The Cold

By Hendrik van Oordt

Relating the Arrival of the People of the Sea and What Happened Thereafter

 

White Island, a placid center of trade untouched by war for many centuries, is jolted by the appearance of the People of the Sea, a race of mermen vaguely remembered from ancient legends whose underwater world is being destroyed by the worsening cold. Trade with other islands on Innamagna, a world of islands and seas, languishes and unrest worsens as White Island falls into the grip of a relentless winter. The region of Boone revolts and the King sends his military leader, Lord Marnix, to suppress the rebellion. In the turmoil, the court poet Ormeville falls into disgrace and travels deep into the uncharted forests and mountains of Wyr province in order to offer his services to the Necromancer Boll, a wizard and dragon master who intends to use his army of dragons to assume power on the island. Ormeville becomes Boll's tool in this struggle.

Just then, the King's daughter, Princess Io, is swept away by the sea. The King blames the People of the Sea and declares war on them. However, the merpeople have saved the Princess and taken her to House Bayard on the south coast, an architectural wonder left over from the Unrecorded Times and home of the Master of Bayard, an ancient family of scientists and inventors. Here, the Princess learns that she has a vital role to play if the world is to survive at all. A malignant force is spreading the Cold from the eternal snows in the north. She must travel there and use her gifts, of whose power she herself is unaware, to help overcome it.

And all the time White Island, torn by superstition and anarchy, is becoming colder.

As all this goes on, a local farm child, Laury, whose parents were killed by Boll's dragon riders, now of an age to take revenge, decides to kill Boll himself. She travels into the dying forests of Wyr, finally reaching and penetrating the Necromancer's stronghold.

Meanwhile, Princess Io and the Master of Bayard travel north aboard the Lord of the Seas, an underwater vessel left over from the Unrecorded Times, in order to vanquish the Cold.

Princess Io's pleasant life at court is gone forever and she wonders how they can possibly succeed...

Approx. 107,000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hendrik van Oordt
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223152279

Hendrik van Oordt

Musician and writer Hendrik van Oordt has published three non-fiction books (including a bilingual dictionary) as well as several award-winning poems and short stories in the Netherlands. He is currently working on his 9th volume of piano pieces.

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THE COLD

A Fairy Tale | Hendrik van Oordt

THE COLD

Relating the Arrival of the People of the Sea

and What Happened Thereafter

A Fairy Tale

Hendrik van Oordt

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For Lotte and Marion, first readers: thank you

For Lotte also for her many hours of piano playing

And for Liesbeth and Hans, supporters of the arts great and small

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©2010, 2023 Hendrik van Oordt

All rights reserved

Contact: [e-mail]

From the Deep

1. From the Deep

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The appearance of the People of the Sea marked the beginning of the Cold and was subsequently hailed as one of the marvels of the age.

The inhabitants of White Island were deeply shaken by the creatures investing their coast. Few of the islanders cared to see the monsters for themselves, even from the safety of the cliffs, for most inhabitants of White Island were afraid of the ocean and its mysteries and had long since turned their back on the sea-faring ways of the ancients. They were glad to leave the dangers of the deep to the likes of their admiral and the out-of-work pressed into the King's service.

When news reached Court that a strange people had risen out of the ocean outside the port of Warza and was harassing the island's fishing fleet, the King immediately sent a diplomat to discover their intentions. It was an unnerved ambassador who returned to the royal palace, saying: 'They have no armour, no kings, no palaces, Your Majesty! And no leaders—none at all. I simply did not know with whom to speak or to parlay. And when I commanded them to summon their actual chieftain or to face Your Highness' wrath, a wench rose up from the waves and screeched that the true Lord of the Seas is in the deeps and that I must vent my wrath on him if I dare. They actually jeered me, Your Majesty! And there are so many. The seas are boiling! They cover the surface like a shoal of jellyfish. It is most distressing.'

'Indeed,' muttered the King, looking down testily at the diplomat's bald pate. 'Perhaps Admiral Bashir will be less distressed by these sea monsters and more effective. Go find him.'

And so the King sent out his admiral to catch one of these monsters in a net for questioning. But when, after a full day's waiting, the flagship had still not returned to port, he knew that it was time to go and see this phenomenon for himself.

2. Io

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In another part of the palace, meanwhile, Princess Io was having a heated argument with her nurse, who had been trying to impose her authority unsuccessfully for the past hour.

