Chapter Thirty-Five: Siblings to the Rescue!
Val thought she was sly, creeping through the Uddy household, leaving her note to Ginn on the table, and then sneaking out the window rather than the front door, where somebody might hear the latch click. She made it half-way to the stables, the streets strangely quiet, before she realized she was being followed.
Her pursuer wasn't being particularly discreet, either. She heard the tap-tap-tap of his sturdy leather boots as he jogged along the paving stones, easing to a stop when he was about two paces away. For a moment, the two of them stood in the moonslight, the sounds of distant revelry and horse hooves echoing up from the port district to the north.
"I'm coming, too," Galvan said.
Val scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to rescue dad… you'd only be in the way."
"I wouldn't. I can fight, too, you know. And I'm his actual blood… I deserve to go…"
"And mom and dad chose me out of every orphan in Wayfair they could have adopted."
Galvan scoffed. "It's not a competition."
"I know."
"You're not better than me just because you're Gifted."
"Never said I was. You're ten times the artist I am. I mean… I love the jacket you made."
"I know," Galvan said. "Thanks. So… are we going?"
"Yeah. Come on."
Of course, Val hadn't considered that the stables might be closed for the night… they were usually open around the palace in Verdenlecht, but maybe that was just a perk of nobility. Val climbed the fence without too much difficulty, unlocking it from the inside for Galvan, and they tracked down their horses by magic lamp. Fortunately, Tulip and Gallant (Galvan's horse) were stabled near one another and had a good enough rapport that they took being led out with aplomb. Tulip got an apple (because she was a good horse) and then Galvan led the horses out while Val left a tip and a note for the stable groom and locked everything back up behind them. Val had to admit - it would have been a lot harder to do by herself.
"We could have just stolen two horses," Galvan observed.
"Yeah," Val said. "I wonder why that doesn't happen all the time? Aside from the fact that we have very good horses."
Tulip nattered and pranced for a few trots, because she knew that phrase well enough. Val sometimes thought her horse understood regular speech almost as much as horse whispering, but that was probably overstating things. Only familiars seemed to have anything close to a human range of speech. Tulip's natters and grunts were mostly restricted to, Tulip knows, Tulip likes, Tulip is a good horse, and so on. An experienced handler could get almost as much without a magical understanding of animals.
They trotted off into the night, through the quiet streets, both of them looking over their shoulders as if Ginn might come rushing down the avenue at any moment and forbid that they continue their harebrained mission. As if a constable might wave them over and ask them what they were doing, two kids riding out of the city in the middle of the night. But they rode right past the city limits, clopping along at an easy pace under the moonslight, a pleasant breeze at their backs and cicadas calling out in the trees.
Val felt guilty for finding it beautiful, but she couldn't help it. Something in her heart felt at peace, and she and Galvan continued wordlessly, the Rumm flowing along to the one side, sliding along to the sea as it had for millions of years. To the other side lay acre upon acre of rice paddy rustling in the night breeze. She didn't understand how people could be so cruel and petty, how they could kill one another for such stupid reasons, and part of her wondered whether there was some secret combination of words she could say that would get the fanatics of the Pale Order to lay down their arms and let everybody live in peace for once. She wondered it all the way until a pair of highway robbers tried to take their things.
"Awfully late for children to be up, isn't it?" the woman said.
"It is," the man said. "Though, for a high mark, I would be charitably inclined to show you two safely for the town five miles yon."
Both had small bolt-casters, which they trained upon Val and Galvan. Val laughed at them, because she'd once blocked twenty heavy, alchemically-enhanced bolts in the din of battle and two piddling casters didn't mean much if you were going to give her time to deal with them. The robbers didn't care to be mocked and advanced on the two of them, walking right into Val's invisible magical net, which she then folded over and pushed into the ground, leaving them thrashing and helpless.
"I can hold that for about fifteen seconds," Val said, shaping her spirit to entrap the struggling highwaymen.
Galvan hopped off Gallant, dashed to the robbers, threw their weapons to the side, and snatched the man's change pouch before mounting up and galloping away with Val close behind, both of them laughing uproariously. They slowed when it was clear enough that they weren't being followed.
"What did we get?" Val asked.
"A so-so bolt-caster and, oh… four low and some change?"
"I'll take two and the change if you want to keep the caster."
"Deal."
And that, Val realized, was why you couldn't just talk things out. The people who thought they were entitled to your life fouled things up for everybody else. And the Pale Order were the worst of the lot, with their Pale God assuming control of your life all the way into the hereafter.
+++++
They didn't encounter any more trouble in the four days it took them to get to Verdenlecht, though that was probably because they did encounter soldiers marching through. Groups of local militia were busy at work shoring up the defenses of local towns, adding palisades and ditches in front of town walls and adding the wooden scaffolding of scouting towers to existing structures.
Every town and village had posters for conscription, calling upon every able-bodied adult to volunteer and setting quotas for each settlement based on census counts. The duchess wanted fully ten percent of the adult population mobilized and trained well enough to be skirmishers and another fifteen percent ready for local defense. Val wasn't clear on what the other three-quarters would be doing, should the Bolearic forces march into town with ill intent. Dawdle around and muse about the weather?
Partly, it was because, some folks were old or infirm. But it was also assumed that women would stay home and protect their children while the men were out fighting in the streets. While women weren't actively discouraged from joining up in the way they were in Boleares, it still wasn't expected. Perhaps one in five of the soldiers they passed, marching eastward in formation, was a woman. Sometimes, they had their own squads and, in Val's opinion, usually looked the toughest of the lot. Fifteen miles outside of the city, they passed a troop of mostly-women soldiers taking a meal by the side of the road.
"Any news from Verdenlecht?" Garvan called down, worry in his voice.
"The Righteous Army tried to take it but didn't make it across the river. We're being sent in to kick their arses back to Wayfair," a sergeant replied. Her comrades cheered, but Val could hear the edge in their voices, too.
"Righteous Army?" she asked.
