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Once we were on our way, with our people and the Pendorian officers crammed into four of these big vehicles, (except the fairy warriors, who chose to seek their own quarters), Colonel Morgas filled us in on some details of the current situation. She had to shout to be heard over the engine and the teapot din of the boiler. Steam automobiles really do make a serious racket, especially on a steep climb like the way up to Narses Castle. By the time we arrived, I felt like I was going to be hearing that huffing and chuffing in my sleep, along with the howl of the steam boiler.
But I noticed she avoided actually describing the attack on Narses, and concentrated mostly on the situation at the front. We had a pretty good handle on the battlefront situation by the time we made it into the castle and unloaded from the steamers, but no additional information about the local situation.
My attendants, two of Rod’s knights and Mireia stayed behind to deal with the bags while the rest of us proceeded inside, where the colonel led us up to the top floor of the castle’s hall keep. Amana greeted me with a hug and a warm “Tiana-innan,” then greeted Rod with impeccable etiquette. Once that was taken care of , the staff seated us so she could brief us.
We were in the conservatory, the centermost room of the solar. Although the word ‘solar’ normally describes a single room in the topmost story, Narses Castle’s solar capped a fairly large building, so it included a family dining room for the castle lord, a conservatory that functioned as a salon, and three bedrooms, including Mother’s.
My sister wasn’t looking very fairy-like at the moment, having adopted a business-like modern Orestanian dress. Which seemed a bit odd to me at first, since Amana is old enough to use a raiment. But since, at her age, she can only create fairly simple garments like Ancient Greek chitons or such, perhaps she wanted a more sophisticated look than she had the skills to produce.
Amana took her position in front of a map of Pendor and the surrounding territories that the army clerks had just stood up, which displayed the current positions of the battlefronts. They more-or-less corresponded to what Colonel Morgas had described.
Her first words, without preamble, made it clear why she ordered her people to hide the severity of the attack and its devastating effect on Pendor’s command staff.
“To put it as simply as I can, the attack on Army Headquarters was an inside job,” she declared.
Both Rod and I, and probably several others, stared at her without comprehending for several seconds. Matthias must have been the first to recover, as he replied first.
“All of the attacks, including this one, were conducted under the direction of demons,” the sage objected. “And they were synchronized. How can this attack be an ‘inside job’?”
Amana turned and pointed at the map. “Unlike all the other locations targeted, Narses is hundreds of miles from the front lines and more than a hundred miles from the Southern Sea. Despite this, somehow, the enemy carried out a massive, devastating attack on us with no warning. Penetrating this far behind the lines with an attack of this scale without detection should have been impossible.”
She reached up and pulled down a second map from a roller. It was a plan of the city, showing the port and shipping basin, the manufacturing towns on the opposite shore, and the Lower and Upper Towns of Narses, with the location of the Army Headquarters marked in the Upper Town.
“The real assault was carried on in stealth, aided by illusionary fog, after diversionary illusions distracted our air defenses into leaving the city. Without opposition, the real assault struck the Army Headquarters, here, and two army camps outside city limits, here and here, completely leapfrogging those aerial defenses.”
Rod scowled, but Matthias was the one who voiced the problem first.
“You’re describing a massive operation involving hundreds of mages. As you already said, a force of that size should have been detected.”
“Had they come from outside the city, they would have been,” she agreed. “Instead, they somehow smuggled a significant number of mages on riverboats into the shipping basin below us to perform the illusions, along with flying demonic beasts and their handlers to carry out the attack and flying mounts on which they could withdraw after the attack. The diversions drew off the aerial cavalry to allow them to escape after launching the assault directly from the harbor.”
“This nonsense again,” came a new voice, from a man entering Amana’s [Realm of Silence]. “Madame Fairy, we have already determined that no such force ever entered the Shipping Basin.”
He was a middle-aged man with oily hair and an Asian-style goatee wearing old-fashioned Dorian upper-class attire, a crimson tang suit richly embroidered in gold. He had an entourage behind him of underlings in more modern attire.
Amana replied, “My Lord, we have far too many eyewitnesses to the contrary. Your people are wrong.”
“And so you still contend that every river inspector failed to spot loads of demons on more than a dozen riverboats,” the man mocked.
“You have yet to produce a single inspector who can testify to having inspected the boats in question at all. Nor have you turned over the inspection records. Meanwhile, I have witnesses testifying that the inspections were suspended. Someone within the Port Authority was working with the enemy.”
“The devastation in the port has caused considerable disruption, Madame Fairy,” he responded smoothly. “We are still too disorganized to locate the records you’ve requested. At any rate, nonsense is nonsense, and you should stop spreading it to the outside. I take it these are the visitors you smuggled in this morning without informing me in advance?”
This man had spoken less than a hundred words, and I already disliked him.
“Perhaps you should introduce us,” Rod stated, with an edge in his voice that told me he had the same opinion.
Amana’s lips curled up slightly at the look of confusion that grew on the man’s face as he turned and finally noticed the Royal Prince.
