Moonstone, Magic That Binds (Book 1) (15 page)

He filed along wall with nine other recruits. A few of them shuffled from foot to foot and sighed when they relieved themselves. Lotto turned up one corner of his mouth and shook his head, but just like them, he did the same, realizing that he had done worse back in Heron’s Pond. He had no idea how long their next stint outside the coach would take.

“Have any of you got money for food?” the soldier said. Lotto didn’t like the man’s tone of voice or the grinding laugh. Lotto checked his purse, only to find it gone. The soldier had stolen it or his fellow travelers and now Lotto only possessed the clothes on his back. He clenched his fists and schooled himself not to strike the soldier. He didn’t really know the rules of the army, but striking another soldier wouldn’t be met with any tolerance. At least that seemed to be the case in his military studies.

They filed back into the coach as another soldier put a basket of stale bread and a single skin of water in the coach and locked the door. They took off again.

Lotto made sure he got his share and grabbed the water skin while the others grabbed the bread. Lotto was bigger than all of the other recruits so he didn’t have to push as hard as some of the others, another might be as tall, but not as broad. Still, he only took as much as needed to leave enough for the others.

He shook his head and wondered what would become of him. He’d have to find a way to get a message to Mander.  Where would he be when he got the chance?  Lotto had no idea where the wagon headed.

~

The castle didn’t seem as much like home as it did when Restella left months ago for the Oringian border. She felt guilty about sleeping in her own suite in the castle after spending nights in her tent surrounded by the troops she had ended up commanding while they pacified the border. These border flare-ups had happened constantly ever since the founding of the two kingdoms, but she didn’t know what had happened to cause the recent flare-ups.  The Oringians were de-populating the border, but she had done her part to stop it.

Once the snows arrived, the incursions stopped and most of her life as a soldier consisted of crushing boredom brightened by weapons practice. Now she carried a scar that would always remind her of military duty, a token that made her proud.

Nights were interrupted by nightmares that centered on fighting the enemy or filled with visions of burned villages and slaughtered villagers. She fidgeted with her hands as she sat eating breakfast in her suite and she succumbed to the drive to leave the rooms. Restella yearned to hear rumors about possible troop positionings. It frustrated her to know that whatever strategies that her father and Mander Hart created wouldn’t come to her. Captain Shortwell instructed her to wear civilian clothes unless she was summoned as Lieutenant Beecher, so she wore now-unfamiliar dresses. She’d have to go out and try to overhear information. Roaming the halls, she passed Mander Hart. She resisted the urge to follow him. He would know everything.

He turned around and called to her. “Princess Restella. Did you know we have a mutual acquaintance?”

She thought that they must have many mutual acquaintances, but if her father had recalled Mander from his bookshop, the situation must be worse than she thought. Perhaps she might learn something from him. Her mind kept returning to the battlefield.

“We can sit here,” he said, guiding her to a padded bench underneath a window.

Restella generally liked the view from the windows on this gallery looking down at the palace gardens, but the late winter view was more bleak than beautiful.

“I hear you were injured during one of your early battles.”

How did he know that? But then he’d be privy to the dispatches from Captain Shortwell.

Mander continued, “I’m impressed with the speed that you picked up soldiering.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I had a great deal of help. There is a soldier who has been helping me along the way. I couldn’t have garnered any success without him.”

“Silver?”

“You know him?”

Mander looked out the window, smiling. “I suggested him for the position, Princess. He’s one of the best scouts we have in your father’s army and the kind of man who can provide instruction without seeming to be an instructor.”

Restella sat back against the window. Silver had been placed as an instructor? She could feel the anger rise in her throat, but cut it off and took a deep breath. “He succeeded, then. I had hoped we had become friends.”

“You have,” Mander said, in his characteristically light-hearted manner. “I’ve spoken to him. He likes you and feels privileged to have helped you develop into a soldier. He expressly said that you did it mostly on your own.”

A smile came to her lips. “More like a team.” Her anger fled as quickly as it had come. “Is he the mutual acquaintance?”

“No,” Mander said. He looked across the hall and paused. “Remember the Moonstone?”