'No, your Highness may not go and see the King. Your pony is saddled and Lady Dane is waiting by the stables to accompany you on your ride.'

'I must see my father. The chief gardener tells me that everyone is waiting for him to ride to the cliffs in order to see this strange People of the Sea. Everybody is talking about it. I'm not going to miss out on that for a ride with a silly old woman who keeps telling me not to speak to commoners and not to gallop. Damn.'

The old woman eyed her in shock.

'My lady! In all the seventeen years I have served you I never taught you to say such a word.'

Io laughed. The sound spilled across the sunny room in a gurgle of liquid echoes and the nurse could not stay angry for she loved her unruly charge to bits. But it would not do to let her know this right now. She said flatly: 'It's Lord Marnix' doing, isn't it? I saw you two walking together yesterday. He uses quite unsuitable language.'

Io turned to the balcony to hide her confusion from her nurse, who looked in surprise at the girl's suddenly glowing cheeks. She couldn't have a crush on the Count, could she? A soldier more than ten years her senior and a ladies' man if there ever was one! But that could wait. She said: 'If His Majesty discovers who teaches you such naughty words he will certainly forbid you to seek the company of Lord Marnix. You know the value His Majesty puts on etiquette. Indeed, I do feel it my duty to inform His Majesty unless...'

The princess stamped her little foot in frustration and sighed.

'...I promise to go for a ride with boring old Dane?'

The old woman nodded placidly.

'That's my girl. Now before you leave, let's have a look at that hair. It's a mess as usual.'

3. The Hermit Rises

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The hermit sat peacefully overlooking the world from the towering height of the snows. Far below him stretched the Ealor Range, home of the high valleys favoured by the sheep whose wool was reserved for the royal family. And many miles below that, but invisible from where he sat, rose the miniature spires of Warza's churches and towers.

An old and holy man he was, though his mother continued to think of him as her child. She regularly sent round one of her great-grandchildren with a bundle of food and petitions from villagers who needed divine intervention with everything from sick cattle to marriage, which earned her great credit among her neighbours.

The hermit knew that someone from the village would bring food within the next few days. He was grateful for that. He had one last task to accomplish before giving back his bones to the earth. He rarely ate any more but now his body would need all the strength it could muster if he was to carry out his last mission successfully.

He was still sitting there peacefully in the afternoon when he noticed a tiny spot on the sheet of ice below, which gradually unfolded into a small, energetic human being.

A feeling of love and regret stole over the hermit as he watched the village boy with his food bag come clambering up the slope to his snowy ledge. Tomorrow he would be gone to face his final challenge and the people of his valley would have to live without his protection. Few people found comfort in their own heart, yet this was the message he must give the boy to take back.

And he must give him a written message for the Abbot of Way monastery, and tell him that the Cold had returned.

4. The Mountain Shrugs

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When the boy came down from the mountain with the news that the hermit was leaving, the hermit's mother muttered that it was just like a son to desert her in her old age. But she did not stay cross for long. She heard the sadness in the boy's voice and her heart was moved, for he reminded her of her own children when they were young.

'He has gone and won't come back, little one,' she told the boy. 'Now run quickly and tell the neighbouring villages what the Holy Man has said. And be back no later than tomorrow, as I need you to help me slaughter a goat for his nourishment in the afterworld,' thinking as she did that the hermit had withdrawn to die in seclusion.

And so the boy ran and ran, and left wailing peasants behind him wherever he told his story, and the more lamentations he heard, the more important he felt, until his childish grief made way for a quite giddy sensation of personal eminence and he capered along the mountain paths, and a stone tripped him up to remind him of his foolishness, and an icy gust of wind pushed him over the edge, and the mountain shrugged him off its western slope like a speck of dust and sent him plummeting to the rock-strewn edge of the forest half a mile below.

5. On the Way to the Lodge

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It was Io who found him.

The elderly Lady Dane, who felt saddle sore, had been nagging her for most of the past hour to return to the Palace. But Io had closed her royal ears, for she desperately wanted to see the monsters from the deep. She had ridden her pony as fast as she could to the royal Summer Lodge, situated on a low cliff some twenty miles from Warza, where you had the best view of the sea outside the capital.

'We shall be extremely comfortable at the Lodge, Dane, and we shall have the most splendid view of the ocean! Anyway, you need a rest and we're much closer to the Lodge than to the Palace, and you know how much you like the gardens there. And we can send back a servant to say that we'll be staying the night to rest our bums.'