The sergeant nodded. She was close to Ginn's age, gray starting to turn up in her ruddy hair, with enough little nicks and scars to suggest she'd been a fighter long before the current war. "That's what the Pale Order are calling their share of the enemy forces. A bloody pain in the arse, too, given that a quarter of our people follow the church. People have second thoughts putting the sword to their own holy men. It's a right mess, and I'd recommend that the two of you turn right around and head somewhere safe."
"Our pa is in Verdenlecht helping with the defenses and we mean to help him," Val said.
"Is that so? You should probably leave that to the professionals," the sergeant said. Her expression hovered between worry and amusement.
"We are the professionals," Val replied.
The sergeant took in their hardened leather and the weapons they carried, all of which had clearly seen use. "In that case, carry on, sister soldier…"
Val didn't correct the sergeant that she was clearly a battle-witch and not a soldier. It was the sort of things you told family and friends but that strangers could be a bit touchy about. Especially the ones for whom a witch was somebody to be locked in a cage or burned at the stake rather than admired.
When they entered the city, strangely enough, it wasn't too different from business as usual. There were more guards at the gate than you might expect, but they checked Val's and Garvan's papers, informed them that the eastern half of the city wasn't safe on account of the Righteous Army occupying it, and wished them luck in their affairs. People still went about their days, plying trades and patronizing shops, but there was a palpable tension to it. They knew that either the occupying army would be driven out or they would take the rest of the city - and, if they did, the eastern half of the duchy would collapse with the west likely to follow.
The air smelled faintly of acrid smoke, of buildings burning, but the western half of the city was as pristine as ever, the cobblestones scrubbed, the bricks white-washed, the roofs slated and gleaming bluish-gray in the summer sun. As they continued eastward, they saw more soldiers, saw whole companies of troops erecting defenses and distributing supplies. Every fourth or fifth marksman had a suspiciously oversized bolt-caster similar to the ones the Bolearic forces had employed in their victory at Cafernine Valley. That was good - at least the army was trying to even the odds.
"This road's off limits, kids - defensive forces only," a soldier on the other side of the barricade said.
"We think my father is somewhere on the eastern bank," Galvan said.
"Our father," Val corrected. Though it seemed wrong to call Ette father. He was her dad now, which was somehow different. So maybe Ette was Galvan's father but Val's dad, but she suspected that nuance of language was mostly in her head.
"I'm sure he wouldn't want to see you put in harm's way," the soldier said. "No civilians get through without a letter from the duchess."
"Okay," Val said. "I'll go get one."
+++++
Val and Galvan headed toward the palace, which was also under heavy guard, but which Val was able to bypass because some of the guards still recognized her from her time as the duke's standard bearer, as well as from Mrs. Eatherfine's doomed attempts to make a proper lady out of Val. It wasn't that Val couldn't act like the preening, satin-gowned daughter of a stuffy noble. She just didn't want to and couldn't understand why anybody would want to, unless it was to feel better than people who didn't bother with maidservants, doilies, or the absurd nuances of 'proper' Arleng grammar.
With Galvan close behind (and looking more than a little intimidated, as he'd never been in the palace before), Val strode into the great entry hall, which normally bustled with the bureaucracy of ducal government. Functionaries still scurried to and fro, but they did so along tightly-regulated channels. At least sixty or seventy ducal guards and their defensive perimeters occupied the rest of the space. The great stained glass windows on the eastern wall had been partially removed to allow for alchemical bolt-casters the size of small horses to be pointed out at the city beyond the river. If they were as much more powerful as heavy bolt casters were compared to regular ones, then any Bolearic troops making a move on the palace were likely to have a bad time.
As Val took in the vastly-changed interior of the palace, the duke's seneschal… presumably, the duchess's seneschal now… shuffled up to her, something between awe and panic in his eyes. "Miss Valkyrie? Where… we thought you were dead!"
Val had avoided reporting back to the palace upon her return from St. Sylvestine, where she'd discovered that she was destined to be the next queen of a unified Sudria. The Sleeping Queen, Friyja, had given Val a vision when she lifted the curse placed upon the last queen - and, with the dissolution of the curse, the Regency Council's reign was rendered metaphysically illegitimate and only Val could claim the throne. So the theory went. Getting people to believe it was an altogether different matter. Getting all of this across to the ducal family, though, might be especially difficult.
The seneschal waited expectantly for a response.
"I'm not dead," Val said. "Nobody came looking for me, so I assumed nobody was interested."
"The duchess was quite distraught… though, obviously, the duke's death hit a bit harder. I'm sure she'd like to see you… follow me."
"What about me?" Galvan asked.
"I'll have a footman show you to the drawing room for tea and refreshments. Miss Valkyrie, if you'd follow me?"
The seneschal brought Val back to the exact same room in the ducal suites, airy and polished, where she'd met Ansibald and Mrs. Eatherfine her first time in the palace. Only now, it was Mrs. Eatherfine and Aleida, her daughter and now the duchess. Duchess Aleida was one or two years older than Val, a petite girl with golden hair and coal-dark eyes. Val's only real interaction with her had been on the night when she and Niko had thwarted an attempt on Aleida's life and subsequently been released from jail on her recognizance. But, apparently, Val had made a good impression.
"Val! I was so pleased to learn that you were alive!" She traipsed forward and wrapped Val in a gentle, perfumed hug. The two girls were almost equal in height, though the duchess certainly came across as a lady, whereas Val was more… common, Mrs. Eatherfine would have said. Perhaps the duchess still needed a bit of finishing, too, though.
"You must wait for your subjects to curtsy before informalities, my dear," Mrs. Eatherfine said, and she shot Val a wary look.
"I will not, mother. In public, of course, but I will not be stilted and stuffy around my friends."
