Two Kingdoms 9: Departures

[DoctorM]

Author's Note:  This is the seventh part of an  AU construction about a very different post-1120 Gwynedd where the coronation challenge at Kelson's coronation went rather differently--- very differently. There are characters and background here that go back to some stories in very, very early issues of Deryni Archives and to my own much younger days.  This segment falls after "Accounts" and "Rings", but some years prior to the events in "Arrows and Glass". As always, input and comments are very much appreciated.

TWO KINGDOMS 9: DEPARTURES

In another room, her women are packing up the Shadow Queen's wardrobe, folding it away into chests filled with dried herbs. The clerks of the wardrobe note down each gown, each robe, each cloak: Item, one robe in Eastern style, of crimson Komnene silk, cuffs and collar trimmed in black velvet with silver wire; belted; décolleté. Forty-three gowns and robes, a dozen cloaks, and what her clerks call masquing costume, meaning mostly the men's clothes the Shadow Queen wears to ride and hawk. Not all of her wardrobe; not by any means. But it is what she's brought south to Rhemuth, and she's damned if she'll leave any of it behind.



The Shadow Queen is at the window, looking west and north at the river. She turns back to her guard commander at her workroom .table. "How many did we lose?"

"Three men-at-arms dead," Brennan de Colforth says. "Another dozen hurt. But everything's loaded and on its way upriver. None of the carts lost. And all the treasury crates accounted for."

"And the rioters?"

Colforth looks over at the queen's husband, standing there all in midnight blue. "We had to cut our way through to the docks. We weren't counting.  I know I hit a few hard enough."

The queen grins. Colforth likes a warhammer, likes it more than a lance. "They tried to get into the mint yard, didn't they?" 

Colforth nods. "They tried it through the court at Exchequer House." He gestures at the queen's husband. "Kheldour's archers got up on the roofs and started shooting. We found maybe thirty rioters dead with arrows in them."

The queen steps away from the window and looks down at the maps on the table. One long finger taps on the line of the river Eirian. She traces out the curve in the river north of Rhemuth.  She looks up. "Where is it now?" she asks.

Her guard commander consults his notes. "About here," Colforth says. He taps at a spot just south of the curve. "On the way to Ramos. It's all secure— all Tolan men as guards on the barges, all handpicked. Tolan Horse patrolling on the east bank, Marluk Horse on the west bank. The money's safe."

Charissa looks at him. "It'll be safe when it's in Valoret. We're not losing the treasury. And I want Aurelian's people keeping the treasury records together. I get Brion Haldane's money and I want all the tax and land records, too." She looks over at her husband. "What else have we sent so far?"

Christian shrugs. "The Haldanes mostly ran Gwynedd through two big secretariats. We've gone through the archives at the Chancery, and I've been telling them what to pack up. Same for the Exchequer. We've got the diplomatic archives, of course Got the pick of the royal library, too. That's all going north by barge as of this morning. Anything from the Jewel House goes by Portal courier straight to Aurelian."

The Shadow Queen looks from Colforth to her husband. Brennan's family have commanded the Tolan ducal lifeguards for three generations— the royal lifeguards these days. She has to remember that Brennan is Lord Colforth now. Christian she has to remember to call Kheldour, the first prince she's created. She asks the obvious question. "Who paid the rioters?"

"This time, no one," Christian says. "A few of them shouted that you were stealing King Brion's gold, but last night's lot figured out you were emptying the treasury and just wanted the money for themselves. The city mob saw the convoy and tried to loot it. But the Haldanes will try to get a rising started in the city. They'd love to see you driven out before Corwyn and Nigel have to break down the walls."

The queen traces a finger around the outlines of Rhemuth city on the map. "I'm not leaving yet. I won't just walk away from Rhemuth. This won't be an open city. When I go, we aren't leaving them anything."

***

Charissa slides a wine cup across the table. "This is from the royal cellars— Fianna white, some of the best. Drink it while you can. I'm assuming the cellars are being packed up."

"Absolutely. I'd never leave good wine for Nigel and Corwyn." Christian raises the cup to her.

