Wolves

Wolves

"Who is that?" Lily asked, staring down from the balcony into the main courtyard of the palace.Five figures had arrived, dressed entirely in black and riding dark horses. How very dramatic. They bore no crests, and she hadn’t heard a crier announce them, only the horns to signal important visitors had arrived.Next to her, looking up from the book she was reading, her handmaiden Clarissa wrinkled her nose. "I’ve no idea. They look like bandits."Lily set aside the cards she’d been reading through for her speech to open the spring games at the beginning of the month, stood, and gathered her skirts. "I’m going to go see.""I was just at the good part," Clarissa said with a sigh as she marked her place, tucked the book into a pocket, and followed her.As they reached the hallway, two more of her four handmaidens joined them: Alice and Penelope. Poor Leigh was still sick. Lily had sat with her last night and read to her for a couple of hours, and managed to get her to drink some tea.People greeted them as they walked through the halls, but Lily didn’t linger to speak with anyone, though a few clearly wanted her to. No, she continued on stubbornly to the receiving hall, where sure enough, the five dark figures had gathered.She held back to look them over. Five, all men with scruffy beards, dirty clothes, tromping around like this was their palace. Big, every last one, though two were on the lean muscle side rather than the wall of muscle. The one who seemed to be in charge did bear a crest, a gold broach pinned to his left shoulder, though she couldn’t make out any details at this distance.They all bore weapons and weren’t listening as the servants tried to tell them that weapons were not allowed on the premises, save those carried by the royal guards.Time to do her job. Setting her shoulders, lifting her chin, Lily walked briskly down the hall, flanked by her handmaidens. "What is the cause of all this ruckus?" she said in the ringing tones her tutors had drilled into her. A voice that could pierce a crowded room, no matter how large.All eyes turned to her, including the visitors. The man with the broach watched her like a cat watched a mouse, but if he thought she would be intimidated by such nonsense, he would soon find himself mistaken."What is going on here?" she demanded, drawing to a stop at a perfectly appropriate distance of five paces. "Who are you?" The gold broach was of a wolf’s head opened on a snarl, and it was only gold plated.The men stared at her with gross inappropriateness, and the man with the broach lingered on her tiara. She didn’t normally wear one in the day to day, but she had an event in a couple of hours that required it, so she’d gone ahead and dressed for it, so she wouldn’t have to go back to her room to change."Your Highness," Gold Broach finally said. "We are here to speak with High Majesty the King at the request of the Grand Duke.""I see," Lily replied, not seeing at all. Her father had told her nothing this morning about a group of ruffians coming to see him. What was Ferdinand thinking, inviting men like this into the palace without at least giving her notice? "You’ll forgive me if I wait until His Grace arrives to confirm that. Who are you?" She gave a slight upwards jerk of her chin to Clarissa, who immediately went off to find Ferdinand if he wasn’t already on his way.Gold Broach smiled like a hungry wolf. "I’m Richard, Your Highness, Richard Fortley, Captain of the Black Wolves."Mercenaries? There were mercenaries in her palace? If it wouldn’t be such inappropriate behavior for a princess, she would clobber Ferdinand upside the head.She twitched her fingers ever so slightly, and Penelope slipped away to gather information. Lily knew the mercenaries that ran around the kingdom and the neighboring ones, and she’d never heard of the Black Wolves. They were either a new band still trying to make a name for themselves, or from much further afield, which begged the question why Ferdinand would want them rather than a local group.The men seemed amused that her handmaidens were departing one by one, but the joke was on them, because Alice was far deadlier than any mercenary."Your weapons," she said. "You will remove them. Weapons are not permitted on palace grounds, and we make no exceptions, not even for guests of the Grand Duke. Remove your weapons or you will be removed."Richard’s grin just strengthened. "As you wish, Your Highness." With slow, showy movements, he removed his weapons. His men did the same after a moment, their movements stiffer. Guards stepped forward to take the weapons, clerks nearby cataloguing everything."You may retrieve them from the armory on your departure," Lily said, but before she could say anything further, Ferdinand came striding into the receiving hall with Clarissa close behind him. She returned immediately to Lily’s side, the brief look on her facing conveying there was much to be said later when it was safe to do so.Lily watched Ferdinand as he reached them. "Your Grace, I was given no warning about your special guests. Why is that?""My apologies, Your Highness, I thought I had done so," Ferdinand said, not even trying to make the lie believable. "Richard is a distant cousin, and I told him he and his men could reside here a few days before they carry onward north." That one wasn’t believable either. In fact, it was laughable. Nobody was more pompous about their bloodline than Ferdinand, and he would never tolerate a lowly mercenary besmirching