'Child, I wish you wouldn't use such words and how I wish you'd slow down.'

'Almost there, Dane, just a few miles – wooah! What's that!'

Io had witnessed enough hunting accidents in her short life to recognise the signs of death in the small body half-covered in its self-made grave of fallen stones. She dismounted at once and ran over to see if anything could be done.

'Io! Don't touch that!'

'Dane! It's a boy – and he's alive! He's looking at me.'

She bent down, oblivious to her companion's flustered orders to come back at once. One by one she rolled the heavy stones from the boy's chest. Her heart went out to him. His eyes were screwed up in pain and the awkward angles of his neck and back showed that his body was broken beyond human remedy.

'I cannot help you,' she whispered. 'But I can see to it that you are buried in your own village if you tell me where it is.'

He looked up, as if to say something. She followed the movement of his eyes up the mountain wall before her, which disappeared in the clouds high above.

'You live in the sheep valleys up there?' she asked, not certain what he was trying to tell her.

But when she looked down again, his eyes had glazed and the last tension had left his body.

She straightened up and turned to the Lady Dane.

'Tomorrow we shall return him to his own people. Now we must arrange him on my pony. Your horse can carry us both. It's only a few miles to the Lodge.'

'Io! Your station! You cannot -'

Io lifted her chin.

'I can. I am a princess of the blood. The people of this realm are my care. And I have given my word to this boy.'

'There are servants if you feel that you must – why, your father –'

'My father would never abandon one of his soldiers like this. Oh, do come of that horse and give me a hand, please, Lady Dane. He's far too heavy for me.'

Whatever the Lady Dane thought of dirtying her dainty hands in such unbecoming fashion she did not say. But in the end, even a great aristocrat must bow to the demands of royalty, however young.

6. The Cold

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The hermit had left the shallow cave he had called home for so many years.

He was flitting light-footed over the snow, his mind empty of thought.

At one point faint echoes of wailing voices drifted up through the bottomless chasms of the high mountains, the sound of villagers mourning his absence. Now all was quiet except for the thin note of wind racing past rocks and pillars of ice.

Ahead through the snow-storm lay his task, but that did not bother him. Like his teachers before him, he had prepared himself his whole life for this challenge. They had waited in vain for the Cold, as he had expected to wait and to pass on his burden to an acolyte from a future generation. But the chill blowing from the north had become stronger for the past month and would not go away. Nature shivered in the clutch of an ancient evil. And so he had risen to keep his vow.

Mile after mile he covered, penetrating the core of the mountain range, gradually climbing to the roof of the world, where he would rise above the highest clouds and see the ocean, blue-green and brilliant, stretch away on all sides.

As he continued to bore through the brute cold, a pity for all things living filled his heart and he speeded up his pace.

Clinging fatefully like a spider's web to the back of a fly, a glacial will was working to impose its rule on the world and was even now beginning to move the frozen air from the high mountains down to the pine forests below.

The Cold was coming to White Island.

7. The People of the Sea

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The official poet was merely along for the ride, as he enjoyed explaining casually to his circle of drinking companions when asked how it was to live at court. He liked young men and late hours. The two made a natural combination. However, he found that they mixed uneasily with the official duties involved in praising His Majesty's exploits.

Take today's trip aboard the royal yacht, for instance. He was sick from the heaving and groaning boards under his feet. It was impossible to think of anything sensible or beautiful or lofty or witty to say about the strange creatures bobbing on the waves all around or, for that matter, about His Majesty's posture: the King stood leaning dangerously over the railing in an apparent attempt to vomit.

The poet was careful to remain upwind of his sovereign. If he could not avoid the sight of that bony behind, at least he could avoid the sour smell of a half-digested noon meal. His own stomach would need only the slightest encouragement to turn itself inside out, and he would not enjoy the jokes at his expense if his cronies found out that he had been seasick.

He suddenly realised that the King had in fact not bent over because he was sea-sick. King Rewde had bent over because he was speaking to one of those fish-men who had so mysteriously shot to the surface of the sea. Like bits of cork, the poet thought, but that was hardly an elegant metaphor you could expect him to use in a poem.

The vessel lay in the wind and its flapping sails made it difficult to hear the king's words.

