Raymond
The troops returned to the capital, tired from seven days of fighting. He and his brother had split into two groups further down the eastern Sister and had been met by large armies. By raiding smaller castles and holdfasts, the rebels had accumulated weapons and armour enough to look like an actual militia. Fighting them had become harder seemingly by the day, all the while the royal army became smaller and smaller as more soldiers ran off in the night.
Spineless scum, he thought to himself.
Ahead of him, his brother rode beside Alex Lamarck. They were speaking together, probably going over tactics. Alex was a talented warrior and a great tactician, which was probably why Raphael spent so much time with him.
Raymond dismounted his horse and gave the reins to a master of horse who led it away. “Brother,” he called and quickened his pace to catch up with them. “My scouts have reported of smaller bands of rebels up north. They’re planning on uniting and making an attack on us.”
Raphael looked at him with interest. “Well, we better send some troops north to take them down, won’t we? I’m sure Sir Kent would gladly take that job on him.”
“That’s the problem exactly,” Raymond continued, reaching for Raphael’s arm to slow him down. “Tristan informed me that there have been reports of a larger band coming to attack this very city. They will be here in a week at the most.”
With a small chuckle, probably born from exhaustion, Raphael nodded. “I’m sure the capitol’s walls can handle such an attack, even with a few men gone north.”
“They will need more than a few men in the north. These bands are ten to fifteen men each, and growing. And Tristan says that these walls need a full City Guard to keep them at their best. We are far from able to place a full City Guard, even if we don’t send anyone north.”
Raphael sighed impatiently and looked to Alex, who quickly stepped down. “Raymond, this city is our capital. It has fought off attacks with half the amount of men we have now. A group of farmers like these would be stupid to even try.”
“Except they wouldn’t.” Raymond stopped walking, forcing Raphael to look at him straight. “They have stolen weapons and raided castles for months now. When are you going to face the fact that you can’t just shrug and send out minor delegations?”
With a sigh, Raphael looked away from his brother, avoiding his gaze. Then he looked back with an expression that reminded him of the one his mother used to give him when he was younger and she was disappointed. “What has happened to you, Raymond?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve changed,” Raphael stated as he shuffled a little further away from his brother. “You used to be so… fun. Never serious, never afraid. What happened to my brother?”
It hurt Raymond more than it should to hear his brother say those words. “Do you really miss that part of me?”
“That part of you? If you ask me, you’ve changed completely ever since you married Gabrielle.”
He met Raphael’s almost angry stare with an anger that matched his. “I grew up, Raphael. Maybe you should do so too.”
“You didn’t grow up!” Raphael shouted. “You married a whore dressed as a lady.”
They were only one step apart and Raymond took that step, grabbing the collar of his brother’s tunic. “If you ever call my wife, the royal princess and by the law, your sister, that again, I swear…”
“You swear what?” Raphael spat back. “You can’t say she has not changed you. You can’t say you’re still the same.”
Raymond was remotely aware of the fact that everyone around them has stopped to stare at the scene unfolding. He ignored it, though, focusing all his anger on his brother. “For the better, yes.” With a hard push, he let go of his brother. “Or maybe you and your mother just wanted me to be unhappy? Maybe you wanted me to stay in that drunken stupor so that I could not confirm what everybody is thinking.”
“And what might that be?”
Raymond backed away from his brother, walking in a large circle. If he were to do this… were he to do this? “You know what,” he said, finally.
Raphael’s eyes narrowed. “You have nothing.”
“Is our mother’s absolute lust for power nothing?” he shouted, unable to contain it. “Is it nothing that she time and time again sabotaged the work of the King’s Council, manipulated her way into the inner circles, for her own power. Is it a lie that she has spent her hours listening to dubious spies?”
“You know why,” Raphael whispered spitefully. “You know she is investigating her husband, our King’s death.”
“Is she?”
And then it came to him – all the meetings she had attended, all the sneaking away, all the religion. It was her who had seen to her husband’s finances, Thomas had said so himself. Had it not been for Lucretia, the finances would have been much worse.