If Aleida considered Val to be a friend, then she must not have many friends. Val felt a bit sorry for her - Val had loads of friends, albeit not as many as Galvan. But, at the very least, she and the duchess were friendly, which was a lot better than the alternative. Maybe they could be friends? When Aleida returned to her seat, Val saw herself to a chair and considered how to broach the subject at hand…
"I assume you've come to explain yourself?" Mrs. Eatherfine said. She did not look amused. The jewels and gemstones that festooned her gown glittered in the light, but her deep blue eyes were dead-set on Val.
"Explain myself for what?"
"Your dereliction of duty, girl. As the duke's standard, when you survived the battle… if you were even in the battle, it was your duty to report yourself to the nearest post as you retreated. Instead you… what… took off to parts unknown? We spoke with your adoptive parents three days after the battle, when most of the survivors returned, and they were beside themselves, certain you'd died. Were they lying?"
They hadn't been lying. Between the news of the duke's defeat and the arrival of the surviving soldiers, two days had passed, during which Ginn and Ette had been worried sick about Val. Then, when she didn't return with the survivors of the duke's regiment, they assumed she'd been captured or killed, which made them even more stricken. The understanding was that there had been very few live captives. That must have been when Mrs. Eatherfine had spoken with them, because Val's letter arrived the next day and the Vinzennos went from grief-stricken to quite worried but also annoyed. When she'd finally returned a week later, though, with Niko, Pudge, and Levin, they didn't punish her at all. Ginn just pulled her into a big, bosomy Uddy-style hug and cried and made Val promise never to do anything like that again.
As far as Val had been concerned, it would be hard to break that promise. She didn't think she'd be venturing deep into enemy territory to break an ancient curse again. That was a sort of a once-in-a-lifetime event. Though, if Ginn was expecting a more liberal interpretation of that promise, Val was probably breaking it right now. She hoped she wasn't worrying her mom too badly, but she wasn't sorry she'd come.
She started to explain exactly why she'd come - and it wasn't to apologize - when Barron Zollen arrived, bowing to the duchess and her mom and then grinning when he spotted Val. "You're even scrappier than I'd have given you credit for," he said. "When did you turn up?"
"Just now, baron," Mrs. Eatherfine said. "I was explaining to Val the gravity of dereliction of duty…"
"A very serious offense, indeed, my lady. Who's being charged with dereliction?"
"Nobody… yet…" her eyes were still upon Val.
The baron stroked his beard and tapped his fingers against the table, visibly pondering Val's situation. "Fortunately, I don't think young Val's detractors have a leg to stand on if they want to pin charges on her. She was never granted a military rank, nor any title beyond 'standard bearer', which is unofficial. If I recall, you were very clear that Val was not to be considered a squire, which is the part of being a standard that actually bears rank and responsibility. Though your grace would be within her rights to request the return of equipment if Val is no longer fulfilling the role. I'd be happy to bankroll the expense for any items that cannot be recovered, as Val and her battle-mages are the reason that as many of the cavalry made it out as did. Without those magical shields, we'd have all been skewered."
"Noted."
Instead of charging Val for the loss of property, the dowager duchess proposed that she swear herself to Duchess Aleida just as she had sworn herself to Ansibald, emphasizing that the duchess would not be going on any military campaigns and that Val could dress in a nice gown and be more like a companion to her daughter for most of the events that they did, aside from the whole announcing her name and titles at the beginning bit.
Honestly, it sounded exciting, and most girls would have given an arm and a leg to be friends with Aleida. But Aleida had already said they were friends, so Val didn't have to do anything to win her friendship. No, she needed to find where Niko and Ette were and get them safely to Port Rumm before she considered hobnobbing with the young duchess.
"I didn't come here to do a favor, my lady. I came here to bring my dad and my friends back to Port Rumm. After I've found him, I'd be happy to come back and help however I can."
Mrs. Eatherfine didn't seem too pleased by that, but she kept her cool - Val didn't think she'd ever seen Mrs. Eatherfine visibly emote much of anything. She wondered how she'd been when she discovered what had befallen Ansibald, her only son. Had she even cried? "Very well, Val… why don't we come up with a contract along those lines? While some of us feel that a firm handshake will suffice…" she glanced to Baron Zollen… "I like to keep all of my arrangements in writing. That way, nobody can say that good faith hasn't been served."
That sounded just fine to Val, so the duchess brought her notary in - one who'd already had something prepared that only needed a few amendments. Now, it was Val, the duchess and Mrs. Eatherfine, Baron Zollen, the notary, and the two guards by the door… it was getting to be a regular conference.
Val wondered if she was making a big mistake, remembering the things Uncle Wuldie had told her about the ins and outs of magical contracts and how binding they were. If you didn't follow the strictures of the contract, then the aggrieved party could place a magical compulsion over you that would force you to fulfill at least part of the contract's terms. Usually, this was because one of the signatories hadn't understood the implications of the contract and wanted to back out. Therefore, Val paid very careful attention to what, exactly, she was signing.
The ran her finger along the fine parchment, admiring the expert penmanship the notary had employed. She tried to imagine what Wuldie would advise if he was serving as her counsel. Something that would make clear how little she understood about contracts while somehow not making her feel stupid, probably.
"I can't sign this," Val said eventually.
"Why ever not, Val?"
Val explained to them what she'd done under St. Sylvestine with her friends and how her vision had told her that she was the rightful queen to Sudria. Therefore, she couldn't sign a contract that proclaimed Duchess Aleida to be the rightful queen, since she believed it to be false. You couldn't sign a contract with clauses you believed to be untruthful - of that, she was quite clear.
Mrs. Eatherfine laughed at her, her jewelry jingling and clattering as she did. "Child, what possible claim could you have over Sudria? Where are your armies? Who calls you majesty?"
Val didn't care to be laughed at. She pushed the contract aside. "What right has anybody got to be queen? Aurilicht has been independent for what? Two centuries? And in that time, not one of your grace's forebears thought to declare it a kingdom? Now you've got half a duchy, and pretty soon, you might not have even that. And yet you think it important that a common girl proclaim your daughter… whom I consider a friend… to be queen of the people who are a thousand yards away from conquering her? Please, your grace. Taking advantage of a child is beneath you."
