§
Suddenly being out of touch with reality for three days has made one truth painfully clear. I have been underestimating the speed at which things have been happening.
Rod didn’t really prepare me for this while we took breakfast together. Mostly he stayed silent while Amelia dominated the conversation, giving me a full rundown of the events of her stay in Bray Castle. She also managed to enthuse about her promised new nieces repeatedly at the same time, which was embarrassing. And about her new sister-in-law Mireia, whom she was already calling ‘Mir’. Rod just kept his head down and concentrated on his meal, so perhaps he was a bit embarrassed (on both topics) as well, although if I was judging correctly, he mostly had something else weighing on his mind.
Mireia had become fully versed in just how much of a chatterbox the Royal Princess could be, by the time our meal was done.
It wasn’t until after breakfast, as I began meeting with Benedetta and my aides, that I began to learn just how much had changed while I slept, and just how much work Rod and Amelia had been doing in my stead.
I was itching to check on Shindzha and to sort out the plans for a new attempt to recover Mother’s and Owen’s bodies, but that wouldn’t be an option until after I got through my briefings.
Benedetta, who would be my lady in waiting officially once I became Duchess, and was already acting in that capacity, went first. Hers was short and blunt.
“As you are aware, you are under a royal edict and direction from the Privy Council to finalize your marriage with His Royal Highness as soon as possible. Due to the emergency, you may not delay in order to arrange a formal ceremony. You are to postpone that for a later date, after the war is concluded.”
Of course I was aware. I tipped my head and waited for whatever would follow.
She regarded me with a dark glance, befitting her identity as a Shade, and declared, “The Royal Princess has arranged a fitting for your wedding gown this afternoon. Please do not hare off on some new adventure before then, My Lady. Nor afterward, if you value my sanity at all.”
I listened in sullen silence to her bitter request, and couldn’t object. I mean, I was already resolved to do this. And my babies needed a legitimate father.
Naturally, being my lady-in-waiting now, she remained in the room for the other meetings. She would only excuse herself for the military briefing. So, she also appeared with Gyges to go over the latest political matters of the Duchy.
Except she wasn’t ‘Gyges’ from now on, at least not in front of others while in this particular body,
“My official identity in this body is a commoner named ‘Miss Lawin’, without surname, My Lady,” she declared with a deep bow. The blond thirty-something woman (I swear she looked younger before) now wore the standard eggplant-colored dress donned by all court ladies in Pendor.
Once we had that out of the way, she went into detail, with Benedetta coaching her occasionally. Obviously, if she had taken a normal path to arrive at this position, Gyges would require no coaching, but it seemed she’d been too busy with actual work to learn court etiquette yet.
I worried for how well she would get along, momentarily, until I remembered she was an Immortal with tens of thousands of years experience dealing with humans and blending in with them. She would probably have it down pat in one more day.
Most of what had happened to date involved working out divisions of labor between the Ducal government and Rod’s Viceroyal government, which governed Pendor nominally but held actual authority only over the realm outside my autonomous duchy.
In other words, it was, at the moment, a theory more than a thing, since the Pendorian military still held all the territory conquered to date under military governance. But it needed to take over the job as soon as possible, and that presented a serious problem.
“We can barely manage Pendor at this point, but the Southern Viceroydom needs personnel. Recruiting them from among the locals outside Pendor would mean relying upon people potentially loyal to the rebels, but recruiting them from among Pendorian personnel would leave us badly understaffed. A bad idea under the current circumstances.”
I nodded. “Yes, in wartime you need all hands on deck.”
“Well, that too. I meant the staffing issues that we are encountering after the Beretin Affair.”
Tilting my head, I asked, “Explain that?”
She blinked, then smiled. “Right. You’ve been asleep for most of it. The difficulties with Viscount Beretin and his allies have had a fairly long-ranging effect. Naturally we haven’t arrested everyone involved, since most were guilty of nothing more than following orders to do things that weren’t illegal, and were not aware that they were supporting the illegal activities of those above them. It was only those at the top that knew what was happening. But until we sort out who knew what, we have all involved parties on leave. That has left quite a hole.”
“You put everyone involved on leave, whether what they did was illegal or not?” I echoed, immediately worried. I didn’t want to have any part in draconian measures, and this sounded too over-the-top.
“All have been informed it was to be only short-term, until we sort out who did what. The Royal Princess has taken the lead on that investigation, and she already informed them that the actions of their superiors, that led to the capital becoming vulnerable to demonic attack, are the reason. Generally, the rank-and-file parties have been understanding. Knowing one has done nothing wrong is reassuring in a land like Pendor, where your mother’s governance has made people confident of due process.”
Now I was really worried. An awful lot of people were seeing me as a return to Father’s government, not a continuation of Mother’s.
I scratched my cheek. “And Rod needs to raid what’s left of my people to fill his jobs?”
“I’ve strongly recommended that he rely on local lords and leaders as much as possible, My Lady,” Gyges countered. “Winning their loyalty is the best way to win their people’s loyalty. But naturally, His Royal Highness is reluctant to do too much of that.”
I learned a lot of English History as a consequence of being an English Lit major. Both the Romans and the Normans found out what kind of difficulties came from leaning too far in either direction. The Romans relied heavily on local leadership to rule the Britons, basically turning the tribal lords into ‘Romans’ who would govern it for them. It worked well, to a point, but when it turned south, it did so quite badly. The constant trouble with the Brigantes was a good example of long-term difficulties, and the Iceni were a fantastic example of how fast things could turn sour, and how much, when one leaves a top-rate leader in charge of her own people. Especially if one then deals with her in as pig-headedly stupid a manner as Decianus dealt with Boudica.
