This was why I’d arranged this meeting. These Wacite leaders had to know that the seeming cowardice of my army was strategic. ‘I ordered ‘em t’ be chicken-hearted, me Boy-o,’ I replied in his own dialect. ‘I was after settin’ a trap fer th’ Asturians, don’t y’ know. Y’ kin take it from me, Laddy-buck, me army’ll shed its feathers when th’ time comes.’
No, my use of his dialect was not a way of making fun of it. I was quite deliberately breaking down certain barriers that existed between the social classes. I wanted the Wacite resistance to be a cohesive fighting force, and that necessitated the abandonment of some ancient bad habits.
Beln looked around at his friends with a broad smirk on his shaggy, bearded face. ‘Ain’t she th’ darlin’ girl, though?’ he said to them.
‘It jist fills me heart w’ joy t’ hear y’ say so, Beln,’ I said. ‘Now, then, after the battle on the plains of Muros – which I am going to win, by the way – the Asturians are going to be totally demoralized, and they’ll come fleeing back across the River Camaar in total disarray. That’s where you gentlemen come in. Don’t interfere with them when they go north across the river, but when they try to come back, feel free to settle old scores. To put it bluntly, there are going to be two battles that day. I’ll beat the Asturians out on the plains, and you’ll beat them again down here in the forest when they try to run away from me.’
They cheered at that.
‘Oh, one other thing,’ I added. ‘After their double drubbing, the Asturians are going to be so totally demoralized that they won’t be paying much attention to any ordinary groups of people moving around down here. I’m sure you all have loved ones you’d like to get to safety, and there are others as well who’d rather not live under the Asturian yoke. Let it be known that they’ll all be welcome in Muros. I’ll see to it that they have places to live and food to eat.’
‘Will that not strain thy resources, your Grace?’ the blond young Baron Athan, whom I’d met several times in Vo Wacune, asked me.
‘I’ll manage, my Lord,’ I assured him. ‘I’ve been making preparations for the care of Wacite refugees since the fall of Vo Wacune.’ I spoke to them all again. ‘I know that most of you would rather stay here and fight, but get your women, children, and old people to safety. Don’t leave innocents here to be taken hostage by the Asturians.’
‘Thy point is well-taken, your Grace,’ Athan approved. Then he said, ‘In passing, my Lady, I must needs have a word with thee at the conclusion of our meeting here.’
‘Of course, Baron.’ Then I looked around at the other patriots. ‘I’d advise moving the refugees up to the river in small groups, gentlemen. Establish safe routes through the forest and send a dozen or so people up those trails each time. I’ll make sure there are boats waiting to ferry them across to safety.’
We discussed the details of my proposed mass emigration for about a half hour or so, and then most of the patriots faded back into the woods. Baron Athan remained behind. ‘I have a most sorrowful duty to perform, your Grace,’ he told me. ‘I must regretfully advise thee that Baron Ontrose, thy champion, died during the siege of Vo Wacune.’
My heart froze within me. In spite of everything, I’d still clung to some small vestiges of hope that my beloved had survived.
‘I was with him when he died, your Grace,’ Athan continued. ‘It had been mine intent to sponge the stain of Baron Lathan’s treason from off our family honor by giving mine own life in the defense of Vo Wacune, for indeed, the scoundrel Lathan was a distant cousin of mine. Count Ontrose, however, did command me to escape. He did order me to depart that I might carry the word of his death unto thee, fearing that doubt and uncertainty might distract thee from thy sworn duty. I would not cause thee pain, dear Lady, but he did utter thy name with his dying breath.’
I drew a cold iron wall around my heart. ‘Thou hast performed thy mournful task most excellently, my Lord,’ I thanked him. ‘And now must we part. Strive to thine utmost to avenge our revered friend, Baron Athan, e’en as will I. Should the opportunity arise, we shall speak more of this tragedy anon.’
Then I left the village and went back into the dark trees. I wept for a time, but simple weeping seemed too light and innocuous for the overwhelming grief that tore at my heart. My despair needed a greater outlet. I went falcon and thrust myself blindly into the air. Birds of prey do not often scream at night, but I had more than enough reason to scream on that particular occasion. And so my screams of grief and despair trailed behind me across the dark forest of northern Wacune and on up among the peaks of the Sendarian mountains, where my desolate cries echoed back from the eternal rocks and seared the surface of every glacier inching down every mountain.
The Wacite resistance had extensive contacts across the border in Asturia, and such information obtained in this roundabout fashion eventually reached Malon, and one evening not long after the meeting in that ruined village he advised me that Duke Garteon and ‘an Angarak advisor’ had come out of hiding and had returned to the palace in Vo Astur. Malon’s message confirmed what I’d suspected from the very start. Ctuchik was meddling in Arendish politics again. My bereavement at the confirmed death of my beloved Ontrose led me into some very dark corners of my mind as I considered all sorts of things that might partially satisfy my desperate hunger for vengeance. My skill as a physician suggested any number of things that would linger for weeks – if not months. The thought of Ctuchik writhing in agony for a few seasons was very comforting.
The Asturians crossed the River Camaar to invade my domain in late autumn, and they began their march on Muros expecting little resistance. General Halbren was wise enough not to respond immediately, but waited until the Asturian army was a day’s march north of the river before he counterattacked. As he put it to me later, ‘I didn’t think it’d be a good idea to waste a perfectly well-baited trap until the mice were all the way inside it, your Grace. I didn’t want them yearning back toward the riverbank instead of concentrating on getting wiped out. All in all, it worked out fairly well, I’d say.’ Halbren could be a master of understatement when he set his mind to it.
My army had been chafing at the restrictions I’d imposed on them, and when Halbren relaxed those restrictions, they came howling out of Muros like a pack of hungry wolves.