“Lord Prince,” my alsman said with atypical aplomb, “I was not done speaking to you.”
I tucked my colonel’s helmet under my arm, continued around him in the narrow confines of our tent, and saw the reason for his good humor. Displayed upon his bedside table was the newest of his religious artifacts—a glass vile he’d boasted on all season that purportedly contained mercury drawn from the foundation stone of the Tanayon. Utter tripe. He’d been sold a few drops of oil loaded with ground lead—not that I’d seen the rare liquid myself. I hoped it cost him a fortune.
He kept speaking to me, and I kept ignoring him.
Thin smoke wafted gently over the high back of the pocket valley where the 2,000 men of my brigade had made camp the previous evening. I wasn’t imagining things.
The men were already well animated, and my senior captain and master sergeant were making their way toward me along the avenue formed by the perfect grid of trim white tents. A thin layer of snow covered everything except the wide paddock at the center of the camp where our Akal-Tak grazed.
They were a superior collection of their breed, both in temperament and the more superficial attributes of color. There was not a single double dilute or sabino to be found. Buckskins, blacks, and palominos all, they belonged upon a canvas, and I closed my eyes to commit the scene to memory. I’d commission the painting as soon as I returned to Alsonbrey. Bayen’s Finest would be an excellent title.
I wished the same superlative could be used to describe the rest of General Platon’s division, but the Hemari 5th was much like the city of Alsonbrey we garrisoned—scrubby and wanting of a great many things.
But I set aside such thoughts as I considered the source of the smoke.
“Is it Dagoda?” I asked the captain.
“Yes, Colonel,” he said, but offered nothing more. Rotting useless Bellion nobles—all rank and no sense.
“And?” I prompted.
“… and … it is on fire,” he said, though it sounded very much like a question.
I turned to Master Sergeant Nortran. He was an older man of mixed northern descent with pox scars on his neck and cheeks and an old-fashioned heavy broadsword on his hip. He spoke rarely, which was odd for an officer. Though for him this was due in some part to the hoarseness of his voice. He’d been too many years a sergeant and too many nights on the line during the war with Heneur. None of which had dissuaded me from recruiting him away from the Deyalu the day I received my command. The ugly old man had been responsible for all 120 of my line sergeants ever since.
Master Sergeant Nortran said with his typical rasp, “Only a single scout has gotten a good look as of yet, Colonel. There is no word on injuries or damages. It is also unclear if it is the main building that is on fire or an ante building of some kind. Captain Ellyon Grano has been dispatched with three troops to assess the scene and offer whatever assistance might be required.”
“Ellyon is a mongrel,” my senior captain snorted, which translated roughly to: he is a Grano noble from Thanin, so I must hate him. I considered reminding the captain that my mother was a Grano, but I doubted that Captain Bellion understood his hatred.
“How many snuck up there?” I asked him instead.
“Sir?”
“Captain Bellion, we are steps away from the most dreamt of whorehouse in the Kaaryon on New Year’s Eve, yes? Like in the rhyme? ‘The Old Year’s heart all weary grew, the new is for your dreams come true?’ Yes? Remember it? I am asking you how many of the men made their way to Dagoda last night hoping to make their dreams come true and may somehow be responsible for this accident. If there are damages, someone will be held to account. We’d best find out if it was one of our own.”
“I’d have to check … take a head count.”
“Stop talking and do it. Start with the officers. They are the only ones who could afford it.”
“Ohh. Ohh, my,” he sputtered and started away at a run.
“What was that last?” I asked Master Sergeant Nortran.
“His cousin is one of the lieutenants we were just assigned from the Academy. The lieutenant was not in his tent this morning, so could not lead the dispatch to Dagoda as Captain Bellion wished. I think the captain just arrived at what that might mean, sir.”
My alsman emerged then, red-faced and yelling as he struggled to fit his heavy cloak over the layers of his robes and dalmatic. I could scarcely believe he hailed from Bessradi, as unprepared for the cold as he seemed each day.
“Insolent child,” he said with a shake of his finger. “You do not walk away from me. I am your father’s eyes upon you, hand-picked by Chancellor Parsatayn. There are only four men in all of Zoviya whose voice carries more weight than mine. I … What is he doing here?”
“Who do you mean?” I asked.
“Who? You doltish jibber, this keratinous sergeant standing next to you, that is who. I do not have to espouse your knowledge of the Zovi by reminding you what the prophet Khrim said about keeping company with the diseased.”
If he were any other man alive, I would have killed him on the spot. I said instead, “The master sergeant was just reporting to me that Dagoda is on fire. We do not know yet if those responsible will attack the encampment. You best withdraw to the safety of the train until the situation is resolved.”
It took a very long time for this to register with Alsman Herr.
A rider thundered into camp. “Make way! Make way!”
Alsman Herr started with fright, gathered up his many layers, and scurried off toward the train of pack animals.
