Despite their long history of mentor to trainee, strange times had placed Sir Bradfrey as the greater of two equals. The shift in their relationship left Lord Hendricks unable to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Not even a full belly and late evening drinks in front of the fireplace were enough to break the ice as they mirrored each other’s displays of professionalism. They were two senior officers stuck in inconsequential small talk while pondering over the reams of maps. A maze of interlaced parchment denoted the day’s deliberations. From the broad overarching campaign and logistics to the rough drawing of known fortifications. The overall strategy was marked in chess pieces crisscrossing wooden miniatures.

‘Dividing an army is not without risk. Concentration of forces, breaking the chain of command, trust in your fellow generals,’ said Lord Hendricks like a philosopher to himself as he used his free hand to whip his drink into his mouth, with a mild splashback running down his sleeves. Which he immediately downplayed behind a more serious posture and a quick tug of his overcoat to disguise the stain.

Sir Bradfrey, on the other hand, was dead still, with a determined turning of the cogs within his cranium. ‘Numbers failed to catch Bjarke the last time, and I’m not afraid of being out manned. I’m afraid of being too slow. Too ridged.’

‘Is that why Amos and his templars will lead the greater contingent up the river crossing?’

‘Amos wants his crusade. I want the Viking army at the river chokepoint, and my knights rounding the mountain’s side to the city of Keesh before they know it. Winter be damned, they will not blame me for not trying,’ said Sir Bradfrey as he stared down the assorted copper castle pieces positioned north of a handful of pawns, whose path was marked by various white marble pieces denoting the supply depots.

Lord Hendricks replied, ‘Don’t be pulled into an unnecessary battle for the sake of pride. We are here to pacify the north and prevent future Viking raids. To that end, Keesh controls the intersect between the Greater Northern Steppe, the eastern trade routes and Rekinvale. Its strategic value can’t be understated.’

‘Don’t think I don’t know that. Nor they. There is no pacifying the north or capturing Bjarke without Keesh. The question is, can I lure them out into open battle and save myself the prolonged siege?’ Sir Bradfrey questioned.

‘You didn’t want to leave the girl here in my care? She could slow you down,’ Lord Hendricks suggested.

‘Given your reception of her, I think not. Again, why the hostility towards her?’

His emotional reaction pleased Lord Hendricks to the point of reclining down from his towering height to level himself eye to eye with Sir Bradfrey. ‘A wizard who goes by the cross is one step from witchery and two steps past heresy to go unnoticed.’

‘Are you doubting her allegiance?’

‘No, just yours,’ said Lord Hendricks, forthright with honest frustration, as though he were the one slighted.

‘My father died in the old crusades,’ Sir Bradfrey reminded him.

‘I know. Left his little babbling smart-arse son to Duke De La Castell. Who, to his credit, taught that little fusspot to say less than he thinks and do more than he says. Now, here you are.’

Sir Bradfrey frowned. ‘Then why the hostilities?’

The bitterness of the mead now tormented Lord Hendricks’ tongue as his next words filled him with the distaste of self-deprivation. ‘Try holding back the stench of defeat with the moral cause of the cross against these bloody pagans and their Viking. Then you throw a wizard into the mix.’

‘And yet a fifth of our lands still practice pagan beliefs,’ Sir Bradfrey retorted.

‘Aye, but I see the winds changing.’

‘Then it’s a question of how strong a lord’s backbone is?’ said Sir Bradfrey as he refrained from eye contact. He felt ashamed to have spoked so insultingly, knowing full well that he had given Lord Hendricks every reason to escalate beyond civil discourse.

But Lord Hendricks, the senior and wiser, brushed it aside. Instead, he changed his tone to appeal to his old friend’s sense of empathy. ‘I don’t have the luxury of picking my battles, but I’m still expected to win them.’

His composure made a nodding man of Sir Bradfrey, who with an ever-tightening top lip and dimming voice felt the sting of defeat through the emotional outburst. ‘With all due respect, I can’t afford to have Anneliese under your protection.’

‘And no offence taken. Trust is a two-way street, and we’re blocking the road.’

