·         Stephen Wormwood here. Thank you for clicking. I've spent the better part of a year working on this, so I hope you enjoy the read. This is the first of seventeen chapters each to be posted on a weekly basis. Feedback and constructive criticism are always welcome at stephenwormwood@mail.com. As always hope you enjoy reading this and please consider donating to Nifty if you can, it's more than merited.

 

·        You can find a map of the fictionalized setting of this novel here: https://imgur.com/JtpD8WU (this is my first time using Inkarnate so it might be a little rough!)

 

·        If you end up enjoying this, please read some of my other stories on Nifty: The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), Wulf's Blut (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Harrowing of Chelsea Rice (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Dancer of Hafiz (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Cornishman (gay, historical), A Small Soul Lost (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), and Torc and Seax (transgender, magic/sci-fi).

 

 

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THE COURT OF GHOSTS

 

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Prologue

 

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Greyford Manse, The Midburghs, Kingdom of Morland

75^th of Spring, 772

 

The king's entry was as crude and gormless as his rumoured manner. A rain-sodden cloak dragged behind his muddy boots, slapping hard across the black and white chequered floor of the reception hall.

 

`Uncouth,' thought Kat, bluntly, yet catching and chastising herself in the doing of it, for it was poor luck to impugn a king, even in the realm of one's own mind. She resolved to light an extra candle for her saint that night, St. Jehanne, and offer an apology in exchange for her forgiveness.

 

The king's longsword rattled against his riding leathers as he approached his hosts, who had fallen in line to receive him not moments prior to his pronounced entry. He took the gloved hands of the young lord of the manse, his grace the Duke of Greyford, and thanked him for his hospitality.

 

"Your presence honours us, your majesty," replied the duke. "Welcome to the Greyford Manse."

 

"The first of many visits I should hope," said he, turning to the duke's younger sister, Lady Emma of Wuffolk, Kat's dearest friend, who graced them all with her perfectly practiced curtsey upon his attention.

 

"Lady Emma," The king sighed, smiling broadly. He took her gentle fingers aloft and kissed them in greeting. "Tales of your radiance precede you, and nary a one does you justice."

 

He was not wrong to say so, not by Kat's reckoning.

 

The saints blessed Emma with many a gift of natural beauty; her pouting pink lips, her soft white skin, her tumbling sunflower hair and piercing emerald eyes capable of holding any courtier's gaze and walking him into a wall. For an extra king's mark apiece her waiting ladies had worked from the early hours of the night to enhance that beauty, fashioning her tresses into curls, and flowering her cheeks with blushes of cinnabar.

 

Of course, beauty of such refinement required a wardrobe of equal refinement, and to that end the duke saw fit to place 200 king's marks into the purse of the Müllers, a family of Imperial exiles renowned for their dressmaking aptitudes and some of the best weavers in all Greyford.

 

Her ermine-trimmed gown, pearl-studded gable, and swirling brocade kirtle were all freshly spun. Her gilt girdle, bejewelled by rich rubies and sparkling diamonds, glittered in the candlelight.

 

It was a sumptuous look. A regal look. The look of a queen. And that, of course, was what this was all about. "You are too kind, your majesty," Emma paid him homage with her soft smile. "I thank you."

 

And then the king turned to Katheresa, plain little Kat, with her homespun cottons and simple Morish lavenders. This was by design of course – to dress down. It did not matter that Kat herself was the daughter of the Earl of Harcaster, heir to lands twice as large and thrice as fertile as Emma's, this was Emma's day – her triumph. It was merely Kat's to watch and behold.

 

And so, Kat smiled a smile scarcely recognizable as her best and curtsied (in a manner purposefully less proficient than Emma's own) then let the King of Morland kiss her cold hand. "Mine own Lord Marshal's daughter! How's a rough-made man of war like Harcaster so blessed to sire such a lovely lamb, hm?"

 

"I fear his good wife must take the credit, your majesty."

 

The king chortled.

 

Greyford frowned.

 

Kat felt that frown, for the duke's glare was a hard one, chilling to the bone. It is not for a lady to make japes – he would no doubt scold her afterwards. But good King Osbert loved a nice jape. He was a gruff and jolly-hearted man, oppressively tall in stature and almost leonine in appearance, a russet-haired huntsman and jouster; big-bearded, woolly-jawed, mutton-chopped, and moustachioed. Battle scars marred his flush pink cheeks (or what little you could see of them). He was a veteran of the Long Sea War, and well-loved by his subjects for it, despite all that bitter conflict cost them. The duke's father for example.

 

"Osmund!" Cried the king. "Osmund! Rude little cur! Come forth and greet our hosts, your courtesies fail you!"

 

Kat tittered – as it was customary for kings to introduce their princes anyway – but Emma threw a disapproving elbow at her arm to quiet her. Later, Kat would have to light a candle for that, too.

 

A brace of bannerets manned the doors, wreathed in rattling mail and gilt surcoats quartered in red and green, the colours of the Royal House of Oswyke. Greyford, Emma and Kat all looked on as a shorter, leaner version of the king calmly strode in for reception.

 

Prince Osmund.

 

He was mindful enough to have his groomsmen wipe down his riding leathers before he arrived... and he cast a subtle sigh at the muddy line of boot prints marring the chequered floor as he strode to his father's side.

 

The king cupped his shoulder. "Now then, boy. You've already met my Lord Treasurer, the Duke of Greyford, haven't you?"

 

The prince was unlike his forebear. Softer-voiced and better graced in curtesy, he nodded respectfully to the duke, who did the same in kind. "I have indeed, father. Greetings to you, your grace. Your manse is most spectacular."

 

"You flatter me, highness. May I introduce you to my sister, Lady Emma, whose acquaintance I believe you have not yet made?"

 

`The moment of truth,' thought Kat.

 

The Lady of Wuffolk, for all her hopes and dreams, cast at the prince those emerald eyes of coming legend, with her bright smile and even better curtsey, rising to his gaze, uttering a sweet greeting, and wishing upon all four saints that his stay with them at Greyford Manse would please him.

 

"I am certain it will," said Prince Osmund, brusquely.

 

And then he beheld Kat.

 

And Kat, in turn, beheld him for the first, that firstborn son of the King of Morland – an extraordinary man of ordinary features – small eyes, narrow nose, hairless chin, thin lips, wavy brown hair pressed in by his studded black cap. A figure to pass by on a dark road unawares, never to be known.

 

And yet?

 

He was heir to the realm. Its most prized bachelor. And that bachelor's pale cheeks flowered indeed when he met the good Lady Katheresa Vox.

 

King Osbert blinked, Emma frowned, and the Duke of Greyford glowered as a smitten Prince Osmund fell to his hosed knee, took Kat's hand, and kissed it. And he did not flinch at the cold.

 

Kat froze.

 

"...My lady," he uttered sweetly. "It is both an honour and a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

 

A single kiss and sentence that altered the course of history.

 

**********

 

Chapter One: Homeward, Bound

 

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The Boy and the Master – Speaker's Square – A Prayer to St. Jehanne – Crow's Club – The Brothers Roschewald – `A Boy He Loved' – For Morland in the Morrow

 

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Roschewald Manor, Wallenstadt, Republic of Wallenheim

27^th of Summer, 801

 

The accounts were dreadfully kept. Poor penmanship. Missing entries. False calculations. Incorrect figures. When the steward was accused of misappropriation Fran took over the household ledgers and reviewed them for impropriety at his master's behest, but what he found was incompetence rather than skulduggery. By Fran's calculation at least 3,500 marks were lost to this mismanagement across the year. The inventories would need to be reviewed as well, not to mention the paymaster's books... which would not sit well with the other servants, but they would not complain – at least not openly. Fran might find a cockroach or two in his porridge after this, but Gustave would reward him for his diligence. A few extra king's marks for his purse, and in the end, for his future.

 

Fran shivered at his escritoire, suddenly feeling himself beneath the golden folds of his night cloak. It was summer, but Wallenheim was too far north of the world for its summers to be defined by anything other than the absence of rain.

 

He was truly cold.

 

Fran gritted his teeth at the chill and tried to busy himself with a fresh page of parchment, inking his quill and jotting down some addendums to his audit of the ledgers. He ignored the low-burning hearth, resolving not to fetch for more kindling as in good miserly fashion, Gustave required his servants to pay for it, which Fran would do sparingly until winter. The boy had learned to be diligent with his money.

 

But the cold grew sharper, more pronounced. Night winds howled beyond the frosty windows, rattling the oaken latticework. Fran's skin prickled with goosebumps. His bodily shivers became tremors so strong he dropped his quill. And then it dawned upon him.

 

`No,' he thought. `Not tonight...'

 

The Fiend had a habit of creeping up on him, unawares. It even came to him that morning as he flickered through sheafs and sheafs of frozen loans from the Bank of de la More. WHERE IS HE? It whispered. WHEN WILL HE BE DONE...?

 

Fran's shoulders shook as it came to him then, again, its cold dark voice threading its way down his ear like a needle. Cold air traced down his shaking arms as if bony fingertips in a careful caress. The boy gazed up at the mirror atop his escritoire and saw only himself, seated and swathed within his gifted golden cloak – but The Fiend was with him, embracing him, teasing him, taunting him.

 

WHEN WILL LOTHAR RETURN...? It snarled.

