Fate War: Alliance (23 page)

“That sounds quite
generous
of mother.” Sam was just beginning to see the reaches of the Queen’s injustices.

“Hmph. It was that or kill me,” Zeb said the last under his breath. It was all Sam needed for her mind to start making connections.

“You know,” she said, breathless.

“I don’t know nothin’,” Zeb grumbled.

“You know who my real father is,” she pressed.

Zeb let out a long weary breath. “Yep. I know,” he conceded.

“How?”

“Let’s just say young lovers don’t pay much attention to who might be muckin’ the stall next to ‘em.”

“Slag, Zeb! I could have done without that image,” Sam whined and punched him playfully in the shoulder.

“You’d be surprised the things old Zeb’s seen and heard in them stables.” He rubbed his arm easing the mock pain. After a moment he let out another weary breath. “They were in love, them two.”

“I don’t really want to hear this Zeb,” Sam groaned.

“You need to.”

She knew it already though. The lingering looks between her mother and Jasper, the palpable tension. At her young age, she just hadn’t known what the patterns meant. She could tell Zeb was waiting for her permission to continue so she signaled him to go on with an apathetic twitch of her hand.

“It was young love, but love it was. Yer mother even used to help him tinker.”

“I don’t believe that,” Sam interrupted.

“It’s true. Don’t think I’d ever seen such affection as Jasper had for Miss Adie…Queen Adella, and her for him. I think I heard the sound of their hearts tearin’ in two the night her betrothal was announced to then Prince Augustus.”

“I never knew my parents’ marriage was arranged.” Sam loathed the seed of sympathy that fact buried in her heart.

“Back then, the Kingdom of Perspicia was in war against itself. That marriage bound the two sides and gave us peace.”

“It doesn’t excuse what she did.”

“No. No, it don’t. And Jasper weren’t about to stand by and see the same done to his little girl.”

A new sorrow twinged in Sam’s chest. She had looked to Jasper as a father even when she didn’t know he was hers, and he had treated her as a daughter much the same. He left, rather than see her oppressed, rather than save her. Why didn’t he stay and help? Why join the Fate?

“So he left?” Sam asked. She didn’t add the bit about him being Fate now. It didn’t feel right.

“Hmph. He never would have left you, Miss Sam.”

“But he did Zeb. That’s a fact.”

“He ain’t here, but that don’t mean he left. I heard everything the night before he disappeared. Those two din’t bother checking to see who was in the stables that night neither. Yer mother didn’t want ya to suffer like her. She wanted to guarantee it with that contraption. That chastity belt. Jasper refused at first, but yer mother’s mind was made up. I can’t believe he went ahead and made it for ya. But I know as well as clinker stinks that Jasper never would have left. Not the way he loved you two.”

Sam would have to think about that. Zeb made a point; he just didn’t know he did.

“What am I supposed to do, Zeb?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m just a stable hand. Guess I’m not even that anymore. Just wanted you to know how ya got here.”

After a few moments of companionable silence, Sam helped Zeb to his feet.

“Why don’t you manage the stables here? You can stay. Then you won’t have to travel in the air ship,” Sam teased.

“Can’t muck stalls no more, Miss Sam.”

“I said manage, that means you get to tell other people to muck stalls,” she chuckled. “It would be a joy to have you near.”

“That’d be an interesting change for an old ashpan like me. But, what about Queen Adella?”

“She’ll do as I say from now on.” Sam had not lost sight of the very large bargaining chip she now held over her mother. She kissed him on the cheek, which he accepted hesitantly, and they left the stable for their perspective quarters.

Sam expected all in the house to be asleep at this late hour, but to her surprise Queen Adella was awake and waiting.

“Not tonight. I’m tired, mother,” Sam said blearily, and brushed past her toward the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” her mother choked out. Sam stopped with one foot on the stairs and closed her eyes. This is the last thing she wanted to hear from her mother. She wasn’t sure why, but it was. She started to ascend the stairs again without a word.

“I didn’t know,” her mother cried. “Please believe me. I didn’t know what they were doing to you at the school! Sam, please!” Sam stopped halfway up the stairs, and turned to see her mother melted into a pool of satin and ruffles in the sitting room floor, hiccupping through tearful sobs.

