In Esberia, Prince Jowan Aldren sat in his brother’s study and pretended he did not feel the weight of the room. It was a fine study, wood-panelled and well-appointed, with a window that looked out over the grey winter sea and a fireplace large enough to roast a boar. Rydric’s banner hung on the wall behind the desk: the Aldren stag in gold thread, its antlers spread like a challenge.
The desk was covered with letters. Most were from the ransom council: abbots refusing to melt their plate without ecclesiastical permission, cities refusing to levy taxes without charter confirmation, merchants refusing to extend credit without sureties from the crown. Jowan had answered each one with sympathy, regret, and a list of further authorities who must be consulted before any action could be taken.
A few letters were from Rydric.
These Jowan answered at length, full of devotion, difficulty, and small victories invented for the purpose.
The northern levies have been assessed. The abbey plate is being inventoried. The merchants are assembling credit. Every day brings us closer to your release.
All of it true in the letter and false in the spirit. The northern levies had been assessed and then delayed by a dispute over ancient exemptions. The abbey plate was being inventoried by clerks chosen for their thoroughness and their fear of error. The merchants were assembling credit at interest rates that would cripple the crown for a generation.
Jowan was not a traitor.
So he told himself.
A traitor wanted his brother dead. Jowan wanted his brother alive, imprisoned, and unable to return until the realm had been rearranged in ways that made Jowan indispensable.
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A knock came at the door. Jowan swept the most compromising letters into a drawer before answering.
“Enter.”
A clerk entered, a young man named Tibald who had come from Valcierre three years ago with excellent handwriting and no curiosity. He carried a small folded parchment sealed with a cipher mark Jowan recognized.
“From across the border,” Tibald said.
Jowan took the letter and dismissed him. The cipher was Felrian’s, simple enough for speed and safe enough against honest men. Jowan read it quickly.
Certain doors must not be opened too early. The winter roads are poor. Spring will bring better travel. In the meantime, your brother’s health is our concern as well as yours.
The meaning was clear. Rydric must not be released before spring. By spring, the border fortresses would be in Valcierran hands, the tolls would be redirected, the abbeys would be confirmed under Valcierran protection, and Jowan’s position as indispensable regent would be complete.
He burned the letter in the fireplace and watched the smoke rise up the chimney.
Then he sat at his brother’s desk, beneath his brother’s banner, and wrote to the ransom council expressing deep concern that the abbey plate was being inventoried too hastily.
Accuracy, he wrote, must not be sacrificed to speed. The king would not wish to return to a realm impoverished by errors.
He sanded the ink, sealed the letter with Rydric’s own seal—the stag entrusted to him during the king’s absence—and gave it to a messenger.
“The council must understand,” he said, “that haste would dishonour the king we all serve.”
The messenger bowed and left.
Jowan sat alone in the study, listening to the winter wind off the sea. The fire crackled. The stag above the desk stared down at him with blank gold eyes.
He did not bolt the doors. He oiled the hinges and had new keys cut.
When his brother returned, as he must eventually return, Jowan would be found at this desk, surrounded by evidence of his tireless regency, his face a mask of relief and welcome. The ledgers would show diligence. The letters would show loyalty. The hinges would swing without a sound.
And if the kingdom was smaller than Rydric remembered, if the borders had shifted, if the treasuries were empty and the fortresses were held by men who had sworn temporary custody to a foreign crown—well.
That was the cost of holy war, the price of absence, the burden Rydric had placed on his loyal brother’s shoulders when he sailed east and left the realm behind.