Her defenses went up. “What about it?” Did Mander have designs on her gem? Did Fessano blurt out the stone’s history? Would her father confiscate it? She narrowed her eyes as Mander continued.

“The boy who located the stone changed when he held the stone. He told me about both of you fainting when you touched the stone. I found him and took him in. His name is Lotto and he’s gone missing. He could always tell me where you were. I don’t know if he located you or the stone, but I’m worried about him. I wonder if you had the same feeling about him?”

Restella lost her breath. She didn’t quite know why Mander would think she’d have a connection with the little village half-wit. “I don’t have any feelings for him.”

Mander laughed. He laughed about everything. Did the man take anything seriously? However he’d never given her father poor advice, just opinions which usually turned out right. Her father often contradicted his counsel and that often made the king mad at Mander, when he had to apologize. She would humor him, just this once.

“Just close your eyes and think of the Moonstone and see if you feel something. I’d greatly appreciate it, Princess. I’ll give you a personal status of the state of the kingdom. Something you might not get resting up from your campaign.”

How did he know she wanted to know what went on? But Mander could outsmart a fox. She closed her eyes and thought of the Moonstone. She really could feel a tiny thread from it in her mind. She tried to shut out everything and found a faint thin line running to the south, it seemed like a thread of spider silk and thought of a map of Valetan and sensed that the thread ended somewhere in the southern mountains where Happly, Oringia and Learsea shared borders with Valetan. The whole process of seeking the boy amazed her. She’d have to run off to see Fessano and tell him after Mander brought her up to date.

Opening up her eyes, Restella pointed. “He’s in the southeastern mountains. I didn’t think I could do that.” She shouldn’t have said that to a man like Mander Hart.

Mander smiled. “I rather hoped you could. At least Lotto isn’t lying dead in some Beckondale gutter.” His smile changed. “What’s in the south that would drive him there?”

“We’ve got a training outpost that serves to guard the Bluerock mines.” Restella couldn’t resist a shrug.

Mander furrowed his brow and put his hand to his clean-shaven chin. “Yet he left his swords behind and didn’t even tell Kenyr.”

Restella knew the name Kenyr. “He learned arms from the Serytar?”

“Indeed and has often given the weapons master a good match.”

“I didn’t think the boy could even lift a blade.”

“You’ll be surprised when you meet him, for I’m sure you will, if he makes it through Bluerock.” Mander looked distracted for a moment. “You did something for me and now I will compensate you. It appears that the emperor of Dakkor is fomenting unrest in Besseth. How, we don’t know. We think his agents are behind the border incursion from the Oringians. The king of Prola is behaving oddly and there is unrest among the your father’s dukes and barons in the northwest part of Valetan. the fact that all of this happening at once is more than a coincidence.

“The king is likely to issue a call to arms next month, when spring comes, in anticipation of summer campaigns. Oringia still plagues us, as you knew when you were relieved, but there is trouble to the northwest and that’s about as much as I can comfortably tell you.”

Restella had to keep her eyes from popping out of her head. “So much for peacetime.”

“Indeed. It has me quite worried.” Mander smiled despite his claim of worry and rose from the bench. “I must attend to other matters. I wish you well, Princess. As Lieutenant Beecher, I do believe you’ll get your fill of being a warrior princess. Good day. Should you ever wish to converse with me further, I’d be delighted to do so, especially if you can update me as to our mutual friend’s whereabouts.” He bowed to Restella and set up at a brisk pace as if he were late to a meeting, and he probably was.

Restella didn’t need to pry and poke around the castle to get any further information. Troop deployments were the responsibility of the generals and she figured that those rumors would more likely be floating around the barracks. She wondered about the thread to Lotto when she returned to her rooms. She grabbed her sword and touched the Moonstone and then closed her eyes again and found it much easier to locate the boy.

As soon as she opened her eyes, she stood up and headed off to see Fessano.