Master Sergeant Nortran, in contrast to myself, did not so much as crack a smile. I was fighting off my smirk when the rider leapt free before me, removed his white-crested captain’s helmet, and saluted me. He was the youngest of my captains, younger even than some of my lieutenants. He showed his age a bit with the alarm he displayed.
“Captain Grano,” I said, returning his salute. “Report, please.”
“Dagoda is destroyed,” he said, huffing to catch his breath.
“What?”
“Attacked, sir, and taken by fire as though Bayen himself lit it.”
“Give me facts, Captain, not poetry.”
“Sir, apologies,” he said and cleared his throat. “The scene reeks of lamp oil. The few who managed to leap from the windows or balconies were cut down. The attackers number between thirty and forty and have fled southwest. I left my troop behind to set a watch on the road and scout the surround.”
“Prince Horl?” I asked.
“There is no sign of your brother, Colonel. If he was at Dagoda as planned, he has perished.”
“Fetch my horse,” I said to my master sergeant, and he sprinted down the avenue. “And yours too, Okel,” I shouted after him.
I had never called him by his first name before—nor anyone else in my command for that matter. I stood a bit straighter in hopes that my composure would return.
Others rushed in toward the commotion, including Captain Wayland Feseq, the second of my six company captains. He was one of the few officers in my command from the South, and the only noble Feseq. His professionalism could not be observed elsewhere in his bloodline. I said to him, “I leave you in command here. Call rally, full kit. I ride for Dagoda. Join me there.”
He spun and began calling in lieutenants and sergeants by name. I watched him for a moment as he rattled off orders and sent men in every direction with purpose. He did it better than I could have, but I could not judge whether it was a result of his circumstances or his bloodline. I’d have to make a study of the man. Quick action suited him, and there was no finer talent on Bayen’s earth than being ready.
My master sergeant rode back up the avenue leading Marrow by the reins. The sleek palomino mare had been with me seven years—a gift from my father the day I became the first of his sons to be accepted into the Urmand Academy. She was in her prime and knew my mind better than any man or Yentif. She raced in beside me and wheeled as I jumped into the saddle. She pranced high and then sprang left and right like a pouncing lion—a greeting dance that drew me back to the years with the master horsemen of Urmand whose martial school had trained us both.
She leapt forward as I wished and galloped south along Grano’s tracks through the snow. We rode over the thickly-forested ridge and emerged onto the cobbled carriageway that belonged to the infamous school.
To the east the scene was as described. Flames poured from windows, up the walls, and high above the roof. Part of the main building had already fallen in. The nearby stables and carriage house looked more like the struck heads of two matches. One of Grano’s lieutenants had organized some of his men around Dagoda’s entrance and worked to remove the bodies of those who’d jumped.
Marrow did not like the flames and balked. I was too taken by the sight myself to correct this poor behavior as fast as I ought to—though she was perhaps reacting to my shock more than the sight. My brother and hundreds of others had been roasted alive.
“No one escaped?” I asked but it seemed unlikely. The fortress-like front doors were barricaded from the outside, and the only other exits were a few high windows and a single broad balcony. A high wall ringed the surrounding expanses of lawn. It was a place built to keep the girls in and trespassers out. Those inside had had no chance at all.
“What motive?” the young captain asked.
There were many that could explain it. My master sergeant voiced one I had not been considering. “Profit,” he said and added by way of explanation, “Yesterday was tithe day. Half the senior prelature vacations here this time of year, and they never travel without their fortunes—or so the rumors go. I’d mark this down as a robbery.”
Ellyon seemed he might cry. “Bayen above, why did you forsake them?” He folded his hands beneath his chin to pray.
“Later, Captain,” I said with a touch less than my usual tone, before the devout young man could get any more worked up. “Your lieutenant is putting his men at risk. Withdraw them before the fire claims anyone else.”
The captain got moving, and Okel rode close. I said to him, “This is a disaster.”
Okel asked, “How many red hats were in there, do you figure?”
“Not the kind of gathering I attend. I am more concerned for my kin.”
“That will not be what the Kaaryon cares about, Lord Prince,” he said grimly. “You saw Ellyon. He knows with his own eyes that this was the work of men, and already he worries this is Bayen’s wrath. You remember the whispers we heard after the palace fire claimed so many of the princes.”
“Bayen has not forsaken the church or my family.”
“Neither the facts nor your opinion are relevant. It is the mob who must be convinced.”
I couldn’t recall Okel speaking so freely in the eleven years I’d known him, and certainly not during the six he’d served under me. Few things irritated me more, but the power of his argument was uncomfortably welcome.
I said to him, “I’ll be after the men who did this, but not to soothe the mob. No one murders a Yentif and gets away with it. These men and everyone they knew will decorate Bessradi’s gates.”
