The pale light of dawn meekly shining through obscuring clouds laden heavy with rain roused the people of Maegwyn from their slumber to a dreary morning beset by damp and chill weather. The rain clung to every surface, dampening timbers and stone alike, collecting in small puddles in the street. Here and there a man would dash through the streets, heedless of caution and dousing bystanders with chill and dirty water, earning angry cries and looks of consternation. It was a thoroughly miserable day to brave the elements outside the protective embrace of a stout roof, and many cursed their ill luck to still be sent upon patrols or to training. But the ill weather was not the only unpleasantness the waking people of the city were greeted with that morning.
A loud cry arose from the sentries posted atop the city’s curtain wall as the dull gray beams of a sickly sun touched down upon the land and revealed something in the plains only a few miles distant from the city. It was a war camp, one that while showing evident signs of a hurried construction, lacking the palisade wall or abatis commonly found in most modern day encampments, was still something that had been erected within sight of the city with none to witness its assembly.
While the enemy had been expected for many weeks by that point, none had predicted them to appear in such good order, and especially not within a single night. It was shocking, a bold and aggressive maneuver from the Duke in his bid to take the city unawares. Being in his twilight year at the venerable age of seventy five, many would have deemed such bold tactics impossible coming from one of such advanced years. Yet it seemed those critics were wrong, and the Duke showed naught his age as he presided over a force now dead set upon the destruction of the city. His mind seemed as sharp as it had ever been during his years of glory fighting to win the throne for his niece, and now that very mind had turned to take it from her.
The sight of the foe, appearing as if out of the thin air of the dawn’s early light, was far from the only observation that had elicited such worried cries from the sentries. The camp was also shockingly massive, far larger than what the city’s defenders had been told to expect by their commanders. All of the city’s defensive planning up to that point had been based on the official numbers of the Duke’s forces, already quite extensive even compared to the Empire’s legions, yet now it appeared that he had conjured forth even more men to bolster his ranks.
It seemed that he had either been heavily reinforced by additional musters from his Duchy while en route, or that he and every one of his vassals had been lying to the Empress for years upon the strength of their forces. Both were likely given how connivingly his betrayal had been organized thus far. Even the most vocal optimist amongst the city’s defenders was given just cause to doubt and second guess his chances as the starkly apparent difference in numbers was so flagrantly displayed before the city’s walls.
The sole saving grace of the reveal of the enemy’s strength, was that at the very least they seemed unlikely to take to the field that day. A constant stream of men were visible traveling from the camp and back to the forest, only to return later with arms laden with something too distant to sight with any clarity. Furthermore, the rain that had begun its tyrannic reign over the skies of Maegwyn had by then seeped into the ground to the point of saturation, forming deep puddles over soft muck. It would be impossible for the enemy to mount even a light probing attack against the city, their yeoman cavalry not daring to risk the lives of their mounts over such unsure terrain.
The river had, mercifully, only swollen to any considerable degree outside the boundaries of the city, presumably greatly bolstered by Maegwyn’s extensive network of sewer drains. The river cut the sodden plains in twain, its raging bulk having risen to the point its swift and churning water began to erode the earth itself. Rocks, trees, and sometimes even debris stripped from houses within the farmlands surrounding the city had made their way to the river, carried far by the current. The enemy’s avenues through which to mount an attack had been significantly hindered by the impassable hazard the river had become as it formed a barrier, cutting off their access to a full half of the city’s curtain wall as no intact bridges across remained within miles of the city.
Nathaniel, for his part, woke unpleasantly. He had been forced by necessity the prior week to take up residence within the palace as the approach of the enemy drew near, his manse lying far outside the protective embrace of even the city’s earth works. He sorely missed sleeping in his own bed. The goose down and silk of the palace’s extravagant furnishings may have been the lap of luxury for some, but as an old soldier and a man of rather humble origins, he had always preferred bedding of more firm substance.
