by Lady Emeraldrina
The bulky girl on the testy looking gelding shivered again, rubbing her arms for an extra bit of warmth. Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, called Kel by her friends, looked at the gray blanket of clouds veiling most of the Royal Forest of Tortall and, for the hundredth time that day, wondered if she would ever make it back to the palace in Corus. Experience told her that the sky was on the verge of turning her into a massive icicle, and she knew, as she watched the sun brush the horizon, that it would only get colder once it got dark. She was still several miles from her home, and she hoped to reach it before she froze to death.
After riding for another three quarters of an hour, she reached a cliff at the edge of the forest. From there spread the blossoming capital of Tortall, and the colorful royal palace. She let escape a sigh of relief; it was the first time she’d seen her home of the past ten years in over a year and a half, and at the time she thought she might kill for a hot bath and some warm cider.
Just as she was pulling her temperamental destrier, Peachblossom, away from the magnificent view below she felt the first few flakes of snow touch her small, mousy nose. She sighed inwardly, hating to subject her faithful mount to such treacherous conditions, and nudged Peachblossom into a brisk trot, in hopes to avoid the imminent blizzard. She knew she’d never make it inside before the hard winds hit, but she never realized that it would come on so quickly. Even as she was entering the city gates her clothes whipped around her and her horse struggled to walk straight. The city guards quickly shut the gates behind her, to keep out the worst of the winds, but she was still tossed to and fro atop her large warhorse.
In an effort to lessen the burden on Peachblossom, Kel quickly dismounted from her horse and led him afoot from there. This did not help their course much, as Kel was much lighter than her sturdy mount, and ended up weaving her way precariously through the eating houses and shops of the capital city.
Reaching the avenue of tailors’ shops, Kel realized that she would never make it to the palace in this storm; her message would just have to wait until the morning. She hoped her former maid, Lalasa, would have enough room for a road weary knight and her half-frozen destrier. She pounded as hard as she could (it was an effort just to lift her arm in these winds) on Lalasa’s front door, hoping the dressmaker would be able to hear her through the thunderous fury of the blizzard.
After just a few seconds, Lalasa and her friend Tian (former maid to Kel’s sister) came rushing to the door and took over care of Kel and her mount. Kel was too dazed and weak to protest, and submitted herself to a brisk strip down of her soaked clothing, and allowed herself to be led to a steaming bath.
Having been thoroughly soaked and fed, Kel was able to tell her two friends why she was out in the middle of a snowstorm.
"I have to bring a message to the king and Myles from the northern borders," she finally replied, halting the two maids’ incessant questioning.
"In the middle of winter?" Lalasa asked, exasperated by the lack of common sense of these stoic warriors.
"Its urgent news concerning a spy that was posted in Scanra," Kel said, through a mouth full of biscuit.
"Oh," Lalasa said, not looking the least bit consoled. "Couldn’t you just send a messenger?"
Kel mastered the urge to throttle her former maid. After all that she’d been through to get here, and all that she had found out to send her this far in the middle of December, Lalasa’s practicality drove her to the point of insanity.
"If the message concerns spies," she answered calmly, instead, "Particularly Scanran ones, which are the hardest to place and the most secretly regarded, a messenger is never to be trusted. The level of complexity and secrecy of this information demanded that either Lord Raoul or I carry the message personally to the king, and my lord was desperately needed in command at the fort."
Lalasa and Tian looked extremely alarmed at this new information. "My lady," Tian gasped, "If this is so top secret, perhaps you shouldn’t be telling the likes of us."
Kel gave the woman a withering look.
"I haven’t disclosed any confidential information to either of you, and even if I had, I trust you two enough to know that you won’t tell anyone. You should know that by know."
Lalasa ducked her head, embarrassed. "Of course, my lady," she said meekly.
Kel sighed and shook her head. When would the older girl get over her fear of nobles? Kel had thought becoming a prosperous businesswoman, employed by all levels of society, including Her Majesty, had cured her of that shyness. Kel supposed it was innate, much like her own fear of heights.
The next morning, the storm had slowed to a bearable sprinkling of flakes, and Kel made her way through the much-augmented drifts up to the palace. Leaving Peachblossom with Stefan, and trusting the hostler would take good care of him, Kel wound her way through the labyrinthine corridors of the ancient palace, toward the innermost, and oldest, rooms of the castle. There she found the most important rooms of the realm: the War Room, the treasury, the royal counselors’ offices, and, the one she herself went to, the royal office- the king’s office.
Kel knocked rapidly on the door, and was admitted by a small, upbeat footman.
"Your name, if you please, my lady?" He asked, sounding very official.
"Sir Keladry of Mindelan," she replied, just as efficiently. The little man gawked at her for a second, then regrouped himself and turned to announce her. The king looked up from his desk and frowned briefly, but waved her in.
"Nassor, if you please," he nodded to the footman. The footman jumped, as if he hadn’t expected to be addressed, and quickly bowed low to the king and left the room. The king then turned his attention to Kel, who was standing at attention in front of his desk.
"Have a seat, please. I know you must have ridden hard to get here. I hope you weren’t caught in the storm last night." Kel obeyed, and shook her head distractedly.
"No, sir, I stayed at Lalasa’s last night."
"Ah, good, I’m glad you didn’t try to reach us in that blizzard."
"No, sir," she said again, "My message was too important to risk my life."
