The Book of Battles

Chess does not in any way resemble actual war which, in the end is bloodly and boundless where kings and queens are gleefully killed and replaced and the battle goes on. No, rather it resembles the subtle play of royal against royal within their castles and before the fire hearths, the little secret war which takes place that the greater wars may not burn across the land.

- Ashley Senae, Countess Herreboro

HALE

"Well, there is no doubting having Sir Ralph with us has been a boon,” Cynric declared as they rode down into the valley.

The tall knight, the most courtly looking of them all, raised an eyebrow from where he sat his horse and said, “Because I am Royan?”

“Why take offence?” the blond Cynric said. “But truly, because you are a chief knight in the household of King Idris and Idris is the mightiest king in these parts.”

“I know so little of this land,” Wolf lamented.

He would rather look than fight and, indeed, what was the point of fighting for a land you could not see? Now that they descended into the valley, the sea beyond would no longer be visible. They would travel long enough to cross the ridge, the long line of troops in tow, fifty thousand left to man the height of the east side of the valley once they reached it to ensure no treachery.

“Lord, you know all you need to,” Cannlyn said, “and more than most kings of North Hale have known in years.”

“When the Dayne kings ruled,” Cynric said, “they neither knew nor cared for the land. They ruled from the coast, up to Highpoint, and then when Edmund came he came to conquer and chased them all back with the help of the Baldwins.”

“The Baldwins,” Wolf muttered.

“They fell quickly enough,” Cannlyn said.

“They did not fall at all,” Cynric countered. “They lost their holdings, all of North Hale to be sure, but there was no loyalty to them, and then they left it all for Ambridge twenty-five years ago. And so many Royan and Dayne having made compact with each other. It was easy to turn them to us up in the north, but they are still holding onto Inglad.”

“Your majesty,” Ralph said, “What will you do? You must have a coronation.”

Wolf shook his head, the sunset sparkling golden on his spikey red hair.

“There will be no coronation until there is a kingdom.”

“But there are two kingdoms,” Ralph said. “North Hale yours and Myrne’s, and Hale except for the southern border contested. All Edmund holds is Inglad, and Inglad is a strange matter.”

“Meaning?” Cynric said to Ralph, for he honestly wished to know what he meant.

“The Three Kingdoms did not come together by conquest,” Ralph said, “At least I studied the history of you Sendics. Rather because of marriages Hale and North Hale became one. But North Hale and Hale are, of course, Hale, they always were. They were originally one.”

“And Inglad is Ayl,” Wolf said, “Does it even make a difference? At the end of the day we are the same.”

“It may make a difference to them,” Ralph said. “Inglad was not conquered. It came to the Wulfstans by bloodright, but the truth is the culture is different. It is far south of your usual holdings and, like it or not, they are more cultured than the Hale.”

Cynric snorted and Ralph said, “Snort if you like, but they accepted Edmund almost with open arms, and his establishment of a capital down in Ambridge and not in the North they have never forgotten. If some northerners in furs speaking Dayne and talking about their old gods come down into that land of doublets, knights, castles and monasteries…”

“You think I should give up Inglad?” Wolf said.

“I think you should consider it,” Ralph said.

“We’ll fight,” Cynric declared. “We’ll fight to the death.”

“Whose death?” Ralph said to him.

Wolf’s thoughts turned inward. He pictured the day he had arrived in Kester while Ralph said:

“Cynric, it’s easy to be generous with other men’s lives.”

The day that he was now surprised to realize was close to a year ago, when Odo had parted from him, and only Polly and Michael Flynn had remained as he joined up with Eryk and Cynric, two men he had, until then, never met had changed everything. Together they had journeyd up north to Kester and he was surprised to see the city already manned, the banners of Edmund already overthrown, and Myrne already present, already calling her father’s banner men to her allegiance. The Earl of Herreboro never once protested this, for all of his life he and his wife had hidden their Wulfstan heritage for the sake of their daughter and now, here she was, young and beautiful and with a Royan sorceress from the woods at her side as well the Abbess of Saint Clew.

Though men applauded for Wolf as he entered the city, Wolf confessed, “I am simply the accessory to Myrne.”

“Nonsense,” her mother the Lady Herreboro said. “The way of it is this: Hale can never be free with Inglad on one side and North Hale on the other, and as much as people here may love Herreboro, there is no strong claim to either kingdom without you. You are the grandson of Edred, and if what Myrne says is so, then you were raised to be a King.”

“I have spent my life being a servant and the last month living in a crate.”

“Because you were a King in hiding,” the Lady said.

