Chapter 14: Lessons Taught; Lessons Learned

The monastery loomed on the hill as Genrico assembled the troops. The army camped around Blue Harbor for several weeks had reported that church had several soldiers on retainer, although Genrico was unable to determine what the men protected the church from.

“We will send half the group around the hill and up the side,” Genrico explained. “The other half will approach from the rear.”

Joseph considered the plan for a moment and shook his head.

“No,” he declared. “I am the king. By law, every piece of property in the country belongs to me – regardless of what Wilhelm might have decided. I will walk up to the front door and demand that the priest comes out to meet with me.”

“And if they decide to fire arrows at you as you approach?” Julia asked, rolling her eyes.

“Then Jonathan and Elena will have the right to eradicate every practicing Serratian in the country,” Joseph answered with a shrug. “I will not slink about. Yes, we need to put men in the rear to guard against escape; yes, we need the tactical advantage of having a group on the flanks. But I will go straight forward to the church doors.”

Genrico closed his eyes and set his jaw.

“Very well, Your Highness,” he answered once his temper was in check. “I will accompany you.”

“As will I,” Jonathan stated firmly.

“And me,” Julia added.

“You two may come with me,” Joseph decided, pointing first at Genrico and then at Julia. “Jonathan, you must assume control of Azkoval if something should befall us. I need you to lead the attack on the flank.”

Jonathan was about to protest until he saw it would do no good. Knowing when to cut his losses, he nodded and moved over to the group that would head up the hill on the right. Joseph had instructed him to lead the group and he would be the first up the hill. He would, however, defer the military decisions to those better suited to make them.

“You are insane,” Julia hissed when she was alone with Joseph. Genrico had headed off to relay orders to the group that would come up behind the church.

“What does that say about you?” Joseph replied with a smile. “After all, it is my duty. You are doing this just to be spiteful.”

“Spiteful?” Julia asked angrily. “I do it so you will have someone with a bit of sense to protect you if the need arises. Genrico would follow you blindly into the abyss and so would Jonathan. That leaves me to be the voice of reason.”

Joseph laughed aloud at the thought.

“Yes, the young girl who once caught her pigtails on fire is to be the voice of reason,” he rejoined. “It will be fine, Julia. I would never permit you to accompany me if I thought there was any real danger.”

“Permit me?” Julia asked, her displeasure still evident. Joseph put his hands on her shoulders and kept them there despite her efforts to shrug them off.

“This is an army and I am the head of it,” Joseph said sternly. “You have elected to be a part of the army but you do not lead it. You do not give orders; you act on my orders. If I tell you to go the river and catch fish with your feet, I expect it to be done to the best of your ability. When we go forward, if I tell you to flee, you will follow my directives. If Genrico tells you to move, I will expect you to move. I trust you with my life, Julia. I want you to know that. But I cannot have you making decisions on your own while we are in battle. If I think you will hinder our efforts I will leave you behind – even if it means tying you to a post somewhere. Please tell me you understand that and you accept it.”

Joseph’s strong hands kept Julia from stalking away. She was left to look up into his eyes.

“I understand,” she finally said. “I apologize, Your Highness.”

“You need not apologize,” Joseph told her. His grip lessened but he kept his hands on her shoulders. “I understand who you are and I appreciate who you are. Most of the time, I do heed your counsel and most of the time I allow you to do as you will without comment. This is not one of those times. I do not believe we will see fighting this day but if we do I know you will stand beside me come what may. I will never question your courage or your integrity. You have proven both to me many times over. All I question is your discipline and in a battle that is just as important as bravery and fidelity.

“I have been there, Julia. I have, as they say, seen the ogre. We have been fortunate that the people we have faced have lacked the resources to put a real foe on the field with us. That will no longer be the case. It is evident that the merchants and the church have deep holds on the western edge and I must root them out. The merchants have money and the church has influence. I do not want something to happen to you because I have failed to tell you what needed to be done or you failed to act upon my decisions. That is all.”

He lifted a hand off her shoulder and ran a thumb across her jaw as he smiled at her. His smile widened when he tapped her on the nose with his index finger.

“I will follow your orders to the letter,” she declared as she reached up to capture his hand in hers. Joseph expected her to squeeze his fingers but instead she simply held it and ran her thumb along his palm. “You have my word – and you have my fidelity.”

Joseph gulped when he considered what had just transpired. He gave a quick nod and walked away, his mind not on the church at the top of the hill but on the young woman standing behind him at the bottom.