“Horl was a miscreant and a debouched lay-about,” Okel said, brandishing his sudden candor as though he’d been at the wine. “I know your love for your bloodline, but this one you were better off without. And never discount the importance of the mob. Your father holds the Kaaryon together by being the master of us lesser men.”
“I am not better off without him. Horl and I were to meet today to discuss an alliance of our mothers’ families.”
This was news to Okel, but he only shrugged. “The Grano of Thanin and the Bellion of Eril working together? How were you and your brother going to make that happen? Pay for a few marriages and give away land you cannot afford to lose?”
“Do you have another idea how I might strengthen my position? I have no allies at court. My brother Yarik only needs to kill me to clear his path to the throne, and if Chancellor Parsatayn manages to take control of the Council of Lords before my father’s time comes, he will happily elect another family altogether.”
“Send a company to kill them both and be done with it. Apologize to your father after.”
My mouth fell open. I’d been too long around Alsman Herr and the patronage-hungry officers and lesser nobles. “What has loosened your tongue?” I asked.
“Age and impatience, I suppose. Perhaps it’s being out in the air again after two seasons cowering behind Alsonbrey’s walls. It would also be my preference for you to not die stupidly—least ways not while I am in your command.”
On any other day, I would have been insulted. I, instead, found his probity refreshing. “Anything more you wanted to tell me before Zoviya starts crashing in around our ears?”
“Name yourself a proper chief of staff. An alsman is very ill-suited to the post, and I do not trust any of the Bellion men he has selected to serve your person.”
“Trust? But they are all Hemari.”
“You liken them too much to men from my generation who bled and died to hold the Kaaryon together. These new men have loyalties above the throne, and you would be a fool to trust a man simply because he is Hemari. Those days are behind us.”
I opened my mouth to refute this ridiculous notion, but my argument died before I voiced it. So did a second and a third.
“Seems you’ve gone and found yourself a new job,” I said. “Sorry for promoting you into the company of nobles, Chief, but apparently I have some staffing problems that need to be addressed.”
“Alsman Herr is going to hate that,” Okel said with a hint of a smile on his scarred cheeks. I chuckled too before I noticed that the captain was returning with his men.
“All well, sir?” Captain Grano asked.
“Indeed,” I said and tried summoning a joke to explain our lack of decorum. “Just remarking on how to get a Bermish whore pregnant.”
“Cum on her feet and let the flies do the rest, sir?” he replied with a trace of a smile.
“Ahh-hmm. Yes. Yes, that’s the one.”
Thus included in the joke, the captain and his men all laughed along. Okel shook his head and asked, “Where did you summon up that old barker?”
“Every bluecoat was a trainee at one point, and laugher is good for the soul,” I said and motioned for Grano to get us back to business. “Come. Lead on, Captain. Have your men checked the woods for survivors? We need someone who saw what happened.”
“The only tracks leading away belong to the attackers,” his lieutenant said and started us east. “They scaled a section of the wall hidden by a small stand of trees and approached behind the well house. Dagoda has a cellar entrance in the rear they used to gain entry. They had the building surrounded, and no one got more than a few paces past them. When they were done they left the way they came in. Beyond the wall the only tracks are from their horses heading out to the southwest.”
“No tracks in?”
“No. They must have arrived yesterday before it started snowing.”
“Show me,” I ordered, and we rode around to a harrowed path that led from Dagoda to the well house.
“Whose prints are those?” I asked and pointed at a smaller set moving north from the well house.
“She didn’t make it far.” he said and pointed at the prone body of a young woman who had tumbled partway down the snow-covered hill. Much of her hair and clothing was burned away.
I started to ask why no one had checked on her when I noticed a small circle of blood against the well house where a great many foot prints were clustered. “Someone was injured.”
This detail was clearly new to the lieutenant, and my estimation of the man diminished. It eroded still further when the girl rolled over and screamed in pain.
I dismounted and rushed to her side. Her burns wrapped from her left cheek and ear, onto her neck, and all the way down to the small of her back. What was left of her long auburn hair, simple linen dress, and heavy robe was soaked from her tumble down the snowy hill. One of her thin shoes was missing.
I touched her shoulder, and she slapped my hand away and glared with such venom I stumbled backward. Her beauty was stunning, despite the bruises, burns, and the smell of burnt hair and skin. Her dark, fiery eyes stole the words from my mouth, and the countless light-colored freckles that dotted her entire face drew me in, despite the burns. She looked thirty but could be no more than twenty—a Khrimish girl judging by the freckles, but was undoubtedly a mix of northern and eastern blood.
She squinted up at me against the glare of the sun upon the snow.
“I am Evand Yentif, Crown Prince of Zoviya and a colonel of the Hemari 5th. What is your name?”
“Tanner,” she said and managed somehow to hide her pain and ease herself up onto one elbow. Tanner was not the name she was born with, but Dagoda wasn’t known for cultivating heritage.