it.She said nothing, though, only smiled sweetly as a proper princess should. "Very well, then, Your Grace. As you’ve arrived and can take the matter in hand, I will leave you to it. Are you still attending the meeting in a couple of hours?""Of course, Your Highness.""Good day for now, then." Lily turned, pointedly not bidding farewell to the mercenaries, and left the receiving hall precisely as she’d entered it.Upstairs, she detoured to her father’s offices. "Is His Majesty available to speak with me?"The guard on duty replied, "I’m afraid not, Your Highness. He’s been in a meeting all day, we’ve hardly seen him.""Very well, then." Stifling an inappropriate sigh, she gathered her skirts and made her way back to the private parlor where she’d been practicing her speech. That’s what she got for thinking she’d have a quiet morning for once.Inside, Alice closed the door before joining Lily and Clarissa at the table. Penelope wasn’t back yet, but that wasn’t really surprising. She’d need more time to get information."That toad wouldn’t acknowledge his own mother if he thought it would besmirch his reputation," Clarissa said. "Why on earth is he suddenly claiming to have cousins who belong in prison?""They’re not from here, not even close," Alice said, "though their accents are so good, it’s hard to tell."Lily huffed, annoyed with herself. "I didn’t notice." She was passable in the languages of the neighboring kingdoms, but she did not have an ear for them the way Alice did. Then again, few people possessed the same skills as an assassin masquerading as a harmless handmaiden."Well-trained by the way they moved, and well-paid by their armor and weapons," Alice added. "Nevermind that flashy broach.""Gold-plated," Lily said dismissively. "Pewter, likely. He wants to look expensive, but doesn’t want to actually pay for it. They must be from very far afield if we’ve never heard of them. Why, though. If something was so wrong that they had to call in foreign mercenaries, Father would have told me about it. What is Ferdinand up to?""I don’t know, and it troubles me we’ve heard no whispers whatsoever," Clarissa replied. "There’s no such thing as a secret in the palace, so how did His Grace manage to keep one. And what the hell is it.""Language," Alice chided lightly."Fuck off," Clarissa retorted.Alice laughed.  "I’ll do some investigating of my own tonight."Clarissa shook her head, sending her dark bronze curls bobbing about her head. "No, you need to stay close to Lily. Those creeps leave a bad taste in my mouth. There’s nothing particularly wrong with them on the surface; they look and act like mercenaries. Everything about them looks ordinary, and yet everything about them screams danger.""I’ll stay close."Lily drummed her nails, painted a soft pink, on the table. "If you can’t investigate, then we need someone else. I want Josiah."Clarissa rose and slipped from the room. Alice was the bodyguard; Clarissa was her politician; Penelope was her charmer; and Leigh was the scholar. They were her inner circle, her dearest friends, and she would be lost, as a person and a princess, without them.She had been named Lily for many reasons, among them that it was a bit of a play on words: their kingdom was nestled in a valley, right at the edge of the enormous forest that spanned most of the continent, south of a great mountain range that served as a natural border between multiple kingdoms. Lily of the Valley was also her father’s favorite flower.But a valley was only as good as what inhabited it, and Lily had taken care with the resources she’d planted. She had the sinking feeling her choices were about to be tested, though she had no idea how or even why.The door opened again, but this time it was a servant bearing a tea tray. By the time he’d left, Penelope had arrived. "Oh, good, I was hoping you’d come back here." She took her usual seat, facing Lily and the window behind her, with Alice closest to the door and Clarissa’s seat opposite her."What did you learn?""They’re from Techar, and not thought well of there. The best I can determine right now, they’ve never come this far west for work. They don’t usually go further than Cecer.""But now suddenly they’re here in Willowen and cousins to His Grace," Lily said, pressing a thumbnail into her bottom lip as she thought. "I need to speak with my father, but I doubt I’ll get to him before the meeting this afternoon." They called it a meeting, but it was more of an announcement.For the past three years, there had been squabbling and the odd actual fistfight over revisions to the property tax laws. Nobles had fought them tooth and nail, not liking that they might actually have to pay them instead of slipping through holes in the current laws. His Majesty was determined, though, and Lily and her circle had helped him to push the revisions through.Today was the formal announcement of the changes, with an explanation of what they would entail, when they would become active, and so on. Normally such things were announced by other means: criers, bulletins, and such. But the anger over the matter had compelled her father to deal with it directly.Now five thugs from Techar, all the way to the southeast of the continent, showed up with no warning claiming their leader was cousin to the Grand Duke?After all this time, they clearly still thought she was a stupid, airy princess. There’d never been anything but kings on the throne, and every man except her father struggled with the idea of a