The fact that his sleep had been so rudely interrupted the night past by a missive from the Empress had not helped matters either. It was not even a matter of any real urgency. While the arrival of the foe may have allowed a canny commander of horse to cripple the enemy as they erected their camp, and therefore exact a great victory even against their numerical and qualitative odds, the conjuration of the Empress had made the use of any cavalry rather unwise. Furthermore, the few horsemen the city did still number among its defenders were all of dubious loyalty, being either aristocrats in their own right or their retainers.
No, she had informed him solely so that another would bear the responsibility of distributing the message in her place, and he in being not only the Lord Protector, but also currently dwelling within the palace, made him a rather convenient victim. It was a clear abuse of authority, a dreadful tyranny, one he could only assume had been made deliberately by that petty witch with the fell intent to ruin his rest. It was as if she truly believed that he had not sacrificed enough for the safety of Empire and Empress already. Some days, he truly loathed his title.
Donning his thick woolen cloak over his casual linens, well aware of the mess awaiting him outside, he left the guest room he had been residing within deep inside the palace keep, and made way to the Spire. As distasteful as he found the trek, the Empress held miraculous means by which he could observe the enemy camp in the light of day, as gray and weak as that day’s light may be. He would be a fool to forgo such great advantage upon the very eve of battle for a mere fear of heights, no matter the terrifying and unusual yearning he seemed to feel from the watery depths beneath the Spire’s great bridge.
Firmly closing his eyes, with both of his hands tightly clutching onto one of the bridge’s railings he safely affected a crossing, reaching the Spire’s entrance thoroughly wet and miserable, but very much alive and whole. It was a true curiosity how his feelings of yearning for the depths seemed to disappear the moment he no longer gazed upon the raging currents of the river, but he could not bear to ponder the mystery. No good would ever come of seeking answers to a phenomenon that had once before almost brought him to his death. He was no augur meant to chase auspicious omens, but a soldier firmly set upon the real and practical after all.
Needing no guide at that point, he swiftly ascended the tower stairs and boldly entered the Empress’s chambers in search of her study. It was early in the morning, and he knew well from long acquaintance that she would never dredge herself from peaceful slumber at such an early hour, at least not if she could at all help it. He passed through the remains of her sitting room. While the debris from her rampage a month prior had been long removed, the scratches upon the finish of the door and desk still remained, and there was a distinct lack of furnishings as he passed through on his way to the reading room. Unsure of the layout of the Empress’s chambers beyond that point, he cast his gaze about the large interior, searching for the door to her study, but was interrupted by a loud coughing sound. It was sharp and irritating upon his ears, clearly made to gain his attention judging from the great volume and brief duration.
“Looking for something?” A light voice queried – the Empress.
As he turned his head, alerted by the cough, he sighted her. Dressed in a robe of thin silk, caring naught at all for the cold he noted, she sat inclined upon a plush sofa, nursing a mug of mulled wine. Curiously it seemed he had caught her truly in a state of relaxation, for there were neither tomes nor notes nor any other such writings strewn on the table before her. She must have had much the same pleasant morning as himself, he noted, casually observing the dark rings beneath her half lidded eyes.
“Indeed Your Majesty. I was in fact, searching for your study. I would gaze upon the foe with your famed eyepiece so that I may devise our plans for the coming battle.” He answered calmly, daring not to provoke her ire upon sighting her rather bedraggled appearance, knowing that he had overstepped his bounds enough already by entering her rooms with neither escort nor invitation.
“My eyepiece, I see. I suppose I should commend your initiative Nathaniel, but my uncle has encamped near enough the walls that you surely could have observed from there instead of disturbing my rest.” She seemed less than pleased at his presence, likely unhappy that he had seen her in a rare quiet moment of rest. While she may have chosen to hide little of her true nature from him, he had since decided to spurn her offer of friendship. It seemed in poor taste to be forced to tolerate his presence within her chambers even as she sought solace from the preparations for the coming battle.
“I notice you have come unescorted, have you some cause for dissatisfaction with my handmaidens? Surely you are not in such haste to be unable to wait for them to guide your way.” The Empress craned her neck to gaze behind him, presumably searching for one of her servants. Her voice sounded calm upon the surface, but hidden beneath lay an undercurrent of irritation at his presumption. She was, evidently, rather displeased that her calm morning had been so uncouthly interrupted by the Lord Protector.
