Two Kingdoms 55 - Strand

[DoctorM]

TWO KINGDOMS 55: STRAND

This is the fifty-fifth part of an AU construction about a Gwynedd where the duel at Kelson Haldane's coronation went very differently indeed. We are now a bit more than three years into the Gwynedd Wars-- Charissa's new kingdom at Valoret against the Haldanes in the south and the kingdom of Torenth in the east. This episode is set just after "Storm". As always, comments and suggestions are very much appreciated.

****

The beach is black sand, here on the southern edge of the Northarch Gulf. It's still summer, but there's a chill wind blowing in from the Northern Sea. The royal court has come out from Tolan-by-Sea for this, and the Shadow Queen and her court are scattered along the high ground above the beach.

Charissa is on the highest point of the rise, and there are Queen's Moors and Tolan Guard encircling her. There are Deryni wards set up around her, and they shimmer in the grey of the morning. Today the Queen is in a blue khilat, and she looks less gaunt and angular than usual. She's in a mail shirt under dark blue silk and fine cotton. The mail is her concession to Brennan de Colforth and Yusuf al-Fayturi. Charissa herself is largely indifferent to the idea of armour. She'll wear it so long as her guard commanders insist, but people have been coming to kill her more than half her life. There's nothing new in what's happened here.

She looks along the rise. The R'Kassan engineers in her service and dashing back and forth over the high ground and signaling to the crews on the reverse of the slope. There's a pair of small catapults set up there, and R'Kassan crews are unloading thick white earthenware containers from a sand-filled cart.

Down on the strand there are rows of poles set up, each with a heavy roll of hay bound round it. Those are Torenthi men-at-arms, all arrayed in blocks. Between the blocks there are cloth canopies supported by poles at their corners. Those are Torenthi tents and supply carts.

The chief engineer comes down the rise and two Queen's Moors walk him over to Charissa. The  engineer bows. "Shadow Lady," he says. "We'll be ready in a few moments. We're adjusting for the wind."

Charissa nods. "Make it happen," she says. "Dragon's spit is expensive. I want to see it work."

The engineer points out to the beach. "This is how we'll do it at Cardosa. We'll have bigger catapults there, and they'll be on platforms behind the city walls. But this should show you what it'll be like."

The Shadow Queen nods again. "I've never seen a siege," she says. "But I'll be expecting that everything goes well. We're going to hold Cardosa. Let's see what it looks like."

Down behind the rise the R'Kassans are loading jars into the catapult slings. Everyone not part of the engineers and their men is standing well away. Charissa can hear the sound of ropes creaking and wooden blocks being hammered under catapult wheels.

She likes the R'Kassans. The Raks have a look of cold professionalism that she admires. R'Kassi has been exporting mercenary archers and fine, high-spirited horses longer than anyone can remember, and in the last few decades the Raks have been exporting siege engineers as well. She's seen her father's men take towns before, but she's never seen a city under siege or watched siege engines on either side of a city wall. It's all new today, and she intends to know how it's going to work, keeping Wencit out of Cardosa.

The engineer officers are shouting orders in a mix of R'Kassan and eastern Moorish.  The Raks' Moorish isn't Darija, not the dialect used by western Moors like her own fedayin guards, but she's getting the sense of it.

She's relying on her Remembrancer to tell her more about R'Kassi. It's the sort of thing her husband is good at. She's always said that: anything that ever happened a thousand miles away and a thousand years ago is something Christian knows. Christian is a Falkenberg, and long, long ago the Falkenberg line had come out of R'Kassi or maybe Lorsöl to Torenth and Arjenol. Christian's family have served the House of Festil these last two hundred years and more, but Falkenberg is a R'Kassan name, and her husband's family have never bothered to change it to something western, something like Montfaucon.

The Raks were Moorish these days, or maybe half-Moorish. They're a mix of blond and black-haired, blue eyes and dark. Christian is dark-haired and dark-eyed, but maybe that's Arjenol blood and not Rak Moorish. Christian's story was that once upon a time there were tribes and clans that had come down from the northeast and settled on the desert edge. Then the Moors had come, the Moorish armies coming north in the great age of Moorish expansion. R'Kassi was the farthest point north the Moors had reached, and there had been Moorish ruling houses in place there ever since. The local tribes and local nobles hadn't gone away, though, and R'Kassan was still spoken, even if the royal court spoke some kind of eastern Moorish.

Everything about the desert kingdom was a liminal kind of thing, a frontier's-edge blending of bloodlines and faiths and languages. The ruling house was Moorish by faith, but from some kind of heretical sect among the Moors— though not the sect of her own fedayin. The R'Kassan royal house flew a flag with a winged horse, and what Moor would ever put a living creature on a standard? The old local houses were more-or-less Christian, but heretical by both Eastern and Western standards. There were small Jewish communities there as well, filling the spaces between two different heresies. Heresies, horses, archers, and siege engineers— all the sort of thing the Shadow Queen can understand.

