Moonstone, Magic That Binds (Book 1) (30 page)

“Eberlo, please introduce yourself and our other guests.” The duke sat down.

The man in dark red stood, but the duke impatiently waved him back down into his seat. “I am Horas Eberlo, the duke’s Chamberlain, defense minister, if you will. These are five of our best rangers. Pillo Toras, Nark Sender, Anton Whisperwood, Creeden Halfround and Morio Jellas, the duke’s youngest son, if you must know.” Eberlo obviously didn’t like the son or really any of the other men.  He looked demeaned as he said their names.

“And Lotto, would you introduce yourself and your Prolan adventures,” the duke said. All eyes swiveled to Lotto who opened his mouth, but shut it as dinner came, carried on two trolleys by serving women. He let them set out dinner and then took another sip of his wine. He took a deep breath and began to tell his story. He ended it by showing the scar on both sides of his hand. It worked with Heartwell and it worked with these gentlemen.

“Now it’s your turn to eat,” the duke said. Lotto ate hardly a bite during his story, but the other men had just about cleaned their plates. “Now that we know that Happly is raising a large army, our domain is threatened. I feel like we are threatened on all sides except for our border with Valetan. I will request King Goleto for forces to be stationed on the Valetan side of the Fargo ready to move south to protect us. With the Red Kingdom still quelling it’s own countryside, there might be some time to prepare, but we won’t let out the general alarm quite yet.

“I intended on sending the six of you out into the countryside, but with Mistad’s news, I’m afraid four of you will leave Crackledown tomorrow and head to Happly to join their forces in the guise of mercenaries and report back to me.” Lotto thought to contradict the duke, but kept hold of his tongue until the man had finished.

“Lieutenant Mistad and Morio will roam through Gensler and set up an intelligence network as soon as winter turns in a few weeks.”

“I can do that,” Eberlo said, half standing.

“You can, but you won’t. I need you to work to find the funds to pay for our own soldiers and then concentrate on recruiting an army and getting them armed and trained.”

Eberlo nodded his head. “Excellency, I will do as you command.”

“Thank you, I knew that you would,” the duke said, but Lotto looked at the expressions of the two men. They weren’t together in this. Could Eberlo have his own agenda? He’d seen it in Prola and heard of it in the barracks as the officers and men talked about the recent turncoat nobles in Valetan.

“Eberlo and I will leave you. Please treat Mistad as if he had the rank of Captain.” The duke winked at Lotto. “Give him a night of the glorious tales of Gensler.” The two older men left Lotto with the rangers as well as the duke’s son.

It appeared that the men treated Morio as one of their own and that made Lotto breathe a bit easier. The last thing he wanted was someone who would demand being treated as a noble as they insinuated themselves into the countryside of Gensler. Talk got around to the Red Kingdom.

“We hear rumors that one of the royal family got away. The heir, a princess, is missing and the court wizard escaped. The rest were killed when Histron took over. He’s crowned himself, but he doesn’t have the Bloodstone,” Anton Whisperwood said. He seemed the most talkative of the bunch. “Without that, he can’t officially become the Red Kingdom’s king.”

Lotto squinted and looked at Morio. “Do you mind if we started by heading to your southern border?”

“It might be a bit dangerous. Histron has his troops pacifying his northern villages.” Anton said.

“Aren’t you up to it, Morio?” Pillo said it as a playful challenge.

The duke’s son grinned. “I am, especially if we can play two bravos seeking our fortune.”

“Highwaymen?”

“Indeed. We can go around unshaven. It’s a bit lawless down there with all of the refugees from the Red Kingdom. Perhaps we can clean some of them out, if you don’t mind getting your sword a bit wet.”

“I’m not bloodthirsty by nature, but if we can do a bit of good, I don’t see the harm. Does your father have an intelligence arm in the south?” Lotto said.

The men all looked at each other.

“Eberlo does, but won’t admit to it,” Creeden Halfround said. “I’m not so sure what gets to the duke and what doesn’t”

“Perhaps a parallel effort then, reporting to the duke or someone who is more trustworthy,” Lotto said.

“My sister, Panny,” Morio said. “She’s married to the biggest, most boring wool merchant in Gensler and she’d be happy to get involved.”