 

The boy grabbed his shoulders to settle them. His heart was pounding and yet he was so cold... "He's never failed us before... he never will."

 

Then there was a knock at the door. The Fiend tittered in Fran's ear. YOUR MASTER BECKONS...

 

"Come in," said Fran.

 

The door croaked open.

 

Fran cut his eyes to the left as one of the household chambermaids leaned across the threshold with a brass chamberstick in hand. Another Imperial refugee. Ila was her name. Or Ilya, or Olga or something of the sort. "{Francis? Master Roschewald has called for you.}"

 

"{Thank you,}" he replied. Fran's command of the Imperial tongue had rusted over the years, but it remained sharp. Even so he thanked the saints that the Wallish and Morish tongues retained their congruency. "{I will attend him shortly.}"

 

The chambermaid nodded and excused herself, shutting the door behind her.

 

The Fiend left Fran with a final chuckle before drifting away into the aethers. The room regained its warmth. But now there was a knot in Fran's stomach. Gustave wanted him. The sun was long fallen, and with no other appointments on his itinerary, there was only one reason the master would fetch for him at this hour of the night. And so, with a heavy sigh, the boy lit the tallow shaft of his own brass chamberstick and left his rooms for the dark halls of House Roschewald.

 

All was silent. Smoke wafted through the cold air off the snuffed candles of the whalebone sconces as a little white face strode through the corridor; hardwood floors creaking with each bare-toed footstep, flickers of candlelight drawing phantoms from the shadows. As a boy, and as ever, Fran hated those halls. With its headless-armless statues and towering stolid suits of armour, dark sentinels looming over him, dwarfing him, horrifying him – him and the boy he once was. Ten long years in this place...

 

Fran held the chamberstick aloft as he guided himself up the staircase by its lacquered banister, up to the second floor where gilt-frame portraits, ornate vases and opulent rugs decorated the corridor's length all the way to the master bedroom. The boy carried his light to the sealed oaken door and lifted his free hand to knock – and paused when he heard voices. Fran set his ear to the grain.

 

"Your brother can claim this is about the embargo, but you know better." It was Wolfrick's voice – the captain of the household guard – his gravelled baritone was unmistakable. "He does this only to send you away! You have every right to refuse."

 

A smoother, lower voice replied to him – Gustave's. "Not all rights are worth exercising. Besides, Neidhart is not a man for high plots and skulduggery. The Republic is his grand project and his concern for it is genuine. Instability here only benefits the Empire."

 

"You will accede?"

 

"I will hear him out," said Gustave. "But yes. Likely yes, I will. There are hidden opportunities in this for me, old friend. For both of us. When the time comes."

 

A grunt of affirmation. "I am your man, lord."

 

Fran bit his lip. As much as he wanted to listen on, he would not dare be caught eavesdropping – Gustave had whipped chambermaids for far less. The boy wrapped the door with his knuckles and stood aside.

 

Chair legs shuffled from within. Mail rattled to the clank of a scabbarded sword and a deep grumble. As Gustave gave orders to `prepare the guard' the bedroom door swung open and out walked Wolfrick, tall and gruff, his scruffy beard and brows wintered grey with age.

 

The guardsman threw a dirty glare at the boy as he strode clunking off into the darkness. Fran frowned back. They had never liked each other much, Wolfrick and he. Hazarding why was no particular feat.

 

Gustave smirked within his parlour. "Come in, Fran."

 

Fran stepped forth and shut the door behind him, locking it from within. He blew out his chamberstick's flame and set it aside.

 

Tallow candles burned by the dozens within golden candelabras to drench the chamber with plentiful reading light. Gustave, for all his sumptuousness and pretention, was an avid reader. The rear wall ran from floor to ceiling with custom bookshelves sealed by lockable glass doors, containing tomes from as far abroad as the Sandsea Sultanates, tomes of ancient history, continental law, archmathematics, fortress schema, horsemanship, battle tactics, etc. Yes, Gustave was an avid reader... with no particular interest in any subject beyond whatever caught his fancy that tenday. A repository of knowledge that served little purpose but to furnish his tongue with statistics, counter points, witty asides and pointed rebukes for the more... intellectual guests of his many salons and masques and banquets. His manner was not to ingest wisdom but to quote it. There was no distinction in the eyes of others by his reckoning.

 

Gustave was a man very much of his own taste, a taste he thought highly of and worked tirelessly to cultivate. All things of his house were fashioned to suit his liking.

 

"Show me," said Gustave.

 

At the boy's neck sat a silver broach bearing the embossed sigil of House Roschewald, a scrolled "R" in the clutch of a prancing lion. When he pulled it free, his cloak came undone, pooling with a soft thump around his naked ankles. And Gustave's smile, hot and lusty, deepened.

 

The hearth was stoked and roaring, summoning shadows out of the tables, chairs and desks arrayed around Gustave's bedchamber – but the flames did little to numb the bite of the chill as it prickled his naked flesh.

 

All things of his house were fashioned to suit his liking... including Fran.

 

It suited Gustave to keep Fran's chestnut hair short and trimmed, no lower than his ears, and tenderly brushed into utter smoothness for his master's touch. It suited Gustave for Fran to keep himself clean-shaven in all areas of his body, top to bottom, that the scented waters of his morning bath dripped clean from his body and kept it fragrant for his master's delights. It suited Gustave for Fran to appear before him now, utterly naked, save for the `gifts' his master bestowed upon him not two nights prior.

 

A golden codpiece... and a black leather choker studded with silver spikes.

 

An approving Gustave spread his hosed legs wide and pulled his index finger towards himself. `Come here', his meaning, `Come to me, sweetheart'.

 

And Fran, silently and unflinchingly, did as asked and walked to his seated master until his seated master's hot hands reached around him and took whole handfuls of his smooth arse, kneading them like baker's dough. His codpiece's golden links rattled like jittering teeth.

 

Fran shut his eyes.

 

"...Get onto your knees," said Gustave. His voice was hot and thick, ragged in breath, all thoughts of brothers and councils and embargoes tossed to the winds. The master's appetites had narrowed to one morsel now, and he watched it with ravenous intent as it obediently lowered itself to its soft knees.

 

Two strong hands, rough with papercuts and callouses, seized the boy's flushed face, and drew its pouting lips up against Gustave's own. It was not a tender kiss. Gustave's kisses never were. It was demanding and intrusive, an act of abounding passion from a man half-starved of his desires. A reluctant moan slipped Fran's lips as a thick tongue wrenched through them and flicked at his own. Gustave's rough touch traced around the lengths of his lean body, down his shoulders, up his arms, over his chest. The older man caught a stiff pink nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it sharply. Fran seethed into a mischievous smirk.

 

Gustave broke the kiss.

 

Then Fran felt his master's hot heavy breath against his ear, tinged richly with the after-scent of garlicked chicken meat and Gasqueri blood wine. "I've been thinking of you all day, my sweet boy... my itinerary had me holding conference with bawling widows and fucking goat herders... and all I could think about was coming home to you."

 

There were arts to this game.

 

Fran had had ten long hard years to learn them. First the touch – a soft caress of his master's closely shaven black beard, a lover's touch. Then a look of ardour, from green eyes to black, his wet lips pursed and wanton like some lost maid clutched to the last fraying threads of her maidenhead. And then finally the honeyed pleasantries. The lies escaped him so freely now. Kind and loving at first, "Oh Gustave, as have I..." and then lustful, "...the saints granted me no greater place than your bed..." to stoke his passions.

 

And like his hearth, they roared.

 

Gustave was not a small man, nor a weak one. It took only a fraction of his strength to hoist the boy off his feet and lift him into his muscular arms – strengthened by years of archery, swordcraft, hunting, and riding. Fran's little feet dangled in the air as the older man carried him off to his gigantic rosewood bed, posted in four and tidily draped in tasselled white sheets of rich Wallish needlework – gilt and floral. The bedsheets were silken, pearl white and stitched with the Roschewald sigil. Gustave threw Fran over them.

 

The boy watched his master undress. Off came his fur-trimmed overcoat and purple-gold doublet. And button by button undid he his undershirt, its ruffled sleeves falling into the puddle of garments fast adjoining his bed. As did his hose and slippered shoes. And then the bed groaned with a sudden addition of new weight.

 

Blood pounded in Fran's ears as his master loomed large over him, the shadow of his stone-stiff manhood rocking between his tree trunk thighs. In the midst of the moment he beheld his master, Gustavius von Roschewald, lumbering into position. Despite the light streaks of silver that marred his jet-black widow's peak, and the slight onset of sag about his stomach, breast, and forearms – Gustave was in sterling condition for a man of five-and-fifty, fit to draw any bow or shatter any lance.

 

He himself, Francis Gray, was a waif by comparison; a scholarly youth of two-and-twenty, no fan of the lists or the hunting grounds with precious little muscle to show for it – just as Gustave would have it.

 

This night was but one of many heretofore gone. And yet, for all the nights spent in that bed, for all the seed spilt, and all the cries muffled, that same knot of fear still curdled Fran's stomach since the first. That same knot. Ever since his first night in Wallenheim. Ever since The Fiend first found him.

 

"Take it off," ordered Gustave.

 

The boy acquiesced. He slipped his thumbs beneath the chains of his codpiece and pulled them down his smoothed legs, setting it aside carefully. Gustave was less careful when he took Fran's shoulder and threw him sidelong onto his belly. He took one of the emblazoned pillows at the bedhead and bit down upon it as Gustave mounted him from the rear, his heavy legs flattening down on his own.