The poet's attention wandered to the outlandish horde in the water, who were riding the swell as though they were lazing in rocking chairs.

What uncouth creatures they were, with their long hair and tattered beards, their greasy skin and their big hands!

And what enormous, bulging eyes they had!

He expressed his distaste for the water-people to a sailor. The man grinned and explained that their eyes seemed large because they fixed cut crystals to their face in order to improve their sight above the surface. Their eyes were made to see under water, much as men born on land cannot see clearly below the surface. Or so the sailor had heard one of the sea-people explain.

The poet turned away as he caught the voice of his sovereign, whose noble deeds he was supposed to praise in verse. The wind had veered, allowing him to follow the conversation between man and monster.

'You would chain me to my own island?' the King was saying in a great temper. 'And pray, what could be the reason for this proposed blockade?'

An ugly, rasping voice came up from the water, as if it hurt the speaker to use his vocal chords in the air.

'Our homes have been made uninhabitable and you ask me that? If you are the king of this island, as you say you are, then order this destruction to cease. By Neptune, things were different in the time of our ancient forebears, who held each other in high esteem, as your own songs attest.'

King Rewde turned to the court poet.

'And what songs are these, Sir Gregory?'

The poet shook his head. He had never wasted time researching childish folk songs, even if this seemed hardly the moment to say so.

'Your Highness, no such songs exist on White Island or I would know of them. Methinks the scoundrel is merely endeavouring a tactic to lay the onus for future depredations on Your Majesty.'

The King turned back thoughtfully to the bearded figure rising and falling with the waves, chest-high in the water.

'Indeed. Scoundrel he may be but he speaks as though he believes his facts, such as they are. Let us deal with him rather than listen to a lover of boys. Merman! You bear a resemblance to the figures in the frieze that decorates our great hall. But I do not know your people and I have not heard of the songs you mention. Yet I can say this. The King of White Island has not declared war on you. Return to your homes and abandon your plans. Our vessels are armed and can defend themselves. But if you have a just complaint, send an ambassador and I shall hear his message in season.'

He turned his back on the sea and began to walk towards the aft cabin.

'Captain, return to port. Sir Gregory? See to it that I have any available history on these people, including songs, by tomorrow, or I shall have to ask one of your boon companions to assume your office. Lord Staines? Send my regards to the Lords of the Regions and request them to be at court for council this day next week. Now, since nobody has been able to find the Admiral Bashir when I need him, I presume that he has no further desire for his position and wishes to end his career as an apprentice in the sail-maker's workshop.'

A voice answered him from unexpected quarters.

'I shall tell him so if I can persuade the Lord of the Seas to release him.'

King Rewde stopped short.

'Who speaks?'

Sir Gregory, who stood nearest, pointed obsequiously to a female head just visible in the white crest of a wave. He thought that what he needed was a tall drink and a beautiful young man instead of a fat wench drifting on the current to remind him of his peril.

'Someone with a message for the King of White Island,' the woman said.

'I am that King as you well know.'

'Then listen. The Lord of the Seas came to our aid when your Admiral Bashir, for so he proclaimed himself to be, cast nets today to take some of us prisoner. We were saved by the Lord of the Seas. The sheer might of our saviour lifted your vessel out of the water, causing it to capsize and sink. The Lord of the Seas took the admiral for his prize. He is our protector and will continue to sink your fleet until you give in to our demand to leave our homes alone.'

The buxom and apparently wholly nude woman who had delivered this message dived under without bothering to wait for a reply.

Great cries of astonishment and fear arose from the crew as she flipped over and revealed her legs to the sky. The sun cast iridescent reflections on her flesh, showing it to be covered in fish scales from the thighs downwards and ending in what seemed to be broad, floppy fish tails.

An elderly sailor removed his pipe and remarked placidly that the lads would think twice next time before laughing at his stories, for hadn't he told them many times that he had seen one of them things in his youth when out fishing with his father?

Only King Rewde remained blind to this wonder.

His unbending disposition made it unthinkable for him to consider the possibility that these unexpected neighbours from the ocean might have a genuine grievance, however wrong their assumption that he was its cause. Had he done so, much sorrow might have been avoided. Instead he said,

'Now that is a declaration of war. Captain.'

Without a further word the king disappeared into his cabin.

