Chapter 51. A Return
We are just finishing with court less than a week later, and I get up from Ophelia's throne to help my father off of his when I feel a magical spell of strength coming from the direction of my father's parlor. "I think Waltz might be back," I whisper to him as I hand him his cane. My husband would only come himself to deliver news of greatest import. I can only assume that either Ophelia or Emelaigne…perhaps both…have either died, or have been recovered. Either way…knowing has to be better than waiting in worry, in ignorance.
My father nods, takes the cane and my arm until he gets off the steps of his dais. Once he reaches the bottom, Rod gets up from his chair and we switch places so Father is leaning on him instead of me. The three of us walk down the central istle and out of the throne room as the herald cries, "Long live the king! Long live the queen! Long live their royal highnesses! Long live Angielle! Angielle!" which the crowd echoes as they bow or curtsey when we pass as we leave the throne room.
May we all live long, indeed. Please let Waltz carry good news…or better yet….
We are halfway to the parlor when a maid comes running down the hallway toward us, and curtsies before us. "Your Majesty, Your Highnesses, Prince Waltz arrived and awaits you in the royal parlor. Her Majesty is with him, and she appears uninjured."
"And my sister?" Rod asks, anxiously.
The maid shakes her head. "I did not see her, Your Highness, but they said nothing concerning her."
"And their expressions?" I ask.
"Grim, Your Highness," the maid replies. "They refused any offer of refreshment while they await your presence."
"Not good news then on Emelaigne's part, then," I mutter, and Rod's hands ball into fists. "If there is nothing else," I tell the maid, "you are dismissed."
The maid curtseys deeply, and then she hurries to whatever other assignment she has. My father's slow pace quickens in anticipation of seeing his wife, and finding the fate…if known…of his stepdaughter. When I look over at Rod, who still walks stiffly even as my father leans on him, I can tell that he is torn between the desire to leave helping my father to me so he can race to the parlor, and the dread that slows his footsteps. If their expressions are grim, the best we can expect is that Emelaigne is still a prisoner. If she had been too wounded to move but in a safe place, Waltz would have found me immediately so I could summon the Witch Doctor to serve me once more.
When we finally get to the parlor and open the door, Ophelia sits on the couch in what I am sure is the very same dress she was kidnapped in, although it looks as if it has been laundered and mended. Waltz sits on the couch with her, an arm around her as he speaks quietly to her. When they hear the door slam as it shuts behind us, they both startle and look up at us.
"Ophelia," my father whispers, and Waltz moves to allow my father his place on the couch.
"Genaro," Ophelia whispers as they embrace. "I was so happy when I heard that you had survived."
"Lucette summoned the help I needed," my father tells her. "I would not have survived, otherwise, without the witches that serve her."
When they let go, Ophelia opens her arms again to envelope her son, looking as if she is going to cry, and then she hugs me as well. "What happened?" I ask her.
"Where is Emelaigne?" Rod wants to know. "Is she…safe?"
I am sure that Rod only notices his mother's eyes drop to the floor at the question, but I look up into my husband's eyes. He gives me an almost imperceptible shake of his head, and I know before Ophelia starts talking that something horrible has happened. And the dread sends a current through me, that I immediately direct into a shield that I place at the door.
"When we were taken," Ophelia starts to explain, "Alcaster explained that we were going to help him overthrow you, Lucette, and he told us that you had killed your father. I did not believe him, and told Emelaigne not to either. She said that of course she didn't believe it, but that we should play along as if we did, and look for any opportunity to get away. A few days later, as we were traveling, he received word that you had survived the assassination attempt, Genaro, and that Lucette had not seized the throne. He knew that I had overheard the report, he had ensured we overheard it because he was expecting different news, but he said that this did not change his plans much.
"Emelaigne tried to escape twice, and when they caught her the second time, she made it…obvious that she was a prisoner, and not what Alcaster considered the 'rightful queen.' Some of his men began to doubt, and Alcaster had to admit that they were all committing treason, but said that everyone with red was doomed to his own fate, for good or ill. Someone was able to get notices of Lucette's offer of pardon and more in exchange for either Emelaigne or myself inside the camp. This made Alcaster uneasy, and in need of better footing.