“Your Majesty, please. I beg for your patience. As the foe has only just arrived and there is light enough to gaze upon their movements, it is my duty as the Empire’s Lord Protector to observe their camp with as great detail as I am able. How can I draw up strategies for the city’s defense, if I cannot analyze the enemy before our forces meet in battle? Time is of the essence and I could ill afford to await your handmaidens.” He was frustrated by her obstinance, he held no ulterior motive after all. It genuinely was for an important analysis of the foe, made with strategic consideration in mind that he sought access to her rooms, but as he spoke, she seemed to be digging in her heels. Her workings must be rather taxing affairs indeed if she was left in such a state after each and every one.
“Yet you failed to consider that in doing so, not only would you be trespassing uninvited into a tower in which only women may reside, but also that you would be invading the private chambers of your very own sovereign. You proceed at your own peril Nathaniel. What if I had been indecent as you so boldly flung open those doors with nary a glance to its occupants before swinging them wide?” Her eyes narrowed at his apparent nonchalance and unrepentant posture for committing such a grave sin. Her cheeks tinted a faint rosy red as her mind turned to the thought of such scandal. Her embarrassment was almost enough to make her forget her previous ire at the one who had so disturbed her much needed rest.
“Your Majesty, you are advanced in years enough that you could be my own mother, and yet you possess youthful guise and vitality enough that you could be my daughter. Let alone myself, not even the most deviant in the Empire would dare to possess impure designs upon one with such an uncanny appearance. For your own dignity, please do not delude yourself with such nonsense, it is unbecoming for such a wise old crone as yourself.” Nathaniel struggled to hold back his laughter at her naivete.
Sometimes, it was almost as if she genuinely forgot all of her decades of worldly experience, as if her mental state truly reverted to that of her youthful appearance. It was rather unsettling. None would ever dare to even think such scandalous thoughts of the Empress, no matter what imaginings her naïve mind could conjure forth. Most viewed her as a benevolent tyrant at best, someone who would ruthlessly wield scale and sword for the betterment of all even as she mercilessly left scores of the dead lying in her wake. At worst, they thought her an evil monster, one that laughed as she drunk the blood of slaughtered women and children. How could any man have ever dared to possess thoughts beyond that of mere fear or respect towards such a person?
Every man in the Empire feared incurring her wrath, and dared not do her disrespect even within the sanctum of their very minds. Every man except for himself of course. Being as close with her as he was despite his futile attempts to maintain a distance between them, it was impossible for him to maintain the feelings of dread and awe he had once held towards her. Back when he had served as a mere captain in the civil war, she had seemed an icon, a great figure straight out of a storybook with her idealism and ruthlessness towards the rest of her family. It was inevitable that he had put her on a pedestal at the time, but she was far from imposing behind closed doors. She was uncouth and petty, vain as any young woman despite her advanced years. Taking into account her sheltered upbringing and her insular nature, she was also rather socially inept and acted with extreme clumsiness when engaging with any not cowed by her fearsome persona.
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“You ungrateful bastard! And to think, I deigned to extend my hand in friendship to the miserable likes of one such as yourself.” His dour face was met with a plush pillow hurled with some force by an indignant Empress as she shrieked in dissatisfaction.
It would seem that barely stifling a laugh after she had managed to embarrass herself, followed by comparing her to an old crone, had been a rather poor decision on his part. Expressionless, he looked at the pillow indented with a depression in the shape of his face, before gently setting it down on a nearby chair. Alas, at least it was a pillow this time and not an icicle thrown with deadly intent. While it still twisted like a knife in his guts as she once more referred to her offer to open up to him in the name of friendship, at least this time he had managed to avoid flinching. She was even seemingly regretting her previous offer as she hurled insults and objects, enraged by his lack of tact. Perfect. It would make his betrayal easier for the both of them if she regretted her actions.
