The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (6 page)

“Soap first.”

CHAPTER 4

“S
he did what!” Monarch Leopold shrieked. He rose angrily from his chair and punched the air.

Count Bartholomew winced. He was not happy to be the man to deliver bad news. But, as the lowest-ranking adviser in the monarch’s Privy Council, the grim task fell to him. Besides, there was no one else around, which was part of the news.

The Eracian ruler started pacing around the Council Chamber, the eyes of the men assembled watching him carefully with trepidation. He stopped suddenly, as if seeing the masters of coin and trade, attending the meeting that Bart had just interrupted, for the first time. The two lords were seated behind the big table, staring at a swath of papers, not quite sure what to make of Bart’s interruption or his message. Monarch Leopold waved them out.

“If she wants war, she’ll get war!” he shouted.

“Your Majesty, I believe she wants to avoid war,” Bart offered quietly. His eyes rolled toward the chandelier above, then toward the empty balconies surrounding the chamber.

“Avoid war? How?” The monarch slammed his fist against the mahogany surface. “How? By abducting every single Eracian noble who came to pay respects at her father’s funeral? They were her guests! And she broke the code! I could have been there!” It was part pride, part luck, part mistrust that had stayed the monarch from traveling to Roalas. He had shipped half his court instead, a lukewarm gesture of goodwill that only barely countered the insult of his absence.

The count swallowed. “She has also taken hostage all of the Caytorean dignitaries.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care! Half the realm’s leaders are there. Who does she think she is, that bitch!”

Bart raked his hair. There was sweat dewing on his temples. He never liked talking to the ruler when he was angry. Leopold was not a very reasonable man when white fury wrapped him.

“Your Majesty,” Margrave Philip, the chief spy, interjected. The man had remained sitting behind the table, holding a silver pen, rolling it between his fingers. “It would be prudent to learn more about Empress Amalia’s intentions before we make any decisions. We know for a fact that she has not harmed anyone. All her guests are being treated with care and respect.”

“Oh, I see. So we should be polite as well? Maybe we should wage a polite war?” He whammed the table again. “Summon Commander Raymond, now!”

Konrad, the royal aide, nodded curtly and rushed out of the chamber, glad to leave the scene.

War talk again, Bartholomew thought and swallowed. He did not want to remind the monarch that trade with Caytor had tripled in the last eighteen years, mostly because of Adam. The man had crippled Eracia, but he had given her a clean wound to nurse.

Snubbed pride was a deep hurt, but Bart was a pragmatic man. He saw beyond the fanfare and heroic songs. He counted wars in the lost gold and unnecessary wagonloads of bodies. The last two decades had been the least bloody in known Eracian history. The Free Roads Agreement was the best thing to have happened between Somar and Eybalen in quite a long time.

They had to be very careful around Amalia. She may be a diplomatic pirate, but then again, nothing Adam’s blood had ever done was orthodox.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “we really need to understand what she intends to do. Our trade convoys have not been touched.”

Long caravans of goods continued flowing into Athesia and Caytor, unabated, safe in their passage, and untouched by the diplomatic storm in Roalas. It was the legacy of the strange duality of Athesian rule. Even when the monarch had dispatched killers to dispose of Adam, the man would just blithely ignore the attempts, never once harming the economic relations between the countries. He simply looked beyond the petty bickering and political schemes and let all their countries thrive. Or perhaps he knew things that none of them did. His daughter seemed to follow the same path.

“It’s called the Butcher’s Slice,” the monarch said in a chiding tone. “You know that one?” Both men shook their heads. “Bless my nanny for telling me the best stories.” The monarch paced around the room in a nervous, erratic gait. Bart had to pivot on his heels to follow him.

“It’s a story about a butcher in a little town called Elsborne, who used to deliver pork cuts to his customers. They would always get the whole cut. But then, one day, he sheared a slice off every chop he delivered. And when the customers asked him why he’d done that, he told them an innocent tale about how his business was struggling. Then, the next time he delivered his goods, the cuts were smaller once more. And he spun another tale about how one of his sties had burned down and he needed the extra money to rebuild it. The third time he said nothing. By now, the customers were complaining, but no one really wanted to do anything about the tiny slice missing. After all, the hassle was hardly worth the thin strip of meat. Right. By the time the cuts were so tiny they could hardly feed their families, the butcher had grown rich, having sold the extras to hundreds of new customers. When they finally mustered nerve to confront him, he had fled town.”

Bart frowned. He was not sure what the moral of the story was. It was just a nanny’s story.

“Don’t you get it? She’s doing the Butcher’s Slice trick! She’s changing the political situation one slice at the time. For now, she has taken my nobles hostage, but she has not harmed them in any way. It’s a small gesture of aggression, but not big enough to justify war. After all, nothing has really changed, has it? My trade convoys travel freely. No one has been hurt. Soon, she may impose new road taxes, just an extra copper, nothing more. Or she may execute one of the guests. We will gradually get used to the new reality, one change at a time, never quite big enough as to stir an immediate response. She’s testing my resolve and intelligence. And I won’t let her best me.”

The count drank a glass of wine. Monarch Leopold had a point, but it was still a wild speculation.

“We ought to be careful, Your Majesty,” Bart hazarded. He wished the full Royal Council was in assembly so they could dissuade their ruler from any rash, hasty decision. But half its members were prisoners now.

“An act of war is an act of war! There’s no middle ground. We must react with full force.”

Margrave Philip spoke. “Your Majesty, going to a total war against Athesia will not benefit our national interests. By the time we engage the foe, it will be summer, time for harvest. We will starve the people. Furthermore, our armies are hardly ready for a sustained campaign.”

