Flight of the Princeling Ch. 03
"Naru, where are we going?" asked Avir. His soaked clothes had long since dried in the desert sun, walking along the road, but now he was simply exhausted. Naru had had to slow her pace and come back to him twice, and he'd begun to trudge in the dust of the road, his pace plodding, finding it a struggle to put one foot in front of the other.
"West," said Naru.
"There's nothing in the west but more of the Empire," said Avir.
"Avir, did you ever pay attention in your history lessons?" asked Naru.
"Some," said Avir. "To the battles, mostly."
"Well, can you tell me what happened when the Ivashan Emperor died?"
"Of course! The Ivashan left no male heirs, and Althar the False Etheling and the Madzar Emperor divided the Empire for a time, until finally they met at the Plains of Besher and fought for control of the throne. And the Madzar won, ushering in the Golden Age of the Empire that continues to this day."
Naru laughed.
"Your grandfather's words, not the words of history," she said.
"What are you talking about?"
"The Golden Age of the Madzars is over, Avir, you must be able to see that. It's been over for decades, if not a century. Your grandfather was not a capable administrator, and neither was his father. The Empire that the Madzar claimed belongs to the Ressan clan now. Passar—the Sile, I suppose, has taken it."
"Don't call him that. He's not Emperor."
"Open your eyes, Avir. Your grandfather is dead, the Madzar clan is scattered to the wind. Captain Mektal bent the knee rather than challenge the Sile and Jaan Umir. Get used to calling Passar the Sile Emperor, just as I would have had to stop calling you Avir if you had ascended to the throne."
"You never would have had to stop calling me Avir, Naru. I would not think of it," said Avir. "At least, not when we were alone."
Naru smiled. "You are very generous in giving out the money you will never have," she said.
"I stand by it."
"I thank you, my prince," she said.
"Now where are we going?"
"Well, since you didn't pay attention to your history lessons as you should, I will tell you. We are going West, to your mother's clan."
"The Ismay? But they are from nothing," protested Avir. "They can't protect me from Pas—from the Sile."
"Of course they can," said Naru.
"They're at the edge of the known world, Naru!"
"That's why they can protect you. The Empire is a construct, Avir. At its heart, the closer you are to the Emperor and his armies, it has weight and power. But at the edges, it begins to fray. It is only as real as the people who live there wish it to be. The Ismay clan wished it to be stronger, so they married your mother to your father. But they can shield you from it if they wish. The Empire will only be as real for them as they want."
"And if the Sile sends Jaan Umir after me?"
"Why would he do that, Avir?"
"I represent a threat to his power. I am a true Etheling of the Madzar. I am a legitimate heir to the throne."
"You were barely a contender for the throne while the Riva lived. Now that the Riva is dead, you are even less of a threat."
"The people shall rally to my banner!" said Avir.
"Well, firstly, we shall see. They shall rally, but only if it suits their purpose. And then, secondly, if they do, then you will be rewarded with one of those types of battles you can remember from history. The Sile may do just such a thing, send men to the Ismay lands after you. But on the borders of the Empire, it will be harder for them to find you. The Ressan clan gathered its strength on a border in the east, which is why your grandfather was so ill-equipped to challenge the Sile—he couldn't even prevent him from calling the Abraykar to arms, and the purging of the elves from the army is one of the Riva's most cherished accomplishments.
"And besides," she continued. "Even if they do manage to threaten you, the Ismay can take you beyond the borders of the Empire even, where even the Sile's troops will be loath to go."
"I would be loath to go beyond the borders of the Empire," said Avir.
"Why?" asked Naru.
"Because it would be a defeat, Naru. I am a Madzar Etheling. This is my birthright. You're asking me to abandon it to Passar."
"The Sile, Avir. You must learn to say that from this point on. It is the name most people will know him by now, and it costs you nothing to say."
"Except acknowledging a usurper by a throne name."
"So, nothing."
"You are talking about stripping everything from me, Naru. You want me to acknowledge Passar as the rightful Emperor, to call him by a throne name, even to leave my grandfather's realm and yield it to him, an empire that stretches from sea to sea that my clan has built. You ask too much."
Naru sighed and turned around, coming back to him. She wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled his forehead to hers. Avir almost recoiled at the physical contact. Such a show of affection from an inferior in the palace would have had Naru gutted and left for the eagles and vultures to pick at her entrails. Her eyes met his.