“Your Majesty, do you intend to aid me in my defense of the city, as per your command, or are you content to sit prettily and berate me for daring to conduct my due diligence in your name?” He cut to the point rather undiplomatically, completely ignoring her angrily flashing eyes and the embarrassment writ across her face.
She did not deign to even verbally respond to his deliberate provocation, as if angered beyond capacity for words, merely pointing her right index finger at one of the innocuous and unassuming wooden doors half hidden by shelves in the back of the room. Nodding to her in brief acknowledgement and gratitude for setting aside her petty anger, Nathaniel leisurely strode to the door and entered the room, taking the time to securely shut it behind him. It would not do to eavesdrop on the sovereign of the land easing her anger towards himself through, frankly excessive, bouts of cursing. He was rather uninterested in learning the various pronunciations of the word bastard, nor was he keen upon her uniquely insightful musings into his parentage.
The study was far neater than that of the Empress’s other chambers. A grand mahogany desk lay in the center of the room, inlaid with artistic flourishes in a thoroughly luxurious display of wealth. Upon its smoothly polished surface were neatly arranged reams of parchment, covered in notes of small, all but illegible to his inexperienced eye, but graceful and refined script nonetheless. In the corner of the room lay a single narrow portal inset to the wall for the admission of light, at that moment occupied by a construct he had never before seen, made of glass and steel. It was not much to look at, the Empress’s eyepiece, but it was capable of nigh miraculous feats if her boasts held even a sliver of truth. The chill wind from the opening blew gently across his face as he walked across the room’s plush carpet to the device. Bending down, he craned his head towards its glass lens, lining up an inquisitive eye to the exquisitely magnified scenery contained therein.
Shown in fine detail, as if he were standing a mere hundred yards distant instead of that of several miles, the plains and forest were revealed. Having never before used such a wondrous device, Nathaniel was quickly enthralled by its capabilities. If every scout among the Empress’s legions was so equipped with means of far seeing, their forces would suffer neither ambush nor deceitful stratagem, able to confront the foe with perfect awareness of their disposition. After the coming war was over, perhaps he could convince the Empress to sponsor the mass production of such devices. Catching himself lost within his thoughts of appreciation, Nathaniel turned the eyepiece, following the beaten and overgrown track stretching far from the forest to the capital.
At last he found the first sight of the enemy, starting in small groups of three or four they scurried back and forth from the road to the forest, bearing bundles of cloth and steel. Under the faint warmth of day, the men seemed to show little concern for the yet falling rain, but it was clear that something had happened last night under the Empress’s working. No disciplined army would abandon the supplies it needs for its own defense and longevity in the middle of a forest after all.
Casting his gaze about once more, he sighted several wagons, wheels broken and swarming with men attempting to affix replacements. Seemingly these wagons had become mucked down amongst the newly made mud, and the wheels had cracked trying to free them. Unfortunately, it was likely the Duke’s men had by this time become masters of the fixing of wagons and marching through muddy terrain, and despite the fact several wagons were laid up it was doubtful it would severely impact the foe’s logistics. Upon the wagons lay crates and boxes stacked high, or heaps of pikes bundled and protected from the elements with small cloth sacks bound about their pointed heads.
It would seem that the complications of a late night march had left the foe in no state to pursue battle if they were leaving veritable armories behind in the forest. That was excellent news, Nathaniel noted with a satisfied smile, happy that the Empress’s working had seemed to be effective. While he held no doubt that the bulk of their forces would be in no shape after a such a grueling march to immediately attack the city, the lighter and less burdened elements of their army were another matter entirely.
Whether the woodsmen and rangers that made up the bulk of the Duke’s longbowmen, or the yeomen cavalry that formed the army’s far ranging force of reconnaissance, both groups were unlikely to have been much affected by the inclement weather. They were not heavily armored and both groups were well experienced in traversing dense woodland and adverse terrain. Had the Duke been so motivated, he likely could have brought them to attack the earth works that morning. The greatest peril the Empress’s strategy had held was the chance that the enemy would ignore the beginning of the rains, charging with their light horse against the city before the sustained rainfall had fully turned the fertile plains to nigh impassable muck. But it seemed that would not be an issue, the rains having cause sufficient logistical difficulty to thoroughly cow the Duke’s forces into first establishing a fortified encampment rather than seizing the initiative with a rapid offensive.