Or had they?
Then he remembered her fighting against the idea of Adrianne going on tour. At first, he had thought she had wanted to stay the Queen in the eyes of the people, but had there been more? What could have been her reasons? What could have been her reasons, if not an actual wish that the people were not distracted. That they were, indeed, to become endangered even further?
Lucretia wanted power, that had been obvious for as long as she had lived, but for how long had she planned it, and for how long would she continue her fight?
“You know what?” His eyes met with his brother’s in a challenge; a wish that his brother would see reason. “I don’t think she needs to investigate.”
“Raymond…” His brother trailed off, and it was a clear warning.
“Would it be a lie to say that our mother controlled King Clement’s finances. Would it be a lie to claim that she could have stopped his extensive use of money – if she wanted to!” Raymond turned around then, looking around him. “What if she did not want to? What if this is what she wanted?”
“What are you saying?”
“Councilman Thomas Bonney, the Head of the Royal Bank himself claims that Lucretia, the Queen Dowager had a large impact on her husband’s spending. What if she did not mind? What if she wanted this war?”
Someone grabbed his arm and yanked him around. Raphael’s breath was hot on his face as he shouted, “Have you gone mad?”
Raymond stumbled backwards from his brother, suddenly shaken. “Don’t say it’s not possible,” he dared. “They always said it was a woman or someone close to him. Who is to say it were not both?”
Raphael took three stern steps and grabbed his brother by the arm, pulling him away from the eyes of the crowd. “This is unacceptable,” he hissed.
In that moment, Raymond wished he could have felt bad. He wished he were ashamed of casting his mother into bad light, but it felt like the best thing he had ever done. Saying those words, after so many years of saying nothing, felt so freeing. His chest seemed light enough to lift him off the ground.
They stopped once Raphael had dragged him inside of the castle and pressed him against a wall. “What has happened to you?” Raphael asked, his eyes were worried.
“What has happened is this: I don’t feel ashamed anymore.” Raymond pushed away the hand that Raphael used to keep him pressed against the wall. “For the first time, I feel…”
Raphael stepped backwards. “What? Tell me, let me help you.”
“You can’t help me.” He blinked in disbelief. For how long had he wished for his brother to realize that something was wrong, to offer his help like they were a part of the same family? “I’ve already been helped.”
“Raymond, you’re not okay.”
“I wasn’t okay,” Raymond corrected him. “For all those years when you and mother ignored me, turned the other way. That was when I needed your help. I don’t need it anymore. For the first time, I feel… I feel balanced. I feel as though I do not need to tear through the world to be seen and… I feel important.”
For a second, he felt like looking away, down at the floor or down the hall like he had so often done before, but instead he kept his eyes on his brother. It was something he had never had the strength to do; to look his brother in the eye. “I am important enough for those people to listen to me.”
“They think you’re crazy.”
“No they don’t,” he said, even though he knew they probably did.
“What you said about mother…” Raphael trailed off, apparently unable to repeat the words. Perhaps Raymond was not the only one who was scared. “You know that it is not true, do you not?”
“Can we truly know something for certain?”
“Probably not,” Raphael said, “but you do know it.”
Raymond was inclined to shake his head, just to see what would happen. But he knew his brother was right. “Yes.”
“Good.” A moment went by in complete silence. “I’m sending out some men to take down the northern bands. The walls will keep us safe.”
Raymond nodded, not in agreement, but in acceptance. “Alright.”
The two small groups were sent off the next day. By then, Raymond had still not seen anything of his mother. She was still in the capital, hiding in her tower. Rumour had it she had taken back her old rooms in the Queen’s chambers. Apparently, she was not willing to leave the capital unless staying brought her into severe danger – which it had, for many months now, yet she had not left.
He was ashamed to admit that he was afraid of running into her. He was afraid to look at her face and see it tighten into the look of disappointment she so often wore.
The days tended to go by slowly. There was a certain feeling in the air that scared even the hardest of the men. Any moment, an attack could be led against a holdfast or a castle somewhere. Nobody wanted to go to war, but most would have preferred actual fighting to the waiting.
