Chapter 08

The woman had chosen her seat with care. She’d taken the table to the furthest right, then taken the chair with its back to the wall. From her vantage she could easily see every way into or out of the room – the front doors off to the left, the kitchen door center right and the stairs to the upstairs rooms directly to her right. It was her normal instinct, instinct honed on years of being in enemy territory.

Of course, she was a Queen’s Knight – everywhere outside the castle walls was considered enemy territory for such as she. Even, sometimes, within the castle walls as well.

At twenty-six she wasn’t old but there was a hardness to her brown eyes that demonstrated she’d had her share of trials and tribulations. Her skin was more leathery than soft, her nose had been broken and set a number of times and even her mouth was slightly crooked. Even her brown hair was severe, pulled tightly into a thick pony tail. For all that, she was comely enough in her loose-fitting garb. None of the more obviously inebriated patrons made the mistake of approaching her, however.

Perhaps it was the hard look in her eyes and on her face; the look expected violence. Perhaps it was the massive sword leaning against the wall on her left where it could be pulled from its scabbard in a moment’s notice. More than likely it was the look of the five men and women sitting at the table with her, each of them hard and each of them with similar swords next to them or slung on their back.

“You seem tense, Gillen,” the man sitting across from her said softly. He was a pale man, easily four inches taller than her with hair slightly lighter than her own brown tresses. He was also bigger than her and, she grudgingly admitted, far stronger. She had him in speed, however. His brown eyes looked at her questioningly, his slight mouth curved into a frown. She took a moment to follow the two scars through his right brow – he’d received them from a Tylnanari brigand blade but liked to say they were from a woman he’d bedded.

“I’m always tense in enemy territory, Myllyn,” she said with a half smile.

“ ... and we’re always in enemy territory,” the other four at the table rejoined with the end of what might be their unofficial motto.

Gillen couldn’t help but chuckle, raising her ginger root tea to her lips with her right hand. She absently flexed the fingers of her left, loosening the muscles in her hand. It was an old injury from when she was a younger knight and had made one mistake too many in a melee with brigands to the far north, across from Tylnanari. It was an ill-kept secret that the brigands were members of the Tylnanari force militant but the church was careful to ensure the brigands had no visible ties to them and denounced the rogues causing trouble so the fiction was maintained. Even the Queen knew that the brigands were probing their defenses for the slightest weakness – and that most, if not all, of the Tyln priests in the land were pretty much spies for the Church-run country to their north. Too many of the kingdom’s people bent their knee to Tyln, however, to eject the church completely; to do so would cause a civil war which would give Tylnanari the opening they desired. It was a careful balancing act and one that Gillen was happy she had no part in planning. She was distracted enough planning and maintaining the knight’s platoon she was responsible for; she shuddered thinking of planning and maintaining an entire city, much less a whole country.

She winced as she drank in the dregs. The tea had not been half-bad – for a tavern. They’d let the water boil over-long which gave a slight musty twist to the taste, but it had not been egregious. The tavern boy made good effort in screening the dregs so she couldn’t fault them for the bitter slivers that made it through. Nothing was overtly wrong – but she still felt tight and uneasy.

Granted, the tavern was nicer than those she usually frequented. The walls were stone instead of the wood you’d find in most taverns. The floors were wooden, though, and looked like they might have even been swept some time today. The fireplace had been scrubbed recently and the tables were thick oak and had seen a coating or two of a durable varnish. Even her tankard showed signs of repeated washing – something that was not usually assured in other taverns.

The smell of smoke was the same as at other taverns. For once, the smell was from the wood fire in the hearth rather than tobacco or other intoxicants. Even the air was clearer here but Gillen could not credit the tavern with that; tobacco use ate at the capacity of the lungs – and knights needed their lungs. Since a bit more than half the patrons – eleven of the twenty – were her and her knights, the air would have to be clearer. She admitted to herself the wood fire smoke gave the place the cozy scent of home and hearth; tobacco smoke would foul the pleasant odor.

Still, she felt uneasy.

Trouble was coming. Maybe this night, maybe tomorrow or the day after or maybe all three, but it was coming. She’d been a knight too long to ignore her instincts.

Given the mysteriousness of their mission, it was likely to be all three.

She glanced at the knights around her and then those at the other tables in the inn. Even as she looked at them, gauging their inebriation, she knew she needn’t worry. Her knights were the best of the best and they knew what was coming. They knew it wouldn’t do for them to get too drunk tonight with a long, three-week journey ahead of them in the morning. She also knew they needed at least a short time to relax; they’d just finished the same three-week journey to get here. It was a quick turn-around – nineteen days down, two days rest and then nineteen days back – but she had been assured it was necessary.

