The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (55 page)

Gully only grunted, thinking again about Thaybrill’s very personal reaction to Lord veWarrnest’s comments. His eyes drifted towards Roald standing with a group of the Balmoreans. They were chatting together amiably, except for Roald, who was staring back at Gully and Thaybrill. Gully wondered at the wistful expression on his face as he watched them.

“But for Holm, do not judge him too harshly. He is a good man, and a faithful supporter of the throne,” continued Prince Thaybrill. “He mostly suffers from an overly slow wit, both of the common sense variety and also in terms of political shrewdness. He was very upset with himself last night that he goaded you to anger, or at least was a part of it. I suggested he come and talk to you about it today, and he may. He’s a little afraid of doing so, however.”

“Afraid? Of me? Why in the world would veDellersean have any fear of me?” asked Gully, still somewhat distracted by Roald’s distant expression.

Thaybrill laughed loudly and placed an arm around Gully’s shoulder affectionately. “You mean aside from the deadly aim you have with that knife of yours? And perhaps it has slipped your mind, but you will be crowned king tomorrow since you have not managed to foist the throne onto anyone else instead.”

“I have never killed any man and I have no intention of starting now. Of course, if Lord veWarrnest believes otherwise, that is his problem.”

“Prince Thaybrill,” called the Archbishop, waving the prince over to him, “if you would be so kind as to take your place here...”

Thaybrill left Gully’s side to be placed appropriately by the Archbishop, who proceeded exactingly through the next parts of the ceremony. This time, the Archbishop had Gully even make the walk from the end of the courtyard where the Archbishop would place the crown on his head to the far end where he would take his official seat. By Iisen precept, the crown was actually less important than the throne; only at the moment when Gully took his seat in the throne would he become king of the land. For practice, they had a simple wooden chair at the far end of the courtyard since the actual throne was not allowed to be used until the true coronation. Gully walked as instructed to the far end to take the seat and noticed that Gallun and Gellen were seated stoically on either side of the chair, in wolf form and at rigid attention.

The Archbishop came stalking swiftly down to the far end of the courtyard. “No, no, no! Shoo! You cannot stay there!” he called impatiently at the wolves while keeping just enough distance from them.

“Shoo, now!” He waved his hands at them to get them to leave as if they were misbehaving hounds.

Gallun and Gellen did not move.

The Archbishop looked exasperated and said to Gully, “Your Highness, I beg, would you please explain to them that they cannot do this during the ceremony? It is not allowed!”

Gellen lowered his head a fraction and growled menacingly enough for the Archbishop to hear him. The Archbishop stopped his shooing and took a nervous step back.

“I think it may be wise for us to bend on this one, Archbishop,” said Gully, his eyebrow raised as he threw himself unceremoniously into the chair. “Unless you want to be the one to try to send them away.”

Gellen growled again and actually bared his fangs a bit. Gully bit at his lip to stifle the laugh that was begging to escape.

The Archbishop backed up a few more steps. He mopped the back of his hand against his forehead nervously and said, “They are flouting an Iisen rite, but I think we will have to allow it if the prince regent says we must.”

The Archbishop proceeded on to explain to everyone else what would happen at the moment the king was seated on the throne. Gully whispered down to Gellen, “You are not a very nice wolf, are you?”

Gellen “hmpfed” and Gallun began shaking in what could only be the wolf equivalent of a suppressed laugh.

The Archbishop continued through the remaining rites of coronation and completed the rehearsal an hour later. Relieved that their required tasks for the rehearsal were complete, everyone that had gathered began to go their separate ways for the remainder of the afternoon.

Gully started to walk back down to where Roald, Raybb, Exoutur, the patriarch, and Encender and his wife were all talking when Lord Holm veDellersean approached him nervously.

“Yes, Lord veDellersean?” asked Gully.

veDellersean cleared his throat twice and then said, “Your Highness, I wanted to apologize for last night. It was not my intention to upset you or to speak ill of the, er... the...”

“Balmoreans,” prompted Gully.

