It would not interfere with the war council, Hamnet reflected, if he and Luxa had been allowed out of the city on her birthday, of all days. Though Solovet insisted that he be at every council, it was not necessary. Often, he wondered why his mother even cared for his presence, as he said little at them and did even less.
At least, he wondered until the day Judith suggested their mother would eventually need someone to take over the army and he was by far the best choice, though he did not brag about such things.
But he had attended dozens of war councils over the past two years and this one promised to be little different from the others. Gorgor was half-crazed with hatred for the humans, it was true, but as of late had made few threats.
Today was Luxa's second birthday and he had promised her a ride outside the city walls ever since she had mastered the art of riding the bats instead of merely being flipped by them.
He stood now on the edge of Regalia, looking down first the farmlands beneath and then farther into the shadowy depths beyond. A short flight away was the place where he planned to take Luxa. He had already consulted with Judith and she had agreed, though not without several warnings to keep her daughter close to his side at all times.
One whistle from him and Persephone, his flier, would appear and they could be off in a minute. Luxa was in her family's chambers, a short walk away, and he had given orders this morning for the cooks to prepare a small supply of sandwiches and a water skin for their outing. That was before he had heard from Solovet.
He could still escape for half a day. The council would go on smoothly enough without him, that he knew, and he would keep his promise to Luxa. No one except Judith knew where he planned to go and she would not tell. Perhaps they would find him before he returned, but the Underland was large and it would take them hours to comb Regalia itself.
Luxa would not have been lonely on this day if he had not taken her, as Susanna and York and their oldest son would be shortly arriving from the Fount in honour of Luxa's day, but Hamnet had promised.
Solovet would be angry, but so be it. He had never broken a promise before and he did not wish to begin now.
#####
They flew over the wall of the city and Persephone headed directly to a more shadowy region of the outlying fields, as Hamnet had instructed her. He was glad that Persephone was a simple dark brown, not easily recognizable among so many bats with her colouring, though there was always a chance that someone could recognize her or him or Luxa.
His niece bounced up and down on Persephone's back until he reached out a hand and stilled her. "Careful, Luxa. Persephone will not care for you as her rider if you are not gentle."
She beamed up at him as if she had not heard his reprimand. But she did stop bouncing. She was such a little thing, his niece, but already half grown up in many ways.
"Where are we going, Uncle?" she asked instead.
"It is a surprise," he said and took her hand in his to keep her from doing hurt to Persephone in her excitement.
Persephone coasted through wide tunnels and over large, empty spaces of rock. It was while flying through tunnel shafts and over the hard surface below that he held onto Luxa more firmly. She was inquisitive and lively and though he had no doubt Persephone would catch her before she hit the ground, it was better to not put the flier – not to mention Luxa – through that. Though knowing his niece, she would view it as a new game.
The journey was too short for Luxa to be bored, especially as all the landscape was new to her. It was only ten or fifteen minutes since leaving Regalia when Persephone landed in a dim tunnel, spraying white pebbles everywhere. The tunnel floor was covered in them.
"Now we walk, Luxa," said Hamnet, helping her down from the flier. The tunnel was too narrow for Persephone to fly and she did not care for the pebbles, nor the terrain ahead of them.
"I will wait for you," she purred, and Hamnet nodded.
He took the bag of sandwiches in one hand and Luxa's hand in the other and they walked down the tunnel, the small white pebbles rolling beneath their feet. He had neglected to bring a torch, as Persephone could fly in the dark and where they were headed they would need no fire, but Luxa whispered "It's dark, Uncle" and clung tighter to his hand.
He slung the sandwich bag over one shoulder and then bent down and scooped her up to carry her the rest of the way. It was a short distance and the glow from the cavern could be seen before they reached it. He could feel the pebbles giving way to softer sand just before the tunnel opened up to the lake, the beach, and the crystals ahead of them.
Luxa gasped and squirmed out of his arms. He let her go and she ran out onto the beach, laughing with delight.
The cavern was huge, the roof of it yawning so high above Hamnet grew dizzy by looking up at it. Luminescent crystals, so small as to be hardly seen, glistened on the cavern's wall. Their light was not unlike that given off by the shiners and Hamnet assumed it was a similar principle at work, though he could not be sure since he was not one of the palace scientists.
Neither could he be sure of the size of the lake. The far end of it was hazy and he was unclear as to distance.
But no matter the size, Luxa was enchanted, perhaps even more than he had been upon first discovering the cavern. The beach was white sand, pure and sparkling, though one had to tread carefully on it. There were crystals buried in the sand, some hardly larger than the ones on the cavern walls, some as big as his fist.
