Day 61, 7:45 PM
“You can be anything you want to be, just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be.”
— Queen
I finish setting up my anti-assassin cobweb and blow out the light.
“We’re fucked,” I grumble.
“No sex tonight either,” Manny says, her voice teasing. With the heavy drapes closed, I can’t see her face in the dark, but I imagine she’s sticking her tongue out at me.
I shift, lay down, and hug her, placing my hand on the small of her back.
“I’m talking about the count’s letter. I would prefer to rally the troops and attack him to seize the initiative, but that means leaving you behind, and the assassins might get you. If you come with me, we’re leaving a newly conquered city without a ruler and may lose our foothold here.”
“It seems reading Warfare has paid off.” She pecks me on the nose before continuing.
“Now. I have been doing more than just writing letters. I released some prisoners from the dungeon, and one of them was my father’s secretary. He is a well respected man, and we can leave him here to rule as a head of a council of influential, loyal citizens while we are out campaigning.”
She stops speaking, and I consider her idea. It has its merits, ambushing the enemy army should prove devastating, and since the whole Garacia is a giant woodland expanse checkered with giant lakes, streams, and rivers, ambushes are easy to pull off.
I consider the map Manny showed me after Gomer finished reading Warfare for the first time, and the count will need some seven days of forced march to reach us with his own troops. If he plans to conscript vassals and amass a coalition army of several thousand, he won’t attack for at least a month.
Should I just go with Manny and assassinate him? The thought seems too naive for several reasons. It would be best to claim his head on the field of battle, but we can’t take an army camping for an unknown amount of time. We need supplies, we’re leaving our stronghold vulnerable.
“Gah, this is like having my nuts caught in a vise,” I growl.
“You’re squeezing my butt,” Manny slaps my hand away.
“Sorry.”
She rolls to her other side, grabs my hand, and entwines her fingers with mine, binding me. “I agree our situation is passive and unfavorable. However, count Arangel is also facing difficulty. The more he procrastinates, the more he risks loyalists joining us, especially with Vatgord looming. Meanwhile, his county’s settlements will grow likelier to rebel against his rule and the king’s newly appointed nobles. As far as I know, my father was well loved in our territory.”
Her voice trembles as she speaks, and I kiss her shoulder. “What’s troubling you?”
“I received word from two groups of loyalists. They will be here within the next few days. However, nobody wrote a word about my brother. I fear the worst.”
I hug her around her waist and pull her closer, pressing her back tight against my chest. I want to say not to worry, to tell her everything will be alright, but those are hollow words and an insult to her keen mind.
You are strong, you’ll get over it? Sounds like asking to get slapped on the balls.
In the end, I just hold her in silence, sensing the slight tremors as she sheds silent tears. She has to go around the whole day appearing strong and confident, yet she’s stumbling forward blindly and doesn’t even know the most basic things which concern her. Compared to her, I’ve never had a worry my whole life. God, she’s strong.
“Did you find any information?” I whisper after an extended silence.
“His geography tutor stabbed him in the back. A bodyguard slew the traitor and carried Emil through the escape tunnel, but their fate is unknown. All I know is that the king’s men failed to catch them. They might have fled Garacia, or they could be hiding in the forest, deeper than most are willing to venture. I find it highly unlikely they found such perfect shelter within a settlement. Someone would have stumbled across them by now.”
I keep hugging her in silence, and sleep finds us.
I wake up fresh in the morning, and I think I have a solution to our problem.
“Manny,” I shake her awake. “What if we take the soldiers and start conquering the surrounding towns and villages? Shouldn’t that prod the count into deploying his troops faster?”
The faint red light shining through the curtains is insufficient to see her face, but she clears her throat, shaking off her morning grogginess.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“After he receives word of our offense, he is likely to react,” she says after her brain took five seconds to boot up and process what I’m saying. “The most ideal outcome would be him going after our empty castle, and we either ambush en route or pincer him against our walls. The only problem is manpower. We have five hundred soldiers in training, plus the thirty mercenaries, who have agreed to protect the city, but refused to join us in any conquest or act of aggression against the king.”
I barely hold back a snort. Phill’s deal is too risky, even though my instructor vouched for the mercenaries’ honor. Too much hassle for thirty professional soldiers.
“How many should we take?” I ask. “Two hundred? Three hundred?”
“You are our general, you tell me.” Even blind, I feel Manny’s proud smile. She thinks I’ve come up with an excellent solution, the only problem is…
“Did you think of this before?” Blunt asks, and I fully support my trait’s question.
“No,” she says, “I did not. Something else occupies my mind, something you need not concern yourself with. At least for now. Now, please answer your own question about how many troops you need.”