Choran looked sheepish as he entered Elena’s office.

“The dungeon is full,” he said.

“What?” Elena asked incredulously. “How is that possible?”

“You ordered Father Drell and his conspirators kept separate,” Choran explained. “We have the 30 men we captured with Drell, another 45 from this morning and 42 we brought in with the Serratians at the gate. I need your permission to move Drell and the merchants into cells with the others.”

Elena closed her eyes and sat back heavily on the wooden chair.

“I am a tyrant,” she said softly.

Choran tilted his head in inquisition.

“It is something my father always said,” she continued. “When the coffers and the dungeons are full, you know you are dealing with a tyrant.”

“Then you should be thankful our coffers are almost empty,” Choran said with a smile. “We would have had room for a hundred more prisoners if King Joseph hadn’t made half the lower region into dormitories for his soldiers.”

“Those dormitories have come to serve our soldiers well,” Elena said. “It was a good decision on his part.”

“Perhaps, but it still doesn’t allow us to fit the prisoners into the space he left,” Choran remarked.

Elena let out a long sigh. She was happy to have days such as this one. They helped to balance the feelings of power that sometimes swept over her.

“We will keep the priests and church executives,” she decided. “The common citizen who got mixed up with the rabble we will send back to their homes after a stern warning about taking up arms against their country. We will include their names in writing and tell them they must appear before King Joseph when he returns. I am certain the many of the men in the dungeons will have accommodations in a dirt field as soon as he arrives.”

“Have you heard any more of his progress?” Choran inquired.

“Nary a word,” Elena answered with a frown. “It has been almost three weeks since his last messenger. I expected at least part of his army to have arrived already. I worry that he has run into a calamity on the coastal road. I am also worried that I sent the men from here into a situation far worse that we imagined. I have been meaning to ask you: Why do we have to ship those items from the western coast? Why was it so costly to get a ship from here to sail to Paxifica?”

“The winds this time of year create havoc with our northern shipping lanes,” Choran told her as he sat down. He was much more comfortable serving as teacher and guide than in being the man who made the decisions. “A heavy wind blows from the southwest this time of year. You have felt it, I am certain. Ships from the northern ports have to sail almost a month out of their way in order to tack toward the western islands. They have to be towed by rope through our inlet to even reach the sea. It is too shallow to navigate this time of year. It is not such a problem from our western port. That is why King Welton allowed a small shipyard to be built in Newport. It takes only a month to transport items on a wagon from here – so long as there are no bandits.”

“What of Blue Harbor?” Elena asked with a frown.

“That was Wilhelm’s insanity,” Choran spat. “He needed coin and he needed it badly.”

“When the insurrection started, Welton sent the balance of the treasury with Joseph,” Elena cut in with a knowing nod. “He told me.”

“Good, this will make more sense because you have a frame of reference,” Choran continued. “Wilhelm inherited a country with no funds and little means of accruing funds. He sold some lordships, including to the family that took your family’s home, but it wasn’t close to being enough to live in the manner he hoped to live. Blue Harbor is on our western elbow. King Welton had loyal followers and, of course, they were eliminated well before Tyrell fell to the usurper. The Serratians had already established an enclave in the region and it grew once the manor house was vacant. The bishop and the merchants who had funded Wilhelm’s ascendency worked out an agreement with him. The region would be autonomous and, in return, they would give him gold for the vaults.”

“He sold them the land,” Elena said, shaking her head.

“It a word, yes,” Choran agreed. “It is not so simple as that, however. The king cannot sell property in any real sense. The lords do not own the property they oversee. They lease it from the country in return for an annual payment – originally called a tribute but now referred to as a tax. From what I’ve found in our archives and from what I learned from those in Wilhelm’s service at the time, he agreed to let Blue Harbor come into being for a one-time tribute of 30,000 gold coins.”

“Gods above,” Elena muttered. Her family was considered extremely wealthy when she was a child but they didn’t have a tenth of that amount.

“It would have worked out in the merchant’s favor because they fully expected Wilhelm to fall within two years,” Choran explained. “There have always been rumors about a side deal with the Creightons. Blue Harbor is located at the mouth of the great river but to its south. I believe it was to become a separate entity in return for allowing the Caliph low-cost shipping. I do not know how much of our geography you are familiar with so bear with me if I am telling you what you already know.