Everybody just looked at Val, astonished. Even she wasn't quite sure where that rant had come from… but it was well-deserved. Mrs. Eatherfine had been taking advantage of her for a while, and she knew it, and now Val realized it, too. The dowager duchess had made an uncharacteristic error when she had Val promise to proclaim Ansibald and not any heir of House Wuhricht, and now she was free of that contract and wasn't about to commit herself to another.
"This is treason, child," Mrs. Eatherfine said levelly. Val guessed her dreadfully-neutral expression was what she looked like angry.
Val turned to Aleida, who seemed concerned and a bit bewildered but not angry. She chewed at her lip, her deep, brown eyes looking to her mother to deal with things. But when Val turned to her, she met Val's gaze, uncertainty playing across her brow.
"It's not treason," Val said. "Aleida is the rightful duchess of Aurilicht, and as soon as I've made sure my family is safe, I'll get back to making sure she stays duchess."
Val flipped the contract parchment over and wrote on the back:
I recognize my friend, Aleida Eatherfine of House Wuhricht, as the true and rightful Duchess of Aurilicht and will do everything I can to keep Boleares and the Pale Order from conquering her realm.
Valkyrie Valicent-Vinzenno
"What is this?" Mrs. Eatherfine huffed.
"My lady," the notary said softly, "that is a legally-binding declaration on good contract parchment."
"It's true whether I’m a queen or an orphan, and I've asked for nothing in return," Val said softly, turning contrite eyes toward Aleida. "But I hope you can help me find my family?"
Aleida's smile was almost amusingly heartfelt. "We're friends," she said definitively, taking the parchment and reading it over several times. "Of course we'll help. Baron Zollen, do you know where Val's family are?"
The baron nodded. "I've got a pretty good notion, your grace."
+++++
When the Righteous Army came into town, it was after defeating the Ducal 3rd Regiment in the field. Both sides had been severely depleted in the battle, though the Bolearic forces had secured a victory by forcing a retreat. The retreating forces and the defensive militia skirmished with the invading army for most of the day before ending things in a stalemate at nightfall, with the defenders retaining the walled inner city and the invaders occupying the larger, sparser outer city. That had been four days ago.
With reinforcements from the ducal guard, the defenders had kept the inner city while making sorties beyond the walls to harass the enemy. However, the Righteous Army had managed to breach the city wall with an alchemical explosion and the defenders had been forced to retreat into the palace and across the river, destroying the major bridges and leaving the ducal palace as the only thoroughfare across the River Imber, which spanned a few hundred yards and was reasonably deep.
That had been two days ago. Ette and Sabine had been leading the civilian defenses, most of whom had since been captured or killed. However, there were still a handful of defenders in the east city sneak-attacking and sabotaging the advance of the Righteous Army.
The duchess's forces were getting reinforced from the west and building up along the western bank. Meanwhile, the Bolearic forces were waiting for their own reinforcements. They'd nearly lost the eastern city when they tried to take one of the two small forts that had guarded now-destroyed bridges. On the verge of losing the fort, the defenders had detonated the alchemical stores in the fortress, killing hundreds of attackers and leaving the fortress a smoldering ruin. But now a host of some five thousand soldiers was marching into the city with a complement of siege weaponry. Fortunately, somebody had managed to sabotage a pair of trebuchets near the gate to the inner city and nothing big could be moved in until they were either repaired or demolished. The Righteous Army, stubborn as it was, seemed insistent on the former, even though it would take longer to accomplish.
Val relayed all of this to Galvan as they met up in the palace drawing room. Having heard accounts of the fighting, Val felt guilty about having tea while sitting on a plush cushion, but they'd been traveling for days and deserved it.
Galvan steeled his expression. "So… you're saying dad's been captured or killed…"
"No, I’m saying I think he and Sabine sabotaged the trebuchets. Probably with the help of a mage. That means they're hiding somewhere near the eastern wall. Maybe in the eastern wall."
Waving the duchess's guarantee of access for everybody to see, Val proceeded to the palace archives, where she and Galvan looked up the plans for the defensive wall. The north fort - the one that hadn't been reduced to rubble - had passages beneath it that reached half-way to the palace. It wasn't clear where those passages accessed the surface (if at all), but some of them accessed awfully near…
Val giggled. "I think they're holed up at Sabine's." Because, of course Sabine had secret escape tunnels. She'd been Ette's mentor, after all.
Their next problem was figuring out how to get to Sabine's, which was just inside the east bank's inner city. That was well within the Righteous Army's territory and probably a quarter mile from the defensive wall just beyond the palace steps.
Val led Garvan through the fortress at the base of the palace. Unlike the airy, open ducal palace built upon it, the fortress was sturdy and ancient. Stone corridors curved around it in concentric circles with little alcoves and connecting passageways every twenty feet. The whole place could be defended in sections and, if the ducal guards destroyed the soaring marble steps leading up to the palace, it would be easier to just destroy the building outright than to try to take it through the fortress.
There was ancient magic there, too, some of which Val was fairly certain that nobody knew anymore. And, now that she knew what to feel for, there was the faint pulse of natural magic welling up from down below. Val looked over her shoulder, expecting to find Violet stalking behind them in the corridor, but there was only Galvan. Violet was still safe back in Port Rumm.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked Galvan.
"Yes," he said flatly. "I knew it would be dangerous."
"Fair enough. We'll exit out on the riverbank near the base of the palace. I'll make us some disguises before we go into the city and, if we're lucky, nobody will try to stop us. If they do, we'll make a run for it."
"Disguises?"
"Magical disguises. I can requisition some mail with this…" she waved their guarantee of access… "and then make it look just like the suits the penitent brothers wear. We'll fit right in."
"Aren't you a little small to be a penitent brother?"
Val rolled her eyes. "I'll be your squire if that would make you happy."
Galvan nodded. "Fetch my armor, young Val, for soon we ride to face the enemy!"
Val bowed dramatically. "At once, milud."