"There are no more taboos, Avir, not for the members of the Madzar clan. You have a choice to make. You can live another day, and then another day after that, and so on and so forth until you are old and grey and on your deathbed, and ascend to the heavens. Or you can try to reclaim your birthright and Jaan Umir, or his outriders, or just some desperate fool looking for lands and title, will cut you down. The choice is yours."
"I will lose my honor to follow your plan, Naru. A life without honor is no life at all. You taught me that."
"I taught you the things you needed to learn how to be an Emperor. Now I'm teaching you the things you need to learn how to be a man. The honor you need as an Etheling is different from the honor you need as a subject of the Sile Emperor. Before you would have had to live for everyone in the Empire. Now you will have to live for you alone."
"I won't do it, Naru. I won't turn my back on my people."
"You won't forget your dream of being Emperor."
"I won't leave them to be ruled by a dishonest cur like Passar Ressan."
"Well, if that's how you feel about it," said Naru, breaking her hold on him. She gestured down the road. "Here are the first soldiers in your army."
Avir looked where she was pointing. A cloud of dust was moving closer.
"They could be Jaan Umir's outriders," he said.
"No," said Naru. "They're camels and horses, and they're not moving fast, they're just traveling. Come, let's walk. They will be on us soon and if we look like we are traveling as well, they will not take us for anything remarkable."
She unbuckled her sword and handed it to him.
"Oh, now you're giving me your sword?" asked Avir. "But when I needed it, you would not surrender it."
"I am giving you my sword because you are now my husband and a deserted soldier. When Jaan Umir's army stormed the city, you fled your post, found me and led us to safety. This is your sword. Your sword you looted off an officer. Buckle mine around your waist, and put your sword up on your shoulder."
"When did you become such a talented liar, Naru?" asked Avir, doing as she told him.
"Whatever do you mean, my prince? I have always been a good liar." Her voice fell into the encouraging tone she used when she was instructing him in combat. "'That was a good try, my prince. If you try again, you will surely get it.'"
Avir laughed despite himself.
"So you have," he said.
He glanced back over his shoulder at the dust cloud. He could see the dark figures of the travelers, whoever they were, moving closer.
"What if they're bandits?" he hissed.
"Then throw your sword to me, you use mine, and we'll see if I taught you well enough to kill untrained thieves."
They continued walking down the road, from time to time glancing behind them to check on the progress of the people getting ever closer. Avir could see a couple of horses with riders, a handful of camels, a cow, and two carts, along with a small herd of goats.
"Farmers," he said.
Naru only nodded, continuing on. When the other set of travelers were nearly on them, she turned off the road, and Avir stood by her side.
The first rider, a big man with a bushy beard, reined his horse up in front of Avir. The rest of the group paused, keeping a cautious distance between them.
"Hello, citizen," said the man. He raised his hand to show it was empty.
"Hello, citizen," returned Avir. He shifted his sword to the other shoulder, to return the hand gesture.
"Where are you coming from?" asked the man.
"The city," said Avir. "My wife and I will not stay to serve Pas—"
Naru reached over and pinched him on the back of his thigh, not hard, but sharp enough that he did not finish the name.
"...to serve the Sile Emperor," he corrected himself.
"We'll all serve him now," sighed the traveler.
"I suppose so," said Avir, though his tone was laced with doubt. "But I'll not do it to his face. And you, where have you come from?"
"The Abraykar dog that serves the Sile let his elves loot our farms south of the city. They took everything we had and most of our livestock, too," said the man. He gestured back at the carts and animals. "Three families, and this is all that's left between us."
"Barely enough for one farm."
"Yes," said the man. "And they left that only because their commander told them to. At least they didn't want the horses with those fucking elk of theirs."
"So you left?"
"There was a report of troops coming up from the south to fight them, and they poisoned our well to keep those soldiers from having fresh water," spat the farmer. "I suppose it never occurred to them that we would need water as well. They killed my son when he tried to stop them. So we'll go to my sister's house in Nubra. My brother-in-law is the chief herdsman for the magistrate there. They have need of workers, and I think this war will be over before it reaches Nubra. That fat fool the Riva is already dead and I've heard that there's a bounty on all his clan."
Naru wrapped her arm around Avir's waist, and he could feel her grip tighten around him.