“Two hundred, maybe even less,” I say, slightly interested in what has her worried, but god knows we both have a lot of balls up in the air, so I just explain my reasoning. “Villages have around five hundred residents, women, and children included. Nearby towns have less than two thousand. A hundred and fifty soldiers, plus the men we conscript along the way, should be enough to conquer all nearby settlements. Properly waged war feeds itself, as Warfare says.”
“All right.” Manny’s voice trembles with excitement, quite a welcome note after how we went to sleep last night. “I will prepare everything today. You will inform the soldiers we are leaving tomorrow.”
I dismantle my trap and let the sunlight in. We wash ourselves and share breakfast downstairs before I go out and meet the troops.
“… Tomorrow we march to reclaim our duchy!” I finish the speech, and they cheer.
I let them enjoy their moment and wait for several moments until their excitement dies down. “Now get to work!”
Jeorge drills them as hard as usual. I wondered whether he would go easy on them, so they could relax today, or whether he would have an extra hard session to better prepare them, but the man keeps doing his thing like he did every day. I guess that means he’s confident in their ability.
Phill, however, is not as kind. He has a brawny, grown man stand on the sacks while I’m doing pushups, jumping up and down. When I push the wall, Phill strikes me without mercy, and I think his blows would have broken a regular human’s bone or twenty. His attacks are nastier and sharper while we spar, and I’m soaked in sweat by the time my shared training with the troops ends.
And I have six more hours to go inside. My head spins at the thought.
“Sir Phill,” I say, “is it just my imagination, or are you trying extra hard to kill me today?”
“Shut up and work,” he mutters. “You might die if you run into a proper knight out there. The odds are next to none, but if you’re a miserable jinx I believe you are, you will need to squeeze every extra drop of power you have just to survive.”
I’m confused.
“Why do you think I’m a jinx?”
“You’re not a jinx, you are jinxed,” he explains, his voice kinder. “Normal people don’t need to develop their reflexes, nor become as strong or as tough as you are. The fact that you are the way you are means your luck is horrible, and your body needed to grow stronger or die.”
Even though he’s wrong, his words make an odd kind of sense. People generally become strong because they need strength, they become smart because they need smarts. If they fail to attain what they need, they fail. Failure for us means death.
“Master Philligon,” Manny greets us as soon as we enter the hall, “I have a favor to ask. As you may have heard about our plan from my husband, we plan to leave the safety of the city walls, and take a more active approach to our predicament.”
Phill nods, and Manny keeps speaking. “As I have said, I have a favor to ask. I plan to have a council of reputable, honest men and women rule the city in our absence, and your name came to my mind second, right after Master Dorigund, my father’s secretary of public affairs. Are you interested in this position?”
Phill draws a deep breath and sighs through his nose.
“I am aware of your honor, sense of justice, and views on public affairs,” Manny hurries to add before Phill opens his mouth. “I also know mercenary Peter and his so-called silver band would obey you without hesitation. You are a perfect candidate for the position.”
“Girl,” the old goat drops the honorific and looks Manny in the eye, “you really want the king to string me up if he takes these walls? What did I ever do for you to hate me so much?”
“Quite the contrary, Master Philligon. Like my father, I admire you deeply, and I wish you to be the core member of the society my husband and I are building.”
“You keep calling him your husband, did he even propose?” I stare at Phill in surprise.
Really? Really? That is your problem with this whole affair? That we’re having sex outside of wedlock? The king, treason, rivers of blood, and who sits on the throne are less important than the status of our relationship?
“He proposed the day we met,” Manny says, glaring at Phill, her eyes no less intense than the crazy old goat’s. “It was one of the first things he told me. I will be king, you will be queen, and together we will conquer this country. I want to start a rebellion, to overthrow the king and his whole dynasty, and I want to sit on the throne by your side. I want you to have your revenge.”
She stops speaking, leaving an oppressive quiet, and my skin crawls in the resounding silence. Even the scribes have stopped writing their messages, and they are staring at me.
Manny is perfectly calm. She folds her hands and stares at Phill, who gulps under her burning gaze.
“That is more or less what he told me as an introduction some eight weeks ago,” she says in an even voice. “Most would call him insane. Him an escaped slave, me a slave, an entire country against us, and no allies or resources to our name.”
The chair screeches as she stands up and walks towards me.
She cups my cheek, and I smile like a stupid teen looking at his first sweetheart.
“He is kind, a genius, a madman, a visionary,” she says, “all other men pale in comparison.”
She turns to Phill. “He needs a lot of polishing, but he is this world’s most dazzling gem, and he is mine, and I am his. Until death. No man and woman have ever been as deeply married as we are, with or without a shallow lunch party and a shiny necklace. Is that clear?”
Manny looms over the aged instructor, and he seems to grow older and smaller before her, struggling not to swallow. Finally, he gives her a timid nod.
“Yes, my lord.”