The High King's Golden Tongue (Love Is Always Write) (2 page)

Allen nodded. "Shall we adjourn for a drink somewhere, or head back to your camp?"

"I could use a drink," Rene said. "Hold one moment."  He darted across the street and vanished into a smithy. While he waited, Allen found a boy to run his books to the palace so that he would not be burdened by them.

A few minutes later Rene reemerged with another Dragon at his side. "This is Piet, he will take the cart back to camp. Come, silver tongue, we can talk at the Songbird." He turned sharply on his heel, and strode off in a jangle of armor and weapons. Allen followed quickly after him, feeling conspicuous in his fancier clothes.

They took a table off to one side and, settled with ale and soup, began to talk. "The High King has given us a mission of grave importance, and at the moment I hope you'll forgive me if I do not just spill all the details."

"That would make you very foolish," Allen said, and gestured for Rene to continue.

"We're going high up into the Cartha Mountains, and then going further still," Rene continued. "But to do that we will need access to the Shadow Pass."

Allen grimaced. The Shadow Pass was the only way through the Cartha Mountains, and into the country of Benta, one of only six countries on the continent not under the High King's reign. It was no wonder Rene did not want to part with details. Whatever they were doing, it was dangerous. If they were caught in Benta it could start a war. And first they would have to contend with the Cartha Clans, who fell under the reign of the High King, but were an entity unto themselves. No one could pin them long enough to control them, and they would not surrender control of the Shadow Pass.

So bartering for passage was the only way to get through it, and it was an arduous undertaking on the best of days. The mountains were brutal, the clans were territorial and happy to employ violence, and once the Dragons got through the pass they were in enemy territory.

"If you want no part of this I understand—"

"No, I want to help," Allen cut in. "I only worry that I am very much not a mercenary."

"Your silver tongue more than makes up for your lack of sword. Can you fight at all?"

Allen stifled a sigh and tried to squash his disappointment. "No, I cannot. I am afraid that growing up all of my time was poured into my scholarly lessons, especially language."

"How many languages do you know?"

"Twelve," Allen replied, smiling because whatever anyone said, he was proud of his abilities. He just needed a certain stubborn High King to appreciate his skills, rather than bemoan the skills he lacked.

Rene stared at him. "You're jesting."

"I am quite in earnest, I assure you," Allen replied. "My training was very thorough. All four of my brothers are skilled knights. My parents decided the fifth son would be better put to other uses."

"Your parents are wise," Rene said with a grunt. "Soldiers, I have by the hundreds. There is no lack of men who can wield a sword in these days of war. But to my hundreds of soldiers I had only three silver tongues."

Allen nodded, but said, "If I am going to be traveling with you into the Cartha Mountains, however, I do not want to be entirely helpless. That will only make me a burden."

Rene shrugged. "Where we have time, I am happy to teach you, if that is what you are asking. But I need a silver tongue who can do his job, not one laid up by injuries he need never have acquired."

"We will see how it goes," Allen said.

Nodding, Rene said, "As to payment, since you're a silver tongue and not a soldier, you'll receive five piece a week. Soldiers are also allowed a take in whatever ransom we take in battle..."

Allen gestured dismissively. "Five piece a week is plenty. I expect no share of a bounty I did not earn."

"If you keep us from getting into fights with the clans, I will see you are compensated for it," Rene replied, then added wryly, "Though I suspect that you do not lack for funds. You dress like a damn prince."

"I like fine clothes," Allen demurred. "No man is too good to refuse honest wages."

Rene smiled, leaning back in his seat and rubbing thoughtfully at his goatee. "You're an odd one, no mistake, but I know when to accept the gifts of angels with a closed mouth." He dropped a couple of coins on the table and stood. "Come on, I'll take you to camp and get you acquainted, then you can go back to fetch your belongings."

"Sounds perfect." Allen followed him out of the pub and through the streets, mind spinning as he tried to decide what he was supposed to do about belongings. He dared not return to the palace, so he would have to purchase what he needed. Hopefully he would be able to obtain what he needed quickly and easily.