‘Bear a thought for those who live in the Greater Northern Steppe, if they refuse to convert,’ Sir Bradfrey said.

‘As should you?’ replied Lord Hendricks. His long-calloused hands came to a restful reassurance over Sir Bradfrey’s tightly wound-up shoulder. ‘For if Amos gets to Keesh first, or Pragian next, may the lord forgive you. May the lord forgive all of us.’

The words cut silence between the two men. There was built-up angst bubbling within their insecurities. Each trying to navigate a world of ideology through cold-hearted rationality. One in the same, but none the like.

From a stone-brick keep, behind the wind-swayed tents to the thick-wooden cabin, was a fireplace breathing life into Anneliese’s quarters as she cradled up in the corners, cross-legged and cocooned by blankets.

Agrippa stoked flames, with his sword still tethered to hip. ‘Most of the lads would kill for this,’ he said as he made an art of the poking iron.

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‘Why do you think I keep to the corner?’ said Anneliese, absorbed in her warm comfort.

‘Ha, I could best the best of them.’

‘Is everything a proving ground to you?’

‘Yeah. You know what my people call the young with potential who end up growing old?’

‘No, what do they call them?’ Anneliese asked.

‘Who cares? I’ll live long enough to make the histories, then die happy. Like Icarus, flying too close to the sun. Consequences be dammed.’

The display of playful narcissism brought a chuckle to Anneliese’s face, and she rolled her eyes and spoke with her own pompous condescension. ‘Live fast, die young. Sounds like the type of morbid ideocracy they sell to kids who can’t keep their hands busy.’

Agrippa took her insult as a mark of attraction. Her heightened level of animation, intentional or not, was enough to keep him chipping away. Of course, infatuating an angel was always an alluring challenge for the hormone-driven teenage.

Yet his gradual attempts at flattery was vanquished to the winds of a cabin door brutely forced open by a frosty, dishevelled Weddle. The flurry nearly ripped Weddle’s arm off as he struggled to close the door. It was a feat easily assisted with Agrippa’s offhand, as he offered a little extra punch to jam the door to its latch.

Weddle was too overcome with goosebumps and snooty nose to acknowledge Agrippa’s help as he brushed past in a hurry to plop himself beside the fireplace.

‘Well, make yourself at home,’ said Agrippa, dumbfounded by the oddity of what, for him, was an unexpected intruder.

‘Oh, forgive me, I’m Weddle.’

‘Agrippa.’

‘Friend of yours?’ Weddle asked Anneliese, and then he took a cue from Anneliese’s relaxed state before she could offer a reply. ‘Ah good. Just need to be sure.’

‘Should I ask the same of you?’ said Agrippa.

‘He’s fine. I’ve known him from when I was a child,’ said Anneliese.

‘In that case, do actually make yourself at home,’ said Agrippa. He then nudged Weddle along to make room for him to toss another log onto the fire.

‘Much appreciated. Now, Agrippa, do you know what Anneliese is?’

‘I have my suspicions, but it’s not for me to say.’

‘Well said. You understand what I’m saying, though?’

‘I take my orders from Sir Bradfrey,’ Agrippa replied.

‘Ah yes. But you’ve heard the gossip?’

‘Bits and pieces.’

‘What are they saying?’ said Anneliese, her ears perking with the growing sense of danger.

‘Everything good and everything bad … and everything contemptuous,’ said Weddle.

‘No one will hurt her on my watch,’ said Agrippa.

Weddle offered the young man a left-eyed scowl. ‘I trust you believe that, but this is not a game of swordsmanship. Have you heard the tale of Coble in the battle of the bloodless?’

‘Only the part about the dim-witted pagan who stood between Duke Derzhimont and the crown – almost literally – and he got his head chopped off,’ Agrippa replied.

‘Here’s a question for both of you. Why didn’t Duke Derzhimont ascend to the throne?’

‘He died in the succession crisis,’ said Anneliese.

‘He lost the crown long before that. You see … Coble was a pacifist and an arms dealer,’ said Weddle, finding himself in a comfortable seated meditation, admiring the flames as though they were telling the story.

‘Funny combination,’ said Agrippa, who had crossed his arms with open skepticism as he leant against the fireplace.

