baited traps – was she clever enough to navigate them all through to safety?

  The dragons wheeled briefly overhead, before disappearing from sight. There was something beautiful and terrible about them. Their shadows in the sky were like an omen, but of good? She focussed back on the man still crouching at her side. His hair shone white blonde in the sun. ‘I have seen the right in the Monad, and am lucky enough to hold the Prince’s regard. I am however thankful to know that my wellbeing and the wellbeing of my chil
dren are being safeguarded by our EAeryian friends and am deeply grateful for your offer of aid should need arise.’ There, she thought; if he was in earnest, he would continue to watch, but if this was a ploy of Gallant’s, there was nothing to incriminate her.

  ‘My Lady,’ he bowed his head, correctly taking her statement as a dismissal, and rose from his crouch, bowed again and strolled away.

  ‘That was interesting,’ the Hallow materialised from the shadowy bower. Had she been coincidentally passing time in the shade, or following her, Patience wondered. Maybe Hallows lurked in dark places as a matter of course when they were not doing more murderous things. ‘Interludes with EAerymen may not be conducive to your health, my lady.’

  ‘If you were listening, as I suspect you were, then you would know that nothing was said that could cause any issues with Gallant,’ a thought occurred to Patience that maybe it was not her that the Hallow had followed, but the EAeryman. She wondered why the Hallow would be trailing him. She had that uncomfortable awareness of things happening that she did not understand.

  ‘Implication is sufficient. “I saw today the Lady Patience intimately engaged in discourse with an EAeryman,”’ the Hallow murmured.

  Patience sighed. ‘I could be implied for entering a garderobe as someone exits, if that is so,’ she said. ‘I cannot hope to stay clean of the muck slung my way by ill-meaning tongues indefinitely. Eventually something will stick well enough for Gallant to take whatever action he desires.’ She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. ‘I pray; when will this end?’

  ‘You do not want to know,’ the Hallow replied ominously and retreated once again into shadow.

  Patience turned both conversations over in her head thoughtfully. She wished she did not feel so ill and tired; maybe she would be better able to cope with what was happening around her if she was not. She had not felt this drained since… she froze. Surely, she could not… Unhappily she considered this new idea. Joy was still breastfeeding off and on, and she had not been regular with her menstruation since her birth, so she could not know for sure, but... Surely, she could not be pregnant?

  Cedar

  Young boys had no sense, Cedar realised. And no respect, he added with frustration. They had quickly moved from being scared lost lads into insolent and rebellious or whiny and petulant brats, neither of which he could work with. They were farm boys, too, with no skills translatable to warfare. He would have done much better to leave this lot to their fates and pick up a bunch of wily, light fingered, quick footed street brats from Guarn who were already skilled at spying and skulking, and understood the need to fight to live. But, he had taken these boys on, and he had to do the best he could with the raw material he had. Unfortunately ten years old for many boys was just too young. Shit, any age was too young to die, Cedar corrected.

  At the moment, his twenty lads were running riot in the training yard. He had given up controlling them. Nothing short of leg irons would keep them still. Instead, he sat on a stoop and watched wearily. This was not going to work; they were not going to listen, and they would have to go back into the main army where the brutality of the other soldiers would keep them in line until they lost life or limb in their first battle. The hopelessness of it depressed him.

  Guarn itself depressed him. Two edges of the city backed up against swampland, the other two against rocky plains that possessed no beauty, and the castle had been built by an architect with no appreciation for aesthetics, resulting in Guarn being an ugly, smelly sort of place. The people of Guarn all seemed to be rough and raw, with a coarseness and belligerence that set him on edge. They looked at anyone who was not a Guarn native as if wondering what they would taste like in a stew, and watched with the sort of attention a thug would give a mark who was about to wander into a poorly lit alley.

  To add to his feelings of ill will, Charity was either drunk and asleep in his chambers or drunk and roaming the city looking for more alcohol, and was probably going to end up on some Guarnite’s dinner table, or worse, he thought.

  ‘Well, this is interesting,’ Lovel sat down next to him. He hadn’t seen her since Charity had met up with Diligence, but he thought it fitting that she would appear now to witness his failure and humiliation. ‘What training method is this, eh?’

  ‘I call it: depression,’ he replied snidely. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Me?’ she shrugged. ‘Here and there. Are you not supposed to be teaching these boys something, so some of them actually survive this war?’

  ‘What is the use?’ he sighed. ‘They do not listen.’ He did not even wonder at how she knew of his task; no doubt ‘here and there’ had been close enough to spy.

  She fixed him with a disapproving frown. ‘You are all that stands between them and terrible things, Cedar. You should not give up so easily; on them, or on yourself. They, at least, deserve better. They are, after all, innocents.’

