“I suspect he accepted this assignment for similar reasons to your doing the same three years ago, Owen. He’s far away from home and will rigidly adhere to his orders. You were intelligent enough to be flexible. I am not certain he is. You will have to watch him carefully.”
Owen frowned. “What is it you’re not telling me, Highness?”
Vlad opened his hands. “I know nothing substantive, but since the end of the war, Ryngian correspondents of mine have hinted at dark rumors about Colonel Rathfield. Don’t ask me for details—there are none. There have been more reliable rumors about Rufus Branch’s location than there are about the hero of Rondeville.”
“Understood, Highness.” Owen scratched at the back of his neck. “If he insists on meting out the Queen’s justice in the back country?”
“If it is warranted, allow it; if not, suggest the case be appealed to the Governor-General.” Vlad walked with Owen to the door. “I trust your discretion, Captain. And I do want a full report of everything. You’re used to that, however.”
“Thank you, Highness.”
As the men descended the wooden stairs, Owen once again could scarcely believe he was walking beside an heir to the throne. His disbelief grew out of equal parts of Prince Vlad acting entirely common and Owen’s not feeling worthy of the man’s friendship and trust. He had no doubt that things like Vlad’s friendship with him or Nathaniel Woods became the source of many crude jests at the Queen’s Court. The same qualities that endeared the Prince to the people of Mystria would make him the object of ridicule in Launston.
Indeed, Vlad’s openness and friendship had been the sole reason why Catherine had initially remained in Temperance Bay. Catherine and Princess Gisella became fast friends and, Owen subsequently realized, Catherine had believed this friendship would place her at the top of Mystrian society. She’d been right. In Norisle she would have been the equivalent of one of the Queen’s Ladies, making her the envy of millions. In Mystria, however, her status placed her only a class or two above barmaids. While their deference amused Catherine, her enjoyment did not last long. Mystria’s virtually classless society came to repulse her.
She doesn’t understand that only because of it was she able to become so close to the Princess. Owen reveled in the same simple social structure, but he had connections into it that she did not. His actions at Anvil Lake, and the time he’d spent with Nathaniel and Kamiskwa, had solidified his position in Mystria.
Owen also realized that he didn’t need society or its approval the way his wife did. In Mystria people were judged largely on what they made of themselves, not who their parents had been. The point of coming to Mystria and changing their names had been to cut themselves off from the past. Many Norillians saw it as a move to spare their families embarrassment, but Owen realized it went further. Unencumbered by eons-old expectations, individuals could become the people Mystria needed them to be.
The two men exited Government House and headed north on Generosity to the livery. While the winter had been cold, it had not produced a great deal of snow in Temperance. As a result, the streets remained in fairly good shape. They made it easily to the stable, greeting many people with a nod or wave on their journey.
Rathfield awaited them. “Your man has taken the cart to gather my baggage after he gets yours, Highness. As you suggested, we can ride ahead.”
Owen collected his horse—a brown gelding—and saddled it. He pulled a horse-pistol from the saddle-scabbard, checked it, and rotated the firestone. Satisfied, he returned it to the scabbard.
“For the savages?” Rathfield studied the street. “I thought I saw one a bit ago. Can you allow them into town if they’re dangerous?”
Owen shook his head. “You’ll not want to call them savages. They’re the Twilight People to most, Shedashee as a whole, then there’s the tribes and nations among them.”
“But they are savages.” Rathfield mounted the saddle on a grey stallion. “I am aware there is a certain affection for them in some parts, but I also have read reports of atrocities committed by them.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.” Many of the reports to which Rathfield referred had been written by Colonel Langford to explain expenditures of materials from Norillian armories. These false reports covered his wholesale theft of the same items, like brimstone and firestones that he sold to colonists, enriching himself.
Vlad swung into his black gelding’s saddle. “You’ll find, Colonel Rathfield, that the only way you’ll see the Shedashee is if they want you to see them. Owen’s pistol is just to frighten off any predator we might encounter.”