"They made for Fort Summerfell, and the plan was to have me convince the commanding officer that Lucette really had murdered the king and taken the throne, that Alcaster had gotten me out to protect me, so Alcaster and his men would be let into the fort and they could take it over and start at a position of strength for whatever they were planning next. Alcaster promised me that if I refused to do as he said, or even if I tried and failed in doing so, that Emelaigne would be killed.
"I was sent into the fort with a small guard, and I requested to see the commanding officer. While I was in the courtyard, I saw…I saw an old friend of mine who was visiting one of her sons." Ophelia has to stop a moment, before she can will herself to speak again. "He had joined the military only last year, and then I realized that if I did as Alcaster wanted, that the lives of all the men…including that boy…would be forfeit. Either Alcaster would kill them as he took the fort for himself, or if they joined Alcaster they would all eventually be killed as traitors to the Crown. How many other mothers would I rob in exchange for my own daughter?"
And now, Ophelia breaks down into sobs. I almost do not notice as my husband comes around to where I stand to put his arms around me. "And I couldn't do it! I just couldn't do it in spite of what Alcaster threatened to do to Emelaigne…what he might do to her anyway! Emelaigne had been certain that he would kill her eventually if she did not manage to get away first, and had told me not to let them use me as a tool against Angielle whatever that required; that I should act as queen," she says as she cries into an already wet handkerchief. "I told the commander, who had already received word that Alcaster was a traitor and was holding me and Emelaigne captive, that my 'guards' were indeed holding me hostage as soon as we were alone. He then put Alcaster's men into the prison. And Waltz appeared later that evening, to carry messages, and he took me back to camp with him where…."
Ophelia appears to be unable to go on, and Waltz starts speaking from behind me, his arms encircling me. "I brought her directly to Sir Willard, and we told him of the situation. We were all sure that Emelaigne would be killed by morning if she was not rescued immediately. Sir Willard was just briefing volunteers that were to attempt to get into Alcaster's camp through stealth with information Ophelia provided, so they could find Emelaigne while Maeve was going to create a distraction, but then we heard an uproar coming from Alcaster's camp.
"There were a significant portion of Alcaster's troops fighting each other, with the smaller group trying to get away. Sir Willard got his troops into position, and did what he could to protect the fleeing Redarms, hoping that they had tried to carry out a rescue of their own. They had…" but my husband's voice cracks, and he has to stop a moment before continuing. "But they had been peppered with arrows as they ran. One had hit Emelaigne's chest. She was dead before Maeve or I could reach her."
I gasp, my own hands coming up to my mouth in horror, and I feel my husband's arms growing tighter around me. The mental image of…of…. I turn around to cry into his shirt as he holds me, and the currant making the shield grows so strong, I doubt that even I could penetrate it. The only thing that keeps me from breaking down completely, from my magic being wild like that first night of this cycle, is the fact that I know that my sister's death is temporary. In perhaps a few weeks, I shall see her smiling face again as she burst into the dining room yet again talking about her fairytale books. But that does not mean the what she experienced was fake…she felt her death even if she will not remember it.
And, suddenly, the shield disappears completely. I am so shocked that I nearly stop weeping. I pause, and see that I can still call my normal magic, and the magic the Tenebrarum usually supplies for me when I call on it, but…. In my mind's eye, the Tenebrarum is now flawless, completely repaired.
It will now protect my son once more.
And it also strikes me that the pain I experience will be useless, except as filling up the measurement line on my dagger. I do not need to make myself suffer any more than I might already for the rest of this cycle. It is a small relief, to know that I have a respite from staring at the Tenebrarum through tear filled eyes.
I dry my eyes, holding onto the thought that this will never happen if I do things correctly, and turn back around to look at my family. Ophelia is still crying as both my father and Rod hold her. Rod is tense, even with tears running down his face, and I know that only the fact that his mother needs him to be right where he is, is keeping him there. When Ophelia finally quiets down, I softly ask, "So, what orders concerning this shall be given? I presume Sir Willard should be commanded to take nor give any quarter?" That would be a death sentence to every guard and knight remaining under Alcaster's leadership. The man that killed my sister would lose his own life, no matter who he had been. The soldiers that had stood against my sister's would-be rescuers would also die. Alcaster himself would die.
