Part I: A Prince and a Palace
The riverboat drifted listlessly down the river Tyr, its sail flapping as it luffed against the wind. Its wide beam seemed to stretch nearly half the width of the river, suggesting that it only plied its trade up and down the Tyr, the only river that ran the entire length of the island of Laryndor.
The ship rode low in the water, and all the trade goods piled high on deck and in its cargo hold drove it even lower. The water line ran nearly to the scupper holes. It appeared overloaded. One strong gust could push its slight list too far and capsize the vessel. It sailed on, unconcerned about the precarious position it was in.
The Cressard’s Folly, as the boat was named, made its course downriver towards Fort Camulan, most likely its next stop on its journey, unloading some cargo for sale, while picking up a load of something else, then heading further south towards towns like Kaenshire, Wilton, and ultimately Tambryne, the seat of the kingdom of the same name.
Fort Camulan took its name from its own kingdom but was not the capital. The capital of the Kingdom of Camulan was far to the west, on the shores of the Dyadic Sea. The fort was situated on the kingdom’s frontier, close to its border with the neighboring kingdom of Fennland. The peace between Camulan and the Fenns was always an uneasy one, and they were always on the brink of war. Fort Camulan existed solely to protect the frontier from the ruthless tribes that raided across the border.
While a frontier outpost, its proximity to the land of the Fenns has given the fort ample time to grow from a simple wooden hill fort to a massive stone structure. Not as elegant or comfortable as a palace in the capital, the fort was a series of thick stone buildings surrounded by a tall stone wall.
A small village, known as Foregate, had grown up outside the fort with all the things a remote fort might need, blacksmiths, ale houses, brothels, and, further out, near the wilderness that borders the fort, the Arch Temple of Laryn.
A few roads exited the fort, the largest of which was known as the King’s Road or Teorton Road. This road, wide enough to fit three large war wagons, was the main artery between Fort Camulan and the capital, Teorton.
A long caravan plodded slowly down the dusty road. At its head, a group of mounted soldiers in shining armor surrounded an older soldier with a greying beard that dressed nicer than the rest. His plate armor shone like the sun and was intricately engraved for those brave enough to look at it. His helmet, tied to his saddle made a soft clink as his massive war horse plodded along. His face bore a sour expression, as though he were displeased with the smell of the horse in front of him.
Behind the mounted soldiers were a company of infantry dressed in bright green doublets and tan trousers. Those at the front wore chainmail armor and carried long spears and halberds. The group behind them carried large shields with longswords at their hips. The men bringing up the rear of the infantry all carried longbows.
Trailing the infantry was a series of wagons, flanked on either side with solders carrying spears and bows. The lead carriages were decorated, suggesting they carried people of important ranks with their wives and children. Behind those, battered war wagons carried supplies, extra weapons, medicine, and water.
The long dusty road carried on into the distance, past rolling hills, through woods and small forests. It continued, veering around obstacles, serving as a main thoroughfare for small villages and towns, until it reached the coast.
Standing between it and the sea lay a bustling city. Outside the city’s large walls was that would be best described as a shantytown to those residents wealthy enough to live inside the city’s walls. Makeshift houses built out of whatever could be found nearby dotted the roads that seemed to snake through at random.
Along the King’s Road, here called Camulan Road, a small cart made its way towards the city gates. Dirty, poorly dressed hawkers, beggars, and thieves called out to the cart as it ambled along, its driver doing his best to ignore the rabble, while keeping an eye on them, his cart’s contents, and his purse.
The clean, cobbled streets of the wealthier parts of town slowly gave way to the dirty, dusty sections of the Docks, where the King’s Road finally ended. A long pier jutted straight out from the road and was crossed by a second and third pier where four carracks were moored. The deckhands and the dockworkers were furiously unloading cargo.
One man, bare-chested and in dirty pantaloons stopped, untied the colored sash around his waist, and raised it to his forehead to wipe the dirt and sweat from his brow. In this heat, he did this more often than his foreman would appreciate, but the foreman was somewhere else, doing paperwork, so what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
The dockworker looked up the road at Mot’s Hill, staring longingly at the beautiful palace that seemed to grow from the hill’s top. The men up on the hill were not outside in this heat. They were probably lounging indoors, next to a fresh clean bathing pool, drinking a bottle of wine that cost more than the dockworker made in a year.