Guilt picked at him, but Allen ignored it. His family thought he was with the High King, and he very much doubted Sarrica would notice he was missing. At worst, Sarrica would think he had slunk off home. By the time anyone figured out he was missing, Allen would be back from his journey up the mountains.

Hopefully the journey and whatever battle skills he picked up during the course of it would prove his worth. He refused to consider failure, because it simply was not an option. Allen glanced toward the palace, remembered that stinging rejection, the cruel laughter that had filled the court.

Whatever it took, he would prove to them all that he was fit to be the High King's consort.

Sarrica was in a meeting with the council of agriculture when a messenger burst into the meeting room without permission. The tongue-lashing Sarrica started to give him froze on his tongue, as he realized the man looked as though he had run from the opposite end of the kingdom without pause. He was also dressed in the uniform of the Three-headed Dragons, which did not bode well. "Majesty!"

"Breathe," Sarrica said, half-afraid the man would pass out at his feet, concerned when he very nearly did that. Drawing in ragged breaths, the messenger held out a tri-folded piece of paper, affixed with a wax seal, his hand trembling from exhaustion. "From the High Chief of the Cartha Clans."

Scowling, immediately worried, Sarrica took the missive and broke the black wax seal marked with the mountain and moon crest of the Cartha clans. He read the message, but it was difficult because the garbled syntax of the Cartha clans' unique brand of Tricemore was exceptionally hard to read. Not for the first time, he wished he had a talent for languages, but he and his tutors had agreed he lacked any ability in that quarter. "You may go," he told the messenger. "We'll get someone else to take the reply. Thank you."

The messenger nodded, slumping with gratitude, offering a clumsy bow before he stumbled from the meeting room. Sarrica gestured to the council. "You're dismissed for the day. We'll resume these talks later."

When they had gone, Sarrica rang the bell at his elbow, and a moment later his Steward, Oleander, slipped inside. "What's wrong, Majesty?"

"I need a translator fluent in the Carthan brand of Tricemore," Sarrica said. "We've a message from the Cartha Clans, and given the state of the messenger it's not good news. I sense our mission there has gone awry in a very bad way." He shared a brief, troubled look with Oleander. If Cartha was contacting them, he dreaded learning what had become of his Dragons. He hoped Rene was still alive.

He bent back to the message, glaring at it, but the shoddy penmanship combined with the difficult language only resulted in him understanding one word in seven.

Annoyed with himself, he threw it on the table in disgust and waited impatiently while Oleander called for a translator who could read it. He picked up his cup of wine and drained it, barely resisting an urge to slam the cup back down. He picked up the letter again—and froze as he realized it was not one, but two, carefully stuck together so the second would go unnoticed. It was a trick he'd seen—and used—before many times when sending messages across the kingdoms.

Peeling the pages apart, he frowned at the elegant handwriting—and the fact the words were in the Old Tongue. Sarrica could read it, but if told to write a missive under duress he was not at all confident he could do it, and certainly not as well as whoever had written this one.

Majesty,

Cartha has joined forces with Benta. Their goal is to remove you from the capital and decimate it in your absence, while killing you in the mountains. They used poison-tipped arrows and blades to decimate the Dragons. I've listed symptoms so that you might identify possible poisons. Stay away, be careful.

Allen

Allen? Not his vanished potential consort? Sarrica felt sick and guilty all over again, thinking of his behavior that day—and that it had somehow led to this horrible message.

Whatever his disappointment in being sent some courtly pretty boy rather than a warrior as requested, he should not have acted as he did. He had intended to make amends at the luncheon, but Allen had never appeared. The men sent to find him had turned up only an empty room and word from the guards at the entrance that he had gone into the city. One hazy account of someone fitting his description had been found at a book vendor's stall, but after that the trail had gone cold.

How had a journey into the city led to his being a captive of the Cartha Clans? What in the names of the gods was he doing with the Three-headed Dragons? The door opened, and he looked up at Oleander, ignoring the translator for the moment. "Prince Allen has been captured by Cartha; apparently he was with the Dragons. Cartha is in league with Benta, and apparently they have slaughtered my Dragons. I do not know how many remain."