Actually, she’d been more surprised when she’d been recalled to the capital after the long journey to deliver the princess here. Every other season, she’d been stationed here so long as the princess was in residence. At the time, she’d considered returning to the main castle folly – leaving her charge unattended by naught but the common militia – but she was a knight and she would obey her queen.

As the first of the third – the commanding officer of the third platoon - she was used to taking orders without question. At least, she was used to taking orders without asking her questions out loud.

It turned out her platoon wasn’t really needed – but it certainly could have been. Tylnanari had sent a team of Ambassadors and dignitaries to negotiate some trade treaties. Fevre, the land to the west of Tylnanari had likewise sent a team – and it was well known the people of Fevre and Tylnanari were in an undeclared state of war. Stir in the confusion when the Rassilyn Elves from the far north had shown up and it could have been a three-pronged international incident of epic proportions. Luckily, cooler heads had managed to prevail.

Her instincts told her that her luck was quickly running out.

The knights at her table sensed her unease and it fed their own. They were normally a boisterous lot but today they were somewhat subdued. They drank their ales and their meads like normal, but just a bit slower, with just a bit more awareness of the room around them.

“Did I mention what I was doing when the bugle called?” Uud Beffing asked slyly. Bugling was the standard return call; when the Queen recalled her knights from leave, she sent out several buglers through the four quarters of Callisto, the capital city. A flourish announced the queen’s recall and the number of tones the platoon being recalled. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was just beginning to get the wench yammering – you know the sound, when they’re right at the peak of fun and adding your name to the list of gods – when I heard the bugle call. I counted with strokes – a stroke each call - and near screamed when it stopped at three recalls. I sincerely considered just going on – she was already there, after all – but I had to stop as it wasn’t fair to her twin sister who was waiting her own turn.”

The table erupted in laughter, easing the surface tension; Uud’s beddings were legendary. They might even be true but no one knew for sure. No one, that is, except Gillen Hawksley, the First knight of the Queen’s Third Royal Platoon – the First of the Third. Only she knew that Uud was either remembering his youth or telling stories of whole cloth; she knew that Uud was devoted to his two wives and would never betray them. She let him tell his tales however because – well, they were good tales and they gave her knights something to think about rather than stew in their own broth.

“I’m surprised either of the wenches could find the tiny thing,” Lin needled her friend. Gillen had thought for a time that the two might be seeing each other off hours – frowned on at best. She’d come to find the two were just very good friends. Lin Sipeppi was as devoted to her husbands as Uud was to his wives.

The voices at the tables picked up in the wake of Uud’s tale. She smiled at the lifting of the tensions around her – but it was not enough to break the tightness inside her.

Their orders made little sense. This was supposed to be a simple, no-excitement run, as the trip down in the spring had been. She’d expected the return trip in the late fall, a few weeks before the snows fell, but first she’d been recalled and now sent back early to retrieve the princess. There had been no reason given and she had not asked; the orders came straight from the Queen with the First of the First standing at her side.

Her orders were simple for all their complexity: Come to the summer palace at Cava early, pick up the princess and her two ladies-in-waiting, and then return. Make all due haste; take no squires. A two-day rest was permissible, so they and their horses would be at peak efficiency. It was imperative her mission remain quiet and absolutely crucial that she return within eight weeks. She was to tell no one who she’d come for and she was to tell no one when she left nor where she was going. Remain alert and shave time off her return when and if safe but return no later than eight weeks – six weeks, if she could manage it but no more than eight. Since Callisto to Cava and back could normally be done in under six weeks, the Queen was obviously expecting trouble of some kind – but no one had shared it with her so she remained blind.

Perhaps the Queen had simply known her daughter would not come easily.

Gillen Hawksley had not approached the summer palace directly; the Queen’s orders demanded the utmost secrecy. Instead, she’d outlined her plan in a sealed envelope via an intermediary courier – a court fop she knew and felt she could trust. She’d been very exacting in cautioning the princess for discretion, conveying the Queen’s orders for her to return immediately. She’d chosen an early hour for their departure from the side gate. The princess was cautioned against mentioning her imminent departure and to be as quiet as possible in reaching the waiting carriage.

What transpired next took the comedy of being obtuse to a new art form. The princess had responded with a flurry of open letters and missives, the culmination of which stated she could not possibly be packed in time, that she wanted to stay for the harvest festival in three weeks, that she’d sent a royal dispatch to her father explaining she would begin home in four weeks – five at the most. Gillen had even received a royal summons from the princess to appear before her earlier that day – presented by the Summer Palace’s Royal Herald, no less, and in front of a large crowd of people who either lived in the large port town or were visiting for market.

