“Well, no, but I wasn’t aware that I needed to dress up.”
“I suppose they’ll do,” the chamberlain murmured almost to himself.
Charlemagne felt his temper rising.
“I’ll just give them a brush down,” the man added. And with that, he disappeared into a small cupboard and reemerged with a clothes brush, which he whisked over Charlemagne’s tunic. He stepped back, scrutinised him critically and finally nodded.
“Wait here while I announce you,” he instructed.
This was too much for the Prince’s fragile temper. “My parents already know who I am, thank you very much! And I certainly don’t need your permission to see them! Stand aside and let me through!”
The chamberlain looked down at the bristling youth before him as though seeing him for the first time. Normally, the Prince was quiet and unassuming, but something had finally made him assert his Royal status. The chamberlain bowed low, and stepped back.
Charlemagne angrily dragged aside the heavy curtain that kept out the draughts, and strode into the room. But at that point his leg chose to let him down and he fell sprawling across the floor.
Sitting by the blazing fire, neither of his parents rose to help him up from the rush-strewn tiles. They knew he’d resent it.
“Drag up a stool, Sharley,” Oskan said. “And please try not to look as if you’ve just been drinking dog pee. We only want to talk things over with you.”
Charlemagne placed a stool squarely in front of his parents, then sat down and stared at the floor.
“You know why we’ve called you to see us, don’t you, Sharley?” Thirrin said quietly.
He nodded. “You’re going to send me off somewhere, well away from the coming war.”
“True,” Thirrin answered with brutal honesty. “But first, there are things you need to know. The werewolf scouts have managed to get information about the Empire’s . . . intentions, when they invade.”
Charlemagne looked up, interested despite his overwhelming despair and anger. “What intentions?”
“Bellorum intends to ‘cleanse’ all regions of the Icemark he captures. Basically, this means the Polypontians will kill all survivors, whether they are military combatants or not. It can only mean death and mayhem for the civilian population of regions that fall to him.”
“But you’re talking as though you expect to lose land to him!” said Charlemagne angrily. “Aren’t you going to try and stop him?”
“Yes we do, and yes we will,” his mother answered calmly. “You seem to have forgotten that we’ve fought Bellorum before, Sharley. It’s a simple and undeniable fact that we can’t hold the South Riding against him. Two of the first laws of warfare are know your weaknesses and be prepared to cut your losses. We can only hope to hold him at Frostmarris, and defeat him in a long trial of strength.”
“Like last time.”
“Like last time,” Oskan agreed. “But in this war we’ll have all of our allies gathered and ready, apart from the Vampires, I suppose. But they’ll honour the treaty, I’m sure.”
Uncertainty flickered briefly across Thirrin’s features before she went on. “So, we have to be as ready as possible. The army of the South Riding and all of the town’s garrisons will slow the Empire down for as long as they can, and in the meantime we’ll evacuate the civilian population.”
“But where will you send them?” Charlemagne asked. Then, remembering his history lessons, he answered his own question. “To the province of the Hypolitan.”
“No, not this time,” his mother answered, studying her youngest child for a moment, then deciding to confide in him fully. “Look, Sharley, Scipio Bellorum has been planning his revenge against the Icemark since his defeat almost twenty years ago. The Polypontian Empire almost broke apart then, after he was forced to retreat, but now his army is honed and perfected through years of warfare and he’s called his sons back from their own campaigns in the south of the Empire. We’ll be pushed to the very edge . . . and . . . and perhaps even over it, into oblivion.”
Charlemagne almost gasped aloud, but swallowed instead and turned his head away towards the fire, feeling the heat burning his face to a bright crimson. He’d never heard his mother talk like this before. It was the talk of the defeated! Oskan coughed and took Thirrin’s hand. “Your mother and I actually differ on this. I don’t think the situation is hopeless . . . just desperate. I think we can withstand Bellorum and his sons again, but it’ll be close.”
“Have you had a premonition about it?” Charlemagne asked.
