The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) (21 page)

Subtle, Brother, very subtle
. Soldiers usually took, never gave back. Her half brother was a smart man.

Bastard.

Amalia wondered what he intended to do once they crossed into Athesia. The loyalists would surely follow him, but what about the Caytorean mercenaries? He was leading paid soldiers into battle in a foreign land. Sooner or later, they might get tired of glory and dying and want to go home to their families. What would he do then?

Agatha said Pete liked the man. Everyone liked him. Some even swore by his name. He had won the hearts of the younger men. Amalia wasn’t so sure about the older ones, who had served many years in private armies and respected no value other than money. Would he keep them indefinitely, feeding them money, or send them away once his task was complete? What would they do then, if he dismissed them from his ranks? Worse, what if they refused to let go of the succulent prize called Athesia?

It all sounded painfully familiar. Her father had done the same thing. Then again, he had been an Eracian, leading Eracians into war, defending his realm. And then, he had carved his own piece of sanity from the realms and offered hopeless men a second chance for life. Not all had stayed, but most.

Was James trying to mimic Father’s success? Surely he must not be that desperate.

What if he does succeed?
her inner voice hissed.

How do you earn love? How do you make people follow you blindly, devote their lives to you?
she wondered. She knew she had no answer, and it pained her. Because she could have been her father’s daughter and done things like him, only she had wasted her one opportunity.

They obeyed me, but they never really believed in me
.

She missed Gerald.

The day stretched, and she sat there in silence, too morose to talk. As the dusk began settling, the convoy slowed, getting ready to camp. Another day, another stride of land covered. The carts moved off the road, against the grove of wild chestnut trees, forming small, defensible circles. Then, there would be fires lit inside the rings of wagons, sheltered from wind and sight, and people would converge to talk, drink, listen to music, gamble. Amalia stayed in her cart, sulking, alone. She would sometimes walk the perimeter of the camp, to get her numb legs moving, but her heart hammered with dread each time. Most of the soldiers already knew her as Pete’s second favorite, so they did not bother her, but there could always be some fool, bored or drunk or newly recruited, who might not know the rules.

In the morning, there was a wispy mist veiling the earth, and it left a damp kiss on everything. Amalia rushed into the bushes, peed nervously, then came back to rinse her mouth with salt water and eat whatever the mess offered. It was a lean but practical diet. Good food, all considering.

For the next three days, nothing remarkable happened. Caytor rolled away in hot, sunny silence. In the next village,
three of the local youths asked to enlist, and James’s captains gladly took them in. Farther down the road, they met a pair of Borei mercenaries who asked for a chance at war in his ranks. How they got that far north, no one really asked. No one cared.

Agatha relayed what stories Pete told her, but Amalia was feeling worried. She had not personally seen her brother in many weeks, and she was getting frustrated. She knew nothing of what he planned.

The two Borei proved to be a menace. She saw them everywhere, trying to sell trinkets, trying to buy women, trying to cheat people out of their money. They had this baby bear traveling with them, locked in a cage in a small two-wheel cart lugged by a third, riderless horse, and it brayed annoyingly, loudly all the time, sometimes into the night. You would think bears roared; not this one, it made a sad sound, like a broken war horn.

She once saw that poor animal perform, dancing on its hind paws to the beat of a shaker, with a chain leading from a ring in its nose to the Borei’s wrist. If the bear slacked or refused to dance, the second mercenary would flick it with a leather switch. Amalia would have expected people to be horrified, disgusted, but they only laughed merrily, entertained to boot.

Amalia knew her father had never tolerated animal abuse. This James did not care.

Bastard.

Then, there was rain, a midsummer torrent that came suddenly and vanished. All it did was settle the dust, but Amalia felt refreshed by the cool drops, felt cleansed somehow.