The biggest problem was that it was unexpected. Gillen had known and cared for the princess for close to seven years now. She’d had her share of tantrums and squabbles – what child didn’t? – but she’d never been a willful girl. She’d never been one to cause trouble or disobey. She’d questioned her parents’ rules and tested the boundaries of their patience but nothing this overtly rebellious.

Of course, she’d reached her majority a few months ago, shortly before coming to the summer palace, but she’d been pleasant if a bit distant on the journey down. Perhaps her newly found womanhood had changed her – or perhaps experiences within her newly found womanhood had changed her. Either way, Gillen could not put up with her suddenly unruly behavior.

The meeting had gone well – at first. It had quickly devolved, however.

“Gillen,” Princess Ataya smiled, running up and hugging her primary protector. Being the First of the Third was very prestigious, though not quite as prestigious as the First of the First or the First of the Second. The Queen’s First Platoon of Royal Knights were charged with protecting the Queen (or the primary ruler – currently a Queen but it had been a King in the past) at all costs with the First of the First being ultimately responsible for the Queen’s well-being as well as being one of the primary advisors to her. The Queen’s Second Platoon had the same responsibilities towards the King (or the secondary ruler). Gillen and her platoon were responsible for the princess, oldest born of the King and Queen, and the Fourth Platoon had the honor of guarding Prince Gesper, Princess Ataya’s younger brother. “Why did you not come here immediately. It would have been so much easier than all those dreadful notes back and forth.”

“Your highness,” Gillen bowed stiffly. Only her years of experience allowed her to contain her anger. “My secrecy was under your mother’s direct orders – orders you seem to be demonstrably flouting. She ordered me – and thus, you - to return to the palace immediately and to tell no one of your departure.”

Ataya rolled her eyes. She was an attractive young woman, her long, red hair streaming in kinks and whorls down around her face. Her green eyes could be as hard as agates or as welcoming as a grassy meadow. She wasn’t tall, barely five feet, and she was very slight, weighing in at no more than eighty or ninety pounds, but she could seem very intimidating never-the-less. She had full, expressive lips hidden between dimples in a face that was more round than long.

Gillen noticed Ataya’s eyes were hard as agates and her full mouth wasn’t much more than an unhappy, thin line. “My mother is slipping into her dotage. She knows full well that I simply cannot leave before the Harvest Festival. It’s very important.”

Even in her anger, Gillen was taken aback. This willful woman was not the same girl she’d brought down here no more than four months ago. She could feel her ire cresting but she managed to hold it down.

“And yet,” First Knight Gillen remarked evenly, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to miss it this season. Your orders came from the Queen herself.” She reached into the satchel at her waist and pulled out the Queen’s orders, presenting them to the princess.

The princess grabbed them sullenly and ripped the letter open, completely ignoring the seal. As she read the letter, her face grew darker and darker. Finally, with a snarl, she ripped the sheet in half and tossed it into the fireplace, the hot coals blazing once as the letter went up in flame.

“There,” the princess said triumphantly. “And now there is no letter. I’ve never received these orders and you are to wait on my pleasure to leave.”

Gillen was unable to quell her anger any longer. She found herself grinding her teeth – never a good sign – and her hands rolling into fists. With a concerted effort, she managed to bite back the first few of her retorts. When she’d managed to calm herself, she continued.

“That’s fine, your highness,” Gillen nodded. “So long as your pleasure is to leave tomorrow morning at sun-up – because that is when you WILL be leaving.”

“How dare you speak to me that way,” the princess seethed. “You’re just a Knight – not much better than a commoner. You don’t tell me when and where to go, I tell you when and where to go.”

“Let us be clear of one thing, your highness,” Gillen replied softly, her face neutral but the threat of violence twining through her words. “You, like me, are a subject of his Royal Majesty Queen Synel the Eighth, Master of Wenland. You are her daughter, yes, but you are her subject. Just as surely as she’s given me orders so, too, have you received yours. Tomorrow morning, you will be joining me and my Platoon on the way back to the Royal Palace at Callisto. You can join us willingly or unwillingly – that choice I’ll leave to you – but you will be joining us. Your Queen orders it and I demand it.”

“Demand?” Ataya screeched. “Demand? How dare you demand anything. My mother will hear of this. I will have your knighthood stripped from you. I’ll have you placed in the stocks and flogged until you can’t stand. Then, I’ll have every man and beast mount you like some common whore.”

“As you wish,” Gillen replied, her head high. “I’ll take you back to Callisto tomorrow and you can tell the Queen yourself.”

Gillen bowed and turned to leave, the princess screeching at her. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me! This is not over! I will ... I will... “ The princess’s voice, while grating, thankfully faded rather quickly.