 

"Arch your back," ordered Gustave.

 

Fran did so.

 

There was a jaw of oil nearby, imported from the darker reaches of the world since the Morish supply was divorced from them. The master uncorked it and smeared two of his fingers with it, fingers that traced down the cleft of his boy's perking arse and dipped oh so slightly into his little pink hole, tight and clean to match his master's taste.

 

"Oh!"

 

The oil slickened Gustave's fingers so well they disappeared up to the second knuckles. They twisted inside him, smeared its texture inside him, then retrieved themselves from inside him. An anxious shiver of cold climbed up Fran's spine (anxious, for he knew what came next) as Gustave replaced his thick fingers with his even thicker girth.

 

Fran's teeth went through the fabric.

 

Gustave groaned with luxurious delight as he slipped himself inside his boy, inch by delicious inch, until his muscled hips bottomed out atop the boy's buttocks. Fran smothered his own moans into the pillow, drew fistfuls of the bedsheets, and spread his legs wide to better accept the slow intrusion into himself. He willed himself to breathe, to relax himself so his muscles would do the same, as he had done so many times before. How was it... after all these years... that each time still struck him so like the first?

 

"G-" He choked on the first syllable until he could finally spit it out, along with the rest of his master's name. "G-Gustave...!"

 

He did not know why he said it.

 

But Gustave put his practice to Fran smoothly that night. There were long, slow breaths as he pulled back and thrust, pulled back and thrust, pulled back and thrust – a budding rhythm, with hearty moans amidst whispers of delight, beads of sweat dripping from brow to back, the slap of flesh upon flesh, faster and harder, the soft pillow smothering Fran's staccato cries.

 

The boy felt faint kisses being planted along his neck and nape even as the master ploughed into him, the kisses of a lover in so unlovely a fashion, until teeth replaced them – bites and nibbles of his flesh. Not deep enough to cut him of course – for Gustave loved his Fran unmarred – but enough to leave his mark for a day, a brand of his property, a price-sigil of his claim, the stamp of his wanton will.

 

Fran's shoulder tossed back and forth. Gustave's sodden breath raced against his ear, "I'm-" a sharp groan broke his sentence, "I'm seeding you...! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"

 

The boy weathered three more hard slapping thrusts from those seven hard inches fucking deep into his guts until his master spurt his seed, moaning his pleasure, crying out to Wynnry his saint, until Gustave collapsed over him and panted desperately for air. Fran, sweat-soaked, hair tousled, his shoulders and cheeks flushed, did the same. They caught their breaths together until Gustave's veined girth softened and slid out of Fran's rosebud hole. He rolled over onto his back.

 

"...Pour me some wine," said Gustave.

 

There was a mahogany table next to the bed and upon it a crystal decanter half-empty with wine alongside two brass cups. Fran obeyed, quickly wiping the tears from his eyes as he climbed out of bed to pour a cup for his master – all the while his master's seed bled its way down the inside of his right thigh.

 

Fran handed him the full cup.

 

"Pour one for yourself," said Gustave, eyeing the younger man's soft manhood. It hadn't grown or stiffened an inch since he set foot in the room. Fran did as he asked and poured himself a cup of wine before returning to the bed.

 

Gustave pulled Fran into his arms. His attempt at warmth, perhaps. A lover's gesture. And yet, as flushed as he was, it left Fran utterly cold. "Thank you, lord."

 

"Have your fill," said Gustave. "We will not taste it's like for a time."

 

It was a hint at his prior consult with Wolfrick, or so Fran guessed, but he would not let on lest he be accused of eavesdropping. Instead, he attempted to change the subject. "Lord, about that blind audit you asked me to conduct. I-"

 

"Nevermind that," said Gustave. And it was so like him to do so. To throw labours upon a person and then forget them the instant something else emerged. "My brother has summoned me to his manse."

 

"Why?"

 

Gustave took a sip of his wine before he answered. "I'm to be sent to your homeland, Morland, on a diplomatic mission. I will go there as the Ambassador of Wallenheim. My brother and I will meet tomorrow to discuss the terms of my deployment."

 

And thusly the cloak of politics returned to his weighty shoulders. Fran tried his best to look surprised (or even startled) but in truth...

 

"...I see," Fran feigned ignorance. "The embargo is... finally taking its toll..."

 

The older man frowned then. Not at the younger one, per say, more the situation. Costs across the country were rising – Fran knew that much from his audit of the ledgers. 12 half-marks for a chicken when one year ago it cost 7 or 8. 400 marks for twenty casks of lowland cider when one year ago it cost half as much.

 

Wallenheim was an exporter. With diminished markets came a reduction in goods production and the retention of workers. And from rising worklessness came a reduced tax revenue – after all, you cannot give what you do not have. And it would be years before more foreign markets could account for the shortfall.

 

Yes, Fran understood.

 

The history between Morland and Wallenheim was old, storied, bloody, and complex. But the history between Wallenheim and the Empire was even more so. Wallenheim, perched upon the north-westernmost reach of the continental mainland, was ripe territory for both the Kingdom of Morland and The Empire, conquered by both across its long history. The saints had blessed it with fertile farmlands, vast fishing waters, a storied whaling economy, sweeping forests with plentiful ironwood reserves, and three of only four warm-water ports along the northern shores of the continent. And its capital, Wallenstadt, was developing into a massive trading hub even compared to the Morish capital of Dragonspur or the Imperial capital of Strausholm. Its ships set sail to all four corners of the world and had only grown in strength since its great rebellion of 797, when the Imperial Province of Wallenheim threw off its chaffing yoke, executed its governor the Archduke Magnus Adolphus (younger brother to Emperor Konrad IV Adolphus) and declared itself the Republic of Wallenheim, to be ruled by men of its own choosing – A Council of Lords.

 

Three years hence.

 

The Empire buries its longstanding enmities with the Kingdom of Morland by a peace agreement, The Treaty of Grace, one of its formal stipulations being a joint trade embargo against the Republic. And for all its new growth, Wallenheim struggled to cope with the loss of its two closest trading partners.

 

Things had to be set to rights.

 

Fran looked to Gustave and wondered why his brother thought him the right man. Gustave was no favourite of the Council of Lords. On the contrary, they despised him. Their favour lay with his older brother, Neidhart, for he was the younger Roschewald's opposite in nearly every way. Where Neidhart was frugal, Gustave was lavish. Where Neidhart was stern, Gustave was lax. Where Neidhart was prudent, Gustave was rash. The Council still whispered about the circumstances of his wife's death, the late Lady Magnhilda... and then there were the rumours about his relationship with his clerk, the Morish boy, Francis Gray...

 

"I can hear your thoughts," Gustave smirked at him, wine cup at his lips. "You wonder why they would choose me. They don't. I am my brother's choice. I am the only member of the Council he can trust."

 

"...What are you going to do?" Asked Fran.

 

A smirk deepened. "What am I going to do? I'm taking you with me."

 

**********

 

Speaker's Square, Dragonspur, Kingdom of Morland

28^th of Summer, 801

 

By now Ed was an old hand at this. As his gloved hand rocked his sword's pommel, he alternated glances between the narrow laneways and side streets to the tiled chimneys and roofs, some thatched and some tiled, most rotten or broken. It was in his training to keep an eye out for sentries, however little the need. The real danger, of course, was always in the crowds... and the crowds grew bigger every session.

 

Hundreds gathered at Speaker's Square that day. Hundreds. Men and women from as young as seven to as old as eighty, farmhands and townsmen, hobbling beggars and petty burghers and all betwixt their like. Cobblers, watchmen, candlestick-makers, butchers, blacksmiths, bankers, bakers, potters, tanners, skinners, weavers, stablers, gravediggers, soldiers, whores, masons, tutors, apprentices, journeymen. They filed into the 100-yard cul-de-sac and surrounded the three-step marble hardscape at its centre, cheering and murmuring amongst themselves with almost jubilant fervour. At their masters' request little girls carried warm trays through the bulging, vibrant crowds; trays full to their rims with plum tarts and buttered acorn loaf slices; 2 half-marks for the latter, 1 for the former – flavoured to hide the sawdust. Some Crow's Club members kept an eye out for pickpockets (that hard-spun Basil Smeadon for example), but few could've spoilt the mood that day. Sunlight dappled the streets from a cloudless sky whinnying with seagulls off the River Wyvern.

 

What a day to speak of.

 

Stillingford thought as much. "Look at the crowds, Ed. Hundreds gathering where years past there were dozens. What does that say to you?"

 

`The people are ripe for change,' thought he. "There you go, pulling my nose into the business of others."

 

The old man chuckled. An apprentice from Woodworkers Street kindly provided a chair for him. As the crowds at Speaker's Square had grown, so too had the weakness of Stillingford's knees. Even with his cane he couldn't stand for long, he was a man of eight-and-sixty, after all. But few had done more to bring about this fervour than he. Theopold Stillingford. Scholar, author, Odoist. His impassion manuscript, The Phantoma, had sold thousands of copies across the Upper Continent. The wizened old codger had been a guest of Speaker's Square for over twenty years and was by far its most prominent orator. But the years had taken their toll on him (as well as his knees) and as he put it, `the time was nigh for a new breed'.