Then, there were the hangings. Close to a mining town called Varip, James’s scouts found two ragged, starved Oth
Danesh hiding in a shanty at the outskirts of an abandoned iron shaft. Then, the town mayor asked them to hang a boy charged with rape. That monster Xavier took charge of the execution and set three nooses round a fat branch of an oak. The boy wept, so they hanged him first. The pirates did not say anything; they were too weak to care. Most of the people seemed to approve of these harsh methods, and loved James even more because of them. The mayor gave them a wagonful of iron bolts. Amalia was a little worried. She knew how her father had dispensed justice, and this wasn’t it.

That week proved to be full of activity. Close to the border with Athesia, bandits felt free to roam the land, and they did not expect four legions of army to come their way. You could not even call the few quick, bloody engagements skirmishes with the speed they had ended. But more tree branches were left sagging with condemned men.

Amalia caught a glimpse of James when he called for a two-day stop about a week from Athesia. He claimed he wanted his men well rested before moving in, and that meant repairing broken equipment, replenishing missing tools and weapons, and expanding the security perimeter.

Her bastard half brother almost came close enough to touch in one of his morale-boosting tours that evening. Surrounded by his lackeys and killers, he steered into the thick of the baggage camp, cheering the small folk and laborers, reassuring them in his victory. Overall, the mood was high, and people seemed to trust him. His gimmicks were paying off. The little gestures of generosity and the brusque treatment of criminals resonated with the simple people.

Amalia stood and watched, and he drifted past her. She knew she should have turned away, looked away, bowed, pretended to be busy, but some inner need froze her solid, and
she stood paralyzed, her eyes locked on his smiling face. For a moment, the emperor’s eyes touched hers, and then he glided past as if she did not exist.

She noticed Agatha watching her with pale terror, her eyes bright and wide in the gloom. Amalia only shrugged and went back to working.

Amalia’s hands were full of filthy laundry those two days, her skin red and flaking and painful to the touch. Her lower back hurt, two pinpoints of warm annoyance budding just below her kidneys. Even Agatha was forced to stay with her and sleep in the cart, because Pete was engaged with checking on the troops and preparing for the incursion into Athesia. A serious mood descended on the camp. You could feel the anticipation, the fear, the excitement. You could hear the clamor for revenge from the Athesian refugees.

On the morning of the third day, she expected the army to break camp and head west, but they stayed. She was not sure why. The sky was clear, there did not seem to be anything wrong, but the followers were told to remain put and keep mending gear and tools.

Amalia wished she could be a bird so she might fly over her half brother’s tent and listen. She was desperate to learn more about his intentions, his fears, his doubts, his reasoning. She found her hopeless state maddening. After years of being the focus of importance and news, her insignificance chafed like a raw mosquito bite, tiny, persistent, growing more painful with every little scratch.

Then, her wish was answered.

Two of Pete’s men wandered into their camp and sat down for a quiet smoke, leaning their heads against the wheels of a cart, legs stretched out and crossed, weapons rested casually across the lap. Amalia found herself on the other side, folding
dried-out blankets. At first, she felt an urge to walk away, but these were Pete’s men; they would not bother her. So she stayed.

“Saw one of them on the hill early this morning, just after dawn,” a gruff voice spoke.

“Really?” the other one asked, his tone nasal.

“Yes,” the first one said. “Sure about that. That was a Parusite, all right.”

Amalia stopped folding the blankets, exhaled slowly, and perked her ears.

The one with the clogged nose coughed, hawked, and spat loudly. His voice came out the same. “Damn. Bloody Parusites. So what the fuck they want?”

“Dunno. Looks like a fucking scout. Wanted to check on us.”

“So that king allows himself to send his troops into Caytor, eh. Thought he would know better after we defeated his pirates the last time.”

“I heard he was after them himself. They got out of hand with all that burning and pillaging.”

“Fucking animals. So now what? He wants a go with us, then? We gonna teach him a lesson.”

The gruff speaker said something unintelligible. Amalia crouched, pretending to check one of the blankets still awaiting folding.

