A Shore Too Far

Chapter 10

Eric worked tirelessly into the night to stop the illness. He had stored up numerous remedies he had wished to test at the next outbreak and so his own army had become his subjects in an entirely different way. Searing baths of salts and herbs bubbled in large wooden tubs, with three soldiers a tub soaking up to the neck. Chest compresses of finely chopped herbs lay plastered on some of the recently ill and a blazing bonfire disposed of those for whom no remedy was enough.

The northeast quadrant now had more than 200 cases and 11 deaths. There were twenty cases in the southeast and now ten in the northwest. The southwest still showed no signs of the disease and Eric ordered them a half-day’s march south of us to spare them if we could.

Eric also took particular care with me, checking me for signs of the plague whenever my duties would give me rest.

“Is your neck painful? Swollen?” he would ask.

“No.”

“Any coughing? Fever?”

“No.”

“I must be sure, Kara,” he would say. “Any pain in the joints?”

While Eric’s energy seemed unflagging, my own endurance was spent, though the mystery of Esmir’s silence contributed to my fatigue. Hours may have passed since we realized that the children no longer laughed and played, but that time had produced no more answers and the scouts could only confirm what we had guessed: the children could not be seen playing.

Entering my tent to rest, I found Gwey sitting at my war table, his head propped wearily in his hands. He started when I entered and rubbed bleary eyes.

“Does Eric need me?” Gwey asked.

“No, I’m just retiring for the night,” I answered. “You look like you’ve seen better days.”

“Your brother,” Gwey began, shaking his head. “He takes this disease as a personal failing on his part. His driving all of us at a maddening pace.”

“I’m glad you two are able to set aside your differences,” I jested.

“Well, I was told by someone once that I have a duty to the kingdom or some such,” he replied, “though she was a deeply unbalanced woman…”

I moved to him and shoved playfully at his shoulder.

Gwey grasped the table to keep his seat. “I’m obviously in no condition to fight you, Princess Kara, therefore I submit and will join you in bed.”

Lying together, sleep grew in us like a long-needed warmth.

“I hear you’ve put a proposal to Queen Esmir, one that may avoid war,” Gwey murmured beside me.

“Mmm-hmm,” I answered. “It’s a trade of sorts.”

“Everything’s a trade, Kara,” Gwey said softly. “Everything.”

How long we slept before we were awakened by the sound of a weapon banging lightly against a shield, I do not know, but I pulled myself out of sleep and into my clothes.

Outside, in the lantern-strewn dark, a soldier panted a report of a rider emerging from the Kullobrini tents.

“Queen Esmir?” I asked the runner.

“No, General, a man, but not a soldier if his clothes are any guide,” the young man answered.

“Fine. Stop him at the hill. Do not let him approach.”

I struggled into my armor and marched down the road to the hill. Gonnaban stood waiting for me, a torch held high.

The Kullobrini was in his fifties, tall, lean, and richly attired. He was balding on top, but with bushy sideburns that stuck out over his ears. He had already dismounted and waited with some humility, his velvet cap in his dark hands.

“State your business,” I ordered.

“Forgive the late hour, Highness. I come to apologize for Queen Esmir’s absence earlier today and also to offer my services for as long as you are willing.” He bowed low and then stood again.

Gonnaban and I glanced at each other. Gonnaban made a brave effort to hide a smile.

“What services would those be? And speak civilly, there are arrows marking you,” I said.

“I am Gren Demmar, master shipwright. I am to instruct your people in the building of our galleons and other vessels,” he said, smiling, and bowed low again, clearly nervous in the presence of royalty.

I could feel Gonnaban tense beside me in excitement and I fought my desire to glance at him.

“You are most welcome, master shipwright,” I answered. “Queen Esmir is most gracious.”

“Yes, Highness, but first I would ask that your healers visit our tents. A new malady has struck us and many have already died.”

What I had mistaken for nerves was a barely contained grief and the man now shook with it, nearly falling to his knees.

Gonnaban moved to support him as I called for a soldier to send word to Eric.