  ‘Thank you, Lovel, for making me feel so good about myself,’ he sneered. ‘Very well, you show me how it is done, then, if you think it is so possible to do.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said readily enough that he thought she had intended to anyway. ‘I will get you started.’ She stood up and threw something against the wall. Cedar ducked instinctively as a sound exploded into the walled training yard. It was as if someone had unleashed a small thunderbolt against them. The ground trembled, a couple of empty water barrels nearest the wall toppled over, and at least one of the boys fell to their butts in the dirt. Every trained soldier turned their weapons the way of the explosion, instantly on guard.

  ‘That,’ Lovel said clearly into the sudden silence. ‘Was what I call a boomer. It makes a big noise and when combined with a smoke bomb, which I will also demonstrate in due course, it can give your enemy the impression of a huge destruction occurring and mask your actual numbers; but most importantly it causes them confusion and fear. Whilst your enemy is confused and afraid, you have the upper hand. Every lad who reports to Cedar, gather here immediately,’ she added casually. There was an implied ‘or else’. Cedar dreaded to think what ‘else’ she had in mind. The trained soldiers, having realised they were not under attack, relaxed. Some returned to their rote training, others drew closer to observe, attracted by Lovel’s obvious charms and unaware of the sharpness of her teeth and particulars of her preferred diet.

  The boys under Cedar’s command gathered instantly and avidly. They were still, and silent; there was something about Lovel that was so threatening that it cowed even the rambunctious youths, Cedar observed wryly, wishing he shared that ability.

  ‘Who amongst you can count to five?’ Lovel demanded of them. Several hands rose. ‘Who can count higher than five?’ she expanded. Two hands. ‘Right. You, you and you,’ she pointed at the two, and the oldest looking boy who could count to five. ‘Stand there, there, and there. Good. Now, you, you and you, you there snot-face, and the carrot top, you get over there, and you three smug bastards, you two little blondies, and you with the black eye, you go stand there with him. The rest of you, go stand with him. Now, you there, how many boys do you count?’

  ‘Six,’ the boy replied after adding them on his fingers.

  ‘And you?’ she pointed to the next boy.

  ‘Six,’ the second replied quicker than the first.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Good. Six, six, five and three,’ she said to Cedar. ‘You have got twenty boys, right?’

  ‘Right,’ he confirmed, thinking it was quite clever how she had divided the boys into groups they could count and therefore self-manage.

  ‘Good,’ she turned back to the boys. ‘Remember who you are standing with. They are your team. Your lives count on each other. Now,’ she clasped her hand behind her back and frowned down at them. ‘You have a choice, boys. You can pay attention to every word that drops from Cedar and my lips and learn quickly so you have a chance of surviving this war and going home to your people, or you can go join the grown up soldiers and have you
r arms and legs hacked off, your eyes put out, and some big bastard who actually knows how to use his spear shove it so far through you that you die tasting your own shit. What choice do you make?’

  ‘Shit, Lovel,’ Cedar was repulsed. ‘They are children. You cannot say that to them.’

  ‘This is war, Cedar,’ she rounded on his with ferocity in her eyes. ‘And they will die like adults, so they deserve to know what they face out there. Your kindness now does them no service in the future.’ Silenced, he bowed his head. She turned back to the boys, who were looking very impressed and fearful. ‘So, this is how it is going to start. You need to learn to be unseen by adults, to be quick, to be silent, to go places where adults cannot fit, and to listen and observe. You will practice this today by following the Lord Service of Guarn, Lord Humble, and the captain of the King’s army, Diligence. After the evening meal, you will report to Cedar and myself what you have found out.’

  She glanced at Cedar. ‘If you are caught about this task, Cedar and I will deny knowledge of you, and you will be sent into the main army to die. Therefore do not be caught. Understood?’ there was an appropriately daunted response from her audience. ‘Good, now go away before I eat you,’ she said dismissively. Cedar was not sure it was an idle threat; there was every possibility boy-flesh was an acceptable menu item for Lovel.

  ‘See,’ she said once they had gone. ‘It is possible.’

  ‘Possible,’ he agreed reluctantly, ‘but unlikely. Most likely is that they will get distracted, forget the task you set, or decide it is more fun to play, and nothing will result of this but further chaos.’

  ‘We shall see,’ she was content. ‘But,’ she shook herself and refocussed on him. ‘I did not come today to teach your pups, Cedar. I came to say that the Prophet is no longer in Amori. She is on the move.’

  Cedar felt as if she had pulled the day into sharp focus for him. ‘Coming here?’ he asked. ‘How do you know?’