Vol.6, Ch.1, P.1
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Redelberne, crown capital. Under the afternoon sun the city sat, its spans of splendour in full display of Londosian dominion. And nestled square in its centre was the royal palace, a sprawling portrait of Man’s self-made prosperity.
From crevice to crenellation, the dwelling’s walls blushed a winsome white, fair as fresh-fallen snow; and yet, being great in girth and grave in gaze, it seemed ancient, too, after a fashion, as a sculpture that endures the undying duresses of both time and clime. But though a marvel the palace was, not vainly was it so: lovesome and lofty, it stood to guarantee for the citizenry in its shadow the sheer power and impregnability of their realm.
And yet, on this day, such surety was all but shaken. Officers and servants scrambled about the palace in a great confusion. Eminences and envoys, so summoned hither in haste, marched hauntedly up the halls. “Hauntedly”, as any who looked upon their faces would find them faint, affrighted, and altogether fallow of their former prestige; for they had all of them been beset by tidings as unprecedented as they were ill-portending:
‘…Déu Tsellin…
…has fallen…!’
Those yet seized in the panick might very well have been the ones better off. Not yet had the harrowing news taken root in them. And still many others refused to believe it, trusting instead to the salves of denial and self-deception. But could they be blamed? For indeed, at the Battle of Déu Tsellin, so perfectly positioned had all the pieces seemed, with the checkmate but one hand away. Why, so loath had Londosius been to lose its sacred mountain that it had unleashed thither its very finest and very fiercest, a move that to most seemed a whole landslide loosed to crush but a single vermin. But fine enough, they had all agreed. Better a victory by extravagance than a defeat by deficiency. For certain; Londosius had not lost. It could not lose. Not with the 1st and 2nd Orders on the field. Not with its very best hand in play. And neither withal the succour of the Champions Salvator, the valiant zealots of the Deivic Quire. And that is to speak naught of the mountain itself, for Déu Tsellin was as an earthen fastness, denying determined marches with its many occluding slopes and combes.
And so must the mountain’s fall have been but a fabrication. Indeed, that many should be so persuaded was most natural. But as the hour-sand trickled on, so did that solaced façade begin to crack.
‘…The Marquis Balbreau is slain…
…And along with the mountain…
…thus falls his fief of Isfält…’
‘…The Salvators and the 2nd Order…
…being much-ruined… were sent to rout…’
‘…The 1st Order, though supreme and hard-opposed…
…accepted the loss of Déu Tsellin…
…and withdrew from the battlefield…’
Such were the new and evil details, each assailing in turn like the cold blades of assassins. The regal halls soon fell silent. There was no doubting it now. Any eminence come on that day who yet held out could but inly cry from helplessness and hopelessness both. And in quick succession, all their misgivings gave way to anxiety, and thence to anguish. And when the name of Sir Stefan Cronheim and withal the woeful fate of him found their ears, that anguish broke and burst into screams to curdle the blood.
Now all the halls were ahowl. Women lamented and swooned; men buried their faces in their hands. And those of them that found sobriety could but observe that the worriments simmering over the past few moons had, in fact, not been so baseless, after all; that the fall of Balasthea and the subsequent loss of Londosian lands had been signs too slowly heeded.
But all things considered, Londosius was yet alive and well. The losses foresaid were but scrapings from the surface, and the reach of the realm remained fast and far. And notwithstanding the wavering and the worrying, there was, in truth, but a very scant few who took this to be all of History turning on its head. Yet, underneath it all, and in light of the recent losses, there were none that could dare doubt thus: that the times were now in tumult, swirling and of sort hitherto unseen—and only more still would its waters surge hence.
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“…And that is all that may be espied at present,” so concluded the briefing from Hugo Rudels, lord chancellor. By his nature was he a man flat and inexcitable of tone. But on this occasion, low and “sunk” he sounded, as never before had been heard of him. Nay, not conceived from his usual composure this quietude was, but rather wrought from a brooding rue that bound him full.
And hardly was he alone in his remorse. There, within the high great-hall of the royal palace, sat ’round a long and mighty board of walnut-wood, were the eminences of the realm and their retinues. Legates, lawmakers, and magistrates—whosoever they were, all bore regret upon their grey regards.