 

Ed and Stillingford, and the hundreds crowding around them, all looked to the square itself for that `new breed'. And it was William Rothwell who had the floor then. Will, Stillingford's finest disciple, the talented son of a prominent master in the Printing Guild. Life was set to be sweet for young men like him. He could have risen through the ranks of his guild, bought off his competition, bribed some city officials for special charters to enrich himself, purchased himself a fat wife to sire his heirs upon, then live to retire to some cosy country manse out in the Hinterbacks with naught to trouble him beyond his reduced local taxes.

 

But William `Will' Rothwell was not like his father or his grandfather or his great-grandfather. Profit did not motivate him. People, and the injustices they suffered under, they were what motivated him, him and men like him. `Agitators' their critics called them.

 

The appellation suited.

 

Edward watched Will fetch into his pocket for a kerchief to swipe the sweat from his deeply freckled brow as the sun bore down upon that carroty, tousled mane of tresses and forelocks he called his hair – and he resumed his speech.

 

"Ten long years," said Will as the crowds settled. "Ten long years have we suffered beneath the pittance-grubbing reign of the dear old Duke of Greyford! How many marks has he robbed of our purses with his bastard Guard Tax? How many of our loved ones have hungered to death by these sky-high wheat prices of his own making? How many of his advisors and nobles have hoarded our wealth for their own luxury and comfort? Look to their manors and furs and thoroughbreds, their jewelled gold, to all their fineries! ALL WAS BUILT ON OUR BACKS!"

 

A surging roar of agreement. Edward felt his blood rush as the din of it rose around him, the energy, the passion!

 

"Whilst Greyford and his kind grow fat upon lavish feasts of boar and pheasant and foreign wine, what does he leave for you? What scraps are left to you? Greyford breaks bread with the Imperial bastards who executed Sage Odo the Martyr and you? He sees you as nothing more than a hungry dog at his table, gnawing at the errant bones he tosses you – if you're a good boy."

 

Laughter. Chuckles. Jeers.

 

Anger, simmering.

 

Edward eyed the crowds and saw furious faces amongst the throng. Furious faces, pursed lips. Bitter murmurs. The people of Dragonspur and a great many Morishmen beyond, despised the Duke. And Will played to that like a fiddler. Then Ed looked to Stillingford as the old man watched his student play to the audience with a quiet, smouldering frown of disapproval.

 

`Too sharp, Will...' thought Ed. `Rein it back.'

 

Rothwell resumed. "All through these ten long years of tyrannous regency, we have suffered! But no more! Within a short tenday our gracious King Oswald, second of the name, will turn eight-and-ten and seize the reins of power! OUR TRUE KING WILL RULE!"

 

Fists and hats flew into the air as the crowds around the square exploded with uproarious cheer. Edward (as always with his sword at the ready) kept his eyes to the crowd, tried not to let himself be swept away in their fervours, but by the Thunder of St. Thunos it was no small task to do so. Stillingford was right. The people were hungry for change, for fresh leadership and new horizons. Ed didn't blame them.

 

Will tucked his kerchief back into his pocket after dabbing himself off once more. "Master Stillingford has faith that our dear king will hear our cries! Our tithes must be reduced! The Guard Tax must be repealed! The Imperial sympathizers must be driven from our court! And by the saints, dear Sage Odo the Martyr must be canonized! LONG LIVE THE KING!"

 

"LONG LIVE THE KING!" They cried. "LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING!"

 

The chants echoed around their ears from pavilion to belfry as Will Rothwell gave a final bow to the people and stepped down for the next speaker, Basil Smeadon, to take his place. All the bluster and bombast left Will's shoulders as he sauntered over to Stillingford's chair and greeted his old teacher meekly, like a guilty apprentice late home from the tavern. The firebrand orator was the student again.

 

"Master," he nodded. Then his smile turned to Edward and softened – sweetened, even. "Ed."

 

Edward nodded back. "Will."

 

"Are you coming to the Crow's Club tonight, master?"

 

Stillingford looked up at him, sceptically, jaw tightly tensed, temple pulsing. The old man was unhappy with Rothwell's remarks. But as Edward well knew, Stillingford would not chide the younger man for it. Not to his face anyway. And certainly not around so many prying ears. "If my health will allow. Now, I must take my leave."

 

Will blinked. "But there are other speakers to-"

 

"Ed, come along," Grunting warily, the old scholar carefully hauled himself to his feet by his cane, and it rattled with him along the straw-strewn flagstones as he turned to leave. And the spectators (knowing full well who he was) parted the way for him.

 

"I should go," said Edward, clutching his sword's hilt. But when he made to leave a discrete hand took his own and squeezed it, oh so gently.

 

Will smiled at him in that soft, sweet way of his. "Ed, I... I was hoping you might come and see me tonight..."

 

Edward quietly took his hand back. "Perhaps another time."

 

Will's smile faltered – the disappointment palpable. He always did wear his heart on his sleeve. He looked away with a tightened smile, tucking a lock of his wild red hair behind his ear, offering a curt nod. "Take good care of the old man then."

 

Edward promised to do so, turning on his boots to follow him out. Despite his bad knees Stillingford was almost to the other end of Speaker's Square when Edward caught up to him. The younger man wrapped his arm around the older one's body and helped him walk the rest of the way to his hired coach which waited for them patiently at the pavilion's end. Edward opened the left door and helped Stillingford inside, slammed it shut and climbed in by the opposing door, calling for coachmaster Higgs to take them home to the old man's cottage in Harvenny Heath.

 

The carriage rolled away.

 

Stillingford let out a weighty breath. He reclined into the cushioned leather seats (worn as they were) and his old mink coat swallowed him whole; a wrinkled white face sinking into ruffled brown furs. The coat was an old feast day gift from Will Rothwell, who purchased it for him when he complained of the bitter riverside cold and its toll upon his joints. It was summer now, but Stillingford's joints still ached. They always ached. Walking all that way so quickly couldn't have helped. And yet he insisted upon attending Speaker's Square.

 

"We could have you carried next time," said Ed.

 

Stillingford glared at the window and watched the city roll by. "How much would it cost?"

 

"There would be no cost."

 

"There's always a cost," said the scholar. "And my pension can only take us so far, Ed."

 

Edward smiled. "You forget how loved you are, master."

 

Stillingford held his frown. "...Teaching is so like fatherhood. Your pupils become your children. Their progress becomes your motivation-"

 

Edward decided to pre-empt him. "You're mad at Will."

 

"I respect his passion. Truly I do. But he's speaking too freely against the duke. If Will isn't careful, he'll draw his ire, or that of his bloodhound, our good Constable of Dragonspur, Thomas Wolner."

 

Edward quietly suppressed a misliked memory. "There are those in the Crow's Club saying worse... much more Edith the Exile..."

 

Stillingford scoffed. "...Bah. This generation of yours, Ed. You are all too impatient, too loose tongued, too impassioned."

 

"Some might say we learned from the best."

 

**********

 

Roschewald Manor, Wallenstadt, Republic of Wallenheim

28^th of Summer, 801

 

Fran kept his prayers brief. As a boy, when first he was brought to this cold wet country, he made a bastion of this place, the stone chapel beneath the Roschewald's Manor. It was a dark and dreary place, heavy with mould-stench, bats roosting in the hammerbeams, and the economical Gustave only allowing its visitors to light its candles for morning prayers, but it was here that Fran often snuck to in the dead of night, all to pray to his saint, Bosmund, in hope of a boon. The Fiend never seemed to follow him down there.

 

Even for those of modest wealth it was not uncommon to have a special room for one's saint. The Roschewalds were a family of tremendous wealth and long ago had local masons redevelop their manor's whole undercroft into a chapel for prayer – a Chapel of the Four Saints. Its four carved niches housed four tall marble statues – each one exquisitely crafted in the likeness of the four saints of the Commonfaith.

 

To the outer left stood St. Jehanne of the Star of Love which was at its brightest in Spring; the patron of healing and the arts, and whose element was earth. Her herald? The Swan. Her motto? Yours is to Cherish, and to Heal, and to Entertain.

 

To the centre left stood St. Thunos of the Star of Strength, which was at its brightest in Summer; the patron of war and smithing, and whose element was fire. His herald? The Lion. His motto? Yours is to Protect, to Build, and to Smite.

 

To the centre right stood St. Wynnry of the Star of Courage, which was at its brightest in Autumn; the patron of nature, wayfaring and hunting, and whose element was air. Her herald? The Deer. Her Motto? Yours is to Inspire, to Encourage, and to Nourish.

 

And to the far right stood St. Bosmund of the Star of Temperance, which was at its brightest in Winter; patron of piety and scholasticism, and whose element was water. His herald? The Owl. His motto? Yours is to Counsel, to Guide, and to Teach.

 

That day Fran found himself where once his boyhood-self sat, in the shadow of St. Bosmund, where his boyhood-self once prayed for many things. He prayed for the safety of his old friends and his parent's souls. He prayed for the blacksmith's boy who stole his heart. He prayed for warmer weather and for larger portions of food to grace his plate. He prayed for the death of the de la Mores, and the sinking of the Imperial ships that attacked his shores. He prayed for the master's wife Lady Magnhilda to cease her beatings of him. He prayed for his master's `nightly visits' to stop.

 

But most of his prayers went unanswered and the Chapel of the Four Saints stopped being his refuge when he realized it. He could not remember the last time he lit a candle for St. Bosmund. Or offered him a prayer. Years, perhaps? Fran could not say.