“Yes, of course... the Balmoreans. I allowed myself to get caught up in the petty gossip that seems too often to be the currency of the high born. I wanted to come and make amends for my fault last night,” finished Holm stiffly and with a slight bow of his head.

Gully studied the man in the bright light of early afternoon. He wanted to get a feel for whether Holm was being sincere, or merely playing up to him. The man seemed sincere, but Gully wanted something a little more.

“It is not me to whom you owe this. Come and allow me to introduce you to the patriarch of the Mercher clan, Aian Mercher. He is one of the kindest and wisest men I have ever had the honor to know. And he is the only ocelot I have ever known.”

Lord veDellersean swallowed hard, but then bowed a degree and said bravely, “I would be honored.”

Gully decided to push the nobleman even further and said, “And you could make the acquaintance of Raybb as well, the very large man... wearing a kilt... and standing next to his bear form. Oh, and next to him is his husband, Exoutur.”

Even in the strong sunlight, veDellersean paled visibly as he looked at the group. He said, turning back to face the prince regent, “Indeed. Speaking of which... I, uh... should compliment your frighteningly good aim with a knife as well.”

Gully was starting to warm up to veDellersean some. He placed a hand on Holm’s shoulder and said, “My father, who is a Balmorean, taught me to throw a knife like that. You will like them, I promise. All I ask is that you give them a chance.”

Gully led the nobleman over and introduced him to them.

He left them to their conversation because he wanted to go catch up with Roald and Thaybrill, who were walking off together in a very deep conversation.

Before he could catch up to them, though, it was Lord veWarrnest’s turn to intercept Gully.

veWarrnest bowed low and then said, “Highness, my sincerest apologies that dinner last night did not go as you probably would have wished.”

Gully’s eye twitched at the insincere apology.

“If I may be so forward, though,” added veWarrnest, “allow me the luxury of offering a humble bit of unsolicited advice, as one who has been involved with the politics of Iisen for far longer than you.”

“By all means,” said Gully.

“Careful not to squeeze the noble families too hard towards your... ways of thinking. It may cause stress on the kingdom just as it is only now getting used to having a true king after so long with merely an administrator. It would be a shame for it to all fall apart so early in your reign. I would be terribly disappointed to see such strife besmirch your new monarchy, and that is the only reason that I offer my sincerest wishes for your success.”

Gully had never killed a man, but he sorely wanted to strike one at that moment. He kept himself better in check than he had the night before, though, and replied plainly, “Yes, it would be a shame.”

The thinly veiled threats caused the bile to rise up in Gully’s throat, almost making him choke on the mixture of regret, anxiety, and anger. This man knew Gully’s weakness was his inexperience in every aspect of a royal court, and it galled Gully that it was the truth.