Charissa looks around at her retinue. Her Tolan and Marluk commanders are watching the catapults and the beach with an uneasy fascination. Rizak and  a dozen of her own Moorish guards are looking with bemused suspicion at the R'Kassans. Her ladies and Kyri de Roiste are there on the beachside slope, and wine is being poured.

Christian, Aurelian, and Ratcliffe are maybe fifty yards down the rise, clustered together. She takes note of that. Aurelian is her Inquisitor of State, but Christian has taken over the investigation of the Hand of Camber attack. He's made himself head of punitive measures as well. Whatever those three are discussing, blood is about to be shed, and a lot of it. There's something cold and hard beginning to show itself in Christian, and she needs to think about that.

"Shadow Lady." That's the Rak chief engineer. The man bows. "We're ready," he says. "At your command."

Charissa looks down to the beach. "Master Engineer," she says, "launch at will."

The wind has fallen off, and the crowd along the rise can hear the sound of the catapult ropes straining to be let go, and then R'Kassan voices— Los! Sofort! Los!

The catapult arms swing up and each siege engine launches a jar up and out. It's all slower than you'd think, and it's not hard to keep your eye on the jars. There's something flickering just on one end of each jar as it soars. The soldiers in the Queen's retinue are already fixed on the spot in the air where the peak of the jars' trajectory will be. Courtiers are yelling excitedly all along the rise.

Just at the top of the flight curve the flickering around each jar pulses with pale fire. The jars crack and shatter, and suddenly the pieces are soaring free and there's a pale blue cloud expanding all around them. The cloud is becoming an azure mist, and there's heat shimmering around the threads of the blue.

Charissa darts a quick glance at the chief engineer. "Dragon's spit," he says. "This is what it does. Watch it burn."

The mist is a royal blue now, and its falling like rain on the spiked hay sheaves and the canopies. Whatever it touches shudders and flames begin to come up all along the black sands. The air is filled with a sizzling, spitting sound, and the pieces of the jars come down with flame around them. Whole rows of rolled hay are burning now, and there are patches of burning blue floating at the water's edge. Poles begin to collapse. The canopies are alight now, and  pieces of burning cloth are floating upward in the heated air..

Some of the courtiers are cheering. The Queen's captains are trying to estimate what this would look like with living targets. The Queen looks back to the engineers. "How much in the jars?"

"Not much. Five Torenthi gallons. But Your Grace can see what it would be like." The engineer sweeps a hand along the shoreline. "The blue kind spatters a lot. Like raindrops. We can calculate how much territory gets covered per gallon. It only takes a few drops in the air to set something— someone —on fire. And it just keeps burning. I'd hate to see it hit horses."

Charissa is watching the hay sheaves burn. There's smoke coming up now. "Not much drama," she says. "You'd think there'd be more noise."

The engineer shrugs. "There will be when those are living men," he says. "And horses. Lots of drama with real targets."

The Shadow Queen breathes out. "So there would be. Let's see it again, Master Engineer. Noch einmal."

****

Aurelian looks back from the beach to Christian. "So tell me," he says. "Are you imagining a few hundred Torenthi Royals burning in armour while they ride?"

"Damned right," Christian says. He points at where one of the canopies had been placed. "And I'm thinking about that being Wencit's royal tent."

"If we did it to Beldour," Aurelian says, "it would look like Rhemuth the night the Queen took power. I've never been to Beldour, but I'm imagining cathedrals and palaces all aflame. It would be beautiful at night, you know."

"Well, maybe not Beldour. We'd have to explain that to Lionel. I'll settle for Wencit burning in his tent. Or maybe spiked up and torched someplace next to Rhydon. Lionel would let us use a cathedral square, I think."

"My lord Inquisitor. My lord prince." That's Ratcliffe, gesturing toward a figure in barrister's black coming up the reverse slope to them. "Will the Cat has news".

Christian turns and nods. "Master Catesby. What's the council sending you for?"

Will the Cat sweeps off his cap and bows. He has a portfolio under one arm. He comes back up and looks from Ratcliffe to Aurelian to Christian. "Bodies," he says. "We have bodies."

Christian and Aurelian exchange glances. "Who and how many?" Christian asks. "Anyone we know?"

"Four bodies," Catesby says. He's a city barrister in Tolan-by-Sea, and he's the city council's fixer-in-chief.  He gestures at Ratcliffe. "Sir Richard and my lord Aurelian's man Darcek instructed the city council to look for anyone from the city who might be connected to the attack on Her Grace. We have bodies."