 

But Gustave often made it his business to visit. And today was one of the few days that the master made his clerk come with him.

 

Fran, left eyelid slightly ajar, observed his master kneeling at the statue of St. Jehanne. St. Jehanne – not St. Wynnry, beneath whose star he was born. Such behaviour was a crime under Saintly Law. To be born under one of the Four Seasonal Stars ineluctably bound said new-born to the saint of said star.

 

Gustavius von Roschewald was born beneath the Star of Courage – making Wynnry his saint and making him subject to Wynnry's Laws. And only the children of St. Jehanne were permitted to take a lover of the same sex.

 

Fran wagered that somewhere in the ostentatious recesses of his master's mind, he equated his prayer to St. Jehanne to an act of devotion to him, as if to say proudly, "I defy custom, I defy law, I choose you."

 

Perhaps that was the true source of his Odoism.

 

But nothing could soften Fran's heart to Gustave.

 

After prayers they ate a breakfast of soft-boiled quail eggs, ham hanks, and buttered bread. When the servants came to collect their smattered plates, Gustave bid Fran follow him to the antechamber where they collected Wolfrick and four handpicked men of the household guard; sword-armed halberdiers in padded grey gambesons and peacock-feathered morions. Together they marched out into the pebbled forecourt of the Roschewald Manor, where the overcast sky cooled the air, and where the horsemaster and his stable boys had readied their coach and horses.

 

Fran followed Gustave inside the tightly cushioned inner compartment whilst Wolfrick and the guards mounted up and followed the carriage as its driver whipped at the reins and led them off the grounds onto the muddy, waterlogged roads.

 

Gustave sat in silence. Typically during their carriage rides his master liked to pass the time with the odd grope and kiss, but not today. Today his mind was elsewhere – and that suited Fran just fine. The boy turned to the window (still half-frosted from the night's chill) and watched the road beyond as it hurtled through the sweeping fields and farmlands that surrounded the southern side of the city of Wallenstadt.

 

Fran last left the Roschewald Manor four tendays prior when his master authorized him to conduct individual audits of his four personal businesses within the city, all unaffiliated with the family finances: Brandt & Sons (his counting house), the River Tower (his member's only portside tavern) and The Bonnie Bee and The Dove (his two brothels). Things in Wallenstadt were bad then, its streets a fright to traverse... but they were far worse now.

 

It started with the open graves.

 

Fran spied increasing numbers of them as the carriage and its escort rode the surrounding fields. Shirtless gravediggers shoved their rusty shovels into the damp soil whilst wagon loads of the unclaimed dead buzzed with flies, each body wrapped in cloth and bound with rope.

 

As they approached the city walls, they ran into traffic – hundreds of emaciated men, women, and children from the provinces huddled around the muddy highways, tramping through the muck. Some pulled barrows full of goods to sell. Some had emaciated livestock to proffer, caged chickens or tethered goats. But most had nothing but the moth-eaten rags on their backs. All clamoured to enter the city – but the spear-armed municipal watchmen refused to let anyone without tradable goods to pass.

 

Wolfrick shouted for his countrymen to make way for them, and when they would not budge, he drew his sword making threats to cut them down. The provincials made way then.

 

Yet within the city walls they were so desperate to breach; life was little better.

 

The streets of Wallenstadt were lined with old rushes, horse dung, and half-starved men begging passers-by for a single half-mark until the local watchmen drove them away. Many more gathered around the local Temple of St. Bosmund for alms of bread and shoes. Fran spotted a Wallish woman, grey-haired and gaunt, pull a sagging breast from the bodice of her tattered dress to feed the half-swaddled, pot-bellied babe in her arms, but the poor thing was too weak to latch.

 

And there were protests.

 

Deeper into the city, far from its outskirts where the watchmen ran the worst of the poor to ground, hundreds of screaming workers gathered in the cobbled plazas and market squares bearing banners of Sage Odo the Martyr and chanted "SAINT-SOON-TO-BE! SAINT-SOON-TO-BE! SAINT-SOON-TO-BE!" as its impassioned demagogues marched and called upon the Council of Lords to `complete' the rebellion and take the fight to the Imperial heartland.

 

In short?

 

Wallenstadt was a tinderbox, and the embargo that the Brothers Roschewald were scheduled to discuss was a flaming taper dangling over its kindling.

 

***********

 

Harvenny Heath, Dragonspur, Kingdom of Morland

28^th of Summer, 801

 

The hearthfire ebbed. Edward helped Stillingford into bed before he saw to it, one stiff leg after the other, drawing up the bedsheets to his shoulders, carefully setting the goose-feathered pillows to meet his crown-balding head. Next came the hearth. They still had some firewood logs out the back by the herb plot, but the old man directed him to a sack of kindling underneath his bed.

 

"Where did you get this?" Asked Edward.

 

"Ah!" Stillingford smiled softly, half-asleep as he was. "You aren't the only man with `contacts', Master Bardshaw."

 

His unnamed benefactor had cured the logs with the scent of rose and vanilla. Most likely they were foraged from the Queenswood (which meant someone with a royal licence). Some well-ranked New Man no doubt.

 

"Ser Glenyster?" Suggested Ed.

 

"...The King's Master of the Hunt?" The old man smiled knowingly. "I cannot impart."

 

Ed cast a few logs into the fire to get it roaring again. Soon the whole cottage was sweetened with their smell.

 

"He wrote to me saying the fragrance would help me sleep," admitted Stillingford. "And that if this doesn't work, well, there's always lavender. Ed, do me a turn and hand me my writing materials."

 

His worn desk stood next to his bedside with his quills, parchment, ink jars, sealing wax and seal, as well as a custom-made board that allowed for him to write from his bed when his joints were too stiff to get him out of it (usually in the winter). As asked Edward collected the necessary materials for him.

 

"You and your letters," said Ed. "Who are you writing to?"

 

Stillingford leaned up and daubed his quill with ink. "There is a rumour abroad that a foreign admirer of mine, Gustavius von Roschewald, has been invited to court as an ambassador of the Republic of Wallenheim. And this presents a ripe opportunity."

 

"Why should a foreigner, Wallish or no, care for our cause?"

 

"Because Gustave is no mere foreigner," said the old man. His quill scratched at his parchment even as he spoke. "Like us `Agitators' the Wallish people are proud Odoists, the Roschewalds especially. Did you know that they even sheltered him for a time?"

 

"They did?"

 

A nod. "During the Sage's exile from the Imperial heartland. The Emperor disinherited them for it – and yet they built themselves back up from scratch – like true New Men. If there are any amongst the nobility who truly sympathise with the common man's plight, it's the Roschewalds. And Gustave will have direct access to King Oswald. Perhaps I might persuade the ambassador to raise our concerns with him?"

 

Edward watched as Stillingford brought his letter to a close, signing his name, folding it into quarters, then pouring a dollop of (still) hot wax onto the main fold and stamping it with his seal to secure it. He waited for the seal to cool before passing it to Edward.

 

"The Wallenheim Delegation will arrive in a few days," said he. "Would you give that to them when they disembark?"

 

Edward pocketed the letter. "If I can, yes."

 

Stillingford, smiling warmly, thanked him for it as he unfurled a new piece of parchment for another letter. Ed smiled back. He leaned over the old man and spoke a soft benediction; "For the blessing of thy wisdom, to you I cleave, grant this man thy blessing and thy wisdom, by your leave. Hear me now as I do breathe – St. Bosmund, St. Bosmund – I ask this reprieve."

 

Stillingford paused at the quill. "Ah! And here I was thinking that Thunos was your saint."

 

"Any saint of yours is a saint of mine. Proud Odoist that I am."

 

"You're a good soul, Ed." Then Stillingford's smile faltered a bit. "...Are you going to the Crow's Club?"

 

The swordsman nodded. "If you cannot attend then I must go in your place. Someone should represent you there."

 

"The Club worries me, Ed."

 

It had done for some time now. Radical voices festered in the Crow's Club. They were all influenced by Stillingford's teachings, but they were drawing conclusions from those teachings that the old scholar misliked, threatening his greatest of dreams, his work's highest aspiration.

 

His dream was of a Kingdom of Equity. A Morland for all her people, equal beneath the crown regardless of blood or rank. And for Stillingford, King Oswald's coming of age heralded that long held dream – if only he could be made aware of the plight of the commonfolk. But the Crow's Club, increasingly embittered by these last ten years of regency, did not share his optimism. King Oswald's coming of age should've gone some way to tempering their passions, but if anything, they were worse.

 

"...It's imperative we do this the right way." Said Stillingford. "We are our people's best hope, after all."

 

"I'll report back everything I hear. Until then, master."

 

After that the old man shooed him away, as was customary, and Edward smiled wryly at him before taking his leave. He was forever at Edward to live more of his life. `It isn't that I don't appreciate all you do for me, Ed...' he would say, `...but you're still a young man. You can't spend the rest of your life fetching my meals and tending my fires. Haven't you a sweetheart?'

 

`Not since my boyhood,' thought Ed. `St. Thunos forgive me.'