“Now I know how a murderer feels going to trial,” Thomas joked wryly one day and even though Raymond doubted he was right, he laughed. Sarcasm was a hard thing to handle these days; everything that had only existed in their minds had been turned to reality so abruptly.
When the alarm bells rang a week after their arrival, it was as though they had been waiting. It was almost a relief.
That morning, Raymond had woken with a sense of unease in his body, and he felt it itching at the back of his head. The alarming reports of the big militia heading their way had become more and more frequent, but the new of the military success up north had been a nice distraction from these reports.
However, as the day went past, even the most oblivious of the men started to feel it. It was obvious by the silence as they ate their dinner in the night. They were waiting, holding their breaths, and readying themselves from what was undeniably coming for them.
So when the dinner reached its end, Raymond muttered a prayer that it would just begin soon. It was unbearable to live in this endless nightmare of awaiting what might as well be his doom as it might be his victory.
When the first bell rang, it was therefore not fear that coursed through his veins, but relief. Relief that the long waiting was over. He was ready, for whatever might come.
One of his generals informed him that he would be needed over at the main gate as soon as possible, and he went directly for his own chambers to fetch his sword and armour.
However, when he entered and saw Elizabeth’s crib, standing there, so innocent. It had barely been touched since Gabrielle left, and in the lights of the moon it reminded her of his wife and daughter more than anything. They were both women of the night, creatures of the moon. Outside, the lights of torches were blurred by the tears in his eyes. What will happen to them? he asked himself, the gods, anyone, but no one answered.
He touched the white satin, running it through his fingers while picturing his daughter’s perfect face. So pale, so beautiful, with hair that was already black. He prayed then that he would one day see her again, and promised that if he did, he would never again let himself get lost in his cups. He promised he would be a father, the way his own had never been.
Then he went to secure his sword and rushed down the halls to the place he needed to be now.
It was a clever strategy, to attack in the dark of the night. They attacked in blackness, with no lights, and it was almost impossible to make out their dark figures from the forest. No torches were lit in their camp.
“How will my archers hit their goal if they can’t see it?” he heard lord Kent say. Around them, unease was spreading. Nobody had expected this from a group of commoners.
Raphael looked more frightened than anyone. This was his war, after all. The war of how history would perceive him. “They will have to hope.”
Kent looked as though he were about to second guess this, but then he stepped down. “Archers! At the ready!”
The soldiers looked doubtful, but still did as told. The war had yet to start, and the excitement boiled in their stomachs. It was like acid, burning away any trace of their humanities. No one would have guessed them to be fathers, or husbands, or sons.
“Are they attacking?” he asked his brother.
“I can’t tell.” The fear was written all over Raphael’s face, and in every word he spoke.
Kent looked at them with worry. “Fire!” he shouted without a second thought, and the dark was filled with noise of bows being released. There were a few screams, but not enough. Not enough had died.
“They didn’t hit,” Raymond commented.
It was impossible to see. This was not a battlefield; it was a game played in smoke.
“Really?” his brother said sarcastically.
Smoke. “Fire,” he said.
“What?”
“We need fire.”
He was not sure if he had said it aloud, but the next moment he was roaring it. “I need oil, now!”
“Oil?”
Who asked, he could not tell. “Yes, lots of it.”
The man looked uncertain. “We don’t have much.”
“Bring us all you have.”
The man gave his king a look of uncertainty, and Raphael looked at his brother as if to assess him. “What is this?”
“A plan,” he said. “The only one you have at the moment.”
That convinced him, and the man ran off. Raymond followed him with his eyes, his heart beating, wishing, praying that he would be back in time. Where is the enemy?
Their boots could be heard now.
“Archers!”
“No!” Raymond shouted. “No, not yet!”
Kent turned around with confusion in his eyes.
“Spare your arrows. They would be wasted. Spare them.”
Then the oil came in buckets, several men carrying them. “Can we get this distributed? Outside of the walls.”
