David Coe - Shapers of Darkness

“No, it’s not.” He had ceased his pacing and was standing near the window, gazing out over the castle ward. After a few moments he faced Kalyi again. “Your Highness, I believe the time has come to take a harder stance with those houses that would oppose your will. Only enemies of the realm would want to keep Solkara weak. So I would suggest that we do all that we can to demonstrate how strong your house can be. What do you think?”

She still didn’t understand all that was happening, but she knew that Pronjed scared her, and that when her uncle spoke of strengthening House Solkara it seemed to make a good deal of sense. “I think you’re right,” she said, drawing a smile from the regent. “If the other houses really want Aneira to be strong, then they should listen to us, and go to war when we tell them to.”

Numar fairly beamed, making the queen blush. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Your Highness.”

Dantrielle, Aneira

It had been a dangerous endeavor from the beginning. Tebeo, duke of Dantrielle, had drawn upon all his powers of persuasion to convince Brall of Orvinti to join his cause, and even that would not have been enough had it not been for their close friendship. By trying to convince the dukes of Aneira’s other southern houses to stand together in resisting Solkara’s push toward an alliance with the Braedon empire and war with Eibithar, they risked being branded as traitors to the realm. But both men believed that this war was a mistake, that the realm’s true enemy was not their neighbor to the north, but rather the Qirsi conspiracy. So, early in the planning, they had decided to ride to the other houses and speak of rebellion with their fellow dukes.

In the end, Brall and Tebeo determined that they were best off traveling separately, Brall speaking with the new dukes in Bistari and Tounstrel and Tebeo riding to Kett and then to Noltierre. Even before word reached them of Numar’s rush to muster new men into the royal army, they had known that their time was limited. By dividing their tasks and pushing their mounts, the two dukes hoped to forge alliances with the four houses in question before the end of Amon’s Turn. With any luck, they thought, they might be able to dissuade the regent from this foolhardy war before his preparations had progressed too far.

Tebeo returned to his castle in Dantrielle more encouraged than he ever thought possible. His discussions with the dukes of Kett and Noltierre had gone perfectly. Due mostly to the untimely deaths of so many of the realm’s dukes during the past year, Ansis of Kett now ranked as one of Aneira’s oldest dukes, though he was quite a bit younger than both Tebeo and Brall. Like his father before him, Ansis had long been friendly with both men, and also with three of the late dukes-Chago of Bistari, Bertin the Elder of Noltierre, and Vidor of Tounstrel. Perhaps because the duke of Kett had always been the youngest of their group, Tebeo still found himself thinking of Ansis as a boy, a young noble so new to his power that he needed guidance from Tebeo and the others. Seeing the duke in his own castle, however, surrounded by his beautiful children and giving orders to his guards in their black-and-brown uniforms, Tebeo realized that he had been doing the man a disservice. Kett might have been no more than a middle-tier house, but her duke had grown wise with the years, and he was as brave as any man in the kingdom.

“You saved me the trouble of sending a messenger to Dantrielle,” the duke said, the night Tebeo arrived at his gates. “I had intended to deny Numar’s newest request for men, and I had thought to let you and Brall know, so that when the Solkarans marched on Kett, I might face them with more than just my army.”

Coming from another man, it might have sounded like an idle boast. But Tebeo had little doubt that Ansis meant what he said.

“Then you oppose this war as well,” he replied, hearing the relief in his own voice.

“Of course. I have no affection for the Eibitharians, but neither do I wish to find myself riding to battle with the emperor of Braedon. My father always thought Harel too vain and foolish to be an effective leader. I can only imagine what he would have said had Farrad or Tomaz suggested an alliance with the empire.”

“Will your men stand against the royal house if it comes to war?”

“Yes,” Ansis said. “The men of Kett would give their lives in defense of the realm, but they have little affection for the Solkarans. I’d rather avoid a civil war-I know you and Brall feel the same way-but we’ll fight beside you if we must.”

Eager to be on his way, his confidence bolstered by Ansis’s pledge of support, Tebeo left the following morning for Noltierre. Bertin the Elder, who led the southern house for nearly thirty years until dying a few turns before, a victim of Grigor of Renbrere’s poison, had been one of Tebeo’s closest friends. Indeed, with the exception of Brall, Tebeo trusted no other noble in the land as completely as he had the old duke of Noltierre. Judging from the welcome he received upon reaching the black walls of the city, it seemed that the new duke, Bertin the Younger, knew that his father had valued their friendship just as much. Most of the Noltierre army stood outside the city gate, swords raised in salute, as a herald played “The River’s Blood,” the Dantrielle war anthem. Bertin, the image of his father with a square face and dark eyes, broad shoulders and long legs, sat atop a white mount as Tebeo rode to the gates. The two men dismounted at the same time, and then, rather than embracing Tebeo as he would a brother, the younger duke dropped to one knee, bowing as he might have to his father. An instant later his soldiers did the same.

Tebeo would have preferred a more restrained welcome; he was plotting against the regent, and no doubt House Solkara had servants throughout the realm who would notice this spectacle. Still, he couldn’t help but be moved by Bertin the Younger’s greeting. There seemed no point in cutting short the formalities. Best to allow them to go on as if this were nothing more than a visit born of Dantrielle’s long-standing friendship with Noltierre, and the courtesy shown customarily to new dukes.

Eventually, when the introductions had been completed, Bertin and his first minister led Tebeo’s company through the gates and the narrow lanes of Noltierre, to the great castle with its soaring black towers. Once in the outer ward of the fortress, they went through a second set of introductions, so that the duke’s mother, Bertin the Elder’s widow, could greet Tebeo and his minister. From there they went directly to the duke’s great hall, where they partook of a grand feast prepared by Noltierre’s renowned kitchenmaster.

It was nearly dusk before Tebeo finally had the opportunity to speak with the young duke in private, and even then he had to ask his first minister, Evanthya ja Yispar, to request a private audience with her counterpart. Noltierre’s minister, who had served Bertin the Elder for more than a decade, was reluctant to leave the two dukes, but Bertin insisted. The young duke even went so far as to send his servants from the hall, so that at last, he and Tebeo were alone.

“What’s happened?” Bertin asked, once the servants had gone.

Tebeo smiled at the directness of the question. It was so like something the elder Bertin would have done.

“You think me rude for asking so bluntly.”

“Not at all. But I am reminded of your father.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. I don’t mean to be impolite, my Lord Duke-I’m pleased to have you here. But I’m not so young as to believe that you came simply to wish me well or even to pay respects to my father.”