The Norillian chuckled. “Surely we have nothing to fear from animals.”
Owen led the way back along Generosity, then turned west on Kindness. “Not much to fear, really. The wolves mostly have gone back up-country. Bears are heading into the mountains. We’re too far north for axebeaks.” Owen shot a sidelong glance at the Prince. “I don’t recall many signs of a jeopard this winter.”
Vlad shrugged. “One rarely sees a jeopard before it’s too late.”
“True.”
Rathfield looked from one man to the other and back again. “I do believe you are having me on. Wolves? Jeopards? You’ve made them up to frighten visitors. You’ll find I do not frighten easily.”
Vlad shot a quick salute to the sentries at Westgate. “I assure you, Colonel, we would not attempt to frighten a man of your obvious bravery. However, wolves are far from extinct here in Mystria. In fact, they appear to be considerably larger than the variety that has been hunted out in Norisle. And they do exist. The winter of ’65, just like that of ’63, came on quickly and very harshly. We had wolves at the doorstep. Captain Strake and his wife were staying with me until their home was built. On the very night his daughter was born, he killed three dire wolves.”
Owen nodded. “Shot two, killed the last with an ax.”
“Really?” Rathfield studied Owen a bit more intently for a moment. “And jeopards?”
“Biggest cat you’ll ever see, Colonel. Long curved fangs, very sharp claws. Brown or grey in the summer, winter coat grows in thick and white. Big enough to take one of these horses down, and fast enough in a sprint to catch it.” Owen patted the pistol. “Not very fond of loud noises, which is why I keep this with me.”
“I see.”
Vlad laughed. “Not likely. Nor will you hear it, save screaming in the distance. If it’s close, you might smell it.”
As they rode west along the Bounty Trail, Owen tried looking at it with the same eyes as Colonel Rathfield. Things had already changed significantly in the four years since the first time Owen had made the same ride. More houses had been raised, more land cleared, and stone bridges had been built over a few streams. Still, to Norillian eyes, the place would seem largely wild and sparsely populated.
For Owen it remained a land that surprised and delighted him. Going on an expedition thrilled him, and not just for it getting him away from his wife. Mystria had so many wonders and secrets that he wished to see. The whisper of wind through pines, the lonely call of loons in the night, the scent of a field of bright daisies, and even the chill of seeing where a jeopard had sharpened its claws on a tree made him smile. He’d spent too long on his estate and in town—he needed to get back to the land he loved. That this might be an opportunity to save it from Crown foolishness only made the expedition that much better.
As they rode, Prince Vlad played host and guide, pointing out the natural features and commenting on interesting tidbits his researches had discovered about a variety of the plants. “Of course, Colonel, for your expedition, I shall prepare you a list of plants and animals of which, if you are able, I should be most pleased to have samples.”
“A jeopard among them?”
“We have one, but more are welcome.” The Prince smiled. “And we mounted the wolves Captain Strake killed. I’d be delighted to show them to you. They are in my laboratory.”
“It would be an honor,
Highness.”
You have no idea. Owen watched Rathfield from the corner of his eye. The man looked at the landscape much as Owen had, judging it by its suitability for waging war. He’d been told that two companies of men would be slow, and he measured that claim against everything he saw. Initially he discounted that idea, but as the forest closed around the trail, and the trail wound itself uphill and down, his assessment shifted. His concentration suggested he was compiling recommendations that would allow him to fulfill his mission.
Owen found that particular idea unsettling. Having been raised in Norisle, he found himself more reluctant than most Mystrians to ascribe hostile motives to the Crown. Still, when he’d come this way looking to move troops along, it was to bring a war to Tharyngian forces. Rathfield intended the same thing, but that the troops be used against Mystrians.
And yet, four years ago, I would have accepted that same mission. Now the idea of doing that sent a shiver down Owen’s spine. Unbidden came the memory of his uncle asking him to pass along the true identity of the writer known as Samuel Haste. Owen harbored no illusions that the request was born simply of his uncle’s idle curiosity.