The rudder was turned, the sails filled with wind and the White Swan sailed the short distance into port, to the great relief of Sir Gregory. The poet had no idea who the Lord of the Seas was but he had no wish to test the apparent powers of someone who, in a fit of rage, could overturn a ship with fifty sailors. He shivered. He felt old and the sun seemed remote and unable to warm his bones.

What he needed was a bit of companionship.

8. The Change

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And all of a sudden there was an atmosphere of siege.

Shopkeepers who, the day before, had offered bits of cheese to the children of their customers now began wondering how to lay in ample stores without seeming to hoard unlawfully. Officials straightened their bearing. A press gang was seen setting out for the southern towns. And many wonders were reported, including a two-headed pig.

In short, Warza was full of the news. The idle gathered in the market square by the harbour to stare at the elegant sweep of the White Swan, which remained blissfully ignorant of the rumour that it had been blown back into port by the mighty Lord of the Seas. Vaguely remembered tales of sea-gods were drunkenly rehashed in the crowded taverns. Sailors luridly embellished adventures it took all of five pints to invent and only the entrance of members of the town guard would stop tongues wagging for a moment.

And through it all passed a group of monks from Way monastery, unconcerned with anything but their own business, which was to heal the sick.

9. The Messenger from Sill

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Way Monastery straddled an outcrop in the foothills east of Warza. Older far than the ruling dynasty of White Island, it was yet insignificant and short-lived as a salt crystal on the skin of time – or so its Abbot was telling one of the novitiates, a bright young lad who had it in him to become his successor, if only he would sit still long enough to be taught.

'...Healing is easy," the Abbot was saying. 'The potter makes pots. You have the healing touch but –' he hesitated: the youngster was very young indeed to be asked such questions '– why do you heal? Is it just to show off your gift?'

A sudden noise distracted his attention. He looked up to see a monk rush into the garden, followed by a lusty voice.

'Not see the Abbot? What nonsense is this! He is the only reason I'm here at all.'

The Abbot waived the boy away.

'Go, and heal where you may. I shall call for you again.'

He turned with some amusement to watch a bull-like figure come charging up the garden path, trailed by a monk flapping his arms and tripping over his own feet in an effort to keep up.

But if the visitor was like a bull, the Abbot had the immovable presence of a monolith. The visitor drew up short in front of the shrunk frame as though he had walked into a rock.

'Well!' he exclaimed, and seemed surprised to find that he had arrived. 'You must be the Abbot.'

'I am.'

'Then we must talk.'

'Apparently.'

The man looked abashed at the gentle irony, which made the Abbot think the better of him. The bull might be more sensitive than his conduct had at first suggested.

'I don't mean to be rude – to intrude, that is...' He fell silent, swept his cape over his shoulder and bowed with a flourish to cover his awkwardness. 'My name is Alfred, Baron of South Rock.'

The Abbot inclined his head and asked the panting monk to send for tea.

The visitor raised his eyebrows.

'You have tea on White Island?'

'We grow it in our upland gardens. It was a gift from one of your own people.'

'Then you know who I am!'

'I do not, but your speech and dress tell me you are from remote Sill. When I was young I was sent there to help drive back the Cold. Lord Sander offered me a tea plant as a parting gift.'

'Lord Sander has been dead for almost five hundred years!'

The Abbot smiled. 'You remind me that I am getting old indeed... But here is our tea and you will tell me whether it is half as good as your own. And then you will explain why you have travelled so far.'

The visitor's shoulders drooped at the sight of the cups filled with hot liquid, as though weighed down by loss.

'I have been sent by Lord Jess, from the line of Lord Sander, to tell you that we drink no more tea on Sill. Our tea plants have been dead these past four years. His message is that the Cold has returned.'

10. The Abbot Drinks Tea

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The Abbot sat sipping his tea in silence.

'Indeed,' he murmured when he put down his cup on the stone bench. 'So the Cold has come to far-off Sill. Then it will not be long before we, too, will feel the sting of its breath. Already the wind seems to be freshening unseasonably early. It is a sign, and I have missed it. The Cold is returning faster at every attempt to encircle our world, it seems.'

He looked at the baron.

'If Sill is in its grip, what of the islands east of Sill? Have you news from them?'

'No, my Lord Abbot. Trade has languished for several generations. Such rumours as reach us are spread by marauders along the coast, full of alarming tales calculated to spread fear among the ignorant.'

'And what rumours are these?'

The baron laughed contemptuously.

