TVisTV Book 3: Chapter 29 (RAW)

Chapter 29 - Girls’ Talk

Cry in practice and training so that you may laugh in battle.

- attributed to Lady Melisiandre de Vallieres.

The days rolled by as autumn thinned into winter—first a kiss of frost on the Academy lawns, then a chill that laced the air with a promise of more cold to come. When The Oracle at last ran the piece on Velens’ condition—front page, bold type, a move that Rashana had initially resisted. Still, the dusky girl had to concede that they would need to publish it if the paper wanted to remain a relevant source of news. The news went off like a bell struck in a cloister. Broadsheets nailed to tavern doors were read aloud to tradesmen and farmhands; couriers carried copies along the post roads; even the cloistered convents and monasteries whispered. By week’s end, there was not a hamlet in Aranthia where someone had not said, with a hand to the mouth, what malady of the mind had befallen the Crown Prince.

One afternoon, in Seraphina’s dormitory common room that the noblewoman had quietly made her own, crystal lamplight, for the sun had decided to be lazy that day, pooled across a wide desk crowded with maps and ledgers. A small brazier ticked with heat. Tea steamed in thin porcelain; sugared almonds sat untouched in a little dish. Seraphina sifted paper with quick, neat fingers: her agents’ reports in a tight cipher, Lehman’s summaries stamped in blue wax, and letters from her mother sealed with a Wisteria flower pressed flat in the wax. Eloise lounged sideways on a settee, all dark hair, perfect white skin, and careless elegance, while Miriam hovered with notebook and spectacles, the very picture of anxious diligence.

The story the pages told was not a kind one.

“Father has settled in for a ‘winter’ campaign,” Seraphina said without looking up, tapping a map of the region around the capital Aran where a neat ring of pins marked campsites along the eastern approaches. “He’s pitched the ducal escort outside the walls. A line in the sand, as it were.”

The Red Ogre’s standards, the wisterias of her noble House, had been sighted from the city’s watchtowers at dawn three days to a week ago. The gesture was as loud as any war trumpet. A controlled and very deliberate threat.

“Rumors say Elidion tried to raise a levy to drive him off,” Eloise murmured, eyes tracking the pins. She cocked her head, delicate as porcelain, and took a careful sip of her tea. “But no one will stand in the field against your father while Lady Anaselena lends him her Sight. At best, the lords drag their feet. At worst, they actively support.”

“At worst,” Seraphina smirked, lips turning, “they send wine to keep that drunken oaf distracted.”

Velens, in the mouths of great lords, had already become synonymous with “idiot,” a word used now without care. If the Crown Prince did not remember himself—and if he was not able to regain his memories, then the realm would be forced to remember it for him. At best, Velens could look to a future of becoming a puppet; the question was, who would play the strings? With the future of the kingdom at stake, the lords, high and low, waited for the turning of the tides. At worst, the Crown Prince might be forced to give up his claim to the throne. Aranthia, in all of its long and storied history, had never suffered a weak leader for long.

Ironically, more than ever, Velens needed Seraphina. It was a shame that she did not need him so much anymore. Besides, he couldn’t even win a silly little duel against Hughes! Hughes of all people.

“No one wants another succession war,” Miriam ventured, voice small but earnest. “Not after the last.”

“Quite,” Seraphina said. “No one wants the fields to run red twice. I do, however, believe that my father wants the threat of it—enough to those in charge, reasonable, or at the very least polite.”

Eloise set down her cup with a clatter that was not quite dainty. “If your father is the lever, why not pull it all the way? The Kingmaker, they called him, yes? Why doesn’t he take the throne for himself? Force that old man to abdicate.”

“Several reasons,” Seraphina replied, finally looking up. Her eyes seemed to sparkle emerald. “Though some could argue that he holds a tidy casus belli, my father is, in the truest sense of the word, a patriot. Father has spent most of his adult life fighting for the realm. He believes in it. Foolish man.” Her smile was knife-thin and affectionate all at once. “He also swore a public oath never to claim the throne for himself. That declaration brought him a great deal of credit among the lords; it is why so many support his demand for redress now... But the Church supports the Crown at present. They cannot muster numbers to match my father, let alone the royal host; their martial orders can still summon up a large body of men.”

Miriam, who had been scribbling, looked up. “How do you think this ends, milady?”

“With a scrape of quills on fine parchment, not swords,” Seraphina answered easily. “No blade will be drawn. My father, even without the support of my mother, is one of the finest generals in this land and a peerless warrior. It would take a heavenly host to dislodge him from his ‘siege’ of Aran.”

The young girl massaged her temples. “Father will seek an apology and a formal censure of the Crown Prince—worded so that everyone saves face—and a measure of tax relief for a set number of years. The King will grumble, the Church will frown, and the realm will sigh in relief.” She skimmed through another page. “And then we will all pretend none of this ever happened.”

She slid another report free, eyes roaming across a set of numbers. “Milly, how does our Calabrian Bogs venture fare?”

Eloise made a face so frankly shocked it would have been rude in anyone else. “You have business in that backwater?”

“Yes,” Seraphina said lightly. “A small thing. Like my father, I am a patriot—just in a very different way. I prefer improvements that will also enrich and serve me.” She allowed herself a brighter smile. “We will drain the bogs and grow rice. Feed the people, enrich ourselves, and grow one of the Empire’s staples here domestically. Think about it, what if some bizarre blight affects our crops in the future? Diversification is the answer. Everyone wins.”