 

The swordsman shrugged on his fur-collared cloak and bundled outside onto the muddy foot paths of Harvenny Heath, locking the wooden door behind him. He doubled back around to the alley adjoining Stillingford's cottage to the stabling – its rickety plywood battered by unseasonable winds, its roofing in desperate need of a re-thatch – and saw to his horse, a docile piebald mare named Bessie. Edward fetched an apple from his satchel and fed it to her as he gently stroked her rough mane, settling her down as he adjusted the leather straps of his saddle and hoisted himself up, untethering and gathering her reins into his gloved hands and whipping her forth.

 

Bessie trotted out of her plywood bounds onto the beaten paths where she burst out into a gallop, rushing through the patchwork of one-floor tenements and common land that made up the district of Harvenny Heath, towards the mighty city in whose shadow it dwelt.

 

Dragonspur.

 

The city was ancient – a sprawling stone afterbirth of a prehistoric fishing settlement (known as drae'connyss'burh) dating back before the dawn of the Black Age. After the old Morish tribes were systematically defeated and unified into a single kingdom by Edwulf Wulfsson – otherwise known as Edwulf the Great – the victorious conqueror made drae'connyss'burh his seat of power. He commissioned a massive fortress upon its giant eyot, Staunton Castle, and over time, as power began centralizing there, so too did the nation's trade. As merchant ships set off for the east down the rushing River Wyvern, the riches they returned with and the networks they forged transformed that ancient fishing settlement into the burgeoning behemoth now known as the City of Dragonspur, some 661 years later.

 

Harvenny Heath was merely one of 22 manorial villages surrounding the city, farmstead communities providing crops and livestock for the townsfolk as well as work and shelter for the landless poor. It was only a short half-hour's ride from Harvenny to the city walls, towering overhead by 10 feet and enterable only by one of four main gates – east, west, north, and south. Edward rode into the city proper by way of its Southern Gate, Bessie clopping along beneath the postern until they were both bombarded by the sights and sounds and smells of the city, the beating heart of the Kingdom of Morland. Its streets never ceased to overwhelm, its sprawling layout of tenements and jettied townhouses, taverns, and inns, all threaded by winding laneways and narrow alleys.

 

Edward rode the rest of the way to the main haunt of the Crow's Club, a secluded tavern called The Old Lioness, where almost all their affairs were conducted – `hiding in plain sight' as Stillingford once termed it. It sat at the rear of a shuttered drapery owned by one of the Club's wealthier backers. Edward dismounted there and led Bessie by the bridle through the alley to the stabling at the back, just opposite its front doors. No one was barred from entry, so it was designed to be unappealing – that was the point. Two chiselled men, tall and big bearded, sat guard by the front, playing cards to pass the time. They only stopped when Edward came by, and up they stood.

 

Ed unstrapped the sword from his belt then slapped his fist to his chest as he surrendered it to them. "For the Folkweal."

 

"For the Folkweal," replied the two guards. They stood aside as Ed shoved open the heavy oak doors and descended the stone steps below into the basement hall deep beneath the city streets, the true Old Lioness, or rather, the true Crow's Club: an underground association of guildsmen, traders, thinkers, scholars, artists, moneymen, and lawyers sharing a common belief in the teachings of Sage Odo – and the philosophy that the Club's founder, Theopold Stillingford, eventually derived from it – his philosophy of Equitism – the idea that the crown and the instruments of state surrounding it must serve the people relative to their needs, more for the poor and less for the wealthy. Their creed was simple.

 

For the Good of the Folkweal.

 

Those were the words emblazoned over the counter where Old Meg, the tavern master's wife, pulled flagons of ale for the dozens of members attending the tavern that night. The Club had hundreds of members on its rolls by now. Its reach extended to the markets, ports, courts, colleges and even the Royal Court – but they never gathered all at once. Their dialogues were often pointed and controversial and so they operated within a veil of `frank secrecy'. Do not hide (for hiding implies guilt) but do not flaunt (for flaunting implies pride). Those were the principles with which Theopold Stillingford first founded the Crow's Club. But to hear him tell it now, the Club had been pushing the bounds of those principles recently.

 

When Edward entered the air was thick with ale, chicken, bread, pipe smoke, and laced with laughter, light chatter, and debate. Members discussed their ideas, presented notes for their upcoming pamphlets, discussed policy and foreign events, some even wrote out their speeches for the next session of Speaker's Square. Edward greeted a few members he knew well, then went to the counter for Old Meg to serve him a cup of ale – and that was when William Rothwell found him.

 

"Make it two, Meg." Said he, drawing up the stool next to the swordsman. "No old man today?"

 

Ed shrugged. "His joints wouldn't allow it."

 

"...I've upset him."

 

"You've said nothing he'd put it past you to say."

 

Two cups of ale landed before them. Both men thanked Old Meg, who winked at the pair before turning to another patron, Basil Smeadon, knee-deep in his cups already.

 

Will took a swig before he spoke. "The Club is restless, Ed."

 

"What's happened?"

 

"One of our supply men, Knorris, was set upon by the constable's thugs last night."

 

Ed frowned. "What?"

 

"They accused him of moving contraband from the ports. He bid them search his wares, and when they found nothing unpermitted, they accused him of insolence to the crown and beat him with cudgels. His goods, mule and cart have all been confiscated."

 

`Wolner,' thought the swordsman. `You bastard...'

 

Will wiped the ale foam from his mouth. "There's more. Do you recall Kenrick Thopswood?"

 

"The lawyer? What of him?"

 

"He went on pilgrimage to the holy city and sends back disturbing reports. He says that that Earl of Wrothsby is persecuting Odoists. Conducting burnings."

 

"Of what? Heretical pamphlets?"

 

"Of heretics," said Will, bluntly. "Or so the earl calls us."

 

Edward shivered. The Earl of Wrothsby was a well-known fanatic and deeply devoted to the Kirk, the Morish branch of the Commonfaith, but burnings? Was the king aware of this?

 

"The Club is restless," repeated Will. "Some of the members are worried that our appeals to the king will go unheeded. Some openly speak of sending funds to Edith the Exile."

 

Edward clutched a fist. "Stillingford made this Club. They know his wishes. They should know! They have no right to overrule him."

 

Will set a hand on Ed's shoulder then, softly, too tender by half. But he hadn't the heart to shirk it. "Spend the night, Ed. First hear what everyone has to say then bring their voices back to the old man. They have a right to be heard. Everyone does."

 

***********

 

Neidhart's Offices, Wallenstadt, Republic of Wallenheim

28^th of Summer, 801

 

Neidhart von Roschewald, current chairman of the Council of Lords, made his offices in a small manse in the centre of the city, just shy of the old Archducal Palace, hidden beyond the laneways of the financial district. The spearmen at its high black gates opened the way for Gustave's retinue and they rode into the gravelled tract surrounding its painted walls and marbled porticos.

 

Gustave gathered up the furred folds of his overcoat and climbed out of the coach. Fran followed closely behind. A stooping, grey-haired steward stood in wait to meet them. "Well met, masters. Lord Roschewald awaits. Come. Let me take you to him."

 

Gustave nodded, ordered Wolfrick and his guards to secure the horses, then followed the steward inside with Fran in tow. The steward took them not to the meeting chamber (as was customary) but rather to the smaller, cosier, more discreet study. When his knuckles rapped the mahogany door, a stern voice called back – "Send them in."

 

`Them,' thought Fran. `So, he expected me too?'

 

The steward opened the way. Gustave and Fran strode inside and found Neidhart within, his back to them, his arms folded tight behind it, his whole frame swallowed up in a dark black coat trimmed at the collar and sleeves with wolf's fur. When he finally turned to face them the star-shaped emblems of his golden livery collar glittered by the pale sunlight glaring down through the rear windows.

 

Neidhart extended a hand to them. "Have a seat."

 

A paper-strewn work desk stood between them with two cushioned seats in front of it. Gustave and Fran sat. Neidhart did the same.

 

"Lord," Gustave spoke with a stupid smirk. "You look hale and hearty. How fares your good wife?"

 

Neidhart frowned. "Good brother you have even less interest in her health than you did in your own, saints rest her. Speak not of my wife and give me your answer."

 

The Brothers Roschewald were matching opposites. Stern and lax; austere and lavish; squat and towering; practical and romantic. They misliked each other but somehow, they worked well together. One could hardly believe that they were the joint backbone of the rebellion that overthrew Imperial rule in Wallenheim – until one saw them work in concert.

 

Gustave's smirk deepened, his thick fingers wrapping the hand rest of his seat. "Good brother, you know my heart and it loves this Republic. I would not refuse this task. I will enter negotiations with Morland. How fares its regent, this man they call the Duke of Greyford?"

 

BASTARD, hissed The Fiend, sending shivers down Fran's freckled back.

 

"No more a regent," said Neidhart. He fetched a twine-bound sheaf of papers from his desk drawers and slipped it over to Gustave who took it up in kind. "By the time you land, Morland's young king will have reached maturity. You will be dealing with him directly. Look to those documents for guidance. I had my espials draft them."

 

Gustave thumbed the pages. "What does it contain?"

 

"Names," said the older brother. "Ages. Titles. Lands owned. Details of grudges, debts, enmities, and the like. Profiles of every Morish noble and minister of note. Read well of it."

 

"I will. Any Odoists amongst their ranks, perchance?"

 

"Must you jape?"

 

"No jape, good brother, men are well engaged in matters spiritual as well as political... and the two often mesh where Odoists are concerned."

 

"Speaking of which," said Neidhart. "That scholar you've been keeping contact with – Stillingford – avoid him when you get there."