“And I said so,” the man continued. “Well, he knows ‘bout the emperor, so he sends his horsemen out, ‘cause he don’t fancy a surprise, right. Now he knows we’re coming.”

“You reckon there gonna be more fighting?”

A snort. “Sure about it. We ain’t riding here for flowers and to admire the land and such.”

“I don’t fancy fighting,” the one with the nasal voice complained.

“Thought you wanted to teach them Parusites a lesson?” his friend teased.

“Well, sure. But y’know. We’re going to this Athesia. ‘Tis different.”

“I know what you mean. But we are paid to fight, so we fight.”

“Right.”

Amalia waited, but they did not talk any more, just sat in silence, resting. She finished folding the blankets and slowly edged around, trying to look bored. In her chest, her heart hammered. She thought anyone looking at her breasts would a see a little ripple move on her skin.

“Lass!” one of them shouted, the gruff one. Amalia ignored them, moving on.

“Don’t mind her,” the other said.

She sighed in relief as she entered her small tent, set against the back of her and Agatha’s wagon. It took her a moment to start thinking clearly. What she had just heard worried her.

The Parusites seemed to have troops in the north of the realm, too. That meant more war, more death. As a would-be commoner following an army, her chances did not seem that bright. She knew King Sergei had a powerful, well-trained, seasoned force at least five times as large as her half brother’s. He had the Red Caps, the Borei, olifaunts. You would really have to be a genius in fighting to avoid total destruction. You would have to be someone like Father. Or you could wield a bloodstaff.

So far, James did not look even slightly worried.

But Amalia had been quite confident before the siege on Roalas, too.

She knew that if her half brother’s legions were defeated, the soldiers would abandon the camp followers and the
refugees, and they would fall into the enemy’s hands. The Parusite ruler seemed rather forgiving when it came to the small folk, but she did not want to bet her chances on it. She did not want to contemplate what would happen when the mercenaries following James decided they were better off on their own.

After hearing the two soldiers talk, she felt their loyalty might not be as deep as it seemed.

Whatever happened, she had to act fast. Still, no matter how hard she tried to rack her brain, no smart ideas poured out. Nothing, in fact, only dull gray despair and bitterness, a deep sense of self-defeat and ineptitude, disappointment in herself and in people, a grudge against the world, loathing.

A far cry from what Father had taught her all those years. Only out here, posing as a worthless girl on the brink of mercy, the brilliance of leadership and cunning evaded her.

She had to think. Something. Anything.

Nothing.

Evening came. She sat in there alone, on the brink of tears. Agatha was too busy somewhere. Even her maid had abandoned her. She was now Jerrica in earnest, a common girl with no future. Perhaps the best she could hope for was a simple, poor life married to some officer who did not beat her too much.

How she wished she had Gerald to comfort her, to protect her, to give his advice.

Her eyes were moist when the night settled, full of flickering images of imagined Parusite troops storming the camp, death and rape, pain, treachery and lies. She watched it, helpless, useless, another speck of dust in the storm of life, meaningless in the greater scheme of things.

This was her life now, it seemed.

You must not give up
, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her head.
You must not
.

But why would she care? Even her people thought her dead. No one cared about her anymore. They had James, he was their emperor, and they liked him. There was no reason for her to carry on.

She was afraid. She could not take it anymore, the uncertainty.

She tried to summon her hatred for James, but it would not rise. She almost felt sympathy for him. A boy, torn from his world, forced to lead, forced to tremble under the colossal image of his father, with paid soldiers in his service, men who would abandon him if things turned sour. He was just as helpless as her, only he struggled on with a smile, not showing his weaknesses.

And she missed her mother. Oh, how she missed her. She should have listened to her mother. Too late. Roalas had been taken. Her mother might be dead. Everyone she had once known and loved and cared for was most likely dead. She had no one.

Stop it
, the voice in her head pleaded.

She could not. She kept sobbing until darkness engulfed her.