Whereas in our times the Kingdom of Narvonne has been afflicted by such cataclysms, oppressions, dangers and suffering; and whereas, upon the death of our royal husband, the security of our Crown Prince is paramount; as Regent, I hereby decree that all Exarchs which arise in the Kingdom of Narvonne, its Baronies and possessions, shall swear fealty directly to the Monarch, all previous bonds of vassalage being thereby made null and void; and their duty ever shall be the safety of the crown itself.
* Queen Elantia, 17 AC
☀
7th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC
After Dame Chantal and Sir Divdan had taken the condemned knight away, the King continued. “My friends,” Lionel said, “I know that we have faced many difficult things together, yet I must tell you that our trials are not yet concluded. However, before we march to set our Kingdom to rights, let us not forget that we also have cause for celebration. Squire Kay du Rocher de la Garde, step forward.”
Trist turned to the table where the squires sat, and smiled to see the shuffling as the youths around Kay scrambled to make way so that he could extricate himself from the bench. The young man stepped forward and knelt in the center aisle leading to the high table. “Your Majesty,” Trist’s brother in law spoke clearly. “I am at your service.”
“You have served me as squire for six years now, as I recall,” Lionel began.
“Very nearly, your Majesty,” Kay agreed. “Since my twelfth birthday, and I will be eighteen years of age this next Feast Day of Saint Veischax.”
“And you have served me well, and learned much,” the King continued. “When The Sun Eater attacked the wall, you stood with us and fought bravely.”
“I did my duty,” Kay said simply.
“So you did. And now it is time for me to do mine. Kay du Rocher de la Garde, have you fasted this day, as I instructed you to do?”
“I have, Your Majesty.”
Next to Trist, Clarisant gasped, and he glanced to his side to see a wide smile and sparkling eyes when she realized what was happening. “Is he really doing it? But it hasn’t even been seven years yet,” she whispered to Trist.
“The oath is the important thing,” Trist said, remembering his father’s words on the day he’d gone to avenge his brother. And yet, he found himself fascinated by the formality of it: Kay, the second son of a Baron, was certainly not going to be knighted kneeling in the straw of a stable.
“...charge you to go from this place to where our host, the Baroness Arnive, has seen to it that a bath be prepared for you,” Lionel continued. “Cleanse yourself, and then you will be escorted to the chapel of Castle Falais to stand vigil this evening over your arms. Do these things faithfully, and you will be knighted on the morrow, before we march. Go now.”
Kay rose, bowed, then took three steps backwards before turning and departing the hall.
“Isdern du Hauteurs Massif,” the King called, and there was a second scrambling from the squire’s table. Trist observed that Isdern’s mouth hung open in shock, and that he did not actually rise from his seat at the bench until Yaél, sitting next to him, threw an elbow into his ribs and whispered something that got the boy moving.
“Y-yes, Your Majesty?” Isdern managed, once he’d gotten onto one knee before the high table.
“I find myself in need of a new squire, lad,” Lionel said with a smile. “What do you think? Are you willing to ride with us to Rocher de la Garde? It will be hard and bloody work, and I cannot promise your safety.”
“It would be my honor, your majesty!” Isdern said, with a grin, and there was a cheer and applause from around the hall. With that, the feast resumed, and Isdern returned to the table where the other squires greeted him with much clapping of his back. Even Yaél, Trist was pleased to observe, congratulated the boy when he returned to his seat on the bench next to her.
“I will be guarding His Majesty after supper,” Trist told Clarisant, “Until Sir Guiron relieves me for the overnight watch. And then again in the morning, for prime.”
“I hope that Exarch Guiron does not keep you waiting too late,” Clarisant groused, as new platters of food were brought by a seemingly endless procession of servants. “These past six days I’ve slept better than the entire time I was at Camaret-à-Arden alone.” A deep cast-iron dish, filled with braised chicken, small red sausages, peppers and onions, and a host of spices, all in a wine sauce, was set down steaming in front of them. His wife, Trist observed, took a single piece of each, filling only half her plate.
“Are you saying that you sleep better with me in the bed?” Trist asked her, with a smile, making certain to keep his voice low. He spooned great heaps of the dish onto his own plate, filling it, and found the chicken delightfully hot and flavorful when he tried it.
A blush rose to Clarisant’s cheeks. “I wasn’t talking about that,” she said. “It’s only the nightmares seem to come more when I’m alone.”
“Nightmares of the night my brother died,” Trist guessed, frowning.
“Yes.” Clarisant nodded. “I wake up, sometimes, and it's worse to wake alone.”
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Once again, Trist was nearly overcome by the urge to take her in his arms, never mind that they were sitting in a crowded hall, feasting with the King and the barons of the land. Acrasia’s actions had left an open wound that was still bleeding, and Clarisant was the last person who deserved to be suffering for it. “I want nothing more than to always be there for you when you wake,” he said, and when he looked back to his wife’s face her eyes were wide. Shaking himself, Trist speared one of the small red southern sausage with his fork. “I am certain that Sir Guiron will be prompt in relieving me,” he said, at a more normal volume, and the moment passed, lost in the raucous noise of the last feast they would eat at Falais.
Before the desert course was served, Trist excused himself and fetched Yaél from her table to help him. To his chagrin, she was telling the story of how they met when he approached.
“No, truly,” his squire boasted. “He cut down all of them cool as the grass in winter, left ‘em lying there in the dark, and marched us all right over to the church, where he tells the priest he’s seen justice done.”