queen. They’d learn to accept it, or they’d learn to live somewhere else. That was a battle for another day, however.She poured herself more tea, and had just picked up the cup when the door opened once more, admitting Clarissa and Josiah. Tall, dark, and imposing, Sergeant of the Guard Josiah Make was also popular around court for his beauty and infamous for his reticence to talk about himself. No one even really knew where he was from or what had first brought him to the royal palace. He’d replaced the previous Sergeant of the Guard and that had been that.He was also one of her few friends, outside of her inner circle. "Josiah, thank you for coming.""Is this about those reprobates that just showed up? I don’t like their arrogance."Lily motioned for him to sit, but he refused with a bare shake of his head. "Black Wolves, they operate in Techar, Beksal, and Cecer. They’re flat out not allowed in several other kingdoms, and I’ve never known them to come this far west. It troubles me deeply they showed up so abruptly and that His Grace was the only one expecting them.""We had the same concerns," Lily said. "Alice cannot leave my side, so we were hoping you could investigate the matter."Josiah smiled ever so faintly. "Already working on it, Your Highness. I’ll have reports for you by tonight. I’m also assigning additional guards to your retinue."Lily hated when she had to be heavily guarded, but it would be the height of spoiled princess to complain about people wanting to keep her alive. "Thank you. Hopefully nobody will get hurt." The clock in the corner chimed, cutting off anything else she might have said. "Time for the meeting, I suppose. Let’s hope this goes well, and not as ominously as we all think it will."Face grim, Josiah led the way out of the room, and stayed with her, even as the additional guards closed in.Expecting a large, and likely hostile, turnout, her father had arranged for the meeting to be held in the grand throne room, a cavernous hall that was always cold and gloomy no matter how bright the décor or how many candelabra were lit.The gown she’d chosen for it was a deep emerald green, empire waist, with black flowers embroidered at the cuffs of the long sleeves and along the bottom third of the gown, with black ribbon at the high waist that trailed down her back. The tiara, a gold one that had been gifted to her mother as a wedding gift, had also been set with emeralds for today. A somber look for a somber occasion.Her handmaidens had, of course, dressed to coordinate. Detractors in the royal court liked to call them the Tea Party, pretty and frivolous and useless. Lily would be angry about it, but she’d long ago learned to use that sort of childish arrogance to her advantage."Father," she greeted as she came through the private entrance at the back of the throne room and curtsied to him.King Aldous, recently turned fifty, was a divisive king. Most nobles found him frustrating when they were in a good mood, and wanted him dead when he really pissed them off. Everyone else tended to admire him greatly. At the very least, they were relieved he was nothing like his father, who’d been well on his way to being a tyrant when he’d fallen ill and died in the span of a few hours, and suddenly his nineteen-year-old son was king."Lily," he replied, and kissed the back of her hand affectionately before she took her place by his side. "You wanted to speak with me?""About Ferdinand’s ’cousin,’" Lily replied, still smiling pleasantly, giving nothing away to anyone watching them. "It will keep until after this meeting. I’ve already set people to look into the matter further.""Hmm," Aldous replied, his way of saying he agreed with her about how troubling it was.They fell silent as the room filled, conversation creating a low din, guards and servants rushing about to sort out one problem or another. The seating in the throne room ran along both sides of it, arranged in five rows, each higher than the one in front of it. There was also gallery seating, for those who wanted to see the public proceedings but did not merit a seat below. Snotty nobles liked to call that area the gawkery.Behind her, the door opened to admit Ferdinand, looking his usual self, and yet something prickled along the back of Lily’s neck all the same. Her usual dislike, the strangers, or something else entirely, she couldn’t say. Why her father insisted on retaining him as steward, she would never understand. His intelligence and political acumen did not, in her opinion, make up for the fact he was a nasty little rat who got handsy with the maids.Ferdinand bowed to both of them and took up his position to the king’s left. Arrayed behind them were Josiah, her handmaidens, Aldous’s bodyguards, and a handful of trusted clerks should anything need to be delivered or retrieved. Guards lined the length of the hall on both sides, twice the usual number to hopefully mitigate the displays of outrage they feared would come. Because they were making people pay their fair share of taxes.As everyone settled, more or less, Aldous gave a signal to a waiting clerk, who rang the enormous gong behind the thrones, calling the meeting to order.The atmosphere was decidedly tense. Lily felt sorry for none of them.Stepping forward, Aldous extended his arms in a gesture that was welcome and supplication all at once. "Welcome, all. I know today brings news that makes—"Thunk. Gurgle. Aldous collapsed.Lily stared, uncomprehending, as her father’s blood poured from his throat.