Inside the palace, servants scurried about unseen by the nobility until they disappeared behind a secret door that existed for the sole purpose of keeping those who kept the palace running out of view of its occupants.
Some servants hustled about with trays of food. Others washed the floors and walls or replaced candles. Still more were at the tapestries, ensuring that the wall coverings were clean and in good repair. They depicted major events in the Kingdom of Camulan’s history, and the king decreed that those events were so important that if a single tapestry were to fall into disrepair, the entire staff whose job it was to maintain them would be put to death.
One servant hurried a tray of cool drinks down the halls and out into the gardens where two men were seated at a large table. One man was beginning to show grey at his temples, but his strong muscles still clung to his body like iron. He wore a chainmail shirt as comfortably as others in the palace wore silks.
The other, just a young boy on the verge of entering his teens wore an unlaced, loose fitting silk shirt and trousers made of fine linen. He was gazing intently at the items on the table lost in thought. The older man watched him carefully.
On the table was a collection of military figures set out in various formations. Some were archers, other pikemen, and still more were basic infantry. The smallest of the lot were the lancers on horseback. Each of the units had their own flags decorated with various patterns and insignias.
To a careful observer, these were two armies battling each other. The army on the older man’s side was larger, and beside him, the collection of his opponents’ dead troops suggested that the boy was losing badly.
The boy took a block of mounted soldiers and moved them from behind his shrinking line of infantry to just in front of his opponent’s infantry. The older man had already placed pikemen on his front line, which is where the boy’s knights had been placed.
“What are you doing, Aeolwyn? You know that your knights will be slaughtered by the pikemen!”
“Make your move, Sir Jom,” the boy replied.
Sir Jom shrugged and moved his pikemen forward into the group of knights. He rolled some dice and removed several of them from the field. “Told you, son.”
Aeolwyn smiled. Sir Jom had fallen right into his trap. On his turn he pulled his light cavalry from the wings and into the sides of the pikemen. A few rolls of the dice and the entire middle of Sir Jom’s infantry line was obliterated.
On his turn, the old man rushed to fill the gap, but it was too late. What remained of Aeolwyn’s knights, his light cavalry, and his infantry rushed into the gap. His light cavalry slaughtered the archers before Sir Jom had a chance to deploy them. The few surviving knights and the infantry obliterated Jom’s infantry. It was over in a few short turns.
Jom conceded defeat. “Well played, your highness,” he said. “You’ve won, but at what cost? Knights and cavalry are expensive and difficult to train. Dead men can’t fight the next battle.”
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“A dead army can’t fight any battle,” the boy answered.
“True enough, son. But if you sacrificed your nobility’s sons like that, you’d have a revolt on your hands. Battle isn’t just about field strategy. There are always political considerations to manage as well.”
Aeolwyn began cleaning the pieces up. “Political considerations are for my brother to worry about. A general’s concern is for winning the battle.”
Aeolwyn would never be king. He had come to accept this long ago. He didn’t want the throne anyway. Everything his father did seemed boring to him. He wanted to be a general in Camulan’s army. In truth, he wanted to be the general. The one in charge of the entire army.
“Your brother would throw you in a dungeon if you incited a revolt.”
“He’d have to get through my army first,” Aeolwyn said wryly.
Sir Jom stormed up to Aeolwyn. The larger man towered over the boy. He gave Aeolwyn a long hard stare until the boy wilted in front of him. Aeolwyn may have been a prince, but in this instance, it was clear who was in charge.
“That kind of arrogance will get you killed,” Sir Jom said.
Was it arrogance when he knew he was the best military strategist in the kingdom? No one told him he was, but he already knew he would defeat anyone on the battlefield. Every loss to Sir Jom was a victory to him. Why? Because he learned something about Sir Jom’s careful tactics. The man wasn’t willing to take risks—his idea of acceptable losses was none.