The man glanced at the sword on Avir's hip and the one on his shoulder.
"Are you a soldier, citizen?" he asked.
"Not anymore," said Avir. "I was part of the Riva's garrison, but after Captain Mektal deserted, there was no hope for us, and I took my wife here and we fled."
"And where are you going now?" asked the man.
"West," said Avir. He looked at Naru. "Wherever there is a need for a man who can use a sword."
"You have two," observed the man. He looked at the sword in Avir's hand, his eyes running along the intricate workings of the scabbard. "And that one is quite fine."
"You like this?" asked Avir. "I took it from my commander's corpse."
The farmer stared at him for a moment, then at Naru, then back at the waiting families.
"Well, we might have need of a man capable of using a sword on the road to Nubra," he said. "I don't know how far west you're going, but we'll take you to Nubra, at least."
"We don't have much food," said Naru.
"I didn't expect you to," said the farmer. "But I think you will probably sell that sword, and Nubra has a market for such a thing. My family and I will take a cut of the sale when you do. What do you and your husband say to that?"
Avir caught Naru's eye, and she nodded very softly, so that the farmer could see, but her eyes moved sharply, gesturing away towards the carts. Avir understood.
"That seems a fair bargain. I will give you one fifth of the sale, and I will protect you if we should come across brigands," he said.
The farmer seemed to hesitate for a moment, but Avir said nothing, waiting to see if he might push the deal.
"That is acceptable to me," said the farmer. "You can ride in the carts, since you have no horses or camels."
"What is your name?" asked Avir.
"Call me Gullo," said the farmer. "And your names?"
"Inthira," answered Naru, before Avir could speak. "And my husband here is Jaan."
"Well, Jaan and Inthira," said Gullo. "Welcome to our little caravan."
**************
Gullo's family and his traveling companions greeted Avir and Naru warmly. There were a plethora of different names to remember, and to his dismay, Avir found he could not for the life of him remember them all accurately. Gullo had two fully grown sons, although neither of them had apparently married. One of the sons of the other farming families had brought his wife and infant child, and there were a couple of small girls in the other cart, and three teenage boys who tended the goats and the cow. They were greatly impressed by Avir's sword and begged him for stories of his "life" as a soldier in the army. They were very curious if he'd ever met the Riva, and Avir invented a story very much like one of his audiences at court, although greatly removed, as though he were a no-account courtier or simply a fly on the wall, rather than an Etheling of the Madzar clan. Even the wives seemed impressed by the story, whispering something to Naru, so that she giggled and smiled at Avir.
They traveled on until the sun had nearly fallen beneath the horizon, and then Gullo turned them off the road. All day the boys had been collecting the dung the animals generated, setting it in a cart to dry, and this manure became a pungent fuel for their cooking fire. Gullo slaughtered a goat, roasting it over the flame, then dividing the meat along with a watery stew the wives prepared using some of the grain they'd been feeding the animals. There were not enough dishes, and the children were served first, then the men.
"You're a deserter, then," said Kagata, Gullo's wife, as Avir ate his food and she waited for one of the men to finish and hand her a plate.
"Well, there was not much of an army to desert," said Avir. "Half of them had gone over to the Sile. Better to leave your post than turn your coat."
"Hrm," said Kagata. She looked at Naru, sitting next to Avir. "Are you two newlywed?"
Avir glanced at Naru in surprise, wondering what the purpose of this line of questioning was.
"Yes," said Naru, smiling at Kagata. "How could you tell?"
"You don't touch each other much," said Kagata. She looked at Gullo, across the fire. "Nerves, I expect. Jaan was not the man you thought you'd marry, was he, Inthira?"
"I never thought I'd marry at all," said Naru.
"You show it. Was it arranged?"
"By fate, more than our families," said Avir. He finished his meal, snapping the bone in half and collecting it from his plate before handing it back to Gullo to serve someone else. Gullo ladled some soup over another cut of goat and handed it to Naru.
"What a curious way to put it," said Gullo. "What do you mean, 'fate?'"
"He means that we were never meant to be," said Naru. "I was promised to another and I used to sell flowers near the garrison and then my betrothed died and Jaan was unattached, and it seemed fitting to him that I should be his wife, so that someone would collect his pension if he died in the war. And then the Sile came. I owe him my life, twice over—once for taking pity on me, a poor girl without any prospects, and then again for taking me away from the fighting when the city fell to the Sile's Abraykar general."
