Chapter 61: A Secret Revealed

“Come, Child, sit with me,” Olaf said. The time had come for a discussion he had long dreaded.

“You sound so serious,” Nadia told him with a smile.

“This is a serious matter,” the king admitted. “I have spoken to you about this in my head thousands of times and I still do not know what to say. I will just tell you the truth.”

He sighed heavily.

“I know you have heard rumors of your parentage around the palace,” he began. “You are too smart a girl not to have noticed them. Some say that I am your father. I am not.”

Nadia nodded sadly. She had long suspected that the king had adopted her for reasons that had nothing to do with her lineage.

“That said, I have loved you as a father,” Olaf continued. “I have thought of you as a daughter. I could not love you more if you had come from me. I have tried to protect you and nurture you as though you were mine.”

“You have,” Nadia cut in. “I see this is uncomfortable for you so we need not discuss it now.”

“We do,” Olaf insisted. “This is about your parents and I need to impart the truth to you. My greatest fear is that you will hate me when you learn what I have done – and what I have failed to do.”

“I could not hate you for any reason,” Nadia protested.

“That is easy to say,” Olaf said. “Once you hear what I must tell you, that might change. I find I have hatred in my heart for a person I swore I would always love.”

“I will say it anyway,” Nadia insisted. “I do not care about where I came from. You took me in and cared for me. It rarely mattered to me.”

“Perhaps you should let me tell you in my own way,” Olaf said gently. “This is difficult for me to get through as it is.”

“I apologize,” Nadia said.

“Unnecessary,” Olaf told her. “I know you have considered this more than a few times. It is natural for a child to wonder where she came from. I do not begrudge you that.”

The king took a sip of water from his cup and sat back in his chair.

“You are not my child but you come from my line,” he said. “You are my sister’s child.”

“So my mother is dead,” Nadia said with a nod. “I suspected as much.”

“No, Child,” Olaf corrected.

“Your sister is dead,” Nadia told him firmly. “I was small but I remember her passing.”

“That was my younger sister,” Olaf explained. “She became ill and passed before she turned 17. I speak of my older sister.”

Nadia’s eyes widened. She had never heard anyone speak of a second sister in her almost 20 years at the castle.

“I have a second sister, one four years older than me,” Olaf said. “She lived here at the castle when you were born. Her husband ... your father...”

His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

“He was accused of an atrocity that I could not overlook,” Olaf continued after a pause. “I sent him into exile. It hurt me when my sister announced she would accompany him instead of staying here. His crime involved a child so I took you from them and raised you myself. Over time, I have forgotten about them for the most part. Then, today, I learned harrowing news that confirmed my decision to keep you here.”

“From the soldiers of Azkoval,” Nadia put in.

“Yes,” Olaf admitted.

Nadia sat back and covered her face with her hands.

“My father was one of the men that overthrew King Welton,” she said in despair.

“No,” Olaf replied. “But I fear that he would have fit in well with that group. His crime was similar to theirs. His exile wasn’t to a foreign land. It was to our northern region. As I told you, I gave them little thought. I have had a man keep watch over them but I find they must have subverted him in some way. The reports I’ve received have been false.”

“You are correct,” Nadia agreed. “This is much to take in. Why must be speak of it now?”

“You wish to visit Azkoval,” the king said. “Before you go, you must know of this. The man that sired you appeared in Azkoval recently. I have learned that your mother has provided your father with two additional daughters that I knew nothing about.”

“That is something you should have considered,” Nadia said bitterly. She understood what crime her father had committed and it sickened her. The fact that she had two others with the same blood in their veins that had likely suffered the same fate made her angry.

“Your delivery was troublesome,” Olaf told her. “I was told that your mother was barren. I took the words as truth and it appears they were false.”

“You fear I will run into my father if I visit Azkoval,” Nadia said.

“No,” Olaf answered again. “Your father ... your father did not change his ways. He attempted to harm a tavern maid and she slew him. Nadia, it is more than that. The man had weaponry that shows him to be an assassin. I ... I always knew he had the temperament for such work but I was unaware that he developed the skills. Again, I should have kept a closer eye on him but ... I feared for you. It is not a satisfactory explanation and I know it but it was my thoughts at the time. I did not ever want you tainted with the stench of that man. I took you in, gave you my name and raised you.”

“If he is dead and my mother is still in exile, I do not understand why we must talk of this!” Nadia stated in anger.

“One of your sisters is still in residence in their capital,” Olaf told her. “The Az ministers fear that your father and sister are involved in some sort of plot to harm their king or take over their government. It seems that some people knew of your family and have told the Az about them. I will not deny you the opportunity to visit. I know you have looked forward to travelling there since it became safe enough to do so. I just want you to be aware that you might come face to face with a sibling – and you might face hostility from her or from the Az government. I do not think the latter to be likely but they are young and a bit impulsive.”

“What of my other sister and my mother?” Nadia asked.

“I do not know but I will find out as swiftly as possible,” Olaf promised.

Nadia nodded. She had wanted to visit Azkoval to determine if they had any ideas in place that would relieve some of the onus of leadership from the man that had raised her. Now she saw he needed that help more than ever.

“I will desire answers when I return from my visit,” Nadia told him. “I will also expect you to have selected a bride. You must ensure your line survives and you are not getting younger.”

She smiled at the man she now knew to be her uncle. He was past his 40^th year and time had started to take its toll on him.

“I will promise to have as many answers for you about your family as I can find,” the king promised. “As for the second ... I have already made a selection. I wished to wait until you were firmly on your feet before I announced it. I will marry Helga Trachtenberg. You have met her, I believe.”