'That the end of the world is at hand. Prophets have arisen on the islands of Terling and Most who preach the doom of Innamagna and its inhabitants. We shall all be engulfed in the void, including yours truly.'

The baron made a little mocking bow as he said this and tapped his rapier. 'But I rather think we shall all be engulfed by war if half of what they say is true.'

'Yes... Still, the Cold is. The madness and war that go before are but the cloak.'

'My Lord Abbot, you speak in riddles.'

A fleeting smile crinkled the old man's face.

'Just so. It is what my monks would tell me if they dared. Yet it is an old story and amply recorded in your own archives. No matter. There is no time to tell it now. But why is there no news from the hermit? He of all men was appointed to warn us and to hold off the Cold itself until we could erect other defences. He has long been on his own. Has the waiting been too long?'

The Abbot fell silent for a space, watching a squirrel climb a tree, while his visitor sat looking at him with a puzzled frown.

'As for me, I have been remiss, it seems,' the Abbot finally said. 'Now I must act to stop the Cold here on White Island itself. If this island is lost, the scattered peoples of the South Seas will be all that is left. And their knowledge is dimmed by superstition.

All the same, I would have news from the hermit Yoakim. Has he sent a message, I wonder? And why didn't your master think to send an emissary before? All shrugged off as old wives' tales, no doubt, since the dread Cold has not been felt within the living memory of men.'

He put down his cup.

'I must go now. The hermit is either lost or advancing our cause and neither way can we help him. We must consider this line of defence defeated.

I will seek council with the Master of Bayard House, who is our wisest friend in times like these. But I think I shall pay a visit to the King on the way. Rewde knows much of what goes on in the world of men, even though he is too proud to recognise its meaning.'

He focused his eyes on his visitor.

'You must sail at once and stand by your master. Expect Sill to be riven by strife. The Cold heralds the onset of destruction and the end of civilization. There will be few men whose mind will not be dulled when the Cold is at its worst. And it is then that his vassals will spread war and ignorance to enslave the weak. For the Cold has his vassals, whose minds have been colonised by his thought. They grow strong as he grows strong and some are persuasive. Do not allow them to cloud the judgment of your king. His reason is all that will stand between your island of Sill and chaos.

But when spring returns to your land, visit us again and we shall together select a tea plant to begin restoring the glory of your hills.'

'Abbot, I cannot leave! My ship lies sunk at quay. And this is the doing of the People of the Sea, who gave no explanation – though we have never made war upon them, and indeed, only knew of them from lore. They charged me to take the message of my misfortune to the ruler of White Island.'

'You landed at the monastery's own harbour at Noone? Then the People of the Sea have affronted a guest of mine and things have come to a bad pass indeed. For this is the power of the Cold: to stir war between peoples at peace. And thus our whole world will be thrown into chaos and the healing of Way will be as effectual as writing in the sand.'

The Abbot got to his feet and began to walk rapidly towards the main building, absent-mindedly patting a deer that came trotting up to him. Baron Alfred of South Rock had to take great strides in order to keep up.

Having given orders to someone within, the Abbot said,

'You will accompany me on horseback. I shall run before you. I have been drinking tea in my own gardens for too long. What matters it to find a successor if he have no flock to guide? Now I must see with my own eyes what my ears have ignored. For it is one thing to heal people, another to heal the world.'

11. The King's Loss

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Meanwhile, the palace halls reverberated to the king's voice, raised in such ire as even his oldest servants could not remember.

'And you have come up with this and call it a sufficiency? You would put your own laziness before the realm in such times as these? 'Seneschal!'

Sir Gregory was grovelling before his sovereign, his forehead touching the floor tiles. He was staring blindly at the sea-horse and sea-weed inlaid with cunning skill in the stone floor. The sweaty imprint left whenever he moved his hands to avoid the king's boots briefly intensified the subtle colours of the mosaic before fading. A laughing merman riding a dolphin was looking up from the floor in unconscious mockery. All too late the poet realised he had tried to deceive his master once too often with an empty show of diligence.

He was done for. He could only hope that his punishment would be slavery in a noble house rather than some god-forsaken dungeon, for even now, abject on hands and knees, he trusted to his silver tongue to buy his liberty in years to come.

Paper crackled in the King's hand. One of the seneschal's lacquered black shoes became visible in the corner of the poet's eye. His fate was about to be sealed. He choked back an urge to vomit before the