Wolf was not even bathed, and the great hall in Kester was filled without shouting and triumph. He turned to look at the bannermen of Hale and said, “I do not even know what to do next.”

“Have you asked it of yourself?” Lady Herreboro said. “A good king, and we have not had one in nearly a century, would ask of himself and then of his councilors. What is the first thing to be done?”

“The first thing,” Wolf said, “is to secure the southern border, make sure those castles are loyal to us. The second thing is to ride into North Hale and seize the Baldwin’s seat at Summer’s Rest, and their towns along the coast. The third is to marry Myrne, which I would have be the first.”

“Well, then you are already thinking like a King,” Lady Herreboro said. “A king has arms like a hydra. They are his councilors and generals. A wedding can quickly be had. Myrne has already begun assembling men to send to the south, for she will be no passive queen, and you can march north in a matter of days.”

“There is a fourth thing to be done,” Myrne startled them by appearing at Wolf’s side.

“Yes, love?” he said.

She smiled at him, looking a little dazed.

“You have never called me that,” she said. Then she said, “but the fourth thing is that there are many lords here, but not all of them. We must secure the loyalty of the old Royan lords, and the Half families, and of the Dayne settlements. If we do not have all of Hale we cannot have any of it.”

 

The wedding took place two days later. At first they called out, “Prince Osric and Lady Myrne!” but Eryk Waverly cried out, “All hail King Osric! All hail Queen Myrne!” and after this, they were known as such. There was no formal coronation, for at this moment what they were leading was a rebellion. Kester had been overthrown, but now the seats of power where Edmund’s men, his judges, his sheriffs, his tax collectors, his bishops and abbots sat, would have to be overthrown.  What was more, they had to decide where the coronation would be, for this said everything, and the Lord of Herreboro began to say, “If they cannot be crowned in the Cathedral of Ambridge over the dead body of Edmund, they should not be crowned at all.”

 

But today, crossing the Liger Valley, Osric Wulfstan began to rethink this. The two Hales had always had a complicated history unlike the five kingdoms of the South or the Royan ones to the West and immediate north. After Avred Oss’s death, his daughter and son and law, Beren and Fayn tried to establish a new kingdom in his northern lands which had always been more or less independent. Locress had gone to Avred Oss’s bastard son from which the kings of Westrial still claimed descent. But the same time the Royans had been establishing their new northern kingdom, the Hale had been invading and this had made matters of who ruled what complicated. Even when the Hale had won their kingdom, sometimes it was one and then two, and somehow the winning of Inglad, deep in the south, cultured and fruitful, had marked a new phase for them, Ambridge and the southern cities had always been seen as better somehow, less rough, less like the barbarian raiders the Hale had been, and they had come to it fairly no less.

But the Hale had their own cities. Herreboro itself has been capital of Hale. Herre meant king and so its was Kingsboro by  different name. Kester was a mighty city and further north, Stonehouse and Wulfboro, the great cities of their people. But they had, in someways, counted their people as not enough, another people’s territory as what they needed. As long as they thought that way, Wolf realized, they were still raiders. What was more, they were endangering lives to take a kingdom there was no real reason they should have.

“There will be a coronation,” Wolf decided. “I will send a raven to my wife. As soon as the child is born we will be crowned, and crowned in splendor. We will be crowned at Herreboro, and if Edmund leaves us unmolested, Inglad shall be his.”

---

AMBRIDGE

The raven had arrived while they were at table. The page had been nervous about bringing it, but the Lord of Heralds had declared that such was the nature of the message, or at least of the sender, it could not be ignored. While Edmund sat at high table with his Queen beside him and her brother, Allyn Baldwin, beside her, the letter came and Edmund received it coolly, and then opened it with the tip of the ruby on his royal signet ring.

On Edmund’s left, looking like a slightly younger version of the King was Rufus King of Daumany, but on his right was Queen Edith. The whole time he read, Queen Edith looked on her black haired husband, noticing only a raised eyebrow.

“Husband, what is it?”

“Never you mind,” he said.

“Husband,” Edith said, “Speak.”

“My Lady, your father is dead and your holdings are gone. You are not the power you once were.”

“I am the Queen,” Edith said, “and that means I am still a power.”

She knew this was not so. One was only as powerful as the land they held and the people they ruled, and the people of North Hale had been altogether too happy to switch their allegiance to Myrne Herreboro and this new husband of hers.

I feared her when I saw her, Edith thought, but I did not know why.

They should have never let her leave this castle, and now she knew that apparently this Osric Wulfstan had been here too, sheltered in the castle. If she had known she would have strangled them both, and sent their heads to her father.