By morning, our wagons were being escorted within the cloth sprawl of the Kullobrini city. Eric rode ahead of us like a scout, peering at the individuals he passed for signs of the illness. Finally, we came to the Kullobrini corral only to find bodies covering the hoof-trod earth, many of them children. The heavy red fabric we had come to know so well had been cut to cover each body.

“The Cloth of Blessing,” Gonnaban murmured as we rounded the corral. “We know too well what it hides this time.”

Parents gathered at the corral’s fence and stared out at the sea of bodies. Mothers held fathers as they sobbed. Husbands held wives who gazed unseeingly out onto the fabric mounds.

We came at last to where the sick had been sequestered and we were given makeshift kerchiefs to wear, for the Kullobrini believed that the breath of the sick carried the spirit of the disease.

Tent after tent held stricken men, women, and children, though the young and old were particularly hard hit. More than once, we heard the tale of a Kullobrini who recuperated from the illness at sea only to suddenly decline with entirely new symptoms. Their constitutions weakened by weeks aboard ship, these Kullobrini had fallen ill only to fall ill again upon landing.

Soldiers surrounded the area where the sick were treated, keeping out well-meaning friends and family as the healers combated the ailment. Time and again, we overheard some tussle as guards drug away a screaming parent with some remedy or comforting keepsake for a loved one.

Eldrazz met us halfway through our tour, encountering us as he emerged from a tent. His warrior’s frame was bent low with exhaustion and worry.

“It was good of you to come,” he said, his voice muffled by the cloth over his face.

“I am sorry it is under such circumstances,” Eric said.

Eldrazz bowed slightly and gestured us into the tent he had just exited. Eglanna and a number of soldiers lay on the floor, ill and unconscious. Kannafen sat on the ground beside Eglanna and held the prince’s hand. The shield lay facedown on the ground serving as a shallow bowl with damp clothes and spent bundles of herbs. He did not move as we entered.

“I’m sorry your shield could not protect him,” I said.

Kannafen jumped and looked up at me. “We know so little when all is said,” he began. “Perhaps no shield is as big as life.”

Eric moved to the fallen prince and touched the man’s sweating forehead.

“He’s like fire,” Eric said grimly, looking up at Eldrazz. “There’s little we can do now.”

Kannafen took a sharp breath and clenched his student’s hand all the harder. Eldrazz nodded mutely and stepped out of the tent.

“You must burn or bury the bodies,” Eric said once we were outside. “Leaving them out will just invite more pestilence.”

Eldrazz stared blankly at Eric. “We have lost hundreds already. You’ve seen the corral, but we also have some tents stacked two and three deep.”

“Use the trench,” I said without thinking.

Eldrazz glared defiantly at me, but I meant no malice and when he saw none he softened.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ll see to it.”

He looked once more back at the tent and moved off, calling to his men in his own language.

After scores of tents like Eglanna’s, Gonnaban and I left to oversee the progress in our own camp. As we worked our way to the south entrance of the Kullobrini encampment, a dark-skinned messenger brought an invitation from Esmir.

“Will you join me?” I asked Gonnaban.

“No, ma’am, I’d better see how our lads are doing,” he said. “Keep your kerchief about you.”

“You, too,” I said and motioned for the messenger to lead on.

Esmir sat on a small, high-backed wooden throne. The throne was capped and footed in gold and sat under an open-air tent on a thick blue rug. Attendants stood silently beside her.

For the first time since I knew her, Esmir wore a crown of twisted gold. Her hands that had always sported one ring now were burdened with six, and a slender golden scepter lay in her arms. Gone was the simple servant smock I had come to know and in its place was a dark red gown, thick and luxuriant. In her hand, she clenched a kerchief, though whether for tears or against the plague I could not tell.

As we approached, she appeared lost in thought but brightened a little when she noted my presence.

“What does it say of the times when a queen cannot keep an appointment?” she asked.

“I doubt either you or I have ever known times quite like these,” I said.