Just because Owen wasn’t automatically inclined to think badly of the Norillian court, it didn’t mean he didn’t understand why others did. Just a year previously, Parliament had passed the document tax, which not only imposed a duty on imported paper, but also required payment for any transaction involving papers—from the production of a Will to the printing of the Frost Weekly Gazette. Mystrians flat refused to pay it and sent the Queen a petition of protest on a sheepskin. Tax collectors—locals who had hired on for a portion of the taxes collected—got run out of town and had their businesses boycotted. Before the petition reached Launston, the document tax had died.
Three months after news of the tax had reached Mystria, reports of its repeal arrived from Norisle. The bill repealing the tax had been greeted happily, but men like Caleb Frost and his father carefully pointed out that the bill affirmed the right of Parliament to impose future taxes on the Crown’s citizens no matter where they lived.
Most Mystrians dismissed that idea saying, “I’ll be paying ole Queen Mags when she comes to me with her hand out.” They assumed the ocean insulated them from her wrath, but Colonel Rathfield’s presence suggested otherwise. How long until refusal to pay taxes is seen as sedition?
Rathfield rode ahead and, for a heartbeat, unbridled fury raced through Owen. What if Rathfield was a precursor? What if the information he’d gather would convince the Queen to send troops to Mystria? If I knew it would, if I knew that was his intention, what would I do?
He glanced at the pistol. Mystria was a vast place, full of all manner of dangers. Would leaving a man in an unmarked grave be so hideous a sin if it saved countless lives?
Owen shivered, and hoped he would never have to answer that question.
Chapter Four
27 March 1767
Prince Haven,
Temperance Bay, Mystria
Prince Vlad bid his traveling companions farewell at the drive leading to Owen’s home, then continued on the extra two miles to his estate. He scribbled notes about how far the snow had receded on the southern side of hills versus the northern into his notebook, and looked for anything else remarkable. He was certain there were things, but the import of Colonel Rathfield’s arrival distracted him.
Since the founding of the colonies, Norisle had treated Mystria with benign neglect. The Colonists paid duties and tariffs, accepting them as part of doing business with their mother country. Mystrians made few demands on Norisle and because most of the Norillian nobility saw the Mystrians as criminals and cowards, they certainly would never allow themselves to think they might actually need them.
The long and expensive war with Tharyngia had changed things. Norisle had, effectively, bankrupted itself prosecuting the war and, after ten long years, ended up with some of Tharyngia’s holdings in the new world. While the Spice Island acquisitions were immediately lucrative and New Tharyngia was an untapped resource, neither was sufficient to staunch the economic wounds suffered from the war.
The imposition of the document tax heightened tensions and built resentment. Mystrians didn’t believe the Crown had any right to tax their internal affairs—a position which, to the Crown, made Mystrians once again sound like criminals and rebels. Couple with that the antics of men like Lord Rivendell claiming credit for a victory against the Tharyngians in Mystria, and the Mystrians were feeling unappreciated and abused.
Sending Ian Rathfield to conduct a mission into the interior to bring unruly subjects back into the fold would not be taken well. People had fled to Mystria to avoid Norillian oppression or seek freedom. And they moved into the interior of Mystria to avoid further oppression or seek freedom from the coastal society. Rathfield would be lucky if those people acknowledged his existence, much less were impressed by his status as a hero. They certainly weren’t going to reverse life decisions based on his say-so alone.
Vlad turned down the roadway to his home and smiled. Baker, the wurmwright, was up on a tall berm, forking hay from a hayrick into a large, round enclosure with ten-foot-high, sheer sides on the interior. The wurmwright waved, then turned back to his task.
The Prince returned the wave and rode over, dismounting and letting his horse nibble hay. He climbed up the berm, his smile growing. “He looks content.”
“He does, Highness. Weathers the cold right nice, but seems to like a bit of warmth.”