Satisfied with his observation, the eyepiece moved on, following along but a little farther up the road. A large camp lay centered atop a small hill, the center of which was crested with great and opulent tents dyed in crimson and gold, the colors of the Duke of Brackenweir. Emanating radially from the command tents at the center were scores of smaller tents for the housing of small groups of soldiers or single knights and their squires. These smaller tents were themselves arranged in groups, clustering together in clumps of five or six about great fires shared for mutual warmth and cooking.
Far more tents were present among the camp than he would have expected from merely the Duke’s army joined by ten thousand mercenaries. It seemed that at some point the betrayer’s forces had been reinforced, from either newly risen traitors from Brackenweir, or fresh mercenary regiments recruited from Aachenwald. Given that no news had as of yet reached the capital from the fifth and sixth legions dispatched to the west even a month passed, it was likely the situation there had degraded to a point almost as perilous as that in Maegwyn.
While the dwellings of those men sworn to the Duke maintained an orderly appearance and layout, being designed with conventional patterns of colored stripes and chevrons made only with cheap dyes and lying in neat and organized rows, the rest were not so structured. Great billowing tents dyed in all gaudy manner of outrageous colors, with deep saffron red, royal purple, and gossamer threads of silver and gold all in abundance, lay in a haphazard tangle. They were very closely packed together, at times their supporting stakes and rope lines become intertwined, but were oriented in a convention that defied all sense of symmetry or order. They seemed to have been erected especially densely in places of slight elevation, usually with a singular tent set upon the apex and the others clustered about it, as if each was jockeying for the highest positions in the camp.
Throughout the camp, life moved with hive like activity as men worked. Whether expanding drainage ditches, ferrying water from sections of the camp that had flooded overnight, or affixing wooden beams in a steadily expanding palisade at the camp’s perimeter, the inhabitants were perpetually engaged. While the rains may have dampened their spirits, and had for a certainty saved the city from any rapid assault by the army’s lighter elements, it seemed that the foe was determined, and would not be stopped by any mere storm. While the pikemen and halberdiers of the army diligently set upon the half constructed camp with fervor, eager to act now that the objective of their campaign was in sight, the longbowmen and crossbowmen of the army trained. Arrayed in multiple arenas with varieties of target the missile troops shot, evidently preparing with great severity for the coming battle in which they would be the deciding factor.
From his, admittedly brief but well informed observation, one made from drawing upon all of his long years of experience, there could be as many as sixty thousand men encamped under the gaze of the eyepiece. It was a colossal number, as great as three of the Empress’s legions assembled together at full strength. It was such a large number, it beggared belief as his head spun trying to conceive of how every man was fed. It could only be from pillage, the autumn harvest of perhaps dozens of villages and towns seized, leaving tens of thousands to starve over the coming winter, all to serve the petty ambition of one man.
Things were far worse than he had originally feared, he noted with a grimace. With sixty thousand men, it would not matter their preparations or even the Empress’s workings, the foe could overwhelm them with naught but the weight of their bodies. With such numbers, the dead could pile up to the very tip of the curtain wall and the foe would simply climb over the corpses of their fallen to reap brutal harvest within the city. A blessing at least was that they remained busy yet. They would have time then, to plan, to prepare for the advent of the foe’s advance.
Numerous banners of houses sworn to the Duke lay limply within the camp, laden heavy with rain and unable to flutter in the light wind. Curiously, it seemed that those banners presided over far more tents than they should have, seemingly representing forces significantly greater than those that had been reported to the Empress over the years. These would not be hastily assembled peasant levies either, from the appearance of the tents and the armored man sitting idly around burning braziers for warmth they were professional soldiers. It seemed that the Duke’s treachery had not been sudden, but longstanding, as there was no other way for such professional men to have been concealed for so long from the Empress’s eye otherwise.