~

“You’ve told me an interesting story, Princess. The Moonstone is an unpredictable jewel, obviously. I’ve been poking around my library and didn’t run into any such qualities of the stone as a locator but much is made of linking a man and a woman, as we’ve talked about before. For some reason, you are one of the two linked to the stone.” Fessano shook his head and sat at his big chair by the fire in his main room. The man looked like he’d aged five years since the last time she saw him.

Restella wanted more answers from the wizard. “Did you meet Lotto, Mander’s friend?”

“Protégé is a more apt term. The boy is amazing. He has power, you know, and he learned magic in this very room until the Oringians started these dread-filled days.”

“I knew him as a half-wit. Could he have changed so much?”

Fessano nodded. “So much and more. After you left him comatose on the witch’s floor, he physically changed. It’s as if the power of the stone worked within to restore him to what he should have been. I might have told you that his parents were nobles in Serytar and killed by their own countrymen here in Valetan. The father had custody of the Moonstone. Its power must have drawn Lotto to it. He’s taller than I, but then isn’t everybody, and strong. The boy’s also very smart. He learned to read very quickly and retains what he learns. I’ll bet that Mander is relieved to know that he hasn’t been killed.”

“He might have joined the army,” Restella said.

“Then something serious must have happened to cause Lotto to enlist without telling anyone.  Lord Hart will find out soon enough. Mander attends to those things better than I.”

“I believe you…” her comments were stopped by knock on Fessano’s door.

“A message for the Princess.”

Fessano opened the door. “She is here.”

The valet stepped in and bowed to Restella. “A summoning of Lieutenant Restella Beecher to the king’s presence.”

“Army matters,” Restella said. “You must excuse me, I’ll have to put on my uniform.” She had to appear as a soldier. The last thing she wanted was a hasty marriage to seal the loyalty of some baron. She ran down the many steps back to her quarters and quickly put on her uniform and forced herself to walk at a normal rate to her father’s study. She knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

She opened the door and found her father, General Piroff and General Reallo rising at her entrance. She stood at attention and snapped off a salute.

“At ease, Captain,” Piroff said.

“I’m a lieutenant, sir.” She looked  at the wall over the heads of the three men.

“I know what I said. You’ve been promoted to Captain and will be reassigned to the western forces under the command of General Reallo. He wanted Shortwell, but I wouldn’t let go of him, so I’m afraid you were second choice.”

Second choice? Restella had to suppress a smile. She’d take any choice to be a captain.

“Bear in mind, Restella, that I didn’t push this or approve it in any way. The Generals were more comfortable in promoting you in my presence. I suppose they are angling for more of my favor.” King Goleto cracked a wry smile. “You deserve this promotion on its merits. You were wounded in battle and have proved yourself over the course of the campaign against the Oringians. Do you have any comments?”

Restella thought for a moment. “I’d like Sergeant Silver as my aide and ask that he be promoted to lieutenant and transferred to the western forces along with me.”

“Lieutenant Silver already has achieved that rank,” Piroff said. “He’s a scout and a damned good one. He’s always been Mander’s man, but we can change that. He can scout for you as well as anybody. You can have Silver.”

So that’s why Silver was so confident. He was senior to her and she didn’t know it. Well she had a fine teacher and despite the subterfuge, she could handle that. Restella wanted to be prickly in front of her father and put him in his place as she used to, but she couldn’t do it in front of her commanding officers. “Any word on when we’ll be heading out?” She realized she shouldn’t be asking such things of the Generals, so she appended ‘Father’ to the end of her sentence.

“I imagine as soon as the weather turns to spring. Since you’re a Captain, you’ll be part of the planning for that. You are dismissed, my dear,” her father said.

Restella saluted and made a sharp about face and left the study. She could grin as much as she wanted while she walked through the halls of the castle to her rooms. She no longer felt so confined. All in all, a very good day.

~~~

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

~

T
HE SLEET-FILLED RAIN PUMMELED DOWN
on Lotto. He stood at attention in the downpour with twenty other soaked recruits in the twilight after another dreary day of drills. Try as he might, he hadn’t found any way to notify Mander of his impressment. The trainees split into pairs and went through basic sword drills that Lotto had mastered months before and he easily disarmed his opponents every time.