She looked over at him, her eyes soft and grateful. Avir marveled at her. She'd pulled an entire story from the air, but told it as though she'd lived every minute of it. He wondered how Naru would have fared selling flowers. Not well, he hazarded.
"Abraykar," said Gullo, spitting in the dirt. "The Riva should've had them all killed."
"Like something out of a love story," said Kagata, ignoring her husband's invective. She mistook Avir's look of admiration for a lover's worship. "Look how awestruck he is with you, Inthira. The gods have put you together."
"Something like that," said Avir.
"Well, I can see how discomforted you are," she said. "You've barely had time to know each other. It took us...Gullo, how long before we became used to seeing each other?"
"Not so long," smiled Gullo. "I had you eating out of my hand in a few weeks. And eating other things in—"
A spoonful of soup went flying across the fire, splattering him in the face, and he and the others laughed, Avir and Naru joining in.
"Nevermind him," said Kagata. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Listen to me, Jaan," said Gullo. "The thing to do is to tie her to a bed and not let her leave until you know her body inside and out. Then she'll be more than happy to do your bidding."
"We're in short supply of beds out here," said Avir.
"Fucking war," agreed Gullo.
"Don't listen to him," said Kagata, smiling broadly at them. "He barely knew what to do with me when we'd finally made it to our house after the wedding."
"Oh, no, not this story," complained one of Gullo and Kagata's sons.
"Fine, I won't tell it," said Kagata.
"You're sparing the gods, not me," the young man said and Gullo laughed a throaty laugh.
Kagata said nothing, only finished her meal in petulant silence while the rest of the group carefully steered the conversation elsewhere. After a few hours, they decided to turn in, Gullo's sons taking the first watch.
Kagata brought Naru and Avir a blanket and a small roll to lay on, presenting it very carefully.
"Everywhere but where it's supposed to go," she told Naru solemnly. "Don't make the same mistakes I did and let him."
"Well," she said, staring Naru up and down, then glancing over at Avir. "I suppose I should leave you two lovebirds to it, then."
Then she disappeared back towards the carts on the other side of the fire, where her husband was settling down in their blankets.
Naru gave Avir a horrified look.
"I have better experience than that," he protested.
"Besides," he whispered. "We're not even married."
"No..." murmured Naru.
They threw the bedroll on the opposite side of the fire, and settled in under their blanket, the wool and fire keeping them warm as the cool desert night settled over them. Avir realized he could use the sleep, even with the ground poking into his back. It had been a long day, and traveling with the refugees, even in their cart, had taken it further out of him. He wondered what the real Inthira was doing now, if she'd be mistreated after her...encounter...or if she'd be brought back to the capital for the Sile's use. He couldn't imagine what she was going through. He particularly wondered if he'd ever see Inthira again, if he'd ever feel her touch...
A hand slid down his stomach into his trousers, and he felt it wrap around his cock. His eyes shot open.
Naru was looking at him, and she put a hand on his chest to calm him.
"Is Kagata looking at us?" she asked. "Don't look too long."
Avir glanced past the fire to Gullo's wife. Kagata's eyes were open on her bedroll, staring across the flames at them. He looked back at Naru before Kagata could see.
"Yes," he said.
"She's suspicious," said Naru. "Our story doesn't seem right to her."
"What's not right about our story?" asked Avir.
"Nothing, particularly," said Naru. "But we don't behave like newlyweds. We don't love like newlyweds."
Her hand stroked up and down his cock, and despite himself, Avir groaned.
"Naru," he grunted.
"Inthira," she whispered. "My name is Inthira."
Avir groaned again.
"We shouldn't," he said.
"If we don't, you may never get to your mother's family," said Naru. "This woman and her husband and her sons and all their friends will kill us and take your gold and your sword and will go back to Passar and try to claim lands and title. Do you want that?"
"No," breathed Avir. Naru's hand was pulsing up and down his cock, and he could feel himself stiffen completely in her grasp.
He'd never in his life looked at Naru. The first day he'd met her, she'd hit him so hard and so many times with the wooden practice swords she'd started him on that it had been hard to tell where Avir ended and where his bruises began. If there'd been any hope he would have found her enticing, it was dashed apart that next morning, when she'd roused him out of bed for a new series of beatings she'd called "training."
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