OvidLemma
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-Ovid
Chapter Thirty-Five: Siblings to the Rescue!
Val thought she was sly, creeping through the Uddy household, leaving her note to Ginn on the table, and then sneaking out the window rather than the front door, where somebody might hear the latch click. She made it half-way to the stables, the streets strangely quiet, before she realized she was being followed.
Her pursuer wasn't being particularly discreet, either. She heard the tap-tap-tap of his sturdy leather boots as he jogged along the paving stones, easing to a stop when he was about two paces away. For a moment, the two of them stood in the moonslight, the sounds of distant revelry and horse hooves echoing up from the port district to the north.
"I'm coming, too," Galvan said.
Val scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to rescue dad… you'd only be in the way."
"I wouldn't. I can fight, too, you know. And I'm his actual blood… I deserve to go…"
"And mom and dad chose me out of every orphan in Wayfair they could have adopted."
Galvan scoffed. "It's not a competition."
"I know."
"You're not better than me just because you're Gifted."
"Never said I was. You're ten times the artist I am. I mean… I love the jacket you made."
"I know," Galvan said. "Thanks. So… are we going?"
"Yeah. Come on."
Of course, Val hadn't considered that the stables might be closed for the night… they were usually open around the palace in Verdenlecht, but maybe that was just a perk of nobility. Val climbed the fence without too much difficulty, unlocking it from the inside for Galvan, and they tracked down their horses by magic lamp. Fortunately, Tulip and Gallant (Galvan's horse) were stabled near one another and had a good enough rapport that they took being led out with aplomb. Tulip got an apple (because she was a good horse) and then Galvan led the horses out while Val left a tip and a note for the stable groom and locked everything back up behind them. Val had to admit - it would have been a lot harder to do by herself.
"We could have just stolen two horses," Galvan observed.
"Yeah," Val said. "I wonder why that doesn't happen all the time? Aside from the fact that we have very good horses."
Tulip nattered and pranced for a few trots, because she knew that phrase well enough. Val sometimes thought her horse understood regular speech almost as much as horse whispering, but that was probably overstating things. Only familiars seemed to have anything close to a human range of speech. Tulip's natters and grunts were mostly restricted to, Tulip knows, Tulip likes, Tulip is a good horse, and so on. An experienced handler could get almost as much without a magical understanding of animals.
They trotted off into the night, through the quiet streets, both of them looking over their shoulders as if Ginn might come rushing down the avenue at any moment and forbid that they continue their harebrained mission. As if a constable might wave them over and ask them what they were doing, two kids riding out of the city in the middle of the night. But they rode right past the city limits, clopping along at an easy pace under the moonslight, a pleasant breeze at their backs and cicadas calling out in the trees.
Val felt guilty for finding it beautiful, but she couldn't help it. Something in her heart felt at peace, and she and Galvan continued wordlessly, the Rumm flowing along to the one side, sliding along to the sea as it had for millions of years. To the other side lay acre upon acre of rice paddy rustling in the night breeze. She didn't understand how people could be so cruel and petty, how they could kill one another for such stupid reasons, and part of her wondered whether there was some secret combination of words she could say that would get the fanatics of the Pale Order to lay down their arms and let everybody live in peace for once. She wondered it all the way until a pair of highway robbers tried to take their things.
"Awfully late for children to be up, isn't it?" the woman said.
"It is," the man said. "Though, for a high mark, I would be charitably inclined to show you two safely for the town five miles yon."
Both had small bolt-casters, which they trained upon Val and Galvan. Val laughed at them, because she'd once blocked twenty heavy, alchemically-enhanced bolts in the din of battle and two piddling casters didn't mean much if you were going to give her time to deal with them. The robbers didn't care to be mocked and advanced on the two of them, walking right into Val's invisible magical net, which she then folded over and pushed into the ground, leaving them thrashing and helpless.
"I can hold that for about fifteen seconds," Val said, shaping her spirit to entrap the struggling highwaymen.
Galvan hopped off Gallant, dashed to the robbers, threw their weapons to the side, and snatched the man's change pouch before mounting up and galloping away with Val close behind, both of them laughing uproariously. They slowed when it was clear enough that they weren't being followed.
"What did we get?" Val asked.
"A so-so bolt-caster and, oh… four low and some change?"
"I'll take two and the change if you want to keep the caster."
"Deal."
And that, Val realized, was why you couldn't just talk things out. The people who thought they were entitled to your life fouled things up for everybody else. And the Pale Order were the worst of the lot, with their Pale God assuming control of your life all the way into the hereafter.
+++++
They didn't encounter any more trouble in the four days it took them to get to Verdenlecht, though that was probably because they did encounter soldiers marching through. Groups of local militia were busy at work shoring up the defenses of local towns, adding palisades and ditches in front of town walls and adding the wooden scaffolding of scouting towers to existing structures.
Every town and village had posters for conscription, calling upon every able-bodied adult to volunteer and setting quotas for each settlement based on census counts. The duchess wanted fully ten percent of the adult population mobilized and trained well enough to be skirmishers and another fifteen percent ready for local defense. Val wasn't clear on what the other three-quarters would be doing, should the Bolearic forces march into town with ill intent. Dawdle around and muse about the weather?
Partly, it was because, some folks were old or infirm. But it was also assumed that women would stay home and protect their children while the men were out fighting in the streets. While women weren't actively discouraged from joining up in the way they were in Boleares, it still wasn't expected. Perhaps one in five of the soldiers they passed, marching eastward in formation, was a woman. Sometimes, they had their own squads and, in Val's opinion, usually looked the toughest of the lot. Fifteen miles outside of the city, they passed a troop of mostly-women soldiers taking a meal by the side of the road.
"Any news from Verdenlecht?" Garvan called down, worry in his voice.
"The Righteous Army tried to take it but didn't make it across the river. We're being sent in to kick their arses back to Wayfair," a sergeant replied. Her comrades cheered, but Val could hear the edge in their voices, too.
"Righteous Army?" she asked.