“Azkoval is almost entirely coastal lands. Except for the area at the south that borders Creight and Greanly and the area to the southeast that borders Samir, we are surrounded by water. Yet we had only four ports, two in Tyrell. Another is the one you are familiar with in the west. The last is near the border with Samir. It is small and only accessible for a few months each year because of the tides. The western coast is rocky and barren. There are sheer cliffs that make it almost entirely unusable for cargo. The only area that is remotely practical is where the great river meets the sea. Those that conspired with Wilhelm were able to make a fortune from people shipping or receiving things we would never permit in Tyrell.”

The confusion was evident on Elena’s face so Choran explained.

“Slaves,” he told her. “The Blue Harbor port is where a large portion of the slaves taken to Creight and Colunada are brought forth. Neither has its own port and both are accessible with relative ease from Blue Harbor. The shipping merchants also trafficked in opiates and poisons – again, things the citizens of Tyrell would never accept coming through their ports. Even Wilhelm was smart enough to understand that fact. As downtrodden as we were, we would have risen up if we found that the illusory king had permitted such atrocities in our capital.”

“Yet it was permitted in other parts of the country,” Elena huffed. She had already decided that she would send the remainder of the army down the coastal road to retrieve Blue Harbor for the king.

“That area is a law unto itself,” Choran told her. “The church has an iron grip. Almost every person in the region is a Serratian. New faces are just as likely to wind up on a slave ship as they are to be allowed free passage through the area.”

“And you say the great river flows directly there?” Elena asked in alarm.

“The northern edge of the city rests against the great river,” Choran answered.

“Do you know of the king’s travels?” Elena asked.

“Only that he is seeking an alternative route homeward,” Choran said. He blinked when recognition dawned on him. “He is headed to Blue Harbor.”

Elena nodded.

“Then, Lady Elena, he will truly reunite the country or you will become its first queen,” Choran added.

Joseph and his small group were halfway up the hill when the first signs of life emerged on the church grounds. Genrico and Julia drew their weapons as a large group of people emerged from the straw and mud structures on the property’s perimeter.

They paid no heed to the visitors, however. Instead they gathered in the center of a large field and knelt in prayer. They had arisen and begun their daily labors by the time the group arrived at the top.

Genrico’s face was set in rage when he saw the iron collars around the necks of the people he’d seen.

“Slaves,” he muttered.

“And more than a few,” Joseph agreed. He had tried to count the people but had given up when he reached 75. The building that housed the cathedral was only slightly smaller than the castle in Tyrell, Joseph noted. He watched as a group of young boys left the church and carried trays to a smaller building nearby.

“Soldiers or the priests?” Genrico asked.

Joseph shrugged. It was going to be his first stop regardless of which it held. He noticed a group of men carrying whips exit the building. Unlike the slaves, these men noticed a group of three people approaching under arms. One scampered back inside and the rest came forward.

“Kill them,” Joseph said. “We kill them without reservation.”

Genrico gave a grim nod. The first four men had not managed to get their hands to their whips before their heads landed beside them. Two each fell to Genrico and Joseph’s swords. Julia didn’t hesitate, releasing bolt after bolt from her crossbow at the men who turned to flee back to safety. Nine of the 20 men were dead or dying and Joseph’s group had barely broken stride.

The lash of a whip caught Julia on the arm and her crossbow fell to the ground. She yelled partly in pain and partly in anger as she pulled her staff from behind her back and charged forward.

Joseph saw red when he heard Julia’s scream and raced toward the man with the whip. He found him with Julia’s dagger sticking from his throat and turned his attention to the nearest man. The overseer was standing without a weapon, a look of shock on his face, but he died just the same.

Genrico chased down the last man, who had broken not toward the church but toward the harbor, and rammed his sword through the man’s back.

Inside the church, the last overseer was having little success in convincing a young novitiate to summon the vicar from his morning meditations. The young man knew the form of those meditations, although the overseer did not, and was reluctant to head toward the back of the house.

“Your men have weapons,” he explained. “They will have things in hand shortly.”

The sound of a scream seemed to lend credence to his words. The front door crashing inward and three bloodstained people rushing through proved them to be a lie.

The overseer already had his whip in his hand and he lashed toward the nearest figure. Joseph’s sword intercepted it and he ripped the weapon from the man’s hand with a jerk. Julia’s staff came downward with remarkable force and the overseer fell face down with a crash. Blood pooled beneath his crushed skull and the young priest gulped at the violence he had just witnessed firsthand.