Tom Millman
Harthold
Amiranthe awoke to rapid knocks on the door.
“Enter.” Hinges whined as Falyse entered curtsying. She wore a dress of black lace, her high neck collar aligning with her posture. Her hair forced into a tight bun of brunette, which didn’t lighten her cool blue eyes.
“My lady Amiranthe, your son has arrived from the hunt. He begs an audience with you.” Edmund beg an audience? She could not imagine Edmund begging for anything. Amiranthe pulled herself out of her bed, stepping over to Falyse.
“I believe that the moss green dress emblazoned with the hart and the matching moonstones earrings would be the best choice for the day.” Falyse was always so circumspect; she hid so much behind those glaciers. Amiranthe nodded, Falyse set about her in her measured pace. Multitudes of green and black emerged as Falyse opened her wardrobe, within half an hour; Amiranthe was dressed and ready to face the world if not her son.
The rope railing bit into her hands. She rubbed her eyes as she took the last step. Harthold, her ancestral home, she bore the Black Hart on her dress proudly.
“Edmund, what is it? Why have I been woken so early?” Her son, Edmund Blackwood, sat on a heartwood chair at the end of the dining room. Servants bustled about their tasks. Falyse stood imposingly at the back of the hall. On Edmund’s knee was a scroll, a scroll which bore the sigil of the moor cat, of House Perelle.
“Mother, do sit down. Can I offer you anything?” When she didn’t reply Edmund continued.
“I received a message from Harold Perelle this morning. It seems that the falcon flies no longer.” Amiranthe still groggy from a lack of sleep did not get the reference.
“The usurper Trystan Lothdale and his wife are dead!” Amiranthe clutched at her chest, the usurper was dead. One was dead, but it would not be too long before another rose to challenge her brother in law’s throne.
“Do you understand what this means, mother? Do you understand the opportunity this grants us?” Edmund looked so like his uncle, more than Amiranthe cared to admit. His black tangles framed his face, his eyes of coal giving him a brooding look. He wore the green and black raiment of House Blackwood.
“Edmund, it is not time.”
“Time, mother? I have waited my entire life for my throne, which my uncle has denied me!” He rose from the chair, and threw the scroll into her arms. Unfurling it, she read with bated breath.
“Fellow brothers of the realm, It is with the greatest grief that I tell you my liege lords, Trystan and Merrin of the house Lothdale, rulers of Seaward have been murdered under a banner of peace. Usteon, the regent of the realm, killed our liege when he promised him peace under the Wyvern Flame. Dansen, Lord of Craghall, was seen to kill the Duchess and the babe she bore, the Crown Prince. In memoriam of the Falcon lord, I beg of you Brothers, answer this summons, and answer my pleading with the raising of men and arms. Let the Wyvern feel the steel that flows within the men of Isladoone.
Your Faithful Brother,
Harold Perelle
“What is this, Edmund?” Her son went to the cupboard and drew forth a pitcher and two goblets. Placing one before her, he filled both, leaving the scent of Theralian wine. “It is plea to muster arms to avenge their fallen liege. I will only be too happy to listen to their plea and grant them arms.”
“And in return?” “When we have deposed my uncle, they in return will crown me king of Isladoone.” Silence stretched between them, unable to focus on her son’s face, she glanced around. Amiranthe stared at the hunting tapestries; each depicted the brave men of Harthold hunting deer. It made her look to her own fawn and wonder whether she would be mourning for her own hart soon.
“Harthold is not one of the great holds in Isladoone. How do you expect to raise an army big enough to take that Aragonite crown?”
“Usteon has allied himself with Huedar; I will ally myself with Jhin.” The Jhin were enemies of Huedar, their countries had been in an eternal border war. “The Jhin? How will you obtain them as allies, Usteon will hardly allow them into Isladoone.”
“Then I will go as an ambassador to Jhin.” Her son’s gaze did not waver in the slightest; he was his father’s son in truth, arrogant.
“It is too dangerous, have Jhin send an ambassador.” An ambassador was exactly the thing which could ignite a war.
“After I have forged an alliance with the Jhin, I will go to Seaward Castle and drive that traitor out and deal justice.”
Edmund looked as brooding as his father as he drank that wine. The velvet green of the hart drew in the darkness making Edmund a shadowy figure. “What makes you think your own bannermen won’t bring me back your head, son?”
“They know that I am the heir to the throne, to kill me is to kill their chosen king.”
“You think it would be the first time that subjects have killed their chosen king? Even chosen kings bleed when stabbed with daggers.” Edmund sighed, placing his goblet on the heartwood table.
“I must send out riders to muster my banners.”
“Not yet, you must ensure that another will not try to take the throne. Chaos will be your path to the throne. We must make your uncle believe that you are loyal to him.”
“Then what mother?”
“Then you draw your dagger and show him what it means to cross the Blackwoods. Wyvern hearts bleed just as easily as men’s.”