 

Fran watched Gustave frown at that. "Why?"

 

"You know why. I've read The Phantoma. A hero he may be to the Morish commoner but to the Morish noble he is a man of radical ideas. Do not offend them by entertaining him."

 

Gustave slapped down the Morland dossier. "By the saints! What a thing to worry of. This boy king would be better served concerning himself with that girl-pretender to his north."

 

"Edith the Exile. I well recall. She sent the Council a missive not sixty days past requesting money and armour."

 

"And your answer?"

 

Neidhart sneered. "A refusal. Obviously. Wallenheim is in no position to make an enemy of the Morish crown. In truth, our very survival might hinge on this expedition you are about to undertake."

 

Fran watched silently as the smirk on Gustave's face grew fainter with every exchange of words. "Why do you say that? Because of those protests in the city? We've always kept the hardliners in check."

 

"And yet they grow by the day," said Neidhart. "This trade embargo with Morland and the Empire is crushing us. Poor provincials are flooding all the cities of the Republic, not just Wallenstadt. They need work and food and if we don't reopen those markets the hardliners will incite the masses against us – against the Council of Lords. Everything we have built could be torn down... and do not think for a single second that the Empire would not capitalise on our instability."

 

It was then that the seriousness of this seemed to dawn on Gustave – that was Fran's read anyway. The young aide watched his master grumble beneath his breath, threading his fingers together and glaring about the room. `Has the responsibility besmirched the lustre, Gustave?' thought the boy, derisively. `And now the game is real...'

 

Now Wallenheim's fate depended on it.

 

"Why would the Council of Lords task me with this?" Asked the younger Roschewald. "I have never been a favourite of theirs."

 

"The Council believes you have a gift for diplomacy."

 

A frown. "Oh, cattleshit. The Council believes I have a gift for lies and honeyed words."

 

"This is as I said," Neidhart shrugged. "Diplomacy."

 

"...What are my resources?"

 

Neidhart sighed – but with a hint of relief this time. He realized now, as Fran did, that Gustave was finally taking this seriously. "The Council of Lords will provide your purse, the Morish have agreed to supply you with lodgings in Dragonspur. You have my leave to take Lothar with you, as well as Wolfrick and the household guard. Attendants will also be provided. And Francis..."

 

Fran froze in his seat as the older brother acknowledged him for the first time since their arrival. "As a Morishman by birth I have no doubt that your knowledge of the country will be of use to us. You will accompany my brother and assist him in this endeavour."

 

"Yes, lord. Of course."

 

Neidhart sighed weightily, eying first Fran then Gustave. And his whole mood darkened. "Neither of you has Jehanne for a saint. Do you take my meaning?"

 

Silence.

 

"We are a nation of Odoists," said Neidhart. "We Wallish believe, as did the Sage, that men are free to choose their own saint. Such teachings are not common in the Kingdom of Morland. Not yet. So, whilst you are there... keep your personal arrangements personal."

 

An angry smirk took Gustave by the lips. He did not like that. He did not like that at all. "Of course, good brother. Of course."

 

"One last thing," said Neidhart. "Although we do not expect trouble for you in Morland, your safety remains paramount. To that end the Council of Lords have stationed some men at the Fortress of Bunt, officially to complete repairs to the seafront wall, but unofficially, to support your extraction should the need arise."

 

`Bunt?' Thought Fran. `I know that place... barely two day's sail from the northeastern coast...'

 

"How many men?" Asked Gustave.

 

"...Three thousand."

 

"Tch! You speak of an army...!"

 

Neidhart frowned. "I speak of an absolute last resort. The garrison at Bunt is not a tool for you to employ, marshalling them means failure and we cannot afford failure. The Council of Lords has made generous contributions to this mission, Gustavius. It lies with you to see it through."

 

**********

 

The Old Lioness, Dragonspur, Kingdom of Morland

29th of Summer, 801

 

The after-blow of ale was strong that morning. That was what woke Edward in the end – a pounding headache and a grumbling stomach. His darkened eyes fluttered open and saw a dust-strewn beam of daylight filtering through the narrow streetside window fixed into the ceiling. The swordsman groaned again, wondering aloud where he was. The featureless room offered few clues – unpainted walls, creaking floorboards, unlit sconces. It was hardly even furnished – just a table, a chair, and a cot barely big enough to lie a couple in.

 

And then Will answered him. "Only where I wish you were, in every way I wish you weren't."

 

"Fuck off with your riddles," Ed threw his face into his palm and realized he was splayed out across the bed, fully clothed, and stinking of ale. "How long have I been out?"

 

Will smirked. He was sat on a chair nearby quietly stuffing tobacco into his lacquered pipe. Shirtless. He had a series of notes for his newest treatise splayed out on the table. The Pauper's Rebuke he called it. Edward remembered that much from their conversations last night.

 

"Will!"

 

"Oh, stop shouting," said he. "Only a few hours – hard drinking will do that to a man."

 

Edward winced. "Bloody Meg and her bloody ale! Small miracle it doesn't blind you."

 

The room was without a hearth (and thus cold), but Will had a burning candlestick near him. He took a rush from the floor, lit it, and with that he lit his pipe. Edward watched him set it to his lips for several deep inhalations, watched him lull in his chair and sigh.

 

"You and that tar," said Ed.

 

Will widened his smile for the swordsman. "You have your ale, Master Bardshaw, I have my `tar'. If the saints permit us these small delights, then who are we in failing to enjoy them?"

 

He could not say if it was the smoke that did it or the light banter (perhaps something of both) but Edward's mind began to un-fog, then. `The Old Lioness,' thought he. `I never left.' And it was morning. All at once he recalled the mood of the Crow's Club – bittersweet. Sweet with excitement at the coming of King Oswald's maturation but bitter with news of Knorris' beating and the persecutions in the Lowburghs. Ill tidings abounded. Stillingford's misgivings about the Club were well-founded... but so too were Rothwell's concerns for their followers.

 

Ed sighed. "The old man won't like what I heard last night."

 

"Tell Theopold every word," Will puffed out a hoop of smoke. "Or better yet, let him hear it for himself. Nothing is said without deference to him, only disagreement. Let him come."

 

"He says he would if his knees allowed it."

 

"Fuck his knees, I'll have him carried."

 

Edward chuckled. William did too. And then they caught each other's eye a moment. A moment that lasted longer than it should have. But the swordsman lost himself, just briefly, as his eyes wandered about the contours of Will's lean chest as it rose and fell with each intake of breath and each exhale of smoke. William Rothwell was not at all unpleasing to the eye. On the contrary, he had many an admirer. Edward looked to his grass-green eyes again, half-lost in the tangles of his flaming red hair, failing to notice as the other man lifted out of his chair and knelt down at the edge of the bed, elbows propping him up off its mahogany frame. His smile was so sweet and soft then. So warm. The sort of smile any man might wish to wake to. And his touch...

 

Edward found himself lying still, perfectly still, as Will's free hand gently stroked the outline of his jaw and his short-trimmed blonde beard. He was too busy staring into those deep green eyes to move.

 

Not until Will kissed him.

 

The swordsman tasted wine and smoke for an instant – only an instant – and then pulled away, lips smacking, blood pounding.

 

"No," he said. "Don't."

 

Will's smile saddened. "...What do I have to do to make you desire me?"

 

"It is not that, it's just..." Ed paused, shaking his head, trying to find the right words in his blockhead brain, but... but he climbed out of the bed. He was fully clothed when he passed out, there was only his sword and horse to collect. "I have to go. I have to get back to Master Stillingford."

 

Edward went for the door.

 

"I want you, Edward Bardshaw."

 

He paused at its grain.

 

Will stood up behind him. "...Surely you feel that in some way? My feelings for you, they are not... some candle you can snuff. Speak to me. Tell me where I am failing."

 

It was not Will.

 

Will was not the reason.

 

It was... a boy he knew a long, long time ago. A boy he loved. A boy he had never been able to forget, though he knew not where he dwelt, nor even if he lived or died. A boy called...

 

"Knorris."

 

Will blinked. "...W-what?"

 

"I'll visit with him," said Ed. "He is part of the Crow's Club... and we do not abandon our own."

 

"Good," Rothwell looked away, dejected. "That is... good."

 

**********

 

Roschewald Manor, Wallenstadt, Republic of Wallenheim

29^th of Summer, 801

 

The callous-fingered fitter was another of Gustave's Imperial exiles, quick with a needle but rough with the touch. He was a squat old man, knobbly and balding at the pate, spinning Fran about with his cold grasp, grabbing his thighs to measure them with his stick. He brought a book with him containing numerous strips of fabric which he set against Fran's naked back. The boy shivered; eyes tightly shut while Gustave sat watching the whole show, cross-legged and smirking in a scrolled chair. He gave directions with one hand (all in the Imperial tongue, in which he was obnoxiously fluent) and brought a wine cup to his lips with the other. It was Gustave's contention that Fran required a new doublet to attend King Oswald's maturation feast – and his tailor would have to make it along the way.

 

"{The green and gold brocade,}" said he. "{Don't bother with the rest of it. You have your measurements, be off with you.}"

 

The fitter responded swiftly, drawing away, pushing himself off his knees by his cane, taking his book and excusing himself with a bow and a nod. The heavy wooden doors swung open and slammed shut.