Christian is very still. There's nothing in his face at all. "I don't need bodies. I need information. Let's hope your people didn't kill them before we could get them to the Inquisitor here. Let's really hope that."

Will the Cat flinches. "No, my lord prince. We found them already dead. There were four of them. All of them worked at the palace— kitchen help, cleaners. Just casual labor, paid by the day. No families, no friends. They stopped coming to work the day after the attack. Sir Richard's people asked the council to find them in the city. This morning we found the bodies. All of them. Hidden in a building site on the street where two of them lived."

"The Hand of Camber people cleaning up loose ends." Christian is looking at Aurelian. "Bribe some day labor— have them leave a door unlocked or drop off something for breaking wards in a corner. Then cut their throats."

"My lord, no," Will the Cat says. "You don't understand. The bodies weren't fresh. They'd been there for days and days— certainly before the attack. But the men...the men were working in the palace kitchens the day of the attack. People saw them, people recognized them. We're sure of that."

Christian and Aurelian are looking at one another. Very, very quietly Christian says, "Effing bloody hell."

Catesby blinks. "My lord?"

Christian shakes his head. "Shut up. Don't say anything." He points at Aurelian. "Get al-Fayturi. Get him now. Get your Slayers. Tell Colforth, too. I'll tell the Queen. Lock down the palace. Al-Fayturi and Rizak— they'll know how to do this. You know what we have to do. Everyone in the palace, whether it's the kitchens or the royal wing. We look at every single person. Every single one. Put faces to bodies. Nobody says no."

"Can I tell my people to insist?"

"Whatever it takes, Break heads and drag barons down to the courtyards if you have to. Use steel if anyone resists." He draws in a breath. "My authority, my responsibility. As of right now, no one goes out of the palace, no one new goes in. Not 'til our people have looked at every single person there. And here."

"What about the Queen's own people? What about her ladies? Or even Lady Kyri?"

"Just...get them all together somewhere. I'll tell Charissa; she'll know that it needs to be done. Everybody gets looked at. Today, right now. How are you on techniques?"

"To do this? I've only read about it. I'll talk with Rizak, though. How about you?"

"Same. Something I've read about in old books by old adepts. Well, we'll learn on the run."

"My lord prince?" That's Will the Cat, looking confused and more than a little afraid. "My lord, there's one other thing."

Christian looks hard at him. "How much effing worse does this get?"

Catesby takes a breath. "My lord, Sir Richard instructed the council to keep a special eye on the port— to make sure nothing untoward was coming into the city by sea. A ship came in from Laas a day ago. The captain is on our payroll. He was hired to deliver something here. He says he doesn't know who the people paying were. He says they weren't smugglers, though. Very educated, he said. With good money, half up front."

Christian frowns. "What was he bringing? Don't tell me passengers."

"No, my lord. Just a package. He was bringing a book. It was your book."

"My book?" Christian stares at Will the Cat. "My book?"

"A book you'd written, my lord. About the first King Festil."

Behind Christian, Aurelian laughs. "Someone's been promoted up the target list."

Christian nods. "Know the book, know the man.  Well, damn it— someone's interested in who I am...and how my mind works. Effing hand-and-eye people, they're getting around to asking who I am and what I know. Suddenly I'm effing famous." He points at Catesby. "Has anyone come for the book?"

"No, my lord, " Will the Cat says. "The captain hasn't told anyone yet. He'll have to soon, though. The ship's in, people will know."

"Alright— get your sea captain to set up a meeting to get paid whatever he's still owed and deliver the book. And we'll be there— the Grey Death and I and a full team of Inquisition people. Ratcliffe, too." He taps his fingers on the hilt of his kinzhal. "If we get lucky, we'll have one of the hand-and-eye people, and he'll be having a long talk with Aurelian. And with me. Very, very much with me."

Christian looks down the path to where the Shadow Queen is surrounded by her captains. "Right now... Sir Richard, get your people in place at the palace. Use my horsemen if you need more men. Lock it all down. Aurelian and I are going to the Queen. I don't like saying this, but we have to take a look at everybody. You understand that? Everybody. We put faces to bodies until we know exactly who everybody really is. Do it now. Let's be sure everyone is who they're supposed to be. Anyone who isn't, I'll be talking to them myself."

[tmcd]

For techniques, wouldn't Truth Reading be enough?

Still amused / eye rolling at the Cat and the Rat. Did I overlook a Lovell or Dog?

[DoctorM]

Truth Reading may not be enough if you're dealing with adversaries who are doing shape-shifting. And it may not be a technique that every Deryni has mastered...especially against people with their own skills.

[Jerusha]

Oh dear.  This becomes more dangerous with each paragraph.  Perfect!

[DoctorM]

Thank you, Jerusha! It's a dangerous time there at Tolan-by-Sea, and it'll probably get more dangerous very quickly!