“Not exactly. In fact, no, I haven’t. It’s more a personal feeling I have.”
“I see. And have you spoken to the others about this, Mum – Cressida, the twins, Medea?”
“Nobody at all. And they mustn’t know, Charlemagne! If I, the Queen, despair, then how can we expect the soldiers to fight on?”
“So why are you telling me?”
“Because I want you to understand exactly why I’m sending you away, and also why I’m sending you abroad, to the Southern Continent.”
This time Charlemagne did gasp, and leaped to his feet, but his leg gave way again and he sat down heavily. “You’re sending me into exile? I won’t go! If the Icemark does fall, I want to be here with you all!”
“Listen to me!” Thirrin snapped loudly. “You’re not going alone. I’m sending with you as many refugees from the fighting as I can. So, if the Icemark does fall, there’ll still be a free people waiting for the chance to return. There’ll still be a free people speaking our language, maintaining our traditions, learning our history. And they’ll still be led by the House of Lindenshield!” She fell silent, and leaning forward she took his hand. “Don’t you see what I’m saying, Sharley? If the Icemark falls you’ll be King.”
His mind whirled in a storm of conflicting emotions. He was being sent into exile, his family could all die, and if the worst happened he was expected to continue the line of Lindenshield! How could he do any of this when he couldn’t even ride a horse properly or lift a housecarle’s shield?
“I can’t! I won’t! How can I? I’m not ready, not trained! I fall over all the time! The people think me a clown, or a misery, or both! Why would they listen to me?”
“Because you’re a Prince of the House of Lindenshield!” Thirrin said firmly. “And as for being ready, who could ever be? When the worst happens we either sink or swim.”
“Then I’ll sink!”
“No, you won’t. I’m not sending you without help; Maggie’s going with you.”
“Maggie?”
“Yes. He knows he can do nothing to help directly in the coming war, so he’s agreed to go with you to lead our people to safety. Though of course it’ll be no exile for him – he’ll be going home.”
“In fact, it’s thanks to Maggie that we’ll be able to save people. He’s spent the last few months negotiating with the Doge of the Southern Continent to accept our refugees,” said Oskan. “Very few independent nations would dare to risk upsetting the Polypontian Empire. But the Southern Continent has a powerful navy, and also provides the Empire with many imports that otherwise it would find difficult to get.”
“So it’s all arranged. All done and dusted,” Charlemagne murmured.
“Yes, it is,” his mother answered. “We’re about to fight in one of the greatest struggles this country has ever faced. We can’t afford to have any of our soldiers distracted for even a moment by worrying about their families. The Icemark will become a fortress, with no room for noncombatants. Are you prepared to accept your duty as leader of the refugees in exile?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes. You can disgrace your name and be exiled in shame, or you can accept your Weird and become Prince Regent to the Exiles.” Thirrin’s face was fierce and stern, but she looked at her youngest son with a surge of almost unbearable longing. Soon he would be gone, and she feared she would never see him again.
“Then I accept.”
CHAPTER
7
With Charlemagne’s talk over, Oskan had been left alone in his chambers. His mind turned to thoughts of his dark difficult daughter and a day not long before her fourteenth birthday, when he had gone to her tower for the last time as her tutor of magic.
“A day of days, Medea,” he’d said as he’d entered the room at the top of the tower. “Where shall we go? What shall we explore? What will we create in this last tutorial together?”
Her eyes had moved slowly to rest on him; she’d been almost in a trance already. “You choose, and I’ll do whatever you say . . . for this one last time.”
He’d crossed the room to sit on a low chair beside one of the open windows. “What about matter manipulation? Create something for me from the dust and debris of this room.”
Medea had sat in silence for a few moments, before saying, “I’m only the pupil. Let me see the work of the master first, so that I can model my work on your example.”
“All right,” he’d agreed, beginning to concentrate and call upon his Gift. “Let’s make a life from the lifeless.”