The sergeant nodded. She was close to Ginn's age, gray starting to turn up in her ruddy hair, with enough little nicks and scars to suggest she'd been a fighter long before the current war. "That's what the Pale Order are calling their share of the enemy forces. A bloody pain in the arse, too, given that a quarter of our people follow the church. People have second thoughts putting the sword to their own holy men. It's a right mess, and I'd recommend that the two of you turn right around and head somewhere safe."
"Our pa is in Verdenlecht helping with the defenses and we mean to help him," Val said.
"Is that so? You should probably leave that to the professionals," the sergeant said. Her expression hovered between worry and amusement.
"We are the professionals," Val replied.
The sergeant took in their hardened leather and the weapons they carried, all of which had clearly seen use. "In that case, carry on, sister soldier…"
Val didn't correct the sergeant that she was clearly a battle-witch and not a soldier. It was the sort of things you told family and friends but that strangers could be a bit touchy about. Especially the ones for whom a witch was somebody to be locked in a cage or burned at the stake rather than admired.
When they entered the city, strangely enough, it wasn't too different from business as usual. There were more guards at the gate than you might expect, but they checked Val's and Garvan's papers, informed them that the eastern half of the city wasn't safe on account of the Righteous Army occupying it, and wished them luck in their affairs. People still went about their days, plying trades and patronizing shops, but there was a palpable tension to it. They knew that either the occupying army would be driven out or they would take the rest of the city - and, if they did, the eastern half of the duchy would collapse with the west likely to follow.
The air smelled faintly of acrid smoke, of buildings burning, but the western half of the city was as pristine as ever, the cobblestones scrubbed, the bricks white-washed, the roofs slated and gleaming bluish-gray in the summer sun. As they continued eastward, they saw more soldiers, saw whole companies of troops erecting defenses and distributing supplies. Every fourth or fifth marksman had a suspiciously oversized bolt-caster similar to the ones the Bolearic forces had employed in their victory at Cafernine Valley. That was good - at least the army was trying to even the odds.
"This road's off limits, kids - defensive forces only," a soldier on the other side of the barricade said.
"We think my father is somewhere on the eastern bank," Galvan said.
"Our father," Val corrected. Though it seemed wrong to call Ette father. He was her dad now, which was somehow different. So maybe Ette was Galvan's father but Val's dad, but she suspected that nuance of language was mostly in her head.
"I'm sure he wouldn't want to see you put in harm's way," the soldier said. "No civilians get through without a letter from the duchess."
"Okay," Val said. "I'll go get one."
+++++
Val and Galvan headed toward the palace, which was also under heavy guard, but which Val was able to bypass because some of the guards still recognized her from her time as the duke's standard bearer, as well as from Mrs. Eatherfine's doomed attempts to make a proper lady out of Val. It wasn't that Val couldn't act like the preening, satin-gowned daughter of a stuffy noble. She just didn't want to and couldn't understand why anybody would want to, unless it was to feel better than people who didn't bother with maidservants, doilies, or the absurd nuances of 'proper' Arleng grammar.
With Galvan close behind (and looking more than a little intimidated, as he'd never been in the palace before), Val strode into the great entry hall, which normally bustled with the bureaucracy of ducal government. Functionaries still scurried to and fro, but they did so along tightly-regulated channels. At least sixty or seventy ducal guards and their defensive perimeters occupied the rest of the space. The great stained glass windows on the eastern wall had been partially removed to allow for alchemical bolt-casters the size of small horses to be pointed out at the city beyond the river. If they were as much more powerful as heavy bolt casters were compared to regular ones, then any Bolearic troops making a move on the palace were likely to have a bad time.
As Val took in the vastly-changed interior of the palace, the duke's seneschal… presumably, the duchess's seneschal now… shuffled up to her, something between awe and panic in his eyes. "Miss Valkyrie? Where… we thought you were dead!"
Val had avoided reporting back to the palace upon her return from St. Sylvestine, where she'd discovered that she was destined to be the next queen of a unified Sudria. The Sleeping Queen, Friyja, had given Val a vision when she lifted the curse placed upon the last queen - and, with the dissolution of the curse, the Regency Council's reign was rendered metaphysically illegitimate and only Val could claim the throne. So the theory went. Getting people to believe it was an altogether different matter. Getting all of this across to the ducal family, though, might be especially difficult.
The seneschal waited expectantly for a response.
"I'm not dead," Val said. "Nobody came looking for me, so I assumed nobody was interested."
"The duchess was quite distraught… though, obviously, the duke's death hit a bit harder. I'm sure she'd like to see you… follow me."
"What about me?" Galvan asked.
"I'll have a footman show you to the drawing room for tea and refreshments. Miss Valkyrie, if you'd follow me?"
The seneschal brought Val back to the exact same room in the ducal suites, airy and polished, where she'd met Ansibald and Mrs. Eatherfine her first time in the palace. Only now, it was Mrs. Eatherfine and Aleida, her daughter and now the duchess. Duchess Aleida was one or two years older than Val, a petite girl with golden hair and coal-dark eyes. Val's only real interaction with her had been on the night when she and Niko had thwarted an attempt on Aleida's life and subsequently been released from jail on her recognizance. But, apparently, Val had made a good impression.
"Val! I was so pleased to learn that you were alive!" She traipsed forward and wrapped Val in a gentle, perfumed hug. The two girls were almost equal in height, though the duchess certainly came across as a lady, whereas Val was more… common, Mrs. Eatherfine would have said. Perhaps the duchess still needed a bit of finishing, too, though.
"You must wait for your subjects to curtsy before informalities, my dear," Mrs. Eatherfine said, and she shot Val a wary look.
"I will not, mother. In public, of course, but I will not be stilted and stuffy around my friends."
