In the morning I enjoyed breakfast with Alum. Our meal was short, perhaps on account of the awkward end to our dinner conversation the previous night. He promised to consider and attempt alternate means of acquiring soldiers, and I set out to beg from those I had become familiar with during my years at Hollowhold. There was nothing else for it, since Ebonreach had so little to offer in its depleted state other than safeguarding the entrance to the entire Kingdom.

That took the better part of the day, for so many were surprised and joyous to see me again. Some had heard of my misfortunes and were only too eager to share their condolences. I was required to make much small talk, for I did not want my intentions to be so overt as to be impolite. Many of the nobles I had become acquainted with were absent on account of the conflicts raging in the Borderlands, Mattrath and Trent, but it was unlikely that they would have had many men to spare in any case.

Despite all the small talk in the world, no one could spare so much as a single footsoldier. Some had already sent men to the Borderlands in assistance of King Degron's men in an obvious attempt to earn royal favour. Most were simply unwilling to part with their soldiers, for they invariably considered their housecarl retinues too small to safely send away any number of them. In fairness, some of them were concerned about Tokuan raiders, desert nomad warbands, and highwaymen spilling over into their territories, however the threat to Haelling Cove was significantly more real than their hypothetical foes so I had little sympathy.

Duke Wilbern was still in the capital, as I’d suspected upon finding him absent during my visit to Helmfirth, and I guessed that his father had thought it best for him to stay in the capital and find a wife to bring stability to Trent. It seemed unlikely to me, for the Halivaaran women of duchess or countess rank were all spoken for other than myself. I wondered if he would be forced to settle for a mere landholder akin to Mother, and if that would be enough to convince his bastard half-brothers, such as Entregwa, to disarm. I doubted it.

In the afternoon I arranged for my chambers to be restored. I had my possessions carried there, and when it became too late in the evening for me to politely visit any more acquaintances, I retired.

To my surprise, the pennant of my House flew – or hung, rather, as the air within Hollowhold was notoriously still – above the doorway. My eyes widened, for I had been unable to retrieve the pennant upon my departure on account of the height of its emplacement.

I pushed open the door and saw my old attendant, Regeda, dusting the mantel atop the fireplace. 'My lady?' she asked, looking up at me.

'Regeda!' I exclaimed, delighted to see her. I’dd expected her to move on after my departure, especially when word reached Hollowhold of the disruption in my plans caused by the Tokuan attack. 'By Yoru, I am delighted to see you.'

There was joy in the room, enough for us to share an embrace without too heavily warping the barrier between lady and servant, but I chose not to do so. A skilled embroider she was, but still a peasant. Her black hair had grown past her shoulders since our last meeting, and it swayed with her head as she spoke.

'And I you, my lady,' she replied. Then she explained her presence in my chambers. 'After you left, I found work for a lesser noblewoman from Trent, but she left after the Western Islander attack.' She physically shuddered, to show her distaste for the Tokuans. 'So for the past few weeks I've been without proper work. I did some odd jobs, aye, mostly cleaning out the unoccupied chambers, and I was lucky enough to get that work. When I heard you were back I volunteered to prepare your chambers. I knew where they put your little flag when they gave your room away so I put that up.

'I know you didn't offer to hire me, my lady, but I thought that if you need an attendant, it should be me. I already know the things you like, and I still have more embroidering techniques to teach you.'

I considered her proposal. In any case, I had to pay her for the work she'd already done in preparing my chambers; that was expected of a noblewoman. As for hiring her, that depended on a few things.

'I should warn you, Regeda, that I do not know for how long I shall remain in the capital,' I said.

'That is no matter, my lady,' she said. 'For after your departure I realised my mistake. I should have accepted your offer and travelled with you. My ties here are thin. Pae shunned me after I stood by you, and I left my own family behind many years ago when I came to Hollowhold.'

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I briefly wondered where she was from, but then I realised that I didn't care. What I did care about was that she wanted to be my servant again. For me, the concept was totally shocking. It threw my entire world view out of alignment, not to mention my self-perception.