And he knows what will happen to him, even as he resists it. Alcaster may not know if Emelaigne survived her rescue or not, but he knows that he has no bargaining chips left; he has no way of convincing my father not to have him and every man with him killed. And the men with him have no excuse of ignorance, now. Word of my offer had gotten to them, and some of them had decided that if it was certain that Emelaigne would have been killed in the morning if or when Ophelia did not return, that their only time to act was immediately. But tragedy had struck anyway, and the princess they tried to rescue died on the way out. But the soldiers that had turned on Alcaster would be allowed their lives, allowed pardon, if not everything I had offered for my sister's safe return.
"So be it," my father says in a voice that sound like gravel, sentencing men and women that he had once believed faithful in his service to death. If any are left alive after the battle, they will be systematically executed before Sir Willard's men leave the field. They are all held responsible as participants in Alcaster's deeds, and even in written civilian law, the sentence for being even an accessory to the murder of a princess is life in prison or death depending on the level of involvement. In a military court, where the defendant was a soldier under the crown and sworn to protect the royal family and Angielle, the sentence would automatically be death.
Waltz nods, and brings him a lap desk. "I will be rested enough to travel again in several hours' time. You may write the orders at your leisure, or I can send for a clerk to help you."
The restless energy granted by grief finally becomes too much for my brother, who finally gets up from beside his mother to pace outside on the large balcony instead. Once again, as in the night of my attempted assassination, he can do nothing. Ophelia looks so forlorn at this, that I move to sit beside her opposite Father, taking Rod's place at her side. She lets go of Father to allow him to turn his attention to the necessary orders, and takes my own tearstained face in her hands. For a moment, she only looks at me.
"The last time I spoke with my daughter," she starts slowly, "she said not to worry about her. She said that she was going to be as brave as you, no matter what came. She always wanted your friendship, and was overjoyed when you granted it, but…in these last few months, I'm not sure that you ever knew how much she came to admire you."
I am in real danger of tears once more. "Me?" I ask, softly. "You mean about dealing with the warehouse? I only did what I had to."
She smiles at me. "When you decide that you have a duty, you boldly do it, controlling whatever fear you legitimately have. You let nothing stop you, and she admired that. You see patterns where others see chaos, you know when something is not right even if you are not entirely certain what it is, but are still able to take steps to prevent the worst from occurring. We were both certain that you were the reason your father survived his assassination attempt, even before Alcaster let slip about a witch interrupting. She wished she had your intelligence and foresight."
And now I feel guilty. The foresight is from experiencing the same months over and over again, and at least some of the 'courage' is due to the fact that I know results are unlikely to be permanent. "I never knew how she could be so open with everyone," I admit. "There had to have been people who used that to their advantage at her expense, but to do it again and again…."
She smiles at me. "Yes, she was hurt at times, but never as much as you were. No one I have ever heard of was a cruel as your own mother, and Emelaigne never had to live in the shadow that woman cast. Under your circumstances, she did not blame you for how you behaved toward her at first, before you…changed. She thought that she could help you, which is why she wanted to be your friend so badly. Emelaigne did not know about Waltz, and assumed that you had never had a friend before, so you did not how to make or be a friend."
And there is a large lump in my throat, and the baby stirs and gives me a particularly vigorous kick before I can answer her. "And I am sorry that I was not more…responsive sooner." I shake my head. "I've wished that you had been my mother, sometimes, before I remind myself that the past is past and wishing will not change it."
"I still can be, if you allow it," Ophelia tells me.
"You know why I couldn't call you 'Mother' even these last few months?" I ask her. "There was simply too much pain associated with that title for me to grant it to anyone I liked. But now…would you care greatly if I called you 'Mum' instead?" It is a more informal address, and the only time I had ever tried using it with my own mother, I had been severely scolded. 'Mum' is a title I do not associate with my own mother, so there is no pain in it.
"I would not mind at all," she tells me, drawing me into a hug. We are so close together, that she feels it when the baby gives me another hard jab. She releases the hug, only to place her hand on my belly where my son is still kicking. "And thank you, little one," she tells him, "for reminding me that there is still life. I can hardly wait to hold you, myself. I lose…and I gain."