Lotto endured the stories of his companions for the rest of the night. He enjoyed the camaraderie and wished they would all travel together. Morio hadn’t been a protected son and he had as many stories as his companions and the evening started the kind of bond that fighting men can forge.

“If you ever meet up with the Valetan army, give Captain-General Beecher my warmest regards,” Lotto said.

Pillo nodded. “Beecher, right? You know him personally?”

“I do,” Lotto said not correcting him about calling Restella a ‘him’. The shock would do the scouts some good.

The next day, Morio and Lotto walked, down the road to Crackledown through cold rain and sleet and stood in front of a large stone house.

“My sister’s,” Morio said smiling. “She will be thrilled to see me since I rarely visit.” He rang the bell at the side of the courtyard door. The place seemed larger than a number of inns that Lotto had spent the night.

An old man’s eyes opened a tiny hatch in the door and peered up at them. “Your business?”

“Opee!  Can’t you see it’s me?” Morio said.

“Mistress will not be interested in seeing you, Master Morio. Your behavior towards her friend last month was inexcusable, she told me, and added, most emphatically, not to let you in.”

Morio frowned and took a step back. He looked up at the wall. “I guess we’ll have to brave the broken glass on the top of the wall.”

Lotto stepped up. ‘I am a representative of the king of Valetan on a mission of great importance. I need your sister’s assistance. The duke’s son was supposed to have introduced me, but I see I will have to do so myself.”

“One moment, fine sir.” Opee closed the tiny hatch and then opened the door. “Aren’t you a little young for an ambassador?” He squinted one eye at Lotto.

“I convinced the duke to lend me his son, now I must convince his daughter to lend me her help.”

“The lady of the house will be notified.” The man shut the door.

Morio spoke with a solemn face. “She’ll not let you in with me here. I had a fling with an eligible young woman that my sister knows and the relationship soured. I didn’t think it would lead to this.”

The door opened. “Only the king’s man,” Opee said.

Lotto grabbed Morio by his collar and dragged him in. “She will see both of us,” Lotto said. “I am the hero of Prola, no one refuses my entrance.” Lotto pushed past an astonished Opee. He leaned over to Morio and whispered. “Where do we go from here?”

Morio tried to keep a straight face. “To the left.”

Lotto saw the ornate doors. Carvings of sheep decorated the black wood. “Do we walk in?” He still had Morio’s collar in his hand.

“Go ahead.” Morio said.

Opee still looked at them sideways as he closed the courtyard gate and kept his distance.

Lotto knocked on the door and then entered.

“Morio, how dare…”

A tall thin woman with hair the same color brown as Morio glared at both of them.

“Who did you drag in, or should I say who dragged you in? Did I hear you call yourself the hero of Prola?”

The next minute the three of them sat in a cozy receiving room with Lotto telling his story in front of a fascinated Panny and an increasingly bored Morio.

“So why are you here?” Panny looked from Lotto to Morio.

“We are going to set up an intelligence network. I’d like the information to flow to someone trustworthy,” Lotto said.

“And Morio doesn’t trust Eberlo?”

“Right, sister,” Morio said. “I don’t trust Eberlo anymore than you do. He has an independent agenda and I’d like the information that comes to father to be unfiltered.”

Panny threw her head back and laughed. “I’ll do it!  My husband might not like it, but I’m moldering in this drafty house and need a diversion, apart from my two lovely children, who attend school during the day.”

“So you forgive me?” Morio said.

“No!  Leaving Jenna in the lurch like that, embarrassed and thinking she’d be marrying one of noble birth.”

“There are two sides of every story, my sister. Please don’t let my indiscretion get in the way of Lotto’s mission.”

“I suppose there are two sides.” She gave her brother a sideways glance and looked at Lotto. “Tell me what I need to do.”

They talked for another hour and then Morio and Lotto faced the long, uphill climb back to the castle in the same downpour.

“Two sides to every story? What’s your side?” Lotto said.

Morio shrugged. “Perhaps in Jenna’s case there is only one side.” He smiled, shrugged, and then laughed all the way up the hill.