They're alone in the queen's workroom. The clerks have brought in stacks of inventories, lists of everything they'll be leaving Rhemuth with. "I don't like losing a city," Charissa says. "I hate walking away. We can take everything, but it's still losing."

Christian gestures at the map. "We could never hold Rhemuth. We knew that from the start. Too far south, too exposed. We had it for a year— not a bad run. Anyway, Valoret's on better terrain and it's your family's old capital."

"I hate it, though. Kelson Haldane gets to ride in and have another coronation for himself."

Christian looks across at her. "You'll have a new one at Valoret.  Something impressive."

The Shadow Queen holds up something rectangular, something bright-coloured, from her table. "Do you know these?"

"Some. They're supposed to be Moorish originally, but you see them up out of R'Kassi in maybe the last ten years. They make a  lot of them in Nur Hallaj, I think."

"People gamble with them. People tell fortunes. Like people used to do with the tiles."

There's a stack of the things on the table, lying unwrapped on a dark silk cloth. "I think people gambled with them first. Fortune-telling later." He looks at them. "They gamble a lot, down in the emirates. I think Thorne Hagen collects them, too, down in Kharthat. And gambles with them. Of course."

Charissa brushes her fingers over them. She grins. "Of course he does. You don't do them, do you?"

Christian shakes his head. "It's always just backgammon for me. Not even dice. I can use the tiles, mind you. I like antique skills."

The queen slides the thing into the stack. "What do they call it, what they're made from?"

"The R'Kassans say Pappe. The Moors say al-bitaqat. You hear both in Nur Hallaj."

"You should learn. I like them. I like casting them. I like the whole ritual of reading them. They talk to me." The queen divides the stack, shuffles the rectangles through one another: long fingers, deft touch.  "I keep getting this one, over and over. Look."

Christian slides it toward himself. There are figures painted on it. A man in quilted armour and helmet stands in a boat, poling a hooded woman across a river. Six longswords are poised upright in the bow. Both faces are hidden; their backs are turned. "Tell me what it means."

The Shadow Queen sighs. "It means to move on. Time is running out, time to make a change, even if you have regrets. Learn your lessons and move on. I mean, it's right, but it still feels like losing."

"It's just changing cities. This was always the Haldanes' city. You've held it more than a year, but it's only the castle and the docks we really hold. Last night's riot wasn't even close to being the first. Our people go out in the city in armed groups. Colforth and your Moors and I make sure you have mail on under a gown if you go out in the courts. We needed Rhemuth for your coronation; we needed it to show you being made queen. But Valoret's your city. This was never going to be yours."

Charissa taps at the map with a ringed hand. "Maybe not. I didn't feel any loss when it burned last year. I didn't feel anything about the city." She reaches for the card and drops it on top of the stack. She folds the silk over it. "I just hate it that Corwyn and the Haldane boy get a city back."

Christian looks off out the window. "Oh, they won't get a lot back when they do. I think we can see to that."

***

The Shadow Queen brushes blonde hair off her face. This morning she's in pale Eastern grey, in one of the robes they call a khilat out east-of-east, worn over a man's shirt and hose and boots. She pours more wine for herself. "Tell me something," she says. "If it all went bad, if we lost it all, where would we go, you and me and Aurelian? I mean, I'll be damned if I'll go to ground in Tolan and wait for Wencit to come hunt me."

Her husband laughs. "Come south with me. We'll go down into the emirates and sit under the lemon trees at Qasiya. They like me down in the emirates."

Charissa smiles back. "Maybe we'll go off east to Byzantyun."

Christian shrugs with his wine cup. "If there even is a Byzantyun. Never been, never seen it, no clue about what goes on there. I mean, it's like a ghost city, like a city in some old story. Everybody says that, you know, that they'll ride off to Byzantyun over the horizon. The same way in the Connait or Finisterre in Bremagne people say they'll go west-over-sea. Like they're going to another world."

"I thought you'd go anywhere out East."