“Why did you strike me?” I asked and expected an apology. She offered none, nor did she answer my questions. “Who is your patron?” I asked instead.
Behind us came the sound of my brigade riding in.
She looked toward them. “Do you have a healer?”
“Are we bargaining?”
“For what?” she asked and tried to cover herself with her robe. A modest whore? How odd.
“I need good information about those responsible for this—the truth of it.”
She started shaking—did everything she could to suppress it. I told Okel to fetch her a blanket and some water. The pain overtook her before he returned. She folded forward and began to whimper. Whore or not, I desired to see her pain end. The burns would not kill her, but losing her beauty and her patron would cast her down to a place where death was a release.
Okel returned, and I draped the blanket over what of her was not tortured with burns. I knelt down with the waterskin.
“You will heal me?” she asked and waited for me to nod before she accepted it. She drank, thanked me, and said, “Ask your questions.”
“Why did you strike me?”
“The men who did this dressed as bluecoats. I thought you were one of them.”
“What? Hemari would not do such a thing.”
“Not Hemari—dressed like Hemari,” she said through the pain. “They put on a good show, but none of them were men of the Kaaryon. They were provincials, all of them.”
“Well enough. Thank you,” I said. I caught a faint whiff of her perfume through the rest of the many terrible smells. My eyes wandered. I lost my train of thought. “Tell me everything that happened.”
She blinked free two exquisite tears, and after a long breath, she began her tale.
“I woke to the sound of a struggle in the hallway. We were supposed to stay in our rooms, but I decided to take a look. I am glad that I did. The guard was missing, so I went down, only to find the main corridor empty as well. I followed the sound of the commotion down to the cellar behind the kitchens and was snatched by one of the fake bluecoats. There were twenty of them there, standing over all the dead guards. They had another one of the girls there too, so I thought at first that they were here to kidnap a bunch of us, but she was not struggling.”
“Who was the second girl?”
“A new arrival from Havish named Liv. She’d refused every order she was given from the moment she arrived. She killed a man trying to escape. They gave her to the guards as punishment. I don’t know how she survived it.”
“What were they doing in the cellar?”
“Liv directed them to a wall hanging in the corner. They found a vault hidden behind it and used a pair of long bars to force the hinges. They had the gold, silver, and trays of gems dumped into satchels and were moving out with it in no time.”
“Did you catch any of their names?”
“One. Their captain. A tall, thin man named Sahin with a gray beard and cold eyes. His men were lesser versions of himself.”
“What happened after they emptied the vault?”
“Screaming,” she said and went very still. “It happened so fast. Someone made a mistake, I think. I remember the strong smell of lamp oil and then the flames were everywhere. I got free of the man who had hold of me, but I lost my way and had to run through the fire to get to the back stairs. I rolled in the snow and did everything I could to hold still.”
“Captain Sahin let you live?”
“He must have thought me dead—same as your men.”
“Did you see anything else?”
“One of his scouts came running—told them that you and your Hemari were camped just up the road and were being stirred up by the fire.”
“That must have upset him.”
“No. It did not. They were not in the least bit concerned with the news of you. And I do not think they were here for the gold or to kill your brother.”
“How so? What else could he have possibly come for?”
“For the girl. For Liv. He used healing magic on her, right there by the well house. He is a mage of the wilds, that one, and when he sang he put his fingers deep inside her—a lover’s touch—a caress like none I’ve ever seen.”
She said this last with a long look into my eyes. I cleared my throat.
She whispered to me, “Do you know what I mean, Prince Evand? Have you ever touched a woman like that? In a loving way?”
I caught myself staring again at her many curves. “Thank you, Tanner,” was all I could manage.
I told a nearby lieutenant to fetch the battalion’s healer. Tanner quietly cried while she waited for the blue light that would take away her pain.
“Captain Grano, did you catch all of that?” I asked.
“All but the last part, sir.”
“Well enough. Draft a report of the day to my father.”
He rushed to it, and I stepped away with Okel. “What is your thinking?”
“A lot of trouble to go to if all you want to do is rescue someone.”
“I don’t know. Easterners are crazy like that about their women.”
He shrugged, which was a sure sign that Tanner’s notion of Sahin was well and truly possible.
I ordered the brigade made ready for the chase. This man and his tale could not be allowed to escape into the wilds. It was the sort that could stir up the East for a generation.
The battalion’s healer arrived. I gave him two weights of gold and asked that he get Tanner fit to ride. He was not pleased by the request, but I’d guessed his price. I left a troop behind to ensure that my witness made it south.
As we were getting moving, Captain Bellion reported that his cousin was missing. I encouraged him to edit his account of his cousin’s whereabouts—quietly discharge him from service due to declining health and let him go home, as it were. The captain thanked me for this, but his sentiment sounded very hollow.