If Aleida considered Val to be a friend, then she must not have many friends. Val felt a bit sorry for her - Val had loads of friends, albeit not as many as Galvan. But, at the very least, she and the duchess were friendly, which was a lot better than the alternative. Maybe they could be friends? When Aleida returned to her seat, Val saw herself to a chair and considered how to broach the subject at hand…
"I assume you've come to explain yourself?" Mrs. Eatherfine said. She did not look amused. The jewels and gemstones that festooned her gown glittered in the light, but her deep blue eyes were dead-set on Val.
"Explain myself for what?"
"Your dereliction of duty, girl. As the duke's standard, when you survived the battle… if you were even in the battle, it was your duty to report yourself to the nearest post as you retreated. Instead you… what… took off to parts unknown? We spoke with your adoptive parents three days after the battle, when most of the survivors returned, and they were beside themselves, certain you'd died. Were they lying?"
They hadn't been lying. Between the news of the duke's defeat and the arrival of the surviving soldiers, two days had passed, during which Ginn and Ette had been worried sick about Val. Then, when she didn't return with the survivors of the duke's regiment, they assumed she'd been captured or killed, which made them even more stricken. The understanding was that there had been very few live captives. That must have been when Mrs. Eatherfine had spoken with them, because Val's letter arrived the next day and the Vinzennos went from grief-stricken to quite worried but also annoyed. When she'd finally returned a week later, though, with Niko, Pudge, and Levin, they didn't punish her at all. Ginn just pulled her into a big, bosomy Uddy-style hug and cried and made Val promise never to do anything like that again.
As far as Val had been concerned, it would be hard to break that promise. She didn't think she'd be venturing deep into enemy territory to break an ancient curse again. That was a sort of a once-in-a-lifetime event. Though, if Ginn was expecting a more liberal interpretation of that promise, Val was probably breaking it right now. She hoped she wasn't worrying her mom too badly, but she wasn't sorry she'd come.
She started to explain exactly why she'd come - and it wasn't to apologize - when Barron Zollen arrived, bowing to the duchess and her mom and then grinning when he spotted Val. "You're even scrappier than I'd have given you credit for," he said. "When did you turn up?"
"Just now, baron," Mrs. Eatherfine said. "I was explaining to Val the gravity of dereliction of duty…"
"A very serious offense, indeed, my lady. Who's being charged with dereliction?"
"Nobody… yet…" her eyes were still upon Val.
The baron stroked his beard and tapped his fingers against the table, visibly pondering Val's situation. "Fortunately, I don't think young Val's detractors have a leg to stand on if they want to pin charges on her. She was never granted a military rank, nor any title beyond 'standard bearer', which is unofficial. If I recall, you were very clear that Val was not to be considered a squire, which is the part of being a standard that actually bears rank and responsibility. Though your grace would be within her rights to request the return of equipment if Val is no longer fulfilling the role. I'd be happy to bankroll the expense for any items that cannot be recovered, as Val and her battle-mages are the reason that as many of the cavalry made it out as did. Without those magical shields, we'd have all been skewered."
"Noted."
Instead of charging Val for the loss of property, the dowager duchess proposed that she swear herself to Duchess Aleida just as she had sworn herself to Ansibald, emphasizing that the duchess would not be going on any military campaigns and that Val could dress in a nice gown and be more like a companion to her daughter for most of the events that they did, aside from the whole announcing her name and titles at the beginning bit.
Honestly, it sounded exciting, and most girls would have given an arm and a leg to be friends with Aleida. But Aleida had already said they were friends, so Val didn't have to do anything to win her friendship. No, she needed to find where Niko and Ette were and get them safely to Port Rumm before she considered hobnobbing with the young duchess.
"I didn't come here to do a favor, my lady. I came here to bring my dad and my friends back to Port Rumm. After I've found him, I'd be happy to come back and help however I can."
Mrs. Eatherfine didn't seem too pleased by that, but she kept her cool - Val didn't think she'd ever seen Mrs. Eatherfine visibly emote much of anything. She wondered how she'd been when she discovered what had befallen Ansibald, her only son. Had she even cried? "Very well, Val… why don't we come up with a contract along those lines? While some of us feel that a firm handshake will suffice…" she glanced to Baron Zollen… "I like to keep all of my arrangements in writing. That way, nobody can say that good faith hasn't been served."
That sounded just fine to Val, so the duchess brought her notary in - one who'd already had something prepared that only needed a few amendments. Now, it was Val, the duchess and Mrs. Eatherfine, Baron Zollen, the notary, and the two guards by the door… it was getting to be a regular conference.
Val wondered if she was making a big mistake, remembering the things Uncle Wuldie had told her about the ins and outs of magical contracts and how binding they were. If you didn't follow the strictures of the contract, then the aggrieved party could place a magical compulsion over you that would force you to fulfill at least part of the contract's terms. Usually, this was because one of the signatories hadn't understood the implications of the contract and wanted to back out. Therefore, Val paid very careful attention to what, exactly, she was signing.
The ran her finger along the fine parchment, admiring the expert penmanship the notary had employed. She tried to imagine what Wuldie would advise if he was serving as her counsel. Something that would make clear how little she understood about contracts while somehow not making her feel stupid, probably.
"I can't sign this," Val said eventually.
"Why ever not, Val?"
Val explained to them what she'd done under St. Sylvestine with her friends and how her vision had told her that she was the rightful queen to Sudria. Therefore, she couldn't sign a contract that proclaimed Duchess Aleida to be the rightful queen, since she believed it to be false. You couldn't sign a contract with clauses you believed to be untruthful - of that, she was quite clear.
Mrs. Eatherfine laughed at her, her jewelry jingling and clattering as she did. "Child, what possible claim could you have over Sudria? Where are your armies? Who calls you majesty?"
Val didn't care to be laughed at. She pushed the contract aside. "What right has anybody got to be queen? Aurilicht has been independent for what? Two centuries? And in that time, not one of your grace's forebears thought to declare it a kingdom? Now you've got half a duchy, and pretty soon, you might not have even that. And yet you think it important that a common girl proclaim your daughter… whom I consider a friend… to be queen of the people who are a thousand yards away from conquering her? Please, your grace. Taking advantage of a child is beneath you."