And I know that that has been the pattern of her life. She lost my father to a witch, she gained her first husband and two children. She lost her husband, she gained my father and I…and eventually Waltz as well. She lost her daughter, and she is comforted by the thought of holding her first grandchild…even when she believes that she will now receive none from her firstborn.
I am guessing that this is the thought that occurs to her as she bursts into tears yet again, and I hold her while she weeps. And I hate it that I cannot tell her the truth now. In her current state, she might not be able to properly comprehend it even if I told her. Instead, I hold her in my arms, lay her down on the couch when she appears exhausted, and fetch her a pillow and blanket. In spite of her exhaustion she resists sleep like a fitful child, certain that only nightmares await her. So, I sit beside her and stroke her hair, and perhaps for the first time I tell my stepmother that I love her. When I do so, her expression finally relaxes, and I do not quite catch what she mumbles as she drifts off into sleep.
When I look up, finally certain that she is now asleep, I turn my head and find that my father and my husband are speaking quietly now occupying the card table, and Clerk Tuttle sits with them, pulling out forms from his briefcase. I can only assume that there is some paperwork involved in the legal aspects of slaughtering traitors without trials if they do manage to survive whatever battle will be planned. The only proof Sir Willard will need to slay will be that the former knights and guards wear a red sleeve.
I look around the room, looking for my brother, but do not see him at first. Finally, I spot the back of Rod's head through the window. Apparently, he has spent all this time outside on the balcony. I get up and go through the door to find that Rod has stopped pacing, and is now sitting perfectly still on the bench, just staring at the floor. I join him on the bench, but remain silent.
"So," he asks after a few minutes, sounding a little surly. "What are you going to try to tell me? That I should go back in because my mother needs me?"
"She's sleeping," I say. "She's probably more comfortable in dreams than the nightmare of a reality she must wake to, eventually."
He raises an eyebrow at me. "Surely you are not suggesting that I am capable of helping in any way. You made the suggestion I would have, the king will write the orders, and your husband will carry them to ensure they arrive as quickly as possible. I am useless."
"And you hate it," I nod. "You hate feeling helpless, so you weep and rage on the balcony…alone where you think your powerlessness will be less obvious to others. I am half surprised that the flowerpots out here are not broken."
"I tried to kick one…and then I remembered that Emelaigne likes these flowers," he says softly, rubbing his eyes as if to hold back more tears. "I couldn't destroy anything she likes…liked."
"She was really your only friend when no one else tried to, or was able to, understand you," I note. "You've always hated being a child, even when you were one, and she was your sunlight that reminded you that better days could come. You haven't just lost a sister…you have lost the sun itself."
"I was supposed to be the one that died," he says angrily. "That curse should have killed me…would have killed me."
"And my lifting it would have had no bearing on whether Emelaigne lived or died," I tell him.
"But if I had never asked that witch to make me a prince in the first place, my sister would have never been kidnaped," my brother notes miserably. "Alcaster would never have bothered with an ordinary girl…the daughter of a baker is much less valuable than a daughter of a king."
"Not to the baker," I sigh. He cannot blame himself for this. "The consequences of actions are so varied, so numerous, that it is illogical to feel guilty for the ones we had no way of foreseeing. It was just as likely that by becoming a princess, Emelaigne would have married a handsome prince…or even a knight…and lived happily ever after."
Rod frowns. "A knight?"
I sigh. "I…suppose that it does not matter now. She was in love with Fritz."
His eyebrows raise. "I thought that maybe she was…actually, I had always wondered if Fritz had been interested in you."
"He was," I admit, and Rod gives me a surprised look. "He never admitted it to me, but I knew. If I hadn't found Waltz again when I did, it's not impossible that I would have married him instead. I cared for both of them…but I cared for them in different ways."
"Did Emelaigne know that Fritz did not return her feelings?" he asks, frowning.
"I…don't believe so," I tell my brother. "I never told her. Fritz was only at the Marchen for a few weeks before I sent him on a mission, and she only saw him briefly during the time he was there. I think she was spared the pain of realizing that unrequited affection, at least. I do not know if Fritz would have grown to love her in time; I am fairly certain that he liked her, at least."
"The same as everyone else," Rod admits. "Very few people did not like her. She always got on better with other people that I did."