He had cleared out a large area near the tunnel mouth, the part of the beach where Luxa now stood, gazing out at the lake, and he had thrown the unearthed crystals to the farther reaches of the cavern. He had not taken any with him the first and only other time he had come, for he would have had to explain where he had found the crystals and as soon as he saw the cavern, he knew it was the perfect place to take Luxa for her first flight outside the city walls.
After today, however, he would share the secret. Not many people would come anyway, as most Regalians thought anywhere outside the city boundaries unsafe and infested with gnawers.
He joined Luxa at the water's edge. "It is a lake, Luxa," he said.
"A lake," she repeated, her small voice echoing in the cavern. She knew of echoes and laughed at this one. "A lake!" she shouted. "A lake!" With each successive shout, the echoes reverberated and fed off each other, until there was a cheery chorus of 'lake' from every direction.
"Would you like to go wading?" asked Hamnet and, of course, Luxa did not say no.
He kept her in the shallows, unwilling for Judith to hear that her daughter had spent the afternoon nearly drowning because Hamnet had not been attentive enough to keep her from deeper water. As it happened, she was still soaked through by the time they returned to the beach for their picnic. He had only got his feet wet, though there were a few splashes on his shirt from where Luxa had smashed her small fists against the lapping waves.
After they ate their sandwiches, Hamnet led Luxa into the crystal laden part of the beach.
"You can chose one," he told her, "to remind you of today."
He expected her to chose the first one that came within reach, but though her hands often darted out to pick one up and examine it, she always dropped it back on the sand after a moment. Hamnet filled his pockets with several small- to medium-sized crystals to take back to Regalia, and when he was finished, Luxa had yet to chose one of her own.
"What are you looking for, Luxa?"
She looked up at him as though the answer should have been obvious. "A blue one."
Luxa's favorite colour was blue, though it was beyond him to know why. It was a rare colour in the Underland, one that was only seen in the museum or in some few articles of clothing that the royal family wore on occasion. Even among the crystals he had not seen a blue one, but Luxa was determined and Hamnet felt that they would not leave until she found one.
With this in mind, he knelt down and scooped up handfuls of sand from the beach. This far from the water it was not even damp and the sand fell back into the holes he created as soon as stilled his hand.
After a few minutes of the futile search, he stood up and dusted off his hands on his shirt.
"Luxa, we must go," he said, though with little hope of her actually listening. "Persephone will be worried for us." No doubt the flier was resting upside down on a rock ledge at the moment, but if they delayed much longer she might begin to feel anxious.
At that moment, Luxa pulled a crystal from the sand with a triumphant squeal.
"I found it! I found it!" she exclaimed and held it out for Hamnet to inspect.
"So you did," he agreed, accepting the crystal and turning it over with his fingers. It was not strictly blue, having a green tint as so many of the crystals did, but it was enough to satisfy Luxa and that was all he could ask for. It was shaped oddly and as he handed it back, he realized what it resembled.
"Does it not put you in mind of something?" he asked his niece, watching her handle the crystal.
A frown of concentration wrinkled her forehead as she studied it from every angle.
When she did not seem to see the resemblance he added, "A fish, perhaps? Can you see it, too, Luxa? The head here," he said, touching it lightly, "and the fin there."
"Oh, I see," she said, smiling as she ran her fingers along the crystal's smooth surface.
He bent down and picked her up then, for it was a little walk back to where Persephone was waiting and the hours had flown by so quickly. Surely Luxa would be tired out by now. That would please Judith, for he had often heard her complain about how long it took Luxa to fall asleep nights.
#####
Under Hamnet's direction, Persephone flew over the wall that surrounded the palace and lighted near the main gate. Hamnet shook Luxa awake; she had fallen asleep almost immediately after their departure from the cavern.
Luxa rubbed the sleep from her eyes and Hamnet watched as she looked about, taking in the busy swirl of palace life that she did not ordinarily see.
Her eyes fastened on one direction in particular and the next moment, she was scrambling down from Persephone's back as fast as her short legs would allow. "Howard! It is Howard!" she shouted and Hamnet followed her gaze to a boy of six, tall for his age, with hair that flopped over his eyes. It was Howard.
There was a servant with Howard – Hamnet recognized her by sight – and so he let Luxa go. In moments, the cousins were reunited and Howard had pulled something from his pocket to show Luxa. And Luxa, in turn, proudly displayed her crystal fish.
"Hamnet!" a voice called and he looked away from Luxa and Howard to see Mareth closing the space between them.