Aeolwyn knew better. War was about killing and dying. Sure, you had to make sure your men killed more than they died, but dying was a necessary part of war. Sometimes the best strategy was to put your hand in the beast’s mouth to stab it through the heart.
He debated whether he should argue with Sir Jom. Jom was his father’s master-at-arms, and Aeolwyn’s mentor in all matters relating to combat, including weapons training, horsemanship, leadership, and military tactics.
He chose against it. He knew where that would lead. He would be doing strength drills until bedtime, and it was barely mid-morning. He didn’t want to go to bed sore, tired, and hungry.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
Sir Jom seemed to be satisfied with that answer.
“Now I should send you off to carry the barrels of stone. You still are too lean for a soldier.” Jom squeezed Aeolwyn’s arm. “But I won’t.”
Jom went back to his seat across the table and sat down. “I won’t because this is a good lesson for you. Now, what would Lord Oxley have done if it was one of his sons you sent to a useless death?”
“He would be upset.”
Jom smiled. “Yes, of course he would be. Now what if the sons of ten other members of the Lord’s Council were also killed?”
“They would revolt?” Aeolwyn asked sheepishly.
“Quite possibly,” Jom agreed. “And what would you do to rebellious nobles?”
“Crush them,” Aeolwyn said, squeezing his hand into a tight fist to enunciate the point.
“Ok, so you’ve defeated their armies, burned their houses and salted their fields. What about the rest of the members of the Lord’s Council? Do you think they would raise you up as a hero because you murdered their friends? Or would they be afraid for their own houses after that?”
They would stay quiet, if they knew what was good for them. Aeolwyn was smart enough to recognize that Jom wouldn’t like that answer. The old master was trying to teach the boy a lesson on the intricacies of politics. He found it boring and didn’t see its relevance since he would never be king.
“They might revolt also.” That was the answer that Sir Jom was looking for.
The man smiled. “Indeed they might. And then you’d have a civil war on your hands as well as a war with the Elves or the Fenns, or whoever you were battling today.”
Aeolwyn pounded his fist on the table. “Then the nobles would bring their sons home, and my army would be diminished. The enemy would win without losing a single man.”
“Well done, your Highness.” Sir Jom took all Aeolwyn’s remaining knights off the table and put them behind the remainder of Aeolwyn’s army. “And now you have your best fighters behind you as well as your enemy in front of you. That is not a good position to be in.”
Aeolwyn resolved then and there to never depend on soldiers from nobility in his military strategies. He would need to learn how to fight without them. He did not want to be the type of soldier whose success was dependent on the whims of others.
“Why do I need to know this stuff?” He asked. “I’m never going to be king. Keeping the nobles happy is my brother’s job.”
“If you think the king is the only one who has to deal with scheming nobles, then I have failed as your teacher.”
“I am going to have to learn politics too?”
Sir Jom nodded. “Yes. And don’t think it’s just the nobles who will be scheming against you. Threats will come from all sides, including from your friends and family.”
“My family?” he asked, suddenly alarmed.
“Oh yes,” Sir Jom replied, idly twirling one of his own dead horsemen. “Just because you aren’t going to be king doesn’t mean you won’t have power. And anyone who wields power is a threat.”
How could anyone in his family feel threatened by him? That just wasn’t right. He loved his family and would do nothing to betray them. He was the youngest brother. He would never be king, even if Alfyn died. His brothers Ulfnar and Wolfyrn were next in line. He couldn’t imagine all three of them dying.
Besides, he didn’t want to be king anyway. He wanted to command his brother’s army and win battles for him. That would be a lot more fun than sitting in a palace all day listening to petitioners and nobles complaining all day.
“Now go. We have martial training this afternoon, and I want to eat and have a nap beforehand.”
Aeolwyn needed no other encouragement. He bolted from the gardens and raced to the kitchen. If Sir Jom was going to need food and a nap before the training session, Aeolwyn would need double.
He hurried through the gardens into the halls with their polished stone walls and tiled floors. They were so wide; he thought he would be able to march an army through them. Between the alcoves and wall sconces that provided light at night, the walls were decorated with paintings and tapestries. The paintings were usually of past kings, queens, and other nobles, while the tapestries depicted great battles from Camulan’s past.