“What do you suggest then? That we exchange blows with Athesia through a series of reciprocal border skirmishes? We’ve done that before with Caytor, for countless generations. It hasn’t made much difference.”

No
, Bart thought,
but people tend to forget what kind of wars the two realms waged before the skirmishes came into fashion
. People forgot the horror of the all-out campaigns of death the two nations had fought, the years of famine and devastation, the despair and near-total destruction. They forgot the Widows’ Winter. They forgot the Leprous War.

The truth was, the Eracian regiments were rather weak. They could still muster only about two-thirds of the war force they had had before the Great Desertion. The troops were badly trained. The morale was not that high. Many great army commanders had defected to Athesia in the last war, leaving Eracia leaderless. Worst of all, they had no idea how strong Empress Amalia’s forces were.

Then there were the rumors of terrible secret weapons that Athesians wielded, invisible crossbows that could kill an armored man a thousand paces away. No one really believed those to be true, but no one was quite ready to put hearsay to the test. Least of all Bart. It was a gamble he was not willing to play, yet. He hoped the monarch would listen to reason. Not likely, considering he had banned songs about Adam’s military legend years ago. Bart still remembered the sad, drunken one-armed bard who was foolish enough to sing about the Red Death, the famous defeat of the Parusite armies by Adam. The wanton poet had lost his tongue that night.

The margrave coughed. “Our best course of action is to wait. We could start mobilizing the divisions, in Baran and Yovarc, but nothing too grand. We should send agents into Athesia, see how much information they can glean.”

Bart did not want to say anything. This was how the last war had started—innocent mobilization.

Leopold waved his hand, his face contorted in derision. “Ah, your useless ring of spies, Philip. What have they ever learned?”

The nobleman swallowed the insult. “It’s worth a try, Your Majesty.”

Bart went over to a side table and unfurled a map of southeastern Eracia, staring at it without seeing any details. He just wanted something to do with his hands. He was no military man. His knowledge of army garrisons was quite limited. Commander Raymond would arrive soon, but the man was likely to side with the monarch.

“There have been rumors of Parus stirring, too. They might be getting ready for war,” the chief spy said after a lengthy pause. “Again.” He joined Bart in the corner. His lips moved as he traced the old border lines, counting leagues.

“What do they want now?” The monarch seemed annoyed.

There was a loud yet polite knock on the chamber’s doors.

Leopold’s head whipped sideways. He looked like a hawk. “What now!”

The double doors parted. One of the guards let Chief Steward Kai enter. The old man bowed slightly. “I apologize for the intrusion, Your Majesty, but your son inquires if you would be so kind to play with him now?”

The monarch groaned angrily. “In so many words, did he? Not now, Kai, damn it. I’m busy.” He made a rude gesture of dismissal. “Begone. And I don’t want to be disturbed. If Commander Raymond deigns to get here, send him in. Close the doors.”

The steward bowed, deeper this time. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

Bart watched his lord twitch with unbridled annoyance as the old man retreated. Kai spent more time with young Ludwig than his own father did. The count could only imagine what kind of thoughts swirled in the boy’s addled head, but there had to be some love, and pain, there.

Leopold turned back. He was frowning. “You were saying?”

“We are not quite sure, Your Majesty, but we cannot dismiss the information lightly. There are close to a hundred thousand Parusites living in the Territories now, less than a week’s march from our southern border. Moving the troops east will expose Paroth and Ubalar to enemy invasions.”

“Even more of a reason to mobilize troops!” Leopold barked. “Parus may even want to move against Eracia.”

“My informants have heard no indication whatsoever that this is the case, but it would be foolish to create a reality where Parusites may decide to exploit a political void just for the sake of it.”

“So what you’re saying is that the Parusites are mobilizing for war, possibly against Athesia, maybe against us. Even though the chances are slim, we cannot ignore them and have the army ready. But we cannot move the army east, because this would expose us to Parus, who never wanted anything to do with us in the first place, but because we may want to attack Athesia, they could attack us. So where does this leave me? Stranded on a chamber pot like an invalid child.”

“We will know more about King Sergei’s intentions in the coming weeks. Our best course of action is to wait. Mobilizing the troops will definitely give us an advantage. Should we need them east, they will be ready to march. Should we need them to fend off a Parusite invasion, they will be ready, too. But we must not make any grand preparations, since this could alarm the Parusites. We might inadvertently trigger a second war front, without ever intending it.”

Bart listened carefully. Military was a strange lady. His expertise was diplomacy and economics. And for some reason, whenever people talked war, they slighted the art of talk and negotiations and forgot how many thousands of wagons of food it took to feed an army on the march.

The monarch sat down, disgusted. “Well then, have your little spiders do their work.” He waved a hand curtly. “Just remember, you have one month. I won’t sit by idly and watch the Parusite king and that Athesian whore take turns shafting me.”

One month, Bart thought sourly. In one month, Philip would deliver a fresh swath of bad news, as vague and uncertain as today’s. Commander Raymond would most likely press for military action. There was no knowing what others might think, but few would openly oppose the monarch.

“Your Majesty, I will go,” Bart blurted. “I ask for your permission.”

“What? Go where?”

“Let me go and talk to King Sergei. Let me meet Empress Amalia. Instead of guessing their intentions, let them speak, hear them out. It could be lies, but even so, we will have a shadow of the truth, and that’s more than we know now.”

“You’re not a soldier,” Leopold reminded him in a tone he normally reserved for his son.

“I know that, Your Majesty. But it’s still the hour of diplomacy, not war.”

“Do we have any money to hire the nomad mercenaries?” the monarch asked suddenly, turning his attention to the margrave. “Now, where’s Quade? Get the master of coin back in here now.” He snapped his fingers, but the Council Chamber was empty of servants and aides.