The Pretender's Crown

ROBERT, LORD DRAKE

14 February 1588 † A village of Alania, in northeastern Essandia

Seolfor, inexplicably, is not there.

It is unquestionably the right village, though its name is of little enough importance that Robert has never learned it. He recognises faces who were children when last he visited, faces that now have children of their own. He recognises a handful of remaining elders, and one of them, a man who must be in his nineties by now, ancient indeed by human standards, recognises Robert in return. They do not speak; they never have spoken, but this is a small village and strangers are remembered. That the old man nods a greeting is enough; even if Robert thought his own memory faulty, oddly, he trusts the elder's.

He passed through last night, in hours small enough to not yet be morning, even if the clock had struck twelve and begun anew. No farmers were up, save one he heard from a distance, tending to a cow bellowing with pain. Dawn had been a long way off, and Seolfor lived on the southern edge of the little town, far enough away that he only belonged to it by proxy, and because there was no other village farther on to claim him. Robert had taken no time to examine the township; it was only after discovering his third to be missing that he retraced his steps to make certain the village was the right one. Now, too surprised to be angry, he stands arms akimbo and looks around the village square as though an answer, or better still, Seolfor, might appear.

“You're looking for the white one,” says the old man.

Robert turns to blink at him, hesitating in answering because he's uncertain he understood the words. They speak a different dialect in this part of the world, almost a different language, and while Robert's Essandian is flawless, he's had far less encounter with Alanian. “I am,” he says after a moment. “Do you know where he is?”

“Forty years.” The old man swings his head from side to side, almost a scold. “It has been forty years, or nearly, since you've come, and you think oh, the old man, he'll know where the white one's gone. Forty years is a long time, queen's man. In forty years your friend might be dead.”

Robert says “No,” because the other thing he might say is too tongue-tangled, too astonished. It's only a moment before he does say it, of course, because Robert Drake is unaccustomed to being genuinely surprised, and toothless nonagenarian village peasants are among the last he would think could surprise him. “Queen's man?”

The old man does that head-swing again, and for the second time Robert feels scolded. Robert can't remember the last time he was scolded, even by Lorraine. She has a knack for putting him in his place, yes, but that has a different aura to it. He finds a smile fighting for exposure at the corner of his mouth, perversely pleased by the old man's audacity.

“They're rheumy, you think, the old man's eyes are rheumy, filmed with blue and thick with age, but eyes aren't the only way to see. I saw it when you came here the first time, and the second, and the mark is stronger on you now. You serve no king.”

“It's true.” Intrigued now, Robert comes to crouch before the old fellow. He's sitting on a stump in the morning light, his village spread around him as though he's a king himself. A staff weights one hand, and his knuckles are gnarled and heavy around it. He was a big man once, near to Robert's size, and though the years have taken as much breadth as hair from him, there's still a hint of muscle in arms lined with flab. “Does it matter who I serve?”

“Pah.” The old man turns his head and spits. “We in the mountains bow our heads to no one. What do I care if you choose a king or a queen, when what matters is you honour a crown.” His gaze, rheumy indeed, narrows. “But a queen's man here means war's on the way.”

“Does it?” Robert is accustomed to the people of this world unfolding their thoughts to him all unknowing. A few do not: royalty, largely; people who have learned to protect themselves in every aspect, for betrayal is so easy to invite. Children hurt very young: he has met a handful of those who are walled up and whose thoughts are not his to sip. They have perfect counterparts, others hurt in just the same ways, who bleed all their thoughts and hopes and fears over everything, emotionally exhausting. Most, though, most humans, are easy to steal a thought from here and there. Even Belinda, unexpectedly, has learned that trick.

This village elder is one who cannot be easily read. It's age that's done it in him, age and practise and guile, Robert would say; this is an old man who has learned charm and cleverness and can still flirt with the young girls without making them cringe, for what he's after is a bit of cheese or some fresh cream, and he's willing to barter it with a story or a pretty word. He's the sort of man Robert thinks he'd like, if he were given to the luxury of liking people. Mostly, though, he doesn't allow himself that indulgence, because human lives are brief, and his purpose much longer and greater than any of their transient appearances on this world.

And when he fails, when he learns to like and to love, it is almost always a woman who is his weakness. The titian queen of Aulun is one such, but in this moment it's Ana di Meo's dark eyes and rich colouring that comes to mind. There was a too-dear price paid for that fondness, too dear for all involved. Robert is not a man made for regrets, but a deep cut lies across his heart in that matter.

He puts the thought away deliberately, bringing his full attention back to the elder, whose head is now bobbling as he produces a toothless grin and waits on Robert's mindfulness. “It does,” he says when he's sure he's got it. “You carry war on your wide shoulders and in your heart.” He leans forward and taps Robert on the chest, confirming Robert's thought that there's strength in him yet. “I can see it,” the old man proclaims, then cants a suspicious eye. “Do you think I'm mad?”

“I think when the eyes cloud the mind learns other ways to see,” Robert says with utter honesty. When the eyes cloud, or when the body is weak, needs must, and while the people of this world rarely have such need, Robert believes in those few who have the second sight and avoids them. He places a hand on the old man's shoulder, a comrade's touch, then straightens so that his shadow falls and blocks sunlight from the man's eyes. “You're too old for war, grandfather. It'll be your grandson's children who go to fight. Let its thought pass you by.”

Acerbically the old man says, “Said like a man with no grandchildren. Leave our village, and take your war with you. Your white friend left before the winter. Went west and south, he said, to go north and east. Follow him, and leave us be.”

Half-bidden by the old man's words, Robert turns west and south, looking beyond mountains and plains toward a river he cannot see, and further still toward the ocean that river leads to. “West and south to go north and east. Did he say where in the north and east?”

“The city of canals,” the old man says, and now there's irritation in his sharp old voice. “There, and Cordula, to see the prince of God. You're in my sunshine.” He's become querulous, age and temper making him a child. “Get out of my sunshine, boy.”

Robert does so with a quiet smile. “Forgive me, old father, and thank you for your guiding words. I hope you have many more days of sunshine, and that war never reaches your doorstep.”

“Pah!” The old man, sulky and sullen, waves his staff and hunches back against the wall, arms folded and eyes defiantly closed, denying any stranger in his village's midst.

Not until he's halfway to Aria Magli does Robert realise the old man was Seolfor.

C.E. Murphy

The Pretender's Crown