"Well, let’s get right to it then," the king said, apparently glad not to have to deal with niceties and small talk. Kel knew that he would have normally offered any guest refreshments, but they both knew that this was too urgent for those superfluities.
Kel opened her mouth to begin her story, and then remembered something. "It would help if Sir Myles were here, sire." The king nodded, his eyes lighting at what he know knew her message concerned. He sent Nassor to fetch Sir Myles, who arrived at a brisk walk within several minutes.
"Ah, Myles, excellent timing. I hope we didn’t wake you?" Jonathan asked politely.
"No sir," he replied, "I was actually just reviewing reports from the north." The king nodded emphatically.
"Good, well hopefully we will be able to add to your current information," he said. "Have a seat. Keladry?" Kel nodded and cleared her throat. Then she launched right into it.
"At the end of the summer, we got your message to keep hostages and send them to you for spies. The battles for the next few months were all at distances, and the enemy either died or escaped. Lord Raoul decided that, since the battles slowed with the coming winter, he would send idle squads into the neutral zone to scout for lone riders or bands of Scanrans on patrol that we might send to you for information. He sent for me, since I was one of the few who’d been on Scanran territory, and Lord Wyldon agreed that I would be more useful as a scout than as a guard at the fort.
After several weeks of scouting detail, we’d captured few Scanrans, but the exercise had at least been useful for finding oncoming attacks ahead of time. Then one day I was out on the night shift with one of the squad’s of the Own. My sparrows, they serve as sentries, warned me of enemies on our right. Listening, we heard only the sounds of a lone rider. I told the squad to stay put and watch out for an attack from another front, while I scouted the sounds with the sparrows.
It wasn’t long before I found him. A lone Scanran, or what appeared to be, dragged himself across the ground in front of me. I dismounted, seeing that he needed a healer badly. As I walked toward him, he glanced up at me, and then fell to his knees at my feet. When he spoke, it was in un-accented Common, without a trace of Scanran in him.
He told me how he was a spy for you, Myles, and how he had been planted into Scanran society. Seeing he had no wish to fight me, and probably couldn’t, physically, even if he’d wanted to, I took him back to the squad. We returned him to Lord Raoul’s tent, and there he told the two of us how he had worked his way up through the ranks of one of the main clans. Soon he was playing third in command to Maggur Rathhuasak himself. It no longer became safe to report back to Tortall. Maggur employed all kinds of powerful mages to monitor those under him, and there was no way to get letters in and out of Scanra. He knew that once he had the major war plans, he had to extract himself from Scanra, and bring all the information he could back to the spymaster." Kel paused and took a breath, steadying herself for what came next. She chanced a glance at Myles, whose eyes had glazed over as though he were entranced.
"Amazing. And we thought he had been captured, or turned. We haven’t heard from Icetoe in years." The king looked startled.
"Icetoe? Are you sure that’s who it is?"
"He’s the only one that was in that far, and then disappeared off the radar," Myles replied, still awed by the possibilities.
"But I thought you had reports that Icetoe deserted," the king pressed.
"Oh, vague ones," Myles replied casually. "Basically all they said was that he was still at large in the Scanran ranks, after he’d stopped reported. We just assumed that meant he had abandoned our cause. Terribly sorry, Keladry. Please continue," he added, politely, nodding at her.
"Right. He knew other Tortallan spies had seen him, but they were so low in the societal structure that it would have been obvious that something strange was going on had he spoken with them. He planned his extraction, down to the last detail, but two days before he was to leave he was captured by Maggur’s men.
Maggur tortured him for weeks, trying to find out both whom he worked for, and what he knew of Tortall’s plans. He arranged to have him killed when he realized the man was very well trained and would give up no information. He even had a mage dig through his mind to find hidden information, but he couldn’t find anything."
"Yes, my second in command hires mages to block mind-scrying spells in any of his spies that might be subject to such treatment in the future." Myles looked thoughtful as he noted this. "So he says that Maggur learned nothing from him?" He asked.
"That’s what he said," Kel replied. "Later, Raoul brought Evin Larse, who owns a truth-saying device, and he verified that the main parts of the man’s story were true. Anyway, while they were transferring the spy from a dungeon to the town square, to be executed, he escaped. He said that in the dungeon he had wheedled a loose rock from the walls with another until it was sharp enough to cut ropes. He sliced his hand ropes and gag, then knocked out the guards with the Shang fighting he had learned at the palace.
As he ran, the guards found bows and shot both his legs and his shoulder. He still escaped, and even lived three days with the rough bandages and cleansings he had done his first night. Maggur searched for him, but he was skilled at hiding from them by now.
On the third night, he made it to the neutral zone, and was barely alive when we found him. We brought in a healer, but it was too late, he’d lost too much blood. He could hardly speak anymore by the time he finished his story, but he wanted to give us all the information he had gathered. We brought a mage in, and Raoul said to give the information to me, because I was free to bring it to you. So here I am." She finished, finally, and sat with her hands in her lap, breathing heavily. The two men exchanged furtive glances. Then the king cleared his throat, hesitantly.
"Well, I must say, that was quite an ordeal," he remarked slowly.
"Yes," Myles added excitedly, "And the realm thanks you for your bravery and persistence." Kel blushed furiously and looked down at her lap.
"I did nothing special," she murmured. "I just heard him out."
Story text © Lady Emeraldrina
© Lady Star