“Take your anger out on me, not him, my friend,” the prince replied gently.
March poured the water slowly. He would have loved to throw it in Regan’s face, but he concentrated on the slow and steady stream, letting Regan’s words wash off him.
March was used to receiving the occasional slight, though it was rare for a lord to lower himself to comment on a servant. Mostly the insults March received were mild: “jokes” about the prince having civilized him, or being referred to as “the last of the Abasks.” Sometimes there was genuine interest, though that was mainly about his eyes, as people would stare into them and tell him their opinion, which was usually either “amazing” or “freak.” One young lord only the previous month had demanded March stand in the light so he could see them better, remarking, “I’d heard that Abasks had ice eyes, but there’s blue and silver in there with the white.” He’d ended by saying, “Most unpleasant.” Sometimes people commented that they thought all the Abasks had been killed. March had used to think that too, until he met Holywell.
“I’m not angry,” Lord Regan said. “Can’t I disagree, though?” It seemed his anger was making him raise his voice, March noted as he made a snail-paced return to his post by the table.
“You’re my friend. I need your help. I asked as a friend.” The prince’s words were also raised enough for March to hear them now.
“And afterward? What do you think will happen? You are respected, but this isn’t like bringing in some Abask brat to wait on tables.”
March lost the prince’s reply as he was thinking, Fuck you! Fuck you!
Regan was right, of course; Prince Thelonius was respected and March was nothing but a servant, a virtual slave. The prince represented all that was civilized and refined; March, all that was primitive and uncultured. The prince had a reputation for wisdom, honor, and fairness; Abasks had a reputation for being mountain-dwelling trolls.
March had worked for the prince for eight years—half his life—and he’d learned about his home country and his people from the Calidorians. There was no one else to learn from, as Abask had been destroyed in the war between Calidor and Brigant. Prince Thelonius had been granted the princedom of Calidor by his father and had refused to hand it over to his brother, King Aloysius of Brigant, on their father’s death. Then they had fought, as only brothers could, with hate more passionate because they shared the same blood, and as only rulers could—with armies.
It was an uneven fight. Brigant was bigger and stronger and Aloysius the more experienced leader, but Prince Thelonius had something Aloysius could never claim: the love of his people. He treated the citizens of Calidor well, taxed them fairly, and ensured the laws were applied wisely. Aloysius ruled Brigant through terror and violence. The Calidorians feared Aloysius and loved Thelonius.
Abask, the beautiful, small mountainous region that was March’s birthplace, lay on the border between the kingdoms but had always been considered part of Calidor. When Aloysius invaded, his armies burned their way across Abask, aiming for the Calidorian capital, Calia. Thelonius’s army was almost overwhelmed. Pulling all his forces back into a defense of the city, Thelonius managed to hold Calia for over a year, before counterattacking and driving Aloysius’s army back across the border to Brigant, when, finally, a truce was declared.
Brigant was despairing, their treasury empty and their army depleted. Calidor was exhausted but jubilant at having thrown back the bigger invader in a glorious and honorable defense against greater odds. The bonds with the Savaants to the south improved further, trade grew in the following years, Calidorian farms and vineyards prospered, and the towns were rebuilt. Few Calidorians cared about what had happened to the mountain people of Abask. And there were few Abasks left to care either: the Abask fighters had been wiped out in the first battles of the war and Abask was overrun, its surviving people left to starve or taken as slaves by the Brigantines.
Only seven years old when the war began, March’s own memories were vague. He remembered being told his father had been killed, and his mother and sisters died at some point but he wasn’t sure when. Mainly he remembered his older brother, Julien, holding his hand as they went in search of food. He couldn’t actually remember the feeling of being hungry, but he knew he must have been because he definitely did recall eating grass. But mainly he remembered holding Julien’s hand and walking day after day until Julien collapsed and some Calidorian soldiers returning from the border had pried him off his brother’s dead body and carried him to the safety and warmth of the prince’s camp.
March used to think of himself as lucky: lucky that he’d not starved; lucky that he’d been rescued by the Calidorians, and not the Brigantines; lucky that the prince had taken him in and trained him to be his personal servant; lucky to have enough food to eat every day.
He thought all that until he met Holywell.
March had been back to the land that had once been Abask, when he was traveling nearby with the prince. He’d slipped away from the royal entourage and climbed up into the rugged mountains. He’d hoped to remember places or recognize some feature of the landscape, but in honesty it all seemed strange: more rugged and inhospitable than he’d thought. After three days he returned to the prince, telling him some of the truth.
“I needed to see it, sire.”
“And what did you find?”
“The mountains remain, and a few ruins, but the bracken and woods have reclaimed the land. No one is living there.”
The prince had smiled sadly. “It was always a tough existence, living in the mountains. Your people were strong and resourceful.”
And left by you to starve or be taken into slavery, March wanted to shout in the prince’s face.
“Well, I’m glad you returned to me, March. I was lost without you.”
And March had taken a breath and forced out his reply. “It’s right that I should come back to you, sire. After all you’ve done for me.”
Of course March didn’t mention that he had met Holywell. They’d spotted each other from across the valley near his village ruins. Holywell had waved and approached, and March’s heart had leaped when he’d seen Holywell’s eyes were as pale and icy as his own.
Nor did March mention to the prince that he’d spent two days with Holywell, who had told him a different history of the war.