Everybody just looked at Val, astonished. Even she wasn't quite sure where that rant had come from… but it was well-deserved. Mrs. Eatherfine had been taking advantage of her for a while, and she knew it, and now Val realized it, too. The dowager duchess had made an uncharacteristic error when she had Val promise to proclaim Ansibald and not any heir of House Wuhricht, and now she was free of that contract and wasn't about to commit herself to another.
"This is treason, child," Mrs. Eatherfine said levelly. Val guessed her dreadfully-neutral expression was what she looked like angry.
Val turned to Aleida, who seemed concerned and a bit bewildered but not angry. She chewed at her lip, her deep, brown eyes looking to her mother to deal with things. But when Val turned to her, she met Val's gaze, uncertainty playing across her brow.
"It's not treason," Val said. "Aleida is the rightful duchess of Aurilicht, and as soon as I've made sure my family is safe, I'll get back to making sure she stays duchess."
Val flipped the contract parchment over and wrote on the back:
I recognize my friend, Aleida Eatherfine of House Wuhricht, as the true and rightful Duchess of Aurilicht and will do everything I can to keep Boleares and the Pale Order from conquering her realm.
Valkyrie Valicent-Vinzenno
"What is this?" Mrs. Eatherfine huffed.
"My lady," the notary said softly, "that is a legally-binding declaration on good contract parchment."
"It's true whether I’m a queen or an orphan, and I've asked for nothing in return," Val said softly, turning contrite eyes toward Aleida. "But I hope you can help me find my family?"
Aleida's smile was almost amusingly heartfelt. "We're friends," she said definitively, taking the parchment and reading it over several times. "Of course we'll help. Baron Zollen, do you know where Val's family are?"
The baron nodded. "I've got a pretty good notion, your grace."
+++++
When the Righteous Army came into town, it was after defeating the Ducal 3rd Regiment in the field. Both sides had been severely depleted in the battle, though the Bolearic forces had secured a victory by forcing a retreat. The retreating forces and the defensive militia skirmished with the invading army for most of the day before ending things in a stalemate at nightfall, with the defenders retaining the walled inner city and the invaders occupying the larger, sparser outer city. That had been four days ago.
With reinforcements from the ducal guard, the defenders had kept the inner city while making sorties beyond the walls to harass the enemy. However, the Righteous Army had managed to breach the city wall with an alchemical explosion and the defenders had been forced to retreat into the palace and across the river, destroying the major bridges and leaving the ducal palace as the only thoroughfare across the River Imber, which spanned a few hundred yards and was reasonably deep.
That had been two days ago. Ette and Sabine had been leading the civilian defenses, most of whom had since been captured or killed. However, there were still a handful of defenders in the east city sneak-attacking and sabotaging the advance of the Righteous Army.
The duchess's forces were getting reinforced from the west and building up along the western bank. Meanwhile, the Bolearic forces were waiting for their own reinforcements. They'd nearly lost the eastern city when they tried to take one of the two small forts that had guarded now-destroyed bridges. On the verge of losing the fort, the defenders had detonated the alchemical stores in the fortress, killing hundreds of attackers and leaving the fortress a smoldering ruin. But now a host of some five thousand soldiers was marching into the city with a complement of siege weaponry. Fortunately, somebody had managed to sabotage a pair of trebuchets near the gate to the inner city and nothing big could be moved in until they were either repaired or demolished. The Righteous Army, stubborn as it was, seemed insistent on the former, even though it would take longer to accomplish.
Val relayed all of this to Galvan as they met up in the palace drawing room. Having heard accounts of the fighting, Val felt guilty about having tea while sitting on a plush cushion, but they'd been traveling for days and deserved it.
Galvan steeled his expression. "So… you're saying dad's been captured or killed…"
"No, I’m saying I think he and Sabine sabotaged the trebuchets. Probably with the help of a mage. That means they're hiding somewhere near the eastern wall. Maybe in the eastern wall."
Waving the duchess's guarantee of access for everybody to see, Val proceeded to the palace archives, where she and Galvan looked up the plans for the defensive wall. The north fort - the one that hadn't been reduced to rubble - had passages beneath it that reached half-way to the palace. It wasn't clear where those passages accessed the surface (if at all), but some of them accessed awfully near…
Val giggled. "I think they're holed up at Sabine's." Because, of course Sabine had secret escape tunnels. She'd been Ette's mentor, after all.
Their next problem was figuring out how to get to Sabine's, which was just inside the east bank's inner city. That was well within the Righteous Army's territory and probably a quarter mile from the defensive wall just beyond the palace steps.
Val led Garvan through the fortress at the base of the palace. Unlike the airy, open ducal palace built upon it, the fortress was sturdy and ancient. Stone corridors curved around it in concentric circles with little alcoves and connecting passageways every twenty feet. The whole place could be defended in sections and, if the ducal guards destroyed the soaring marble steps leading up to the palace, it would be easier to just destroy the building outright than to try to take it through the fortress.
There was ancient magic there, too, some of which Val was fairly certain that nobody knew anymore. And, now that she knew what to feel for, there was the faint pulse of natural magic welling up from down below. Val looked over her shoulder, expecting to find Violet stalking behind them in the corridor, but there was only Galvan. Violet was still safe back in Port Rumm.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked Galvan.
"Yes," he said flatly. "I knew it would be dangerous."
"Fair enough. We'll exit out on the riverbank near the base of the palace. I'll make us some disguises before we go into the city and, if we're lucky, nobody will try to stop us. If they do, we'll make a run for it."
"Disguises?"
"Magical disguises. I can requisition some mail with this…" she waved their guarantee of access… "and then make it look just like the suits the penitent brothers wear. We'll fit right in."
"Aren't you a little small to be a penitent brother?"
Val rolled her eyes. "I'll be your squire if that would make you happy."
Galvan nodded. "Fetch my armor, young Val, for soon we ride to face the enemy!"
Val bowed dramatically. "At once, milud."
OvidLemma
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