“True,” she said and again her eyes seemed to lose focus. “Will you sit?” she asked suddenly, motioning for a chair.

A servant set a chair across from Esmir and I sat, strangely glad to be with her.

“Did you like your shipwright?” Esmir asked jovially. “I tried to find you a horse, but you have been so insistent.”

“I am sorry about Prince Eglanna,” I said.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “The shipwright has lost family too. We all seem to be losing so much.”

She smiled faintly and moved the scepter from one hand to the other as though it were a great weight.

“I have been thinking about your proposal regarding our lore,” Esmir said after a time.

“Your Highness, we can speak on this later,” I said. “The plague must be our first priority.”

“Neither you nor I are healers, Kara,” Esmir returned bitterly, running her hand lightly up and down her scepter. “There are those who go their whole lives not knowing that, but you and I know it very well.”

“Yet you tried to resettle the remnant of your kingdom by appealing to compassion,” I said. “Perhaps you’re more of a healer than you know.”

“A thousand of my people have your plague, Kara,” Esmir said, “my youngest son among them. I have one army to the south of me and another on the way.” She laughed. “I left my kingdom to prevent a civil war from gutting my land, but how many will I lose here? How many lives did my usurper son take out of fear of insurrection despite my departure?

“No,” she said, “you and I are women who save lives by doing what needs to be done and by cutting down the people who stand in between.”

She looked at me fiercely but I had nothing to say. After a moment she looked away.

We talked for hours, finally coming to a plan for both our peoples while the bodies mounted. Twenty secrets over twenty years but the Kullobrini would join us now. Esmir would draw up the list of secrets and the order in which they would be revealed and I would leave it to her and Father to finalize the agreement.

The site for their city would be moved north, but within view of the present camp. Once the plague had subsided, the encampment itself would be purged by fire—and it was already haunted by death, hardly the new start a people deserved.

After a week the Kullobrini had buried over a thousand people in the trench, starting at the northernmost point. For the sake of convenience, our dead were laid at the southernmost, then totaling sixty-five. Both sides prayed we would not meet in the middle.

For hours on end, soldiers on both sides helped pull the sharpened stakes and spears out of the trench and embankment so the bodies were easier to roll to their resting place. The tedium and weight of the task left some men broken and, like those still searching for a single ediseil to wear, those men would stagger about numbly.

Eric’s campaign against the plague merged the techniques of the two peoples. Mouth kerchiefs and the ediseil flower became commonplace throughout both camps and the Kullobrini vessels brought load after load of firewood to keep the cauldrons boiling and fish enough for both camps. Admiral Pulgatt had released the civilian ships he had commandeered, but his navy became one of relief, shipping supplies from provinces further south, though no one from any vessel was allowed to set foot on our little dock.

The East Guard returned to my provinces and redoubled patrols on our northern boundaries given that Eric’s North Guard was consumed with illness. If the Northmen had word of our difficulties, however, they chose not to take advantage of them.

When Eglanna finally succumbed to the disease, Eric offered Esmir a gravesite at Opal Bend in Abringol, but she refused. Eglanna was dressed in his formal military garb and buried among his people in a trench in a foreign village that had all but wasted away. Esmir grieved for her son, donning a sash of purple we were told signified the weight of death, but she seemed more at peace with our agreement and with her decisions to release her people’s secrets.

Often, she would find me as I went between camps and we would ride or walk together. She would tell me of the distant lands that we would soon gain knowledge of and how, in the end, the world was such a large place that it was strange we could still feel anything given how small we really were. At those times, I wanted to reach for her but did not know how to comfort her.

At the end of the second week, 3,100 Kullobrini lay at rest beneath the earthworks of their kin and another 200 of my men joined them. We had filled almost a quarter of a trench more than twenty-five miles long and I had to wonder how many miles I had filled in protecting my kingdom and serving my king in years past. One day, I said as much to Eric as he was checking the progress of his steaming tubs of soldiers.