I smile. "She had that in common with Waltz, drawing energy from pleasing others. People would just like them for who they were, and they were never viewed as threatening…which is somewhat ironic considering my husband is the second-most powerful witch in Angielle."
"Both of you are dangerous when you have a mind to be," Rod tells me. "You just…carry your weapon in the open, while he has his tucked in his sleeve just in case he needs it."
I chuckle at that. "You do realize that I actually have a more…conventional…weapon up my sleeve as well?" If a weapon provided by a god can be considered 'conventional.' "I keep wondering if one of you will realize that I have it, now that I am more comfortable with hugs and allow more people than my husband to touch me."
Rod shakes his head. "So that's what that was. I thought that there was something hard on your arm, when you were handing your father over to me when we walked out of the throne room today. With your magical abilities, why a knife?"
"You always need a backup plan," I tell my brother. "You always have more than one layer of defense, and of offense…and be prepared to use them."
Rod sighs. "I can't even use a dagger well, never mind a sword."
"Intelligence can be a weapon as well," I remind him. "Granted, you are forgetful at times, but that is something you can work to improve. Other weapons are useless unless you can identify friend from foe. I do not deny that I have had some trouble with that in the past."
"I'll say you did," my brother admits. "You use to give no consideration for anyone else."
"And viewed everyone as potential enemies…or at least, potential sources of pain," I admit. "I thought other people would either try to take something from me, or use me to their own ends. My mother had reinforced this by taking away anyone I saw as exemptions to this rule." I sigh. "I told Oph…Mum that I sometimes wish that she had been my mother instead. But on the other hand, I don't think that I would have ever met Waltz had that been the case."
Rod gives me a surprised look. "You call Mother 'Mum' now?"
"If you cannot guess why I can never call her 'Mother,'" I say dryly, "you understand nothing about me."
Rod slowly nods. "That word, that means safety for everyone else, drips of betrayal and pain to you."
"Which is why you can call her 'Mother' and I never will," I tell him. "She is in no way similar to my own mother, and I am grateful for it."
Rod is silent for a moment. "I…noticed you with her after I left. I just couldn't sit still anymore despite that…." He shakes his head. "Thank you."
I nod. "You could not sit still anymore. The world spins around you, but you cannot control the currents. You made yourself a prince in an attempt to give you the girl you wanted…that she would desire you…but she was so caught up in someone else by that time that you soon discovered that it was hopeless—that you were helpless. You believed that being a prince would grant you some amount of influence, if only in controlling your own life, and every time something terrible happens that you cannot even mitigate this reinforces that you were always wrong. The one step you took to try to control your life ensured only that you could influence nothing, and even stronger currents pulled you with them instead. And you hate it.
"You could sit still no longer because motion gives you the illusion of purpose, even when you have none," I finish.
Rod crosses his arms and leans back into the bench. "And why do you understand me even better than Emelaigne did?"
"We are not that different in some ways," I answer him. "And I like to think that I understand myself fairly well."
"Except in that while I have no influence," he tells me, "men live or die at yours."
"I cannot deny that," I tell my brother, "but would you wish the responsibilities that come with it? You know that you have rarely considered the world outside your own family, as if little matters except them. To have influence or power of any kind means that you must give careful consideration to strangers you are likely to never meet."
He looks at me and shakes his head. "And this is coming from someone that gave consideration to only herself half a year ago."
I shrug. "People change."
"Well, you certainly did," he admits, shaking his head. "And I cannot remember talking to Emelaigne about anything as philosophical as this." He pauses for a moment. "You know that you are never going to take her place," he warns me.
"I wouldn't dream of trying to do so," I tell him. "She deserves her own place, and for her own absence to be felt. And I deserve my own place as well. I may not be a ray of sunlight, but if you ever need someone to watch your back I doubt you could do better."
Rod nods slowly. "She told me things would be better and offered me hope…you are a bulwark against the worst of the storm that offers protection. Things would have been so much worse had your father died, or even if you had not spent time setting up Sir Willard up in a position to oppose Alcaster. That traitor might have succeeded in trying to start a civil war."