“…So be it. The battle was lost,” said one bureaucrat, young yet high of standing. “Albeit the 1st are yet hale and strong, are they not? I should therefore deem this defeat more and merely effected by ‘strategic withdrawal’ than anything else. Is that not agreeable?”
Loss by “concession” rather than “subjugation”. To be sure, that Londosius had suffered defeat was established beyond a reasonable doubt. This bureaucrat, however, took “defeat” to be too piquant upon the palate, stubbornly insisting that it be termed more tastefully instead. The futile effort drew sighs and shaking heads from all ’round the room.
“We shall weigh that matter and more to a nicety, I’m sure, once the Orders are returned to stand afore us,” a weary Hugo answered. “But understand this first, friends: our holy mountain is taken. And withal its master the Marquis Balbreau and his fief of Isfält: slain and stolen each. That remains the truth, and I shall hear no more debate about it.”
“…”
The young bureaucrat pursed his lips and could say no more. What little doubt that yet lived as to the veracity of the defeat died then at Hugo’s words. Indeed, never was it in the cards to mince the matter with such timidities as “strategic withdrawal”. And so did all the great-hall sag with silence. At length, a minister rustled and spoke.
“Well enough,” he groaned. “But what of this… ‘uprising’ of late, then?”
“‘What of it’? Have you not ears upon you?” Hugo groaned back at the turn of the topic. “The Cutcrowns, my good lord. The Cutcrowns of now-lost Artean; insurgents that have dared flock under the Nafílim banner.”
Verily; with brethren Men having marched on the mountain, it was no longer the Nafílim alone that Londosius had to reckon with.
“Ah, precisely as Her Highness predicted, if I am not mistaken,” echoed another eminence. True enough, it was Serafina, Princess Regent, who had foreseen the Cutcrowns’ casting-in of their lot. Furthermore, it had been by her own mind and mandate that the 1st and 2nd Orders were mustered, all in hopes of wholly worsting the enemy. The results, nonetheless, were anything but ideal.
All eyes turned then to one destination. And there, sitting silently at the head of the board, was the selfsame Serafina Demeter Londosius, fair and white like living light—only, the paleness of her complexion seemed now to stem from a heavy heart. “…Thou art not,” she answered quietly. “Would that my counsel have equalled mine eye. But alas; the onus, my lords, lieth solely upon mine head.”
“Pray Princess, stay your guilt,” Hugo tried to soothe her. “It is the Sword that swung astray, not the Sceptre.”
One might imagine flummery to be more his mind, but Hugo had, indeed, meant his every word: the princess had assayed the very best hand as could the deck accord her. She had perused uncountable reports, peered through the thick fog of war, penned plan after plan under many a sleepless moon—and even managed to deploy the 1st and the 2nd both at once, a move once thought all but impossible. But even after such unprecedented employment of her prerogative, even after unsheathing the very sharpest of Londosian swords, at the last was it all utterly doomed for defeat. Was she still, then, blameable for this blemish? Hugo hardly thought so. But that begat in him another question: if not the princess, then who? Or what?
“Nay, Lord Hugo. ’Tis plain to see that I have ill-measured the might of our enemy,” insisted Serafina. “…A might that hath overmastered even the Sir Stefan himself.”
At that moment, light wilted. The sun outside had been slowly consumed by thickening clouds. Now all the great-hall hung in gloom, as though drapes had been drawn over its high and mighty windows. And therein did they all sit, conquered by eclipse and quiescence both.
“…Londosian swords have lost. That much is certain; that much we must accept,” uttered yet another eminence. “But allow me this: does not the chaos of war too-oft confound the words of heralds? As an arrow may fly amiss, so may a message go misheeded, no? So may news of a mareschal’s defeat be mistaken for his fall? And lords like we: made to grieve upon his grave whilst he yet lives and breathes beyond our ken?”
Many by this point were beginning to tire of the senseless optimism. The few others, however, could not help but nod their heads in agreement. That so strong and sure a knight as Stefan Cronheim could be vanquished was far beyond them to fathom.
“Indeed, upon a past demonstration have I myself beheld the skill of Sir Stefan,” added one. “And this I vouch: his is a strength extraordinary.”