"Thank you, Persephone," he murmured to his flier and she gave a graceful nod, then flew up and out of the lofty chamber. He had meant to say more, to suggest that tomorrow they would do something she could enjoy as well, but there was no time. Mareth moved quickly and there was the look of bad news on his face.
"Hamnet," Mareth repeated when he was within speaking, and not shouting distance.
"What is the matter?" asked Hamnet.
Mareth hesitated for just a moment, but it was long enough for Hamnet's pulse to quicken. If whatever Mareth's news was had held his tongue, it could be nothing good.
"Have the gnawers attacked Regalia?" Hamnet demanded, though he knew that could not have been the case. There would have been warning signs as they flew into the city.
Mareth shook his head. "Solovet is furious," he said. He spoke quickly. "When you did not appear at the war council, she refused to discuss her business there until you returned. She has held the entire council there these past two hours and has not grown quieter with the waiting."
A chill fell over Hamnet. His mother's rages, when they came, were tremendous and had he known-
But no. He had promised Luxa and so he squared his shoulders and nodded. "I will go to the council directly," he said, though he had thought to change his clothes before finding Solovet. His shirt front was dusty and Luxa had drooled on him while he slept.
Mareth fell into step beside him. He said nothing, but Hamnet was glad of his presence all the same. There was a steadiness about Mareth that he had often found reassuring in the heat of chaos and conflict. In battle, too.
When they reached the entrance to the war council, Mareth stopped. "Tread carefully with Solovet." Then he left and Hamnet was tasked with entering the council room alone.
There was a silence like death in the room when he entered.
His mother was on the far end of the room, seated in her chair. The members of the war council surrounded her in a semi-circle on their own seats. All were elderly and two or three had gone to sleep.
Hamnet walked to the centre of the room and fell to one knee, making a quick bow before standing up to face his mother again. "I apologize for my late arrival," he said. There. He had now made his apology in a manner sincere and it was up to her to pardon or punish.
Solovet rose from her seat. "You apologize?" she said. Her voice was hard, her tone heated.
Hamnet said nothing.
"You have made a mockery of this war council," she snapped, descending from the platform on which all the war council sat. "Regalia will soon be at war with the gnawers. Every week, Gorger sends more lies by his emissaries, more threats. You would abandon us at this time to go play games with a child?"
Hamnet's jaw twitched. "I contribute nothing to these war councils, even as your second in command." He took a deep breath before speaking the words that burned on his tongue. "In truth, I think none of you contribute much. We waste time with weekly councils; they should not be called unless necessary. Every human, every flier in Regalia knows what is needed if Gorger attacks. If we worked-"
"Enough!" Solovet shouted.
Hamnet fell silent. He had never seen his mother lose control in such a way, though he had seen her come close. But he did not wish to retrieve any of his words. He had thought them often and it had felt good to say them aloud.
Most of the council members spent more time napping anyway and their suggestions were most always antiquated. It was Solovet who was the head of the army and she did not need a group of ancient advisors to tell her what to do.
"You have disregarded my wishes and you have insulted the council," she said, eyes steely.
But in the next moment, her expression quieted, even softened. "I request your presence at these meetings so that you will equipped to lead my army, Regalia's army, when I am not here."
It took him a moment to realize that she did not mean 'when I am not here' to mean when she was not in Regalia, but when she was dead.
"You must learn to trust my orders," Solovet continued, "and if you must learn this the hard way, then so be it." Her voice was suddenly weary, but she raised it to call for the guards standing outside the door. They entered and stood at attention, one of each side of Hamnet. Their movements were so practised that Hamnet was sure they were already under previous orders from his mother.
"Take my son to his quarters," said Solovet. "Make sure he stays there."
Hamnet almost protested, but he was being punished for not following Solovet's orders and now was as good a time as any to begin earning her trust again. He did not want to be on his mother's bad side any longer than necessary.
The guards saluted and turned to face the door. Hamnet turned with them, summoning all the precision he had been taught on the training field. He would act like the soldier he was and all the better if Solovet saw him doing so.
It did not take long in their march down hallways and past curtained rooms for Hamnet to realize that, if the guards were escorting him back to his sleeping quarters, they were taking a most awkward route.
"Where are we going?" he said aloud, though he expected no answer and received none.
Within a few minutes, however, their destination became clear. The dungeon. They were taking him on the most direct route to the dungeon and he whipped around, shoving one of the guards into the other. He would not go there, not ever. He had heard enough stories.
He had already run half the length of the hall when a huge hand crashed onto his shoulder and hauled him back. There was a brief struggle between Hamnet and the guard, brief because just before he could strike a blow in the guard's face, a fist smashed against the back of his head and he tumbled downward into unconsciousness.