They were all looking at him like he was a madman. “Yes,” a voice finally said, and he was surprised that it was female. And there she was, for once not wearing black. Her armour gleamed in the night and her black hair hung freely. “I can do that.”
How she did it, he had no idea, but she did it.
“Who is your best archer?” he asked Kent, who pulled forward a young boy. To him, he said, “Do you think you can hit the oil that was spread?”
The poor boy was pale and sweating, looking from side to side. In the last minute, as his mouth opened like a fish out of water, he was saved.
“I will do it,” Raphael said. “This is my war.”
Then the King took an arrow, dipped a cloth in the rest of the oil and wrapped it around the point of the arrow. Placing it into the bow, he ignited the cloth with the fire of a torch. It took him five minutes of just standing, waiting, thinking, but then, so very suddenly, his fingers let go of the string.
For several moments, they stood in breathless quiet, waiting for the fire to ignite. Nothing happened.
“Try again,” Lucretia encouraged.
And he did. He lit the point of another arrow, and never had Raymond seen him so nervous as when he sent off that arrow. It was like a star in the sky, burning fiercely, and every eye of the army was turned to it. It sent a light into the soldiers’ eyes.
And when it landed on the earth, the flame did not die out. It spread.
Soon, a wall of fire had risen around the castle.
“Put out the torches!” Raymond commanded, and for once, no one questioned him.
The rebels were clear as day now. They were in the light now, and the castle was the smoke. The wall of fire had stopped them. It rose to skies, far above them, but Raymond had the advantage of height, too.
“Archers!” Kent commanded.
“Riders at the ready!” another voice roared, and Raymond ran to his warhorse. Never had its grey colour seemed more appropriate. He rode at his brother’s side, and as the ports opened, he leaned in close. “Long live the King,” he whispered.
“Long live the King!”
They rode into war with that shout behind them. The few commoners that had made it past before the fire had started had collected in a circle. Brave men. They attacked fiercely, with roars of battle.
And then the sound of swords clashing filled the air. Someone hit Raymond’s longsword, but he paid no notice. His horse leaped forward, jumping over a body as he swung his sword. It hit something, and a terrible noise followed. The smell of blood and war was everywhere.
He tried to orientate him after his horse’s leap, and saw men all around him. It was impossible to know foe from friend. In his focus on others, he came so close to the fire, it scorched his skin and his horse reeled away. He felt a stinging pain to his leg and instinctively, his sword changed hands and he lunged out for the danger he knew was there.
When he hit nothing but air, he went tumbling down. Something cracked in his shoulder and a severe pain took over his left side. Dew dampened his clothes. Then he heard a swiish of wind, and he rolled away. The blow hit the back of his armour, sending him rolling further away.
Above him, the moon shone, and he saw Elizabeth’s face.
The moonlight gleamed in the sword and he met it, sending the other man to the ground. He was quick to his feet, and spared no time. His enemy was standing as well. And then they were fighting.
He knew this; had trained it so often. He blocked, attacked, was hit once to his side, which hurt for mere seconds, went in, danced around, hit him. The pain disappeared with everything else, and nothing existed but the armoured enemy in front of him, but the sound of blood rushing past his ears. His pulse was loud, pounding against the cave of his head.
Their swords met again and again, but finally he got the routine. It was nothing but a dance. Every blow could be calculated; weapons could be stolen, but this man had not been trained in their use.
When the man fell, there was no time to feel the relief. Before his enemy had hit the ground, Raymond was gone. His horse was gone, he noted, and for a moment he felt like crying. But then he saw his brother. He was still on his horse, trotting through the battle as if already crowned victor.
“Brother!” he called. “Where is your horse?”
A ringing filled Raymond’s ear and suddenly, another enemy was attacking from the side. He managed to fight him off, harming though not killing him. His right hand went to the damaged ear and came back bloody.
A horn filled the silence, a terrible sound that sent goose bumps down his back. It sounded like a howl, but not from any animal he knew of or wished to know of.
And then it was all over.
He had survived.
Above him, the moon shone, almost victoriously.