The most recent ones depicted his great-grandfather’s battles with the Elves and Fenns. Those were Aeolwyn’s favorites. He could describe every battle they depicted. From examining the tapestries, he could see the strategies that played out and the mistakes the Fenns made.
The elves were stronger and much cleverer. They made fewer strategic mistakes in their battles, but they made some, and Aeolwyn could see how his great-grandfather’s army exploited them and drove the elves back into Wickshire.
One day, there would be tapestries on these walls depicting Aeolwyn’s victories.
One of the tapestries always puzzled him though. Its faded colors and fraying threads proved it was ancient. It depicted a battle with the Guardians of the Shield alongside a Fennish army and one from Camulan. Together they were battling against some army that Aeolwyn did not recognize.
The Fennish were their mortal enemies. Why would the battle alongside them? And why would the Shielders take part? The Shielders had one of the best armies in all Laryndor, and their weapons all seemed to be made of some form of steel that was harder, stronger, and sharper. A recipe that they kept to themselves. But they joined no battles. They would defend themselves if attacked, but never went on campaign.
They spent all their time shut up in their various Shield Halls tending to the Shield, the magical forcefield that surrounded all Laryndor.
Aeolwyn always wondered what was beyond it. He had asked Shield Lord Barin once, but all that he would say was that death lay beyond the shield and that the people of Laryndor should be thankful that the Shielders were there to maintain the Shield.
He would sure like to visit their blacksmith and see how they forged their weapons and armor. Every one of their soldiers had a full kit. Every one. How could they afford that? Sure, every kingdom in Laryndor paid them to maintain the shield, but even that much gold wouldn’t be enough to buy all their soldier’s plate armor, shields, and a high-quality sword. They had a lot of secrets, and he wanted to know them all.
One day he would find out.
The palace had three kitchens spread out across the entire palace grounds. There was a formal one that prepared the dinners and all the meals for the king. They would be busy preparing tonight’s dinner. Another one, on the opposite side of the palace mostly fed the courtesans and nobles who were visiting. The final one was deep in the bowels of the servants’ quarters and fed the servants and staff. This one was Aeolwyn’s favorite. The staff always had some amazing stories, and the cook always had a treat for him.
He supposed he technically wasn’t allowed to eat in that kitchen. There weren’t any tasters to test for poisons, the food wasn’t the right quality, and as royalty, he wasn’t supposed to consort with those of such a low station. He still snuck his way in when he could.
As much as he wanted to get a sweet from the servant kitchen, he decided better of it and went to the courtesan kitchen. The food there was always tested, and the chief cook kept a stern eye on all the cooks that worked under her.
The courtesan kitchen was a sooty, dimly lit room in the back rooms of the palace. The cook employed a staff of young boys to sweep up the soot every evening, but there was only so much scrubbing they could do before the fires had to start up again.
It was as large as his bedroom, twice as big as the servant’s kitchen, and half the size of the royal kitchen. On one wall a huge fire was raging, giving the room a stifling heat. On another were racks of dried meats, vegetables, and fruit. In between were a series of tables where cooks were chopping items, stirring soups, and kneading dough, all overseen by the chief cook.
She was a massive woman. As tall as Sir Jom, and twice as thick. Aeolwyn wasn’t sure which of the two would win in a fight. Her hands were rough and calloused like Sir Jom’s were, but from a different sort of work.
“Prince Aeolwyn!” she shouted. “What are you doing here? Out! Out!” She chased after him with a rolling pin that was as deadly as any practice sword Sir Jom wielded on him.
“I’m hungry!” He shouted, dodging her swings.
“Fine! Up to your apartments with you. I’ll have someone send a big tray. Big enough to feed the sickness right out of you!”
He ran before she could get a blow in with her rolling pin, but not before he grabbed a sweetbread from the table.
He hated that everyone called him the sickly boy. He just wasn’t as big as other boys of his age. He had been sick with a pox when he was younger, but the doctors and mages finally cured him. He was getting better, bigger, and stronger every day, but he couldn’t escape the label.
One day he would. He would show everyone how strong he was.