“You cannot be so hard on yourself,” he said as we walked from tub to tub. “You did not kill for the joy of it. And you did not do it alone. Father and I share the blame. Often it was my land you were protecting and certainly it was Father’s. Are hands are not without blood.” Eric took out a small book and began jotting.

“I’m not sure that’s a comfort,” I said, as some of the soaking soldiers nodded to me.

Eric paused in his writing but did not look up.

“No, I suppose not,” he said. “Our work can be bloody, Kara. It is, however, the work of kings and a people need leaders that are willing to protect them.”

“I know, and I know that the Haru do not trouble themselves with such questions when they put one of our villages to the torch,” I said. “But it would be worth our name to wonder at how easily we—how easily I spill blood.”

“A week ago, you wouldn’t have wondered at all,” Eric reminded me. Then he sighed in exasperation. “These damn tubs are useless.”

During a day of particularly heavy losses, Esmir and I stood watching two wagonloads of the dead being emptied by her soldiers. We had long since run out of the Cloth of Blessing and now tent canvas was all that wrapped the bodies as they were lowered to rest. Esmir’s hand ran absently along her sash.

“I should wear more than one sash,” she said sadly. “But I only have the one.”

“It’s enough, Majesty, that you grieve at all,” I answered.

“I’m not sure it will ever be enough,” she said.

Soon, fear of contagion drove people to flee the camps and my cavalry had to hunt down the escapees, whether Kullobrini or my own men. Gonnaban hated to watch the return of any who had fled the camps and would turn away at the sight.

“I don’t know what I’d do in their shoes,” he’d say.

“You are in their shoes, Gonnaban,” I said quietly. “You’re just as likely to spread the plague as they are. You’ve stayed and you will stay.”

He looked at me and then watched as a mother of three was led back into the Kullobrini camp.

By week four, more than 8,000 Kullobrini had died, but the numbers of new sick were beginning to decline. What few Kullobrini children had survived still lay ill and too weak to return laughter to their blighted camp. In my own camp, 1,800 men, mostly from the northeast quadrant, had succumbed, filling the trench halfway—a grave nearly fifteen miles long.

Eric had worked heroically and had earned the trust and respect of the Kullobrini. Though at a terrible cost, our people were working together under his guidance and the relationships of years were built in weeks.

During a rare evening respite in the fifth week, Eric and I rested in his headquarters within the Kullobrini encampment. With so many deaths, empty tents were easy to find, even with so many cut as shrouds. Despite efforts to break them all down, many were left unattended and flapping like ill-tempered ghosts in the wind.

As Eric poured himself a large brandy, his lack of sleep and long days were evident. He rubbed his neck and rolled his head from side to side as the amber liquid cascaded into his tumbler.

“We’ve done well, considering,” Eric said, lowering himself into a camp chair.

“Eleven thousand dead?” I asked. “More to come? You’re more of an optimist than I realized.”

“With all due respect, General,” Eric returned, “you don’t know this enemy.” He rubbed his neck again and sipped at his brandy. “The Kullobrini are lucky to have anyone standing. And you did your part letting the healers split my army. Saved hundreds if I’m any judge.”

“A leader worth her salt knows when to listen,” I said. “I learned that from Father…and you.”

He gave me a mock bow and sipped again. “I live to serve.”

“Are we at the end, do you think,” I asked, “of all this?”

“The outbreak?” he asked. “A few more weeks and too many deaths, but the worst is over. I’d be happier if more of the infected here would pull through, but the Kullobrini constitution does not handle it well.” He shrugged. “We should count our blessings.”

The next day Eric began shivering and he became feverish. His personal physician arrived from Abringol and attended to him among the other victims in my camp. Two days later, his coughs colored his kerchief in blood and he began talking in his sleep, calling out for old acquaintances or conversing with our mother.

I sent word to our father and Kollus, but I would not leave Eric’s side, despite the healers’ pleading. Gonnaban checked on me each day, bringing me soup or bread or tea when he could.

“You’ve done all you can,” Gonnaban had said.

