The Needs of the Crown
YC 1189
You have asked why the wretched do not flee their suffering the comforts of the City.If our gates are truly open, why do any remain in the world beyond the walls?An astute observation.In reply, I would ask whether you have shared these letters with the common folk of your domain, and whether there canbea hierophant in a community of true equals.
Letter from Archivist Tan Semn to Hierophant Adhamha III of Goll,YC1166
Bloody water sluiced from Torin’s hands into the washbasin.An ache had settled behind his eyes while he tended Orn’s wounds.A product of exhaustion and overuse of his powers.A pleasant discomfort, however.Evidence of the effort spent in saving the boy’s life.
Were Orn not a Knight of Stillness, he would have died.His virtue of perseverance had kept him clinging to life by a thread while Torin extracted the blade from his flank, packed the wound with gauze, and called upon Beren, Agion of Fidelity, to burn away infection and chase away pain.The monstrous blade had carved through three of Orn’s ribs and torn apart his left lung.His breaths were slow and rattling, but steady, and his eyes no longer flitted about beneath their lids.The boy’s own powers would knit the wound well enough, but it would take time.In the stupor of miraculous healing, Orn’s body had relaxed, his catlike spine stretching to its fullest extension, leaving him with sickening, inhuman proportions.And yet Torin had never felt more affection towards the boy.
Torin wiped his hands on a ragged cloth and eyed the bloody weapon.To call it a ‘knife’ was like calling a full-grown, slavering wolf a puppy.It had all the proportions of a dagger, but the blade was as wide as Torin’s hand and as long as his forearm.
‘What do you think, Anwe?’Torin said.
His Knight of Action was sitting on the far side of the chamber.In a friendly gesture towards the Count of Afondir, Prince Owyn had provided them with a guest room in the newer wing of the palace, with attached quarters for a valet or bodyman.A tapestry on one wall depicted the first meeting between King Abal, the hero of Parwys’s founding myths, and his rival turned friend King Barwon of Glascoed.Opposite the tapestry, windows of coloured glass showed the castle courtyard, filtering the thin light of predawn into pastel hues.Anwe sat upon a bench in those slanted columns of light, the broad blade of her sword across her knees, muttering prayers and scraping a whetstone again and again and again, all the while Torin had seen to Orn’s wound.Now she looked up, her scarred face twisted in righteous fury.
‘Too heavy and awkward for an ordinary hand,’ she said, fixing her gaze on the knife.‘I’ve seen two bodies in the kingdom who might wield it with any skill.The prince’s housecarl, and the four-armed brute who came to court with the sorceress.’
‘Indeed.’Torin threw the rag onto a growing, red-soaked pile: the sheet that had been on Orn’s cot when he’d staggered into the room, spraying blood with every breath; his shirt and trousers, which Torin had ripped from the boy’s painracked frame.Whoever had done this would suffer.Fortunate that there were so few candidates.‘My thoughts trace similar lines.Orn was following the sorceress.I would wager this belongs to her man.’
Anwe shrugged.‘Tell me when, and I’ll take his head.’
Their position was too precarious to let Anwe carve her way through the kingdom.If not for an unwillingness to aggravate the Count of Afondir—the wealthiest and most powerful of Parwysh nobility—Queen Medrith would likely have banished Torin and his knights from the kingdom already.
Any pleasure he had felt from helping Orn faded to fresh nausea.His reliance on Eurion of Afondir, that arrogant pustule of a man, was disgraceful.Torin would need a stronger hook on the court—on the prince, ideally—before he could take such direct action.
The events of the night had tilted things.The wraiths that had killed Prince Owyn’s father had come for him in ferocity—or so the prince likely thought, huddled in his rooms while phantom winds full of ghostly voices filled his halls.Fear would beget desperation, which might create an opportunity to cement the Church’s position in Parwys, but only if Torin could be of sufficient service to win Owyn’s favour.This might, even, be the first sure step towards cleansing the kingdom, burning out the dregs of First Folk power in these ‘old stones’ the people idolised.
There would be no peace and no progress for mortalkind until all such shackles were thrown off, all ignorance and false religion cast aside.Until the First Folk were recognised for what they were—monstrous oppressors, unlike mortalkind in every way that mattered—and all their leavings were eliminated from the world.Their supposed ‘gifts’, along with the horrors they had left unchained.When that was done, mortalkind would be able to take its first staggering step into true independence and true mastery of its fate.
A day Torin would not live to see, but for which he worked tirelessly.This mission to Parwys might become a substantial stride towards that day.But it would require a deft hand.Subtlety.Espionage.Virtues and their associated powers which, of the three in their party, Orn had best cultivated.
‘They will pay in time, Anwe,’ Torin said.‘For now, we try to win the favour of the king-to-be.’
* * *
An opportunity to do so presented itself that very morning.A hammering at the chamber door roused Torin after only a few hours of uneasy sleep.He opened the door, rubbing the crust of fatigue from his eyes to find a page boy, who thrust a message into his hand.
Torin patted at his pockets.‘I’m sorry, I’ve no tip for your service.Wait here a moment.’
‘No, sir,’ the boy said.‘I’m to accompany you.To ensure you are not seen.’
Nowthatis interesting.Enough to chase the last drowsiness from Torin’s mind as he examined the letter.He had expected to see Afondir’s tower sigil in golden wax.Of anyone in the castle, only he had any apparent cause to send a clandestine message.Instead, Torin found red wax impressed with the crowned bear of Abal’s house.He broke the seal.
Come to my chambers, Sir Torin of Tarebach.This terror must end, at any cost.
No signature, but the seal could belong to no one but Prince Owyn or the queen.Torin told the messenger to wait, shut the door, left the note on the room’s small writing desk and began pulling on his robe.
‘Anwe,’ he said.
She roused with a snort, hand darting to the hilt of her sword beneath her cot.Torin nodded towards the note.
‘Stay with Orn,’ he said while she swept sleepy eyes across the letter.‘While you wait, send birds to Templar Unwith in Ispont and to the Iron Citadel.Inform them of Orn’s condition, and that things accelerate unexpectedly in Parwys.’
Anwe frowned up from the note.‘Is Unwith to begin the ritual?’
Torin buttoned on his cuffs and pulled them straight.‘The prince could turn against us.Afondir may, even.He finds our presence useful, but may find us less so if we begin to act, particularly with the endorsement of Prince Owyn.’