“A good choice,” Nadia said with a nod. She stood and looked down at the king. “You were wrong. I do not love you less than I did before I knew. It is nice to have a better understanding of our relationship but it has not changed how I feel about you.”

“Nor I about you,” Olaf replied with relief. “I thank you for forgiving my mistakes. For many years, I worried that you would wish to leave me once you knew of your parents. Rather than face my fears, I kept you in the dark about something you should have had the choice to decide for yourself. I’m sorry for that.”

“Be not sorry,” Nadia replied. “You have always put me ahead of yourself. I accept that you did not fear my loss so much as you fear for my safety. At least that is how I choose to look at it. But I am grown now and it is time for you to move forward with your life.”

She hugged the man from behind and kissed him on the cheek.

“I will always love my Uncle Olaf,” she told him. “And I will tell you what I learn in Azkoval. If I meet my sister, I will be fine. If they treat me hostilely, I will return quicker than I plan. For now, I will stay through the winter and learn what I might.”

Life in Marindar was starkly different under King Junius than it had been while his father reigned.

Every man from age 14 to 40 within a day’s walk of the capital was conscripted into the military. The number was smaller than it might have been in other locations because the land around Marindar’s capital was not hospitable. The men that resided nearby made their livings by trapping and skinning instead of from tilling the soil. They were a hardy breed, toughened by the harsh northern winters.

They were not, however, soldiers. The men were individualists that were used to making their own way in the world. They did not fit well into Junius’ plan to quickly form a cohesive army – under the command of one of his closest friends, of course. The man, loyal as he was, was not a leader – which Junius well knew. The month the new king had declared as the timetable for leaving for Azkoval passed with barely 30 men under arms.

Junius found a multitude of problems facing him. Word of the coup had spread like wildfire from the capital and reached Marindar’s closest trading partners within six weeks. Doors that had been opened for a generation slammed closed and the Marindar king had to look other places for weaponry. It was a fruitless task. Those with military goods to trade had aligned themselves with Junius’ enemy and had turned him away.

Two months after he assumed the throne, Junius had an army with no arms and treasury with no treasure. He had hundreds of furs stacked in warehouses with no place to send them. To his eternal chagrin, the man found his father had been correct: Marindar was isolated in every direction. He lacked the strength to overthrow his neighbors and take their goods and coin. The only country nearby that could be conquered without a year of battle had little or nothing worth taking. It was why Augustus had left them alone.

To make matters worse the army he’d assembled didn’t resemble the crisp soldiers he’d seen in Azkoval. They looked like what they were: skinners and tanners. They were not accustomed to long weapons. They did their killing by cutting the throat of trapped animals. They were not used to attacking humans. They had little proclivity for any weapon aside from a bow and arrow.

“I demand answers,” Junius roared at his general.

“I have none, Your Majesty,” the man replied. “We are training the men but they do not seem to adapting as quickly as we hoped.”

“I wanted you well on your way by this point,” Junius seethed.

“I understand, Your Majesty,” the general told him. “I wished to be well on my way.”

Junius nodded. The general had been promised Octavia’s body as compensation for bringing her back to Marindar alive. His sister was an artless cow but she was a prize any healthy man would wish to claim.

“Select a group you trust and send them to round up the families of your soldiers,” Junius decided. “We will keep them at the capital to give the men incentive to perform better.”

The general let out a long breath.

“King Junius, I believe you might reconsider,” he said. “These men ... they are not like us. They are mountain men. They lack discipline and thoughtfulness. If we threaten their families, it is just as likely they will attack you as Azkoval. Even if they succeed, they will not forget. When we return, they will be an impressive force. We need to gain loyalty. We want their anger focused on Azkoval – not on ... us.”

“You fear your own men!” Junius accused.

“They are not my men, Your Grace,” the general said. “They are their own men. That is the problem. These men have lived on their own wits, some of them, for three generations. The Az king spent six or seven years honing the skills of his men. After a month, I would wager they looked much like these men do.”

“Time is a luxury we do not have,” Junius stated. “I am tired of excuses.”

“Please, Your Majesty,” the general said, “I am not attempting to justify the situation. I am simply explaining it. I wish the situation were different as much as you do and to point out that holding these men’s families as hostages would be counterproductive.”

“What would be productive?” the king asked angrily.

“I believe we should move out from the capital as soon as possible,” the general said.

“I do not have provisions for enough ships,” the king admitted.

“I understand, Your Majesty,” the general agreed. “That is why I believe our first move should be southward. The benefit of the soldiers’ lifestyles is that they are accustomed to mountain travel and they are self-sufficient. We can cross southward and provision ourselves. On the way, we cross into Budamet and bloody ourselves.”

“The Az king has provided soldiers to Budamet,” Junius interrupted. “I fear you will face difficulty if you attack Budamet with untrained troops.”

The general blinked. He had stood in this very room when Junius had dismissed his father’s warning. Now his words sounded just like the man whose blood still stained the cracks in the floor.

“Do you have a suggestion, Your Majesty?” the general wondered.

Junius glared at him.

“I employ you to determine these things,” the king declared.

“I have given you the best option I see, Your Majesty,” the general replied. “We will continue to train as we march. When we reach the border, we will not enter as a massed army. We will cross a few at a time and reassemble inside the country. Then I think we play to the strengths of our soldiers. These men stalk their prey. They set snares and traps. They do not take their game head-on. They lay in wait and look for a mistake.