Motioning the translator close, he held out the original missive, and gave the secret one to Oleander. "Tell me what it says."

The translator frowned, silent for several long minutes before he finally said, "Cartha has killed all the Dragons save four:  The Captain, his second in command, the army's silver tongue, and the man who delivered this message. If we want the captives returned, and all-out war avoided, you will come personally to retrieve them and discuss why they tramping through the mountains without permission and attempting to invade Benta."

"Those mountains belong to me," Sarrica said. "I've had enough of their impudence. Summon my generals, inform them of what is going on." He gestured to the translator, indicating he should take a seat. "Call for whatever implements you will need, because you will be writing my reply to Cartha shortly. I am certain I need not tell you that whatever you hear in this room, you are to keep to yourself."

"Yes, Majesty," the translator said, and took his seat. Oleander spoke briefly with a footman, who also spoke with the translator about what he would need, and Sarrica left them to it. His own attention drifted back to the missive from Allen.

The Cartha letter had made no mention of him, and that was strange. If they held a prince of the kingdom, and one who had been offered to the High King as a potential consort, they would have mentioned it. They may or may not believe that Sarrica would go to personally retrieve what was left of the mercenaries he unofficially employed, but he would definitely go to retrieve Allen.

Turning back to the translator he said, "You say they have four Dragons captured: the Captain, his officers, a silver tongue, and the messenger. No mention is made of anyone else? You're absolutely certain?"

"I am certain, Majesty," the translator said.

Sarrica's frown deepened and he read over Allen's message yet again. "I begin to fear that my errant fiancé is dead. But why would they kill him?"

"Bet your pardon, your Majesty, but … could he be the silver tongue mentioned?" the translator asked hesitantly, as the general entered the room and quietly sat down. "I only met his Highness briefly, but he was reading a volume of Penfrost history at the time. Reading it easily, at that," he added with a touch of envy in his voice. "I can count on one hand the number of persons in the palace that can do that. I heard that he speaks several languages."

"I see," Sarrica said, annoyed with himself all over again. He did not recall reading or being told that Prince Allen was a silver tongue. Given that he had written in the Old Tongue, and understood enough that was around him to write the message, sneak it out, and apparently was fluent in Penfrost... "All right, let's assume that somehow my fiancé wound up as the Dragons' silver tongue. That still leaves him in danger with the rest of them. I am going to fetch him."

"Not a good idea," one of the general's said. "I do not know who you are fetching, but I can tell you that it is a bad idea indeed for the High King to leave the palace to venture into Cartha to face both the Carthans and Benta."

Sarrica shook his head. "The message says I must go, and they are not yet aware they have Prince Allen in their grasp. If they learn his true identity, the matter will only worsen. I am going." Sitting down, he gesture to them. "Tell me how we are going to take care of this matter." He sat back, half listening as they hashed out strategies for both defending the capital and dealing with Cartha and Benta once and for all.

He shared a look with Lesto, the general of his current army—and Captain Rene's half-brother. If Rene was still alive, that alone was enough for Sarrica to venture into Cartha, regardless of risk. Rene had done too much for him over the years for Sarrica to betray his loyalty. "We'll get him back," he said quietly.

"I know," Lesto said. "I'm more worried about Prince Allen. He's a soldier of the court, not the battlefield. Cartha will not be gentle with him, and probably all the more brutal just because he is soft.

Sarrica's mouth tightened. He had known that, but hearing someone else say it just made the situation that much harder to bear. The guilt raked across him, making him feel even more of a bastard. "I am going to prepare," he said abruptly, standing up. Looking at Oleander, he said, "Inform me of the finalized plans. I want to leave as soon as possible. Send a messenger to say we are on our way and will be there in three days."

"We can do it in two," Lesto said.

"Two then," Sarrica replied, and strode out before anyone else could say something. He walked quickly through the palace halls, ignoring everyone who tried to capture his attention, and slipped into his private rooms with a sigh.