But of course, they had known this, which is why they had played the game so well and skipped away from Ambridge, after playing their part in having her father imprisoned.

And Father… She blamed that bitch for his murder as well. She had not ordered it, true, but she might as well have. Ulfin Baldwin had attempted to lead some small rebellion from prison, called one of his bannermen to him, Batiacus of Lindor. But Battiacus had left with Ulfin’s head and his right hand. His hand, Battiacus sent to the newly styled King Osric, his head to Ambridge. Osric had sent a letter offering apologies, most florid, but saying that the war was not done and now Edtih, looking at the epistle in her husband’s hand, realized:

“Osric has sent this letter. Hasn’t he?”

Edmund looked at her in great irritation, and while he was spending that time looking at her hatefully, Edith took the letter and began to read to herself. It would be in bad form for Edmund to snatch it back from her, and she knew how much Edmund hated bad form.

As she finished the letter, Edith threw it down.

“Sister, what?”

“Osric says he will gladly concede Inglad if we will make a truce and acknowledge himself and Myrne Herreboro as King and Queen of Hale and North Hale.”

“Damn him!” Allyn shouted, standing up and slamming the table. The handsome man went red, the veins in his neck pulging out, his slender body trembling.

“Damn him and Damn her!”

“Allyn,” King Edmund chided.

“They send a falcon, so pretty to say, if you will give us the lands we have stolen, two thirds of your kingdom, we can all go merilly on our way. After they killed our father! After they took our lands! And our prestige. After,” he slammed down his fist with each “after”, trembling.

 “After that slut took a wagonload of my treasure to Herreboro and laughed while she did.”

They all looked up at him, and Edmund opened his mouth, but the older man chose to say nothing, knowing he would not be heard.

“I will capture that slut, and I will drag Myrne Herreboro back here in chains where she will be Queen indeed because she will be my Queen, but not before I fuck her bloody on this table for all men to see! Osric Wulfstan! I will rip off his cock and feed it to him before shoving his head up his ass.”

“And doubtless taking the crown from his head and putting in on your own,” Edmund said.

“Aye!” Allyn roared while Edith’s eyes widened and she tried not to bury her face in her hands.

“But, brother,” Edmund continued, “I thought that I was the true King of Hale and North Hale?”

Allyn turned to Edmund, still wild eyed, but his face going white, and then green.

“My King…” he began.

“You were ever transparent and witless,” Edmund murmured. “But watch yourself little brother. You do not have your clever papa to hide behind anymore.”

Edmund looked to his wife and said, with a sick smile, “However we feel about their presumption, there was never anything Osric and Myrne did so well, as to have your father’s head cut off and sent to my table.”

 

It was well into the night when Edith Baldwin allowed herself to rise from bed. She had never fallen asleep, but she knew she had to wait some time to do what she wished. Now she rose and wrapped her cloak about her, took up a lamp, and opening the door slowly, went down the hall. She passed the door to Edmund’s apartment and paid little heed to the sounds of him and Rufus fucking whores with their chosen men. The shouts the grunts, the drunken laughter meant for now she was safe. She went down the hall and up some flights, and then found Allyn’s rooms and opened the door.

“I was wondering when you would get here,” he said without preamble.

Most nights he would have some slut here as well, and his door locked and this as an indication of how worried he was. He sat on his bed, a tray wifh a half empty flagon of wine on it.

“Brother, we have been in disgrace for some time, but now we are in danger,” Edith said, flatly. “Things could not have been worse. Rufus as king the same time Myrne showed up. Now you are no longer heir and I am not longer a threat. We have to change that.”

“But how?”

“Brother, don’t be stupid.”

“Last time,” Allyn said, “when I mentioned you should kill Hilda—”

“Be quiet!” she snapped. Then she said, “And Hilda is not the King. There is nothing for it. If he does not go then we will. And, before you say it, if we kill him outright, then Rufus will be at our throats. No…. we must do this subtly.

 “He must die, and he must die without declaring an heir.”

“But—”Allyn opened his mouth.

“That heir would never be you. We have to get rid of Rufus, put Edmund in his grave and declare you King before Rufus can return. If all the lords of Inglad are here to declare you, it will be harder for him to make a stand.”

“And, Sister, how do we do that?”

She sighed, looking exasperated.

“Just once I would love it if you could have some brains and not leave everything to me.”

Then Edith said, “Never mind. I may have a way. It may mean I owe someone much, though. But then, is there too high a price to pay for one’s life?”