It was a half-truth; it tasted sweet in the mouth. The bogs hid the corpse of the two-headed Mother Dragon, Balalazanga, her bones as long as streets, her scales still warded with old magic. A harvest that had the potential to span decades. A new crop of rice would be just the ribbon on the parcel.

“But Aranthia eats wheat,” Eloise said, incredulous but a tad intrigued. “Rice is expensive, a luxury here. Imported many miles.”

“Exactly.” Seraphina’s fingers drummed a crisp rhythm on the desk. “An opportunity, at least in this case, is simply a habit waiting to be taught. We’ll make rice first fashionable for the court and then available for the townsfolk. It is simply a matter of scale and branding. Stack the sacks high and sell them low.”

Eloise arched a brow, lips curling. “Surely you don’t mean to set hot irons to anyone, do you?”

“Don’t be so silly,” Seraphina said, amused. “To the burlap sacks, not the buyers. Branding is sort of a maker’s mark. I will have to think on it… maybe something like Miriam’s likeness. Something clean. Now, Milly, the Calabrian Bogs?”

Miriam flushed slightly before she adjusted her spectacles. Standing straighter, she took a moment to adjust her notes. “Drainage has begun. The engineers say we will need years of channels and cofferdams before the land will bear settlements, let alone any serious agriculture...”

“This is not what I want to hear,” Seraphina cut in, pointing at the maid with an accusing finger. “What did we discuss last time?”

Miriam jumped. “I—I will hire more workers.”

“You should have done that yesterday!” the girl complained with great exasperation. “And more Dwarf engineers,” Seraphina added, already moving on. “Their sense for soil and rock is worth more than their considerable weight in coin. Also, Father has an excess of refugees wintering in his lands; have them rounded up and sent. They can build a future in the bogs instead of fouling up our towns and villages.”

“Milady,” Miriam said carefully, “moving large numbers in winter is… perilous. Roads ice, bridges fail. People will suffer.”

“A bit of cold never killed anyone,” Seraphina said airily. “Not strapping young men of working age.”

Eloise made a soft, wicked sound in her throat.

“They must also be paid,” Miriam persisted, surprising herself.

“Offer them land,” Seraphina said, delighted. “We have a two-hundred-year lease, do we not? We can give them small parcels of it. A strip for each household. The swamp that will be fields by their grandchildren’s time. Better a chance of becoming something than languishing as a nothing. And yes, yes—coin. Half the going rate for unskilled labor plus rations and a small stipend for shelter. They can live as beggars in Sariens or invest the strength of their backs in their families’ futures. The bogs will be a new frontier; they will become a story, Milly. Give them a story to be a part of.”

Miriam hesitated, then turned a page. “The land itself… there are reports. New dangers… and sightings of the unquiet dead. Never has such a number been sighted in the region before.”

“Then get the Chur—” Seraphina stopped, eyes narrowing. Inviting the Church of Avaria to help handle the situation might invite scrutiny she wished to avoid. “Hire a bevy of Adventurers instead. Competent ones. A company with a Cleric who can ward and a Mage who can bind. Put them on a long-term retainer. Hazard pay and a clause for the unusual.”

She did not say: the Dragon’s corpse would fester with unholy power for years. Barrows bred phantoms; cities left to rot sprouted revenants. A Dragon could spawn an ecosystem of Death. Adventurers could keep the symptoms pruned, but the root would take generations to wither even once the Dragon had been fully harvested.

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Miriam said quickly.

“Why haven’t you already?” Seraphina’s voice sharpened, her voice rising half an octave. “You are here to anticipate me, Miriam, to remove the pebbles from my path so I may run. Must I handle every little detail myself?”

“Last week, milady, you said—”

“‘Last week, milady,’” Seraphina echoed with a little moue, and Eloise laughed. “What did I say about talking back? Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Miriam’s gaze dropped to the plush carpet of the floor. “Yes, milady.”

“Good,” Seraphina affirmed with a sigh, and then, almost as an afterthought, “Tell me, do I push you too hard? Do I give you things beyond your abilities?” Seraphina asked, voice laced with obvious sarcasm. 

The blonde girl turned to Eloise. “What do you say, Eloise? Should I hire someone else so Miriam can have a precious and permanent ‘holiday ’?”

Eloise stretched like a cat. “Perhaps it is time to put an old horse to pasture. How tragic.”

Miriam’s throat worked. She looked as if she might cry—and then something steadied in her face. “No, Lady Seraphina. I will see to your wishes at once.” She bowed from the hip, precise, and left before her courage could leak away.

“Finally,” Seraphina said long moments after the door clicked shut. “Milly has never been good at reading a room. As dumb as a doornail.”

There is no glue like shared malice among girls; it dries fast and holds strong. Eloise’s eyes glittered with cruelty. Miriam, of course, made for the most obvious target

“Now,” Eloise questioned with delight, conspiratorially, “the fun parts?”

A knock, brisk as a drumbeat.

“That would be Mona,” Seraphina said, already smiling. She clapped her hands. “Do come in!”

The door opened to admit Desdemona de Savant in a sweep of winter-blue wool lined with fur, her chocolate hair a glossy river over one shoulder. Two maids trundled in a two-tier trolley groaning with extravagance: miniature citron tarts jewelled with candied peel, opera slices with razor-thin ganache, eclairs glazed to a mirror sheen, meringue kisses flecked with gold leaf. It was a forest of spun sugar that delighted the eyes and would soon delight their taste buds.

“I am here, darlings,” Desdemona sang, one hand flicking through her perfect hair. She inhaled the room, the papers, the heat, the scent of tea and ink, and smiled. To the maids, in a voice as soft as velvet: “Leave us.”