Medea had watched as he’d drawn dust particles, long hidden in the nooks and crannies of her room, and gathered them before him. They writhed and rolled, and grew in mass as he lifted more and more debris from between the floorboards.
At last, a small ball of whirling matter had played before them, and he’d reached out with his mind to gently give it form. Medea had been trying to guess what would emerge. At last, a mouse had struggled into existence. Tiny shards of grit and stone became its bones, moisture drawn from the atmosphere became the glistening jelly of its eyes, and he’d sleeked fluff and lint from clothing and upholstery into fur.
It had been perfect!
As he finished his creation, its tiny chest began to lift, and light kindled in its eyes. Then, as the mouse sat up and looked around at the world it had entered, he’d quickly conjured a chunk of cheese. “For you, Mr Twitch-whiskers,” he’d said, hoping to make his daughter smile.
Medea had seemed tremendously impressed and had looked at him with admiration.
Wanting to emulate him, she’d then concentrated her Powers and drawn dust and debris from about her room. But to her creation, Medea added something extra. Oskan had felt her drawing the very electricity and ions of the air, the negative and positive charges of the weather, and the threat of storms. And a creature, which he feared was at least in part a reflection of her own psyche, had begun to form.
Oskan had watched as his daughter moulded the beautiful bright scales and they trickled and snapped into place. Jewellike in their perfection, they’d made patterns like rainbows along the creature’s back. Then a tongue of lightning had flashed forth from its mouth and its jaws had opened to reveal fangs, each one a tiny ivory sabre glistening with a perfect crystal globe of venom.
Before he had drawn breath to congratulate her, the snake had struck out and seized the mouse he had created. It had twitched and squeaked for a moment of blind terror, but then its new life had been extinguished by the venom, and the snake had swallowed its prey.
Furiously, he had struck out and broken the creature into its constituent parts, leaving only a small pile of dust, which a sudden draught blew away. “Learn to control what you create, Medea!” he’d snapped, unnerved by the violence of his daughter’s magical manipulation. “Otherwise you may fall victim to your own Power!”
But as Oskan had strode angrily away he could have sworn her heard her say:
“But I did control it, Father. I controlled it perfectly.”
Oskan dismissed the thought. She was still his daughter and he was sure she would come to the Light.
But he recognised that Medea’s heritage had given her unusually strong powers. In her, the blood of the Witch’s Son ran deep. While Oskan’s mother had never told him who his father was, the hints had been clear enough for him to guess, and although his father’s people were undoubtedly intelligent and powerful, they could hardly be called human. They lived in a deep world of Spirit, and every one of them had to choose between the Light and the Dark. Oskan knew he must act as a guide to Medea in her choice. He could help her if she would open herself to him and learn from his experience, but she had become so difficult to reach. After many internal battles he had chosen to become helpmate to Queen Thirrin. Indeed, most witches and warlocks with their heritage chose the path of the Light.
Thankfully she wasn’t a problem yet. He had time, and he had more immediate concerns. Anyway, the choice was ultimately hers and hers alone, just as it had been for him. His daughter would choose whether to use her Gift for good or ill eventually, and then her decision might be crucial, both for herself and the Icemark.
While Oskan was contemplating his daughter’s Gift, Medea sat alone brooding in her high-backed chair facing the open window of her tower. Now that Charlemagne had been appointed Prince Regent to the Exiles he was everyone’s darling and had an official status that was almost equal to Cressida’s. Knowing that their mother was spending even more time with him than ever, if that were possible, filled Medea’s young heart with a darkly jealous rage.
In the depths of her loathing Medea let her mind reach out into the night, untouched by the howling blizzard that raged and ripped at the physical world. Slowly, her thoughts flowed over the frozen world of the Icemark, exploring the unbroken blanket of snow as it travelled south. Eventually, Medea’s consciousness found the Dancing Maidens, the low mountain range that formed the Icemark’s southern border with the Polypontian Empire. She probed sticky tendrils of consciousness into its chasms and clefts, gorges and canyons, until at last she found the pass that led to the armies of Scipio Bellorum.