Now, Gillen sat, alert, in a tavern close to the palace. The prices were extravagant but she didn’t mind. She fully expected the petty, childish woman who’d somehow managed to usurp the princess’s mind to order her arrest and she wanted to be nearby the castle should that come to pass. A fight in a tavern, even involving knights, was not so unusual as to attract undue attention; the guard bristled under the pomp of the knights and the knights detested the lack of cooperation from the guard. It was a heated water just waiting to boil over at any time.

Two full squads, ten knights, sat in the inn drinking. Six more knights were upstairs, resting. She had stationed two knights each at the only two public exits from the castle – in case the princess decided to flee. There was a third, secret, way into and out of the castle, but she’d ensured that it was still locked with a key only the Queen carried. In four hours, four of the knights sleeping upstairs would relieve the four watching the castle.

She saw him as soon as he entered and her body tensed. She was not in full armor, wearing only her chain mail hauberk and coif, the hood hanging on her back. Over it all, at least partially hiding it, was her burgundy coat with silver leaf; the colors of the Queen’s Knights. Her hand drifted back to the hilt of her sword lying against the wall and she untied it with her fingertips.

“Honor Gillen,” the man said, as he walked to her table. He was an older man, late thirties to early forties or possibly older. His face had a long scar along the left side, from the corner of his eye curving round to just under the left edge of his mouth. Gillen gauged he was about five-feet eleven inches - a few inches taller than she and perhaps eighty pounds heavier than her own one hundred sixty pound frame. He carried much of his weight in a barrel around his waist, unlike Gillen who was muscled throughout. As he approached, the knights at her table and the surrounding tables noted his hand was on his sword – and all of their hands went to their swords as well. Gillen gritted her teeth in frustration at the potential for violence. “I’ve been ordered by her Highness, Princess Ataya of the House Wehran, to place you under arrest. I suggest you come quietly. I have the inn surrounded.”

Gillen didn’t turn towards her men, she didn’t need to. The inn was bound in the silence of the tomb that it might soon become. She knew they were listening and alert, ready to fight if it came to that.

Neither the castle guard, city guard nor any other militia had jurisdiction over the knights; they answered to their own and, ultimately, to the King and Queen themselves. The Princess’ parentage gave her orders the breath of validity necessary for this confrontation – but not the meat. The Princess knew this – but her orders muddied the waters enough for the guard to act. If Gillen allowed this farce to proceed, she would be led in irons to the Queen to straighten the matter out, thus accomplishing the Princess’ wishes by default. Gillen ground her teeth, trying to consider a way out.

“What are the charges, Sheriff Gasmont?” Gillen asked evenly, playing for time.

“Most grave,” Royal Sheriff Gasmont replied. “Sedition and treason. Conspiring against the crown. If you’ll come with me quietly.”

Gillen cursed under her breath. Stupid little cunt had left her with two choices – either share her orders, which happened to be against those very orders, or fight off the Sheriff and his men. Well, she could allow herself to be locked up – but that would be against her orders, too, since they would fail to leave in the morning. She debated for a few seconds; fighting off the Sheriff and his men would allow her to vent some of the rage she held towards the princess – but it wouldn’t accomplish anything and might end up in casualties.

Sighing, she reached into her jacket pocket and placed her orders in front of the Sheriff. “Read them – but do not dare touch them.”

The Sheriff’s face went white as he read the orders. “I’m sorry, Honor. I had some idea I was in the middle of another of the princess’s many new games – she has changed so much since last season – but I did not know that it was at the expense of my Queen. I shall have the princess ready to leave at first light.”

“You shall do no such thing,” Gillen said quietly. “You will leave and tell no one of what transpired here. If the princess asks, you will tell her that I am in shackles; those are my orders under the authority of the Queen. If I hear a single rumor about your indiscretion with these orders or the ones I have shown to you, I will return here. I will come for you – and you will not like that at all.”

The Sheriff gulped. He was a big man and strong despite his wide middle. He was also a very capable and experienced warrior. He was not, however, a match for a Queen’s Knight.

“I will do as you say,” he agreed.

“Thank you, Sheriff. I rely on your discretion.”

The sun was barely over the horizon when Gillen marched through the castle. She never bothered to knock on the princess’s door – she kicked at the lock and it opened with a resounding crunch. Without breaking stride, she marched into the room and stopped at the princess’s bedside.

“You have five minutes to dress,” Gillen intoned darkly. “At the end of that five minutes, you will either walk down to the carriage that awaits or I will have two of my knights carry you, regardless of your state of dress. I expect your ladies to be ready in five minutes as well or I will drag them down to the carriage myself.”

“What is the meaning of this!” Ataya howled sitting up and pulling her duvet to her neck. “How dare you come into my room uninvited! How dare you threaten my person. You should be locked up! You should be in jail awaiting my punishment!”