I had shaken my head and continued to wipe the sweat from Eric’s burning brow.

Gonnaban had taken me by my shoulders and turned me to face him. “You’ll get sick if you stay any longer. You’ve done your bit, shown your love, now leave it to the Nine Fathers and the healers. You’ll go down with the rest of ’em; we’ll leave you in that trench if you’re not careful.”

I had torn myself from his grasp and returned to hovering over my brother as he had muttered to the long dead.

Father rode to Abringol to await further word and sent his prayers to us both. Esmir and Eldrazz visited as Eric worsened. They expressed their gratitude for Eric’s bravery and aid to their people, but I could not hear them. As they left, one of them touched my shoulder and I wondered later which one had found the strength that I could not.

One day, in a rare moment of lucidity, Eric focused on my face. His eyes brightened with recognition. “Sister,” he said. “How am I doing?”

“The healers are hopeful,” I lied. “After all, we have all of your treatments to try.”

“As much work as I’ve put them through I’m surprised they’ve agreed to see me,” he joked.

“You are a prince,” I said.

“True enough,” he said and then sunk into sleep muttering, “A prince…a prince.”

On his last day, Eric’s fever raged like an anger, but when I held his hands they were cold and I knew he was lost to me. At times, he would speak out loud, murmuring, “The curve of it, the curve of it…,” and his hand would clench on some unseen object. In the last moments, his mouth open and closed like a fish seeking water, innocent in its need, and then he was gone, the tiny ediseil on his shirt crumpled with his thrashing.

Despite the risks, my father brought Eric’s body to Abringol, though Eric would not be buried inside the city at Opal Bend. Instead, Father settled on one of the hills overlooking Abringol, a place of green light and stone.

Kollus received word by ship and joined us two days later. I greeted my younger brother as he strode off his ship. His face, already grieving, changed upon seeing mine. He took my hand earnestly and sought answers in my face, but I turned from him and led him to our coach.

As a matter of protocol, Father invited Esmir and Eldrazz, though Gonnaban and I wondered if they would come or instead attend to matters given that the plague had finished its work, having claimed a third of the Kullobrini and 3,000 of Eric’s men. In short order, however, the Kullobrini accepted.

The day of the funeral, my father’s honor guard greeted us as we climbed from our coach and made our way toward the grave. Eric’s coffin hung over the hole, heavy and pregnant. The coach carrying Eldrazz and Esmir followed, and soon the pair of Kullobrini royalty joined us on the little wooded hill that would hold my brother forever.

With each step toward Eric’s richly appointed box, a pain grew in me, reminding me that it was only a few years ago that I was so flushed with pride at my latest slaughter, so proud of my meteoric rise, that I had sent assassins against Eric in his beautiful city. The Men of the Gray Valleys, so proficient in poison, so deadly with the needle, the blade, and so eager for coin, and I sent them to kill Eric, to set myself higher in Father’s esteem. Kollus had not yet shown any real direction and I, I had subjugated one people and so had earned the right to rule another.

When the plot had failed, I was not implicated, but I had been speechless with relief that Eric still lived. I had admitted my folly to Gonnaban who had listened with outraged eyes as he wiped the day’s blood from his armor. At the end of it, he had contained himself and then had insisted that we camp for a day or two even though the enemy was reeling from our assault and ripe for another blow.

“Hold for a while, miss,” he had said. “Breathe awhile.”

We had camped for three days, a light ash raining on us from a fire mountain one valley over, and the men had fished the streams, pulling great catfish out with their hands.

I could use that time now, that time to breathe, but as my father’s priest stepped before us, I knew that time was not coming.

Esmir stepped beside me dressed in her rich red gown and her purple sash of loss. Her face was regal, resplendent, radiant, a Mask Imperial and more. When she turned to me, I saw not only her losses carved there but my own as well, and I almost gasped at the knowing of it.

The priest raised his hands and cried to the Nine Fathers, naming them in an order ancient and echoing, and calling on each of them to attend us in this time of mourning, in this time of things passing and things taken.