Without waiting for any further baiting, and before he lost his patience and did physically attack the noble, Gully spun on his heel and walked the other way. He suddenly wished to be away from everyone.

~~~~~

Gully pulled the worn, gray surcoat a little more tightly around him to keep the breeze out. He spied a small rock at his feet, so he leaned over and picked it up, then threw it out from where he was sitting.

The rock sailed out, then down, and down, and down very far before the face of the mountain interrupted its fall and it tumbled a ways further.

He leaned forward and looked out from his perch. The oratory tower in the Folly had been high up, but this was an entirely new experience. Far down below him from his solitary resting spot upon the side of Kitemount, he could see the entire castle, almost as if he were a star in the sky looking down at it. Beyond the Folly, nestled between Kitemount and Kelber Peak was the whole of Lohrdanwuld, with its many thousands of people going about their business.

Beyond the Folly and Lohrdanwuld was the true mountain that Gully would be carrying upon his back in barely more than a single day. Beyond the city, as the sun sank lower towards Pelaysha, was all of Iisen. All of it.

In one more day, it would all be his responsibility.

As soon as the sun fell and sufficient stars had gathered in the sky the following evening, he would take on a responsibility, a mantle on his shoulders, he was poorly prepared to wear. In the Courtyard of the Empyrean, he would give up the life he knew well, all for a life he had no idea how to live.

There were the political innuendos of the noble families, thrust into his side like a knife, for one. He knew he could dissemble and bluff and deceive and distract from his true motives with the most accomplished among them, but what had been a hobby to steal a handful of small coins or a piece of fruit would now become a way of life, if veWarrnest was any indication. Worse, it was not all for a few coins. The Iisendom would hang in the balance among these men. For those stakes, Gully felt unprepared.

In a way, Gully was glad that veWarrnest had mis-stepped at dinner the night before. The lord had pushed Gully publicly, testing his mettle, to try to establish a dominance, only to find Gully would not have it. Strafe veWarrnest would not make the same mistake again; from now on, Strafe would resort to subtler manipulations — whispered conversations and privately sown discord. Gully’s father had taught him of the many poisonous berries that grew in the south marshes, some of which looked very tempting and delicious, and now he saw the same in this veWarrnest. The man’s words would be sweet and tempting, but would kill if trusted. Gully knew whom to watch now.

But the deeper burden, the weight on his heart, were the men that he had sent to their deaths for a strategic position. The night after the failed Maqaran invasion, Gully had stood with all of the other Iisen soldiers and the Balmorean fighters in the fields of East End, gathered together in silent respect as the dead were burned, releasing the sparks of their souls to the heavens and the safekeeping of their ancestors above. To Gully, though, instead of flying up, their souls felt like stones crushing the life from his heart.

He watched some of the hawks and kites and falcons that were the namesake of Kitemount flying around the face of the mountain, their sharp eyes searching for dinner, wheeling and diving when they spotted a mouse or a small snake worth snatching. Gully tried to tell himself that he had asked these men to sacrifice themselves for all of the Iisen and Balmorean slaves that could be recovered. In his heart, though, he wondered if the truth was much darker and unbearably selfish. Perhaps, he worried, he had sacrificed nine men to get his father back. It left behind a shadow on his soul he did not expect to ever see fade.

And what of the Maqarans? Gully didn’t know enough of their culture to know for sure how they would react to his demand. What if they returned none of the Iisenors or Balmoreans? What would he do then? What if they became infuriated and threw all of their might at Iisen? Would he be able to hold them back? What if those nine men had died and no slaves were returned? He clutched at his heart at the idea. What he felt there was the crystal pendant around his neck instead. The future seemed to promise nothing but doubts and worries.

And this was only the beginning of a lifetime of these scars and fears that came with the throne he would take.

Here, in a solitude the size of a mountain, he spent some of the last time he had of his own to think through this and to mourn the days he would see no more.

Beneath him, off in the rolling plains west of the city, he squinted his dark hazel eyes at the wandering sliver of the Trine Runnel. He could even see the broader River Tib plainly from this height, cutting through the land as it rolled towards the sea. The hawks kept a curious but cautious distance from him as they hunted for dinner, and a formation of gray geese flew quietly towards the small ponds to the south.

He was tempted, and it would be so easy... he could disappear, now, before he took the seat the next day. Even climbing up the side of the mountain unseen from a starting point behind the royal solar tower had been trivially easy. He could disappear into the bogs and marshes of the south Ghellerweald and know that he could not be found. He could turn his back on all of it and have his old life back. Or some of it, anyway. He could avoid further shadows on his conscience and further machinations with spoiled noblemen.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. It somehow, to him, felt like a spurning of the terrible sacrifice that Mariealle had made. It felt like a coward avoiding the time of reckoning for his careless and irresponsible youth. It felt like a betrayal of those near him that selflessly supported him, a group that had swelled in a way he never would have imagined. That made the punishment worse... when all was said and all was done, it would not be forced upon him — he would willingly accept it.

He would accept it, but he wished he knew what it meant and how he was to become the person he was expected to be.

Out of the corner of his eye, one of the hawks soared directly towards him with wings spread wide and a distinctive forked tail. It startled him so much that he almost recoiled from an attack by the bird, but at the last moment, the hawk pulled back and landed next to him. Gully’s mouth turned up in a sad smile when he recognized the swallow-tailed hawk as being Abella Jule, the patriarch’s granddaughter.