The Duke Jellas met them as they reached the castle. “Come with me I have news from Beckondale.” He turned and crisply walked away, Lotto jerked forward to catch up while Morio meandered behind.

~~~

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

~

C
APTAIN-
G
ENERAL
R
ESTELLA
B
EECHER.
She lay back in her bed. Tomorrow she would lead her army, a large army this time, to the borders of Oringia with the intention of taking the fight to them. Too many common Valetans had been killed in the raids that had gone on for the past two years.

She had gone over strategies with Mander Hart and General Piroff and knew what her father would let her do and not do. She couldn’t conduct a full-scale invasion, but she could engage the enemy just on the other side of the Oringian border. She wouldn’t let them down, but the thought of possible defeat gnawed at her. Captain Silver would no longer always be at her side and that bothered her. She had relied on him in each of his campaigns and he’d be available but not as an advisor. Could she do it? Where had these doubts come from? And now she found out that General Piroff ordered Silver to stay and train more scouts, so he’d be leaving three weeks after her.

Her mind didn’t let her rest, so she sat up in bed and sought out the Moonstone. Lotto had gone far to the south on a mission for Mander Hart a few months ago. Somehow that seemed to fit Lotto better at this time. She knew he could lead, but the rise in fortune didn’t seem to sit well with him and a solitary mission in Gensler might just be the seasoning that he needed. It certainly didn’t work that way for her. She loved to command.  Yet she faced more distractions than she ever had and, as she grasped the hilt of the sword, her greatest challenge laid far to the east. With another thought, she wondered if her greatest challenge hadn’t actually gone south into Gensler.

~

It took weeks to move an army and by the time she reached the border, her forces had to face an Oringian militia standing in serried ranks, six deep, across the plain, still littered with patches of snow.

Restella did nothing. The Oringians moved back towards their camp and didn’t reassemble.

Captain Silver finally reached her own camp. He seemed somewhat subdued. Perhaps he had caught some kind of illness on the march from Beckondale.  An illness running through her troops was the last thing Restella wanted.

The Oringians reassembled on the plain. To Restella’s eye from a hill above the battlefield, it looked like a rake had moved across the grass leaving parallel marks. They were in the exact same order of battle as they had assumed when she first arrived at the border. Perhaps they were training when she first arrived.

The movement of the enemy occasionally glittered in the morning sun. She fidgeted on her horse, not comfortable with the fact that she wouldn’t be down fighting with the men she commanded. It didn’t seem right, but the situation seemed to demand it.

She had arrayed her troops in staggered squares with cavalry in the vacant spaces. When the formation moved, they would wheel into packed triangles, with the pointed-side facing the enemy. Silver had suggested it as soon as he arrived and insisted that the men could do it, if the officers gave the right orders. But now that she looked down on the field, she could see that, for once, her mentor had given her bad advice. The pointed side needed to face away from the enemy, to maximize the breadth of her lines.

Horns blew and she groaned since she couldn’t quickly reorder the field. The Valetan forces began to move forward changing their formation. The Oringians ran forward as one and before Restella’s army had completed their move, the Oringians fell on them. The planned orderly battle disintegrated into a melee, just as Restella thought, but not in time to reorder her troops. Every man fought and clawed and struck out with his weapon to live. The carnage and disorder shocked Restella.

Valetan forces began to resolve into units and began to force the Oringians back and the officers including Captain Shortwell, who had ridden down off of the hill, to lead the reserves forward. She commanded Silver to follow.

~

Restella sat in her tent, alone with a glass of wine, feeling defeated. Resigning one’s commission after a defeat was not an uncommon act in the Valetan army.  Her forces hadn’t been defeated, but she had lost so many soldiers that she couldn’t claim a victory. It had happened often enough.  She remembered that a Captain Hessa had been the last to do so.  He still had the regard of his soldiers.  Restella had a quill in her hand, hovering over the small slip of parchment that would go to Beckondale.  Her eyes burrowed into the paper. 

Restella sat for an hour struggling.  The awful bite of defeat gnawed at her stomach, but every time she tried to phrase the message of resignation to her father, her heart kept her hand still.  Over and over, she reviewed her actions. 

The ordering of battle was her fault, but she had been given bad advice from a trusted officer, a friend.  What would Mander Hart think?  He wouldn’t castigate her like she was doing to herself.  She just couldn’t put pen to parchment.  Resigning just wasn’t in her.  Another solution would come.  It had to.