“Mother, it doesn’t matter what they did to change me. You sent me there to be changed, to protect yourself.”

“No!” Her mother scrambled to her feet and clung to the banister looking up at her with tearful eyes. “It was for our country. For you. To save you from a fate like mine.”

The Queen believed it. Sam could see it. Her mother still believed she did the right thing.

“Well done, Mother,” Sam began to ascend the stairs again. “Your secret’s safe with me for now. Our fate is in Cole’s hands.”

“He won’t tell. He loves you, you know.”

Sam stopped at the top of the stairs. “Leave, Mother. I want you gone by sunrise,” Sam said with as much feeling as ordering lunch.

“Can you forgive me?” the Queen pleaded from the bottom of the stairs. The words were like daggers as they hit Sam’s back.

“Yes. But not tonight. Don’t be here when I wake. Oh, and Zeb stays.”

“But – “

“He stays.”

Sam took the last step and dragged herself down the hall, exhaustion setting in. Her mother said Cole loved her. She wasn’t so sure. His desire for her was evident, but love? He had never said it, and though lies were easy to see for her, other human interactions were difficult. She hesitated with her handon the door handle to their room.

This was the first time she hadn’t known where she stood with him. Even in her previously deluded state, he couldn’t reject her completely because of the Alliance. Now he could. Even if he didn’t discard her now, it may only be to preserve the Alliance. Letting her hand slip from the handle, Sam took the back staircase to the kitchen, then outside. Her new shop awaited, and a little tinkering would clear her head.

****

“Thank you, Nana,” Cole slurred through a yawn and took the tea kettle from his old nurse maid who shuffled back into the house. He would bet his crown the old woman stayed up late, eavesdropping. He poured steaming water over a mesh sphere in his cup containing, what he hoped, were potent enough herbs to keep him awake the rest of the day. It was a late night. He stayed up waiting for Sam, but she never came to him. It was disorienting waking up without her this morning. He allowed himself a small grin at how dependent he had become on her presence. The grin didn’t stay long as the weight of recent discoveries pressed it down.

Cole thought she would need him last night; for comfort, encouragement. When he found Sam asleep in the tinker shop this morning, he didn’t wake her, thinking she needed her space and sleep. Since then something niggled on the edge of his thoughts. He was willing to keep the secret of her parentage, but was she?

“Prince Cole?”

A familiar voice startled him out of his half dozing, half contemplating. He really needed to drink that tea.

“Captain Jensen.” Cole acknowledged the soldier, and clasped hands with the man over the breakfast table, then gestured for him to sit. “What brings you by, Captain?”

“Well, Sir, we never left. My men and I waited until the Princess returned, then decided to stay the night.”

“Thank you for your consideration.” Cole nodded, and sipped his tea.

“We were already on our way when we spotted the air ship. I was to deliver your dossier.” Captain Jensen handed over the familiar leather bound folder. Cole hefted it, not remembering it being so weighty.

“Thank you, Captain.” Cole said in dismissal, and took a bite of toast. The tea hadn’t cleared the fog in his mind yet, and it was a few moments before he realized Jensen was still seated at the table. “Is there something else?” he asked, around a mouthful of breakfast.

“Sir..ehem…Lord Cole…” Jensen looked like he was watching a bumble bee dance and shifted in his chair. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, he addressed the prince. “Sir, it may be none of my business…No, it is my business, but…” He rubbed the back of his neck, stammering.

“Speak freely, Jensen.” Cole put the man out of his misery. The Captain slouched in relief, or what was considered a slouch for the normally ramrod straight Jensen.

“Sir, I don’t believe it’s wise to let the Princess ride alone…at dusk…in an area known to recently have Fate scouts.”

Cole tossed his toast back on the plate, and sat back in his chair. He was so angry last night at Queen Adella he hadn’t given a second thought to Sam’s safety. He was such an idiot.

“I agree, Jensen. But I don’t think there is any ‘let’ to it. Princess Samantha can do what she wants, when she wants.”

The Captain’s brow dipped slightly at this statement, but he quickly recovered his chiseled expression. “Perhaps, some basic self-defense would be in order then.”