‘Funny still how you mesh such a conflict of conscious. For Coble was a wizard who specialized in enchantment and blacksmithing. He could make giants out of men and men capable of slaying giants. With only one catch.’

‘He wouldn’t want his weapons used against the innocent,’ said Anneliese.

‘Exactly. Duke Derzhimont was a proven master of the marshal and, by that fact, accrued a long list of loyal and subservient lords. The kingship was all but his, except for his temper and paranoia in his belief that his younger brother would try and take the crown from him. The duke knew that people feared him more than they loved him, and certain people of Coble’s creed would persuade Derzhimont’s youngest brother to prepare for an uprising. Once Derzhimont caught wind of the plot, he raced to Pragian to put an end to it, his most fearsome warriors in toe. The only problem, Pragian didn’t resist. His army surrounded the township and demanded Coble give up his brother, else Pragian would burn.

‘Only Coble dared meet the tyrant face to face. Ah, to be there. To see Coble looking up at the duke with his wicked smile, which to think about it, Coble was considerably larger. So, down. He looked down at Derzhimont and said, “If you dare strike me, no god will dare anoint you as king”. So, Derzhimont raised his mace and dislocated his arm trying to club Coble’s face. The mace fell to the ground, so Derzhimont pulled his dagger, and before he could thrust it at Coble, he began shaking like a sick dog. Eventually, Derzhimont realized the trickery at hand. His mace, his armor, all his means of war were of Coble’s creations. Only the best for the best. Except it was Coble who made them the best, and they would have still been the best if not for that little clause. No harm shall befall an innocent from his own creations. Despite his dislocated shoulder, Derzhimont shed himself of Coble’s armor. Then, with his offhand, he punched Coble clean to the ground and, without a single casualty, won the battle of the bloodless. Except he didn’t really win, like it wasn’t really a battle. You see, reputation is a fickle thing. All it took was one minor act to unravel Derzhimont’s lifetime of achievements.’

‘Why didn’t the duke just imprison Coble, or better yet, kill him for treason?’ said Agrippa, evermore engrossed than he was alluding to.

‘I don’t know,’ said Weddle as he recalled himself during his younger years. Just another commoner among the crowd. Silent with fear, praying the incitement of one wayward wizard would not divert the tyrant’s rage upon the witnesses. Then, amid all the fear and confusion, from the shadow of the sun came a straggly figure. The late Burtrew, the great foreteller. His presence was undisputed, his compassion for Coble was disarming.

Derzhimont’s fate was understood without a spoken word. His own inner circle called the retreat that would later be written as a needless victory, but really marked the turning point in Derzhimont’s campaign. When loyalties began to melt away to desertion. ‘Coble didn’t need strength or wit to conquer his enemies,’ said Weddle. ‘He merely had to show how fragile they were without him. As for Derzhimont … fear can make you stand in line, but belief. Belief can unite a people against fear itself.’

Weddle’s words died out to the sound of blowing wind, breathing a renewed vigor into the fireplace as Sir Bradfrey, red-faced with sniffles, barged through the door.

‘By God, that is not a journey I wish to repeat tonight.’

‘My lord,’ said Agrippa, jumping to attention, awaiting orders.

‘Please be seated, all of you. It’s been a long day, so bear with me,’ said Sir Bradfrey, handing Weddle a leather messenger bag. It was light on provisions but bulked out with scrolls and parchment. ‘I take it you’ll leave immediately?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Weddle with gentle care of the bag, aware of its precious contents.

It was an act that for no reason triggered a nerve in Sir Bradfrey’s character, as he grabbed Weddle’s arm, clenching his hands upon it. The pressure indented his fingers into the firm leather bindings. ‘There are times for caution and then there are times for expedience. Be fast, be direct, be right.’

The weight of his words wiped the stumbling fool from Weddle’s being. And he uprighted himself and nodded uncontrollably in reply. ‘It shall be done, my lord.’

‘Good,’ said Sir Bradfrey, before coughing out the evening’s frosty inhalations. ‘Agrippa,’ he said.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Prepare Anneliese for the journey north. Pack light. We ride come sunrise.’