Below them the wooly rhinoceros named Peregrine happily grazed on hay. Over fourteen feet long, and half that high at the shoulder, the beast appeared placid and even uncaring about his being watched. Thick brown fur covered his forelimbs and aft but was darker on his chest and abdomen. A single horn nearly two and a half feet in length curved up from his nose.
In the year and a half since Peregrine had been bestowed upon him, Prince Vlad had spent a great deal of time studying the beast. In many ways the wooly rhinoceros struck him as being a perfect heraldic animal for Mystria. Largely docile, but very industrious, capable of fierce fighting and with a preference for being left alone, Peregrine reminded him of many a Mystrian. The fact that the creature was very short-sighted and ignorant of politics reinforced the impression. Which was not to say that he found either to be stupid.
The most curious thing he’d learned about the rhinoceros was discovered completely by chance. Peregrine’s enclosure required mucking out from time to time, but the beast was reluctant to allow anyone in to do the job. One of the stable boys had gone straight from helping clean out Mugwump’s pit, and had been thoroughly splashed with wurm mud. As the boy approached Peregrine’s enclosure, he expected the beast to charge at him. Instead, the rhino trotted over, nose high, nostrils flared, then reacted much as a puppy might. Given his gigantic size, this proved problematic in other ways, but was an amazing discovery nonetheless.
The Prince himself had experimented using soiled clothes and found that Peregrine appeared quite happy to be around people smelling of wurm mud. When they deposited wurm mud in the rhino enclosure, Peregrine was more than happy to roll around in it. Wearing just a pinch of dried wurm mud in a sachet around the neck was enough to calm the beast and a number of discussions had covered whether or not Peregrine could be ridden. Most agreed it was possible, but no one volunteered to be first.
When the Prince had brought Mugwump to the enclosure, neither beast showed much of an interest in the other, akin to the way that cattle and sheep could graze in the same field without difficulty. Prince Vlad had yet to work out the significance of that discovery, but this was because he had other distractions to deal with at home. With them in mind, he patted Baker on the shoulder, remounted his horse, and continued the ride to his home.
Prince Haven consisted of a large, rectangular main house with two wings, one at each end, which extended south toward the river. The easternmost one had originally been his laboratory prior to his marriage. He raised
a new, larger laboratory further to the east, back behind the barn, and had converted that wing into rooms for his children, his wife’s servants, and a day room for his wife.
Opposite the new laboratory, down by the Benjamin River, lay the wurmrest. Up the lawn from it, a storage building had been added for canoes and other watercraft, as well as some half-built experiments too large for his laboratory.
Prince Vlad tossed the reins to a stable boy and entered his house. It remained one of the largest homes in the colonies, and one of the finest, but it paled in comparison to the refinements of a palatial estate in Norisle or on the Continent. The daub-and-wattle walls lacked murals or gilt-edged mirrors, but the warmth of wooden floors and exposed beams and posts provided an atmosphere that he loved, even though Norillians would dismiss it as rustic. The furnishings had all been crafted locally, as evidenced by their sturdy, blocky nature. He’d made the table in the dining room himself and his bed. The other items he’d purchased in Temperance.
His reasons had been simple: he saw no virtue in paying ridiculous prices for spindly chairs from far away that would break easily when perfectly good work could be had nearby. Men who had visited—and many of the survivors from the Anvil Lake expedition had visited down through the years—took it as a sign that he’d rejected fancy notions from Norisle. Prince Vlad feared that some of his aunt’s advisors might well believe the same.
Princess Gisella had changed some of that perception. She added things here and there—a picture on a wall, a tea service, seasonal decorations—which transformed his dark and masculine domain. He’d never seen the need for such before, since he mostly spent his time in the laboratory. Having a wife and family drew him out from what Gisella lovingly called his “Cavern of Science” and into their home.
The door had barely closed behind him when a squealing peal of laughter started from the east. He darted forward into the corridor running the width of the house and scooped up his son. The boy, his blue eyes shining, giggled even more loudly, reaching out to his father. Soaking wet and utterly naked, Richard steamed in the cool air.