Since I was a small girl, and my attendants had shifted from wet nurses to serving folk, I had chewed through half the servant population of Haelling Cove as they invariably grew tired of my demands. My mother used to berate me for my treatment of them at regular intervals, but I knew that they were mere peasants and saw fit to continue. It was no wonder that none had been willing to travel from Hollowhold with me two months previously, nor had I been surprised by Daegwin's resignation.

For someone to voluntarily return to my service after having left it was so completely alien to me. Had I changed? Or had I finally found a servant who knew her proper place? True, I felt that we had gotten along well in the months we had been together, but that usually counted for very little.

Flattered and surprised by Regeda's offer, I accepted it. 'I would be only too happy to accept you as my servant once more, Regeda. Though my funds are not what they used to be. I fear that you will have to work alone.'

She beamed with happiness and relief. 'Thank you, my lady.'

I said nothing, and simply flicked her a silver coin to compensate her for preparing my chambers so properly. They were just as I'd left them, though small imperfections in the furniture, walls, and staircase bannister reminded me that I was not in the same building that I’d called home for almost two years. The silver coin was more than she deserved for such a task, but her loyalty was worth the difference.

Having spent the day in my riding habit once more, I went upstairs to change before my rendezvous with Alum. As my habit was beautiful and stylish I did not mind that I had been seen in it, however I didn’t want to be seen in the same outfit twice in a row. Besides, it was in dire need of a wash. I decided on something modest, for my girlish obsession with tantalising outfits was overweighed by my terror that I might not be able to marry Alum in the end.

Thus began our daily routine. Alum and I would enjoy an evening meal where I kept an eye on my wine intake, and the rest of the day would be spent approaching nobles and making small talk until it would no longer be rude to request their assistance in Ebonreach. Many of them made suggestive comments about my relationship with Prince Alum, which I invariably evaded with non-committal comments about his kindness and generosity. In the late evenings, if I had time to spare before I needed to sleep, Regeda and I would swap tales of our experiences during the months I’d been absent while she braided my hair, and we embroidered several stockings and chemisettes.

My only success in requesting troops came from a Gentleman Tefgae of Trent. He was the lord of a sizeable estate to the southwest of Iyasgorth, bordered itself by the Dreadwood Forest to the southwest and the southeast. He sympathised with the plight of Ebonreach and spoke with distaste of Duke Wiseria, calling him 'that faithless man.'

I agreed with him unconditionally for the thirty housecarls he supplied were an asset, particularly as I had received no other pledges of support. I even smiled and nodded when his voice became a whisper and he suggested that Ebonreach could find its men among those currently serving in the Borderlands if it were to declare independence. I simply assured him that I was considering all options, which seemed a fair enough thing to say in the circumstances. I wondered at the state of the Crower House, that its subjects might prefer to employ its men in the defence of a foreign county than its own lords.

I sent a letter to Timoth informing him that I had secured thirty men, and of the secessionist support I’d encountered. It seemed a paltry amount, but he knew as well as I the strained situation that most of the landholders in Halivaara faced. I had hoped to find more support from the folk of Hollintay, for their land was currently the most stable and peaceable in the realm, but their sparsely populated realm was half-wasteland, and the threat of Frostlander attacks and instability spilling over the border from Trent stayed their hand. The insulating distance to Haelling Cove from Hollintay certainly did me no favours, but most of all I found their cold demeanours to render them entirely unapproachable.

It was with such disappointment in mind that I shared my fifth successive dinner with Prince Alum. My eyes were downcast as I prodded my food with little appetite. Any desire for sustenance had been stolen away by the increasingly prevalent consideration of Duke Wilbern. I was certain that he’d have received word of my begging every landholder in the capital for support, just as I’d heard gossip that he was courting the inheriting daughter of a landholder in eastern Trent.

Now it seemed to me that I had only two choices open to me: I could wed Alum and gift Ebonreach with the half of his housecarl retinue that he had not already pledged to its defence, or I could pursue Wilbern and gift Ebonreach hundreds or even thousands of men. The mere consideration of leaving Prince Alum was enough to render me a sobbing mess during my embroidery sessions with Regeda, but I had a duty to protect my realm, and I had my orders from Timoth. He needed as many men as I could secure.

I was desperate for a way out so I asked Alum, in as casual a tone as I could muster, 'Have you been able to secure any more men for the defence of Ebonreach?'