Cole couldn’t think of any reason not to. Actually, he could probably use a little practice himself. He had barely won the duel with that Fate soldier. It was Cole’s luck that his opponent had been injured when he took a tumble in his mechman.

“That sounds like a good idea. She’s in her tinker shop. You can approach her with it when she’s done.”

Again, Jensen showed only slight confusion before he accepted the odd circumstances. They bid their good days, and Cole was left to his breakfast once again, and the dossier. He stuffed another piece of toast in his mouth, and stared down the folder like he might be able to frighten it away.

“Slag,” he said and flipped open the folder. For the next hour Cole read the papers within. He hadn’t been imaging the added heft. The contents were mostly military reports. There had been more sightings of Fate soldiers, and mechmen in Arborea. They seemed to travel in pairs, and one such team had almost made it to the coast before discovery. There were references to the brainwashed soldiers still in quarantine. Another had taken his life. The most disconcerting report was of an amassing of Fate troops on the Nakona border, Arborea’s neighbors to the east. Once the Nakona were invaded, Arborea would become the front lines of the War.

The last page was a synopsis of the Fate agenda, a reminder of why they must fight the scourge. Cole finished the document, and leaned his chair back. If he were honest with himself, the Fate doctrine intrigued him. Equality, the dismantling of noble hierarchy. Stability, the Fate regime guaranteed adequate living. Education, the Fate denied no one of any class schooling. Cole had actually considered championing something similar when his reign as King began.

The problem wasn’t with the Fate rhetoric, it was with their enforcement. The Fate had a Sovereign, and from all accounts he was just a king without the checks nobility provided in Arborea’s current government. From all accounts and the raving of rescued soldiers, he was merciless. He had no heart.

In countries overthrown by the Fate, they reported one hundred percent employment. However, the workers had no say in where they worked, or how long. Their supposed education was a joke, and should anyone disagree, it was death or brainwashing. The latter seemed to work quite well.

“Ahhhh!”

Sam’s scream propelled Cole over the porch banister and towards the back of the manor before the echoes died away. He rounded the corner expecting to see mechmen, Fate soldiers, or her mother. Gravel skittered as he stopped short.

Sam stood back to back with Captain Jensen in the middle of a ring of five men from the Sagewood Garrison. They were all crouched in attack position. A sixth man lay on the ground clutching his knee.

As one, the five soldiers attacked. Jensen threw a bone shattering punch at his first assailant’s face. Sam glided under the arm of a man aiming a fist at her face, spun and punched him low on his side. Jensen landed a kick in the stomach of his second assailant.

Sam dogged her second attacker, leaning back to miss his fist then springing forward and dropping low to land an elbow in the back of his knee sending him forward on his hands and knees. Jensen stepped forward and kneed the downed man in the head.

A third soldier dragged her up by the upper arm. She snapped her fist back into his shoulder joint, shocking him enough to give her time to plant her knee in his groin.

In a matter of seconds Sam and Jensen had disabled the five men. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and her arm snaked to his waist as they congratulated each other with smiles and a squeeze.

“What the hell, Jensen!” Cole yelled as he stomped toward the group. He didn’t know what infuriated him more, the fact that this was what the Captain had in mind when he said self-defense, or that the man had the audacity to touch his wife.

“Did you see me?” Sam chirped.

“Yes, I see you.” He snapped. Sam immediately removed her hand from Jensen. The Captain on the other hand stepped between the couple, hands up in supplication. Did Jensen really think he needed to protect Sam from him? Fuel for the fire, Captain, he thought.

“Lord Cole, you don’t understand,” Jensen stammered. Cole had never seen the man so animated.

“I understand that six of your men just attacked the Princess full on!” And you groped my wife, Cole wanted to add, but he saw Sam behind Jensen picking at her nails. She only did that when she was nervous, and this time it was he who made her that way. Damn it. What was his slaggin’ problem?

“But, did you see her?” was all Captain Jensen could reply.

“Yes. I saw,” Cole said penitently, raking a hand through his hair. “Still, what the hell, Jensen?”

“Sir, I showed her a few pressure points and she took to it. She can’t land a punch worth clinker…Sorry Sam –” The Captain nodded apology to her. “but she can dodge. She was taking us out one by one no problem, so we upped the game. She’s near invincible.”