This was of particularly dire implication. If his assertion was true, when had the corruption started? When had the rot begun to fully set in? For years the Duke had been considered a stalwart and implacable defender against the western barbarians, the Empire’s bulwark against chaos and terror. But if his principles had lain long compromised by greed or bribery, what had truly occurred over those years past? What fell deeds had escaped the ever watchful eye of the Empress, blinded as they were by trust and familial love?
While the first legion had been deployed to Brackenweir since the close of the civil war, it was but a token force present to lend imperial credence to the Duke’s bannermen. They were kept at half strength, numbering too few to truly act as true border guards, and evidently, they had been few enough to be incapable of keeping appraised of the Duke’s actions either. Instead, they had always blindly trusted in the integrity of the Duke. But with yet another fresh layer of his treachery revealed, it begged the question of whether he had ever been trustworthy?
The civil war was but ten years past and here was newly presented evidence that, not just of late, but for years upon years that foolishly trusted man had been engaged in acts of deceit against his sovereign and the people of the Empire. Had he ever been loyal? For all of his lauded service during the civil war, had he been working to undermine the Empress’s cause all that while? Nathaniel’s mind was beset by sadness, confusion, and anger all swirling about chaotically, each vying for dominance as he pondered the implications.
The Duke had not just betrayed the Empress, he had betrayed Nathaniel as well. Nathaniel, who at first had served as a humble captain, but eventually had come to command veritable armies as the Duke’s right hand. Had even one such as himself, one loyal to the Empress beyond a doubt, despite his less than respectful opinion of her as a person, been unknowingly duped into acts of betrayal at the behest of the mastermind of this whole sordid affair?
With a deep breath his chaotic emotions subsided. What had happened in the past was the past, immutable no matter the quantity or severity of his regrets. He needed to stay focused, to fight for the future of the Empire, not to wallow in misery for its past. If what had risen against the Empress was not just the marshaled might of a great man corrupted by a newly developed lust for power, but a grand conspiracy, years in the planning, then the Empire would need its Lord Protector to have his mind sharp and angry. Whether they succeeded in the defense of the city or not, it seemed the Empire would be consumed in a grand conflagration, a return to the days of the civil war.
His mind set, he withdrew his appraising eye from the device. Scratching his chin, he pondered the future. He would not lie, not to himself. The city could not be saved, not from the coming storm. He may have catered to the thoughts of his generals, to the naïve optimism of an Empress that should know better, may have even half entertained thoughts that with their preparations then with some miracle the Duke could be driven off. But no more, his mind was now made up.
He might lie to get his way to his generals, to the feudal lords, even to his sworn sovereign, but he could never betray himself with false delusions. There was a reason he was the last to be optimistic of any situation, if no other could see things for how they were, it would always fall upon him to do so. The situation was grave. And surely he was not the only one that could see it, not with that massive enemy force encamped within sight of the walls.
The nobility, ever chafing under the tight leash of the Empress was surely sympathetic to the Duke’s cause. Even isolated as they were encamped within Maegwyn’s walls they numbered a significant portion of the city’s defenders. Neither he nor the Empire as a whole could afford for them to rebel against the Empress at the sight of the Duke’s overwhelming power. A battle breaking about in the center of the city as it was besieged by a foe vast beyond conception, it would be disastrous. No, they could not be allowed the opportunity, they would have to be gotten rid of.
It was unpleasant, the feeling of deceit, the feeling of betrayal. He was a straight forward general and had never been given to acts of deception. He had always acted with honor and dignity, but now he was pushed into a corner. Many young men, the very people to whom he had sworn he would protect as he took upon his role as Lord Protector would need to be sacrificed to eliminate the nobility. But it was for the greater good. When battle joined, likely upon the morrow at the earth works, he would need to ensure that the local nobility no longer possessed strength enough to pose a threat to the Empress. They would need to be sacrificed to ensure that the loyal men of the city, the Home Guard, and most importantly the Empress herself, would live to fight, resist, and win another day.