"I am grateful that I was able to save Father, for more than one reason. And I think we have been a family long enough that you should really start calling him 'Father' or the equivalent of your choice rather than referring to him as my father," I reply as I get up from the bench. "I think I'll go back inside now, unless there is anything else that needs to be said."
"You are not going to try to get me to go inside with you?" Rod asks, surprised.
"I don't know why I should bother," I tell him as I turn toward the door. "You will come inside when you get hungry or thirsty, have a need for the privy, or decide that the bench is too uncomfortable to sleep on. All I meant to do was let you know that her death did not leave you without a sister, or without a friend."
He nods, knowing that I am correct that only practicalities rather than emotional appeals will be what brings him inside. He does not want to face his own helplessness in this situation, and I do not intend to attempt to make him. And even though he does not tell me, I know that he appreciates it.
I pause for a moment, thinking that there is one more thing he ought to know. "I should tell you, though, that you are not without effect. You did end up talking to Waltz, months ago, and you made him realize that he was in love with me, and that I needed to know it?"
My brother looks back up at me, and nods.
"The day that Waltz told me that he was in love with me was also the day that corruption tried to present itself to me while I was working on the Tenebrarum," I say, and Rod pales. "I do not know if I would have fallen had you not done so, but knowing that my husband was with me…that he loved me…made it a lot easier for me to turn my back on it. Thank you."
Rod does not respond for a moment, but when he speaks, he sounds as if his mouth is dry. "That…that would have been…." He takes a deep, unsteady breath. "Everyone would have suffered."
"I think 'a catastrophe' was the phrase you were looking for," I answer with a smile. "And you helped prevent that from happening, even if you, Waltz, and I are the only ones that know. Never doubt your own worth. Even when your own deeds are not sung or even visible to the public, that does not mean that you have had no effect on the lives of others."
"I didn't really think that I might actually be saving the kingdom," Rod admits, wide-eyed. "I…I was just trying to help you in the only way I knew how."
I smile at my brother. "Sometimes," I tell him, "all it takes to save the kingdom is the right person trying to help in the right way."
Even in the dusk, there is still light enough that I see that my brother's cheeks are pink as I walk through the doors back into the parlor.
Once I go back inside, Waltz meets me and takes me into my father's small, informal study and closes the door behind us. I am expecting kisses, or maybe an invitation for something more before he has to leave me again, but what he says is, "Lucette, you need to come with me."
"To what will be the final battle to exterminate Alcaster," I say, knowing that the time of this cycle is nearly up unless I can whip another enemy out of thin air. Fritz please…don't fail me now!
He nods. "What is the status of the Tenebrarum right now?"
"There are no more flaws," I report. "It will survive breaking again."
"And if it was stronger? If it could take the same damage but not be as affected?" he asks. If the Tenebrarum was stronger, it might not be damaged as badly when the cycle resets soon. I would not have to work as hard to repair it. "There is no better place to feed it, no better place to strengthen it, than at a battlefield."
I nod slowly. At any battle, there would be fear, pain, anger…everything my Crystallum likes to feed from. This one might be even worse in the psychological pain factor…the men fighting to the death will know one another. It is much harder to kill someone who's face you know than a stranger. "I have never tried moving it," I admit. "I'll go get Parfait, and see if she can help me figure it out before morning."
Waltz nods. "Your father will not mind if we wait until morning to leave." He pauses for a moment, his hand coming up to brush my cheek. "Since I'm not sure how long it will take for you to learn how to move the Tenebrarum, and we are unlikely to have as much privacy at camp…. Well, it has been two weeks since I have been alone with you. I mean, if you don't feel like it after hearing the news about your sister, I understand, but maybe you need a little comforting as well…."
My husband does not have to say another word. I put a chair under the door handle to keep anyone else from entering, and clear my father's papers to one side of the desk as I put up a sound barrier in the room. "I think we have time," I tell him, "and I do need a little comforting, myself."
Maybe it will help ease the prickles of pain in my own heart on this night, remind me that there is still life. At the very least, I will be distracted from them for a time. And as much as I know Waltz is fond of Emelaigne, I am sure that this is not an easy night for him, either. He needs my warmth tonight, just as I have needed his so often. Although he also knows that her death can be prevented in the next cycle, tonight is still painful. There is no reason we cannot find a little comfort in each other right now.
…..