“Y… Your Highness,” he responded, recovering his aplomb.
“I certainly should do that,” Amana agreed with a broad smile. “Your Highnesses, allow me to introduce His Lordship Orgo, Viscount Amalis, Mayor of Narses.”
The mayor of the capital city is not normally a hereditary position, and Narses has no feudal lord, being Mother’s direct domain. I was slightly confused as to why a viscount, who should have their own domain to manage, would be mayor here, but I concealed my ignorance for the moment.
She gestured toward Rod and I and continued, ” Your Lordship, may I present to you His Highness Roderick, Royal Prince of Orestania, and his fiancée, Her Highness Tiana, Princess of Faerie and First Daughter of the Duchy of Pendor.”
I nearly dipped my head in acknowledgement before Benedetta’s many hours of protocol and etiquette training kicked in and stopped me. This was a clear subordinate, so he needed to go first. He got down on his knee, Orestanian-style, and his entourage quickly followed.
“Your Royal Highness, we are honored,” he declared with his head lowered.
“You may rise,” Rod said, his voice a little strained. Confused, I stole a glance over at him, and saw an angry furrow in his brow. I wasn’t sure what it was about.
The viscount pressed his case as soon as he was on his feet again.
“Your Highness, this woman does not hold an official position here. She has through some means convinced the army to follow her orders, but she is neither a subject of the Duchy nor a citizen of Orestania. Please do not be misled by her spurious claims!”
Rod’s face changed from angered to perplexed. “Lord Mayor, do you understand who this woman is?”
“Of course, Your Highness. She’s very well known here in Pendor, and quite notorious. She’s a fairy-blooded mage who comes and goes in the duchy, and has been doing so for at least a century. Now, all of the sudden, she’s pretending to be an actual fairy now that the duchess is gone!”
Confused again, I looked over to my sister. Amana, wearing a half smile, scratched behind her ear while looking away.
“Is that some sort of public persona, Sal’nedo?” I wondered, dropping the ‘Esteemed Sister’ address on her in Fairy.
“It’s easier to live among mortals when they think you’re one of them,” she told me lightly, then threw Lord Orgo a dark look. “Your claim that Her Grace is ‘gone’ is unsubstantiated. Please stop repeating it.”
“We know that a body was found!”
“That was my older sister, Your Lordship!”
“So you claim! Where did this ‘older sister’ that nobody knew about come from?”
“Inda’s work as Her Grace’s body double was a secret!”
“Enough!” Rod barked, imposing himself into the argument. “Colonel Morgas!”
I call it an argument, but it was a bit one-sided. The viscount was arguing, but Amana looked amused.
“Y… Yes, Your Highness!” the lady colonel responded, surprised to be suddenly on the spot.
“How did Her Highness end up in command here?”
“Her Grace put her in charge of the command staff while General Provis toured the front, Your Highness,” she answered crisply now that she had collected herself.
I found that a little odd. As far as I knew, Amana was in Pendor to work as a mage. But I said nothing.
“None of my people heard anything about that, before the attack!” the viscount rebutted.
“Why would your people have been informed of who was holding down the fort during a temporary absence, Your Lordship?” Amana countered, still amused.
“I said, ‘enough’,” Rod told them both, then turned back to the colonel.
“Where is Princess Inda’s body? Has she been returned to Tëan Tír already?”
“No, Your Highness,” Colonel Morgas answered. “Many of the Pendorians don’t believe that it isn’t Her Grace, and have insisted that the body remain lying in state in the Great Hall. She has been there, under guard, since the day of the attack.”
Rod looked at me. “My Lady, if I don’t miss my guess, you can tell if it’s Her Grace or not with Fairy Sight.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” I said immediately.
I didn’t know whether I could tell or not, although I thought I probably could. But I already knew, having heard it from Mother herself, that this body wasn’t her.
Rod gave me a slight smile and a nod of thanks. I don’t know if he had the same thought, or if he was just confident in my abilities.
“Then we’ll go down there and settle it,” he declared, then looked at the viscount, “My Lord Orgo, is that sufficient?”
He eyed me with some distrust. “If she indeed has Fairy Sight…”
Rod’s voice turned harder. “I know that she does, My Lord, so your opinion is irrelevant. You are to accept her verification as conclusive.”
Fifteen minutes later, we stood on the dais in the Great Hall, being the first floor directly beneath our previous location. Normally, a table where the Lord of the Castle and her friends and family would eat would occupy this raised floor at one end of the Hall , but now, a coffin laid atop an altar stood here, with a Pendorian flag draped over it.
“Not an Orestanian flag…” Rod muttered, although probably only I could hear it.
“They think it’s Mother,” I reminded him. “In their hearts, she’s their Duchess first.”
A pair of Pendorian soldiers in dress uniform carefully rolled back the flag to expose the head end of the casket. It had a divided lid, and they lifted the half that covered Inda’s head and torso.