It was blocked by deep drifts of snow and immensely thick walls of ice that stretched across its width as if defensive walls had been built against the coming of spring. Slowly, her mind expanded, seeking the deep secret of climates that would tell her when the thaw would begin. The answer was not to her liking. There were at least two months of snowfall yet to come, and that would keep the Icemark sealed and safe from the threat of the waiting war. But Medea wanted the Icemark, and her whining little brother, to suffer now!
With the instinct of the naturally gifted, Medea called up the pressures and depressions that would mould the atmosphere and climate into a movement of warm winds drawn from the southern seas. Within days the ice would begin to melt. She smiled, safe in the knowledge that Bellorum had no idea that he had an ally deep in the bosom of the Lindenshield clan.
In the Polypontian camp, General Scipio Bellorum sat before the fire of his sumptuously appointed campaign hut. To either side of him, his sons, Octavius and Sulla, sipped mulled wine from golden goblets.
“So, the time has arrived, gentlemen. Spring has begun its opening salvo and ours shall soon follow,” the General observed in a voice as cold as the ice that rimed the glass windows.
“Yes, Sir,” said Octavius. “I’ve already ordered the artillery train into position below the pass.”
“Good,” said his father with quiet enthusiasm. “I trust the ammunition reflects our new tactics.”
“As a mirror, Sir,” his son assured him. “Seventy-five percent of our solid shot capacity has been replaced with anti-personnel chain and grapeshot, designed to inflict a high casualty rate on advancing soldiers. After all, with our new weaponry, the need for the artillery to breach city walls has almost been negated.”
“Yes indeed,” the General agreed, smiling into his mulled wine. “How surprised our little Queenling will be when her cities begin to fall to fires from above.”
“Perhaps the shock will be enough to drive them to submission,” said Sulla.
His father glanced at him. “My dear boy, I really wouldn’t count on it. The barbarians and monsters we’re about to encounter know only how to fight. Surrender is a considered act, taken only by intelligent beings who have assessed the odds and found them less than favourable. But Queen Thirrin and her circus of monsters have a level of sophisti
cation much the same as trapped animals, so you can be certain they will resist unto death.”
“How very pleasing,” said Octavius. “One would almost be disappointed to be denied a war at this late stage.”
“Oh, you need have no fear of that,” said his father. “The Icemark provides an army of almost gladiatorial entertainment value. Every single one of them is loyal to their cause to the point of fanaticism, and even when captured they willingly die rather than reveal any information.”
Sulla laughed. “What a glorious challenge that presents to my inventiveness. I’ve several instruments at my disposal that are designed specifically for extracting useful information from reluctant captives. I’m almost eager for our first prisoner to be brought in.”
“I think you’ll find them tougher nuts to crack than you expect,” the General said lightly. “Still, the act of trying will be exhilarating in its own right.” He rose to his feet and raised his goblet.
“Gentlemen, to a happy war.”
His sons leaped to their feet and responded loudly, “To a happy war.”
Their laughter flowed out into the night and reached into the pass through the Dancing Maidens, where it echoed round the mountains with all the insane glee of an army of psychopaths.
Maggiore Totus stroked the gigantically fat Primplepuss occupying his lap, and for the second time in as many minutes a stiflingly rancid smell wafted up and engulfed the little scholar. Holding his breath, he hurriedly waved the book he’d been reading under his nose. He stopped briefly and sniffed experimentally, but then coughed and flapped the book even more frantically. Old age could be a terrible burden, but at least he hadn’t yet succumbed to the horrors of uncontrollable and pungent wind.
He hoped the smell would clear before Charlemagne arrived. With this in mind, Maggie hurried across to the window and threw open the shutters. The howling blizzard outside erupted into the room like a wild white animal, shedding snow like scales and sending Maggie’s papers and ashes from the fireplace whirling into the air. The room became a sound box for the wind, which bellowed and roared until Maggie managed to drag the shutters shut.