 

There was a tear in Fran's eye. He thumbed it out before he reached for the robes hanging off the edge of the bed.

 

"No," said Gustave. "My hearth is warmth enough."

 

Fran's fingers slipped from the sleeves.

 

A chill ran down his back. But it wasn't The Fiend this time, nor that bastard Wallish weather for which his base Morish blood was so maladapted, but Gustave's touch, launching up his forearms and squeezing at his shoulders. His master's shadow swallowed him whole as those rough hands slipped up the length of his bare neck and seized around Fran's face, snatching at his lips, and ruffling his button nose; like a child playing with a doll or a potter moulding clay. Buttons and tassels pressed against his back – along with that hard, jutting device between his master's thick legs.

 

"Oh, sweetheart..." whispered Gustave. Fran retched as his master sniffed his hair – `like wheat and apples' he once said. "It is a saint-less world that would forbid me to touch you, not a place fit for my dwelling. We shall have to be discreet, you and I, and secrete ourselves away from wagging tongues and prying eyes."

 

`We haven't even left for Morland,' thought Fran. `And already he defies his brother.'

 

Fran's thoughts stopped – but not of his own volition. It was because Gustave's meaty hand had slid down his torso, from neck to chest to stomach, right down to his privy parts – and squeezed them like fruit. The boy winced.

 

"Turn around," breathed the Wallishman.

 

Fran turned upon his bare feet to face him. He looked up and saw Gustave smiling down at him, face saturated with lust, twisting into a cruel smile as he set his hands at the boy's shoulders and pushed him down to his knees.

 

"Take care of me," said he. Gustave's tight hose and codpiece were gone – bundled up at the feet of his chair after the departure of his tailor – leaving only his naked legs and stiff, jutting manhood. Fran felt The Fiend creep up his back then. HOW YOU KNEEL! SEE TO YOUR MASTER'S NEEDS, BOY...

 

Fran spat into his hand and lathered Gustave up by his hardened girth, carefully stroking its veined flesh with a loose fist, up and down, his smooth ministrations growing faster and faster until his master's broiling moans (and the repeated slaps of his beaten flesh) lifted over the snapping hearth and rose into a mounting din. Any servant passing by his door would hear it. But in those moments... Gustave never cared. Call it arrogance or a man too long drunk on his own power... he never cared.

 

The older man threw his head back, eyes tightly shut, strong hands gripping himself by the waist. He was close. But by now Fran's knees were hurting on that hardwood floor. Better to bring it to a close. And he knew how. The young aide caressed his master's swinging balls with his free hand and wrapped his mouth around its bell-shaped head.

 

Three stimuli. Just like Gustave taught him to.

 

A hard guttural sigh ripped through the air. Gustave's whole body went stiff as he shot thickened ropes of seed into his boy's warm mouth – seed his boy swiftly swallowed – just as he was taught.

 

WHORE said The Fiend.

 

Gustave's breath raced, shoulders pumping, chest thumping, until he stumbled backwards into his scrolled armchair with a thump, grinning with spent satisfaction.

 

"Come here, Fran." Said his master.

 

The boy obeyed (grateful to be off his aching knees) and climbed shivering onto the older man's lap. Gustave held him still in his tight embrace. "My brother has finalized the arrangements. We leave for Morland in the morrow. We must do everything in our power to end this embargo and save Wallenheim... but my passions for you will not be denied. We need only be careful."

 

Fran scoffed inside himself. He'd spent the last ten years of his life a prisoner in a foreign country doing nothing but `be careful'. Being `careful' was his greatest talent. Being patient, watchful, understated, observant, quiet as a mouse until his moment arrived. Of the two of them – the submissive aide and the aesthete ambassador – it was not Fran who would struggle at caution. But it was so like Gustave to haughtily command from ignorance.

 

Beneath his lavish veil he was a man of remarkable simplicity – and Fran knew how to work him. He took his master by his perfectly trimmed beard and kissed him, moaning softly in the older man's mouth with all the feigned passion he could muster, and pulled away smiling, smiling sweetly, secretively.

 

"Master. Even if only in the shade... I am yours to take. And ever shall I be."

 

Gustave grinned. "...Indeed. Now away with you. We both have work to do before we leave."

 

His clothes still hung from Gustave's bed. Fran quietly crept off his lap and dressed into them as the older man busied himself thumbing through Neidhart's dossier of the Morish nobility, not even bothering to pull his hose and breeches back up. Fran bid his master goodnight and made for the door, stepping outside into the corridor, shutting the door behind him.

 

And there Wolfrick stood.

 

With a sneer.

 

"Have you no sense of propriety?" Spat the guard captain, snatching the boy's arm. "Crawling into your master's chambers in the dead of night like some wanton whore?"

 

WHORE! Echoed The Fiend.

 

Fran snatched his arm back. "I was summoned! And what business is it of yours, your remit ends at your master's bedchamber!"

 

"HOW DARE YOU-" The gruff swordsman was set to roar his anger – but he caught himself in the heat of the moment lest Gustave hear his rage. Wolfrick was an old servant of the Roschewalds, and a close friend of Gustave's, but he was not expendable. And he knew it. "...Hear me well, boy. Once we land in Morland any semblance of scandal will embolden our enemies. Keep your discretion. You will not be warned twice."

 

Fran shoved past him and ambled through the corridor and down the stairs to his rooms. Wolfrick always despised him, ever since Gustave returned from his Morish outing with him 10 years ago, but his detestation had grown worse since Lady Magnhilda's suicide.

 

HE WILL BE A PROBLEM spoke The Fiend. WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH HIM, BOY? WHAT WILL YOU DO?

 

Fran shook his head and put both to one side – The Fiend and Wolfrick – and slipped into his chambers. And when he sealed the door, he found a friend waiting for him, his only friend in the entire household, another of Gustave's Morish acquisitions.

 

Lothar.

 

He stepped out of the shadows with sodden bootsteps, fresh rainwater dripping off his sable cloak and trouser leathers. Upon his pouched belt wore he a brace of poison-dipped knives, two kidney spikes he called Pussyfoot and Bullyfoot. Fran once asked Lothar how many men Gustave had had him kill with those knives. The answer was a dispassionate `twelve'.

 

"Is it done?" Asked Fran.

 

Lothar lowered his dripping hood and revealed his mundane face – beautiful in some lights, ugly in others, neither masculine nor feminine. A pale white face framed by pale blonde hair, swept in such a way as to mask the giant scar along the left side of his head, where no hair would grow.

 

"Yes." Replied Lothar. "There was no need for blood. Gold suited him well enough."

 

Fran was no fool. And neither was Neidhart. The older brother knew how obsessed Gustave was with Fran, and that that obsession might create a problem for the Wallenheim Delegation at court. Neidhart had another man in mind as Ambassador Roschewald's clerk, a man named Viktor, some dour Wallishman in his employ, but that did not suit Fran's plans. Fran needed to be part of this expedition – and so he sent Lothar with a bulging purse to pay Viktor off (as well as keep his silence about the fact). Now there was no one else left in the city with the background knowledge to sufficiently support Gustave in this endeavour – no one except Fran.

 

"Good," said he. "And you had no trouble getting back?"

 

Lothar said no.

 

Small surprise in that. Whether fence, wall, or gate – Lothar could scale it. Whether armed guard or guard dog, Lothar could elude it. "Catspaw" he'd been nicknamed. He was an espial, and one of the best at his craft, as he was trained to be. As Fran was trained to be in his craft.

 

But they were trained for very different purposes.

 

Fran was not merely Gustave's whore. He was raised to serve as his notary, clerk, polyglot, and account-man. Before the Wallish Rebellion he was sent to study for three years at the University of the Imperial City of Strausholm to obtain his masterates in Accounting and Continental Law. His tools were books, abaci, ink, and quill – as well as his mouth, hands, and arse.

 

Lothar, on the other hand, was raised as Gustave's assassin and spy. He was taught the principles of disguise, espionage, torture, herbalism, and clandestine killing. He was taught to walk in shadows and mist, to hide in plain sight, to seclude himself and his works in absolute secrecy. His tools were daggers, rope, poison, and guile. And sometimes his arse.

 

In other words?

 

Fran was Gustave's left hand and Lothar was his right.

 

His Pussyfoot and Bullyfoot.

 

And they were each other's only friends these long ten years of wardship in Wallenheim. A bond forged in the foundry of a shared nightmare – this cold prison they called the Republic of Wallenheim. But now the time had come to finally return home... and set everything to rights.

 

`Finally,' thought Francis Gray. He had debts to pay and enmities to revenge – and time was a revenger's greatest ally. `Our patience bears fruit. The first step to taking back EVERYTHING that was stolen from my family.'

 

Lothar, an orphan who knew nothing of himself before Gustave took him from the streets of Dragonspur, desired only one thing – to know his true parentage. And Fran was more than happy to help. The clerk smiled at the assassin and squeezed him by his shoulder. "Homeward bound, my friend. At last. Everything begins here."

 

**********

 

·        Thanks again for reading everybody! Stay tuned for more. Feedback and constructive criticism are always welcome at stephenwormwood@mail.com .

 

·        Please read some of my other stories on Nifty: The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), Wulf's Blut (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Harrowing of Chelsea Rice (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Dancer of Hafiz (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Cornishman (gay, historical), A Small Soul Lost (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), and Torc and Seax (transgender, magic/sci-fi).