"Oh, well, you know, I'd rather go out east-of-east as far as you can go. Forget Byzantyun and just keep going east. Go to the eastern edge of the world and look off it."

"Or maybe it'll just be an ocean, and you can sail back around the world and land in Bremagne."

Charissa picks up a knife from the table. It's the stiletto she keeps in her sleeve, all in steel. She turns the triangular blade and looks at it. "This one I've had a long time," she says. "Cheap thing, but it works. Bought it at a street stall in Vezaire when I was just twenty—- when I ran off to come see you." She slides it into the sleeve of her robe. "Back when I was playing at being a light-horse captain's leman."

"Keep it with you. You might need it when we do pull out." He flicks a finger against the blade under her sleeve. "I mean, I taught you to use a knife. You're really good at it. A light-horse captain's leman needs to be."

"No one's going to let me stay in Rhemuth 'til the last barge leaves, but I won't be leaving on the first one, either."

"I know. Never on the first barge. I know you better than that. But not the last one—- and don't even think about horseback. Nobody's risking that. Not me, not Colforth."

Charissa tilts her head and looks at him. "I may want to talk to you about that attitude."

"The Rhemuth mob would tear you apart in the street if they ever got hold of you. You made me Queen's Remembrancer. It's my job to remind you about things you need to know."

The queen looks at the map, at the annotations Christian and her own intelligencers have made. Haldane forces forming in Evering country, in Danoc across the river, in Carthmoor country east of Concaradine. It's all about numbers, she knows that.  Rhemuth is too far south. Marley is off fighting in Claibourne and along the Rheljans, her captain-general committed on two fronts in the north. Christian's notes are there on the lands south and east of Rhemuth—- too many local lords starting to waver, too many roads slowly opening. She's kept them bribed for a year, had Christian's horsemen teach a few of them lessons. But now Corwyn and Duke Nigel are being persuasive.

Learn lessons and move on, the card said. Live with your regrets. Go to a new city. Raise the Festillic standards at Valoret and stare the Haldane boy down.

"Two weeks," the Shadow Queen says.

"Probably," Christian says. "First probes into sight of the city in ten days. You go north before they get scouts above the city."

Charissa leans forward to look at the map. "Take everything," she says. "Gold, archives, the wine cellars, the stables, everything. We take as much of the grain stores as we can carry. Kelson Haldane gets nothing back."

"I'll have surprises for them," Christian says. "One thing about growing up where I did, up on the north edge of everything. That's mining country. I have tin miners here. There'll be some surprises when the Haldanes get through the city walls."

[Laurna]

WOW! Impressive, DoctorM.
I am really learning to love to hate the Shadow Queen.  Rhemuth is in a whole heck of a lot of hurt with more to come.
Good story, and so glad it is an AU.

[Jerusha]

Oh dear.  I am beginning to dread Christian's surprises.  A very good chapter; I am looking forward to what happens next.

[DerynifanK]

It is easy to see why no one, except Christian, loves a Festil. They are vicious and destructive. Very impressed with your writing and anxious to see what happens next. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but hoping for defeat for Charissa and friends and restoration of Rhemuth.

[DoctorM]

Hmmm... It's interesting to me, that people are seeing evacuating Rhemuth as destructive and cruel. Destructive, okay-- that I can see. Charissa is playing for high stakes, and she isn't going to give up the city to the enemy without some kind of fight, or at least she isn't going to leave resources for her enemy. She can be cold enough, but I suppose I see stripping the city before she leaves as...practical.

[revanne]

I read it that way too  DoctorM. And she has no reason to feel warmth for Rhemuth, as Christian reminds her Valoret was always the Festil's capital. Really enjoyed this, I love your style of writing. Though I wasn't happy about Christian's last comment.

[DerynifanK]

If a ruler wants to hold his city or kingdom at some point he/she needs the support of those he is seeking to rule. It does not appear that Charissa is building any support other than those she brought with her. You end up having to figth those within as well as those attacking, eventually from without. Seems that could have unhappy consequences in the future. A worthy descendant of Imre I'm thinking.