“And so I had,” Trist said. “But I would have preferred not to have to kill those men, all the same. Come along, Yaél, I need you for a bit. You can return to your friends after you help me.”
“Aye,” she said, not ashamed at all about having been caught bragging. “See you in a bit, boys!” Her dress slowed her a bit as they crossed to the North Tower, and Trist offered her his arm on the way up the stairs.
“I wouldn’t need help if I was wearing breeches,” Yaél complained.
“True enough,” Trist agreed. “And you will be wearing them tomorrow. Just try to enjoy the feast tonight. It will be back to field food for us soon enough.”
“That’s no bother,” she said, as they entered their rooms. “Henry’ll catch us rabbits and quail. We’ll eat better than most of ‘em.”
“Might be,” Trist said, unbuckling his sword belt and then shrugging out of his doublet. “But he will not be the only one hunting. An army this size will eat everything within miles.” He pulled on his padded gambeson while his squire brought over the chain mail that would serve him as an underlayer.
“The new pieces, as well?” Yaél asked, and Trist nodded once he’d settled the shirt of rings on. It took a little longer, adding pieces that Yaél wasn’t familiar with, but better to learn the trick of it during a feast, safe and secure in Castle Falais, then when scrambling to get properly armed before a battle. The sabatons over his boots went easily enough, and the cuisses for his thighs, but he had to walk her through managing the new gorget’s fit with his cuirass and pauldrons. Finally, the sword belt went on again, and his helm.
“You look like a proper knight now,” Yaél said, wiping the oil off fingers hands onto her overskirt, then resting her hands on her hips as she looked him over.
“Near enough,” Trist said. “If we can get to Camaret-à-Arden, Hywel might be able to get the rest sorted.” It was certainly more armor then he’d ever worn before, and he took the stairs carefully. When the two of them returned to the great hall, Yaél scurried back over to where the squires were seated, while Trist marched up to the high table, where he greeted Sir Bors.
“Here to relieve you, Exarch,” he said, and the older knight nodded his helm.
“Good lad.” Bors looked him over, reached his gauntleted hands out to tug at a few leather straps, testing the fit, and grunted in satisfaction. “The new pieces sit well. Not the work of His Majesty’s smith?”
“My wife brought them from home when she arrived,” Trist told him.
“Good. You’ll need them. You have the watch,” Bors said. “I’m off to the privy.”
Protecting the King, Trist found, was largely marked by boredom. For the remainder of the feast, he stood behind Lionel Aurelianus, watching the people in the hall. When someone approached the high table for a moment of the King’s time, Trist marked what weapons they wore, and watched their hands for any sign of an impending draw, but he did not really expect anyone at Falais to betray them. Then again, he had not expected anyone to kill his brother, either, and Trist had no intention of failing for a second time.
Lionel spoke quite a bit with Ismet, which Trist might charitably consider to be a necessity for coordination of the two allied forces on the eve of a march, if not for Clarisant’s words to him the evening she’d first arrived to Falais. Every time the two leaned toward each other, Trist wondered whether it was just a little too close to be explained by courtesy and camaraderie. He recalled, as well, the late night conversation he’d had with Lionel when the man still only been the Crown Prince, and how they’d both lost someone to the plague. What had Lionel said his wife’s name had been? Trist searched his memory, and thought that it had probably been Gwen.
It was a relief, when the feast was over, to follow the King back to his chambers, if for nothing else than a break to the monotony. Feasting was far less interesting when you had to stand by and watch while everyone else ate and drank and laughed.
Once Trist had closed the door behind them, Lionel settled into a chair at the desk in his sitting chamber. A fireplace was already lit, and candles to see by, and at the far wall was a door leading into the King’s bedchamber.
“You can take that helm off,” Lionel told him, and Trist did so with relief. “How are you with numbers, Sir Trist?”
Trist shook his head, embarrassed. “That was always my brother’s strength, not mine,” he admitted.
“A pity.” Lionel uncapped a pot of ink, and drew a pen-knife to sharpen a new quill. “I’ve been staring at the same numbers for days, and I cannot find a way to make them come out any differently. We are in desperate need of funds.”
“Your Majesty?” Trist couldn’t help but ask, furrowing his brow. “The royal treasury is running out of coin?”
“No, it isn’t,” the King explained. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the treasury. The treasury is in Lutetia, where it is now under the control of our enemies, who hold the city. It’s a brilliant play: they’re going to spend our own coin to fight us.”
“And to pay all those Kimmerian mercenaries,” Trist guessed, to which Lionel nodded. “Rocher de la Garde is one of the wealthiest baronies, is it not? Can Baron Urien support the army?”
“For a time,” Lionel said. “So long as we can get there first. I cannot say so openly, Trist, but this is going to be a very near thing. If we can’t feed our soldiers, if we can’t afford to repair wagon wheels and shoe our horses and repair our swords, this war is going to end very quickly, and it is not going to end well for us.”
“I have always thought of wars being won on the strength of the men’s arms, or the mind of the commander,” Trist admitted. “Not on coin.”
“Welcome to the concerns of keeping an army in the field,” the King said, with a chuckle. “No, the reality is clear. If we cannot get to Rocher de la Garde before our enemies do, we have lost. We are not so much in a war, at the moment, but in a race. Which is why, Sir Trist, I have it in my mind to send you ahead of the army.”