“Hear, hear!” put in another. “Inconceivable, I say. Utterly inconceivable, that the Unsullied should be bested by slobbering, beastly rabble. Nay, nay; only the likes of the Lady Estelle or the Sir Bo Brandt may prove his better.”
At the maundering ministers, Hugo crannied hard his brows. “Or,” he snarled slowly over them, “one who is amongst the enemy.”
Londosius was scarce the sole home to heroes and paragons of battle. A matter of course, but to the eminences there, the truth pierced them no less painfully.
“Oh? You speak perchance of that wiċċa, Chancellor?” enquired one of their more composed minds. “The so-called ‘Nafílim hero’ at the head of Artean’s fall?”
“Ah yes, you have it,” said another. “‘Walter’, if memory serves. Walter the Vile!”
Hugo sighed. “Nay, my lords,” he answered. “It was the Unsullied himself who did fell that Vile foe.”
“…Well then, do pray tell, Lord Chancellor. What diablerie is it that has so buried our hero-knight?”
At that returned question, Hugo became quiet. And looking at him, some in the room then realised the meaning of his lamenting mien; that dammed behind his lips was the Matter Unspeakable. This pleased them not, for the truth entailed was nary a thing to be admitted, much less accepted. But to their dismay, the dam burst as Hugo broke his silence.
“A diablerie with a name,” he answered. “Rolf Buckmann—the renegade ungraced.”
The room simmered asudden. “What? But,” stammered an eminence, “but, that is preposterous—”
“Preposterous, indeed, that you deny so plain a truth!” came Hugo’s scolding scream. And as a fire doused with new fuel, the great-hall erupted into uproar, the very most clamorous witnessed all that day.
Ungraced, he said? That godless, good-for-naught, drivelling dreg of a man? Named now the slayer of a lion of Londosius? The sunderer of a sword of Yoná? The feller of their hero so fair? For the eminences, this was too much of a thing to bear. Banging the board with their fists, they filled the air with spoken fury.
“How!? How came that!? Is he not graceless!? Damned by our Deiva!?”
“The heathen worm! Less worthy than the filth he feeds upon!”
“Think we the sicarius strong!? So meritless though he be!? So mightless!?”
Ever and on, their voices vaulted. But like a knife running clean through cloth, an elderly eminence then lowly debated, “…He has might enough: a might to merit him our mountain.” And at this, all his peers stopped silent. Each of them had known this to be true; only, they had lacked the audacity to air it.
Oh, that treacher, that most atrocious of apostates! Turning on Crown and Country both, this Rolf Buckmann had bedded with the Nafílim foe, seduced from them the title of War-Chief, and thence ever on sired scourge after scourge upon the kingdom! By his hand, lands Londosian had been lost, knights butchered in untold numbers; and now: a holy mountain, profaned and forlorn of its Londosian home. Perhaps, therefore, was the rebel not so powerless as he had seemed. Perhaps at some point in the past, it had been possible to ply him to Londosian profit. Such thoughts, though bitter, seeped more and more into each of the eminences’ minds—
“How came it, then…!? How came his banishment that brings us now this day so dark!?”
—till there burst the burning question. From a passing fit of finger-pointing was it spat out, but proving more a riddle, it sooner silenced all the commotion as the eminences shut their eyes, slumped back into their chairs, and contemplated the question in disquiet.
A Deiva-defying blade, tearing, shearing away at what ought be the Deiva- defended flesh that is their land—in imagining the horror, the eminences thought thus: that possibly was their plight far, far more imperilled than they had first perceived. And then in their minds, they envisioned him: the ungraced. Woeful, unwanted, unworthy. To them, he could not be aught more, nor ever. But now… Now…
The great-hall sat frozen. The sun had yet to return. All was grey and all was grim, and none had the spirit to speak again—save the Princess Serafina.
“…My lords, pray hearken to me,” lifted she the long silence, “for I have now a plan to proffer you.”
Thence did she speak at length. And ever as they lent her their ear, the eminences altogether whitened with awe.
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Thank you for the chapter.
It’s been a while since I last read it, so I’m looking forward to the volume.