But the Normans learned, to their great woe, just how badly things could go if one tried to replace the local leadership with outsiders. William stupidly tried to completely replace England’s with his Norman vassals, creating years of trouble for himself and his heirs, and he and his substitute elite ended up, once they did finally have things somewhat stable, mostly governing England from France as absentee landlords so as not to stir up the hornet’s nest again. Governance in England remained so unstable for the next hundred years or so that, in the time of William’s grandchildren, the country fell into civil war again. Not until Henry II emerged as the eventual winner of that long conflict and established the Plantagenet Dynasty did England become relatively stable, and some echoes of that trouble persisted all the way until Henry VII established the Tudor Dynasty.
“I’ll encourage him to listen to your advice,” I told her.
She gave me a wry smirk, which she quickly fixed before Benedetta could chide her, then noted, “Your… unusual education seems to have left you rather well-prepared for this job, My Lady.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” I retorted. I never came within earshot of a public policy or poli sci course, for Heaven’s sake.
Benedetta smiled and shook her head. She knew nothing about my thoughts, unlike Gyges, but she seemed to grasp that she was left out of some private exchange.
As her final item before excusing herself for my military briefing, Benedetta informed me, “His Royal Highness could not be persuaded to accept your choice of Aide for Business Affairs, because she had no credentials. He appointed someone that my husband recommended for the job instead. I will return with the new aide when it is his turn to brief you.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure who she meant, but Gyges silently noted, [She meant my sister Kottos, My Lady.]
“I see,” I replied, feeling a little sour at him, but unable to fault his reason. Gyges had prior experience inside Mother’s government. I don’t know if she had served while in the identity she was using here, or she had been able to somehow transfer the record of that experience to her current identity, but she had a resume that Rod could trust. If Kottos had nothing like that, it made perfect sense for him to doubt her.
Turning to Gyges, I noted, “But we invited her here, so what shall we do?”
“It’s already settled, My Lady,” the Hecatoncheir replied. “She would rather use her skills to help your military anyhow, so I was able to arrange it.”
Benedetta’s eyebrow shot up, but again she didn’t say anything. She was aware of Gyges’ real identity, after all, and probably the real identity of Kottos as well. She nodded and stated, “Very well. Unless you have any instructions, I request permission for us to withdraw. I shall send in Colonel Morgas for your military briefing.”
“Has she still not selected an aide for me?” I asked.
“On the contrary, My Lady,” Benedetta answered, “the good colonel is now the aide. The position of chief of staff couldn’t remain in the hands of a mere colonel, and she is not senior enough yet for promotion. Your fiancé appointed General Lodas to the position. The good General retired about ten years ago, but he remains of sound mind and is well-liked by the troops.”
Once again, I felt a tweak of annoyance at Rod, but also a sense of relief. I had known very well that Colonel Morgas was doing a job well above her current pay scale, but I had no clue how to go about replacing her. The headquarters staff had been wiped out, and all the remaining general officers were in the field.
“Very well, then, My Lady, Miss Lawin. Please update me immediately on any new developments. You have my leave to go.”
Subil Morgas’s briefing, which came next, was both less and more of a surprise.
Operations south of the Suldor Line and the Arbolian mountains that divide Pendor from the rebel duchies were complete. Once forces were redeployed, military police garrisons and interdiction forces would remain to deal with any insurrections or surprise pockets of resistance not yet detected, but the war to the East was over, and we could concentrate on the war to the North (that being the South relative to Ged and Atius).
“In General Kosto’s words, our forces are now masters of the Southern Coast.”
That phrase sounded weirdly familiar, but I couldn’t place it immediately.
“We have been aided significantly by local rebellions, including rebellions of lower aristocrats. Cullen and the rebel dukes did not enjoy the same level of support among the population and the barons in East Pendor and the East Country as they do among the counts and marquesses. The remaining rebels disarmed and surrendered almost en masse, and the lower nobles have arrested their superiors and turned them over to us. In many cases, they also brought along captive Parnese and Fiorenite troops in chains when they turned themselves in.”
Although I had been expecting we would wrap things up soon, based upon the situation before I slept, this was still surprisingly fast. I definitely needed to talk to Rod about using local leaders. Based upon just how short a time it had been since the war began, I was now suspicious that we had actually won thanks to those leaders sabotaging the efforts of the upper nobles who put them on the rebel side in the first place.
“Now that Suldor and Lower Pendor are secure, General Baiset has advanced eastward through southern Parna, in order to force them to shift more of their forces southward. The goal is to relieve pressure on the Atians. Now that we are in Parna’s own territory and Suldor has capitulated, he won’t be able to continue leaving defense of his southern flank to the Westland lords. We are now referring to Baiset’s front as the ‘Parna theater’, as ‘Suldor Theater’ no longer seems appropriate. Similarly, since General Provis has secured the Kasar Pass and moved into baronies in southern of Fiorene, we are now calling his command the ‘Fiorene Theater’. We expect them to merge into a united front within weeks.”
She paused for a bit, then noted, “Finally, General Kosto is moving his command and redeploying a majority of his troops from the East Country to the Kasar Pass, in preparation for an assault on Oto.”
I blinked. An assault on where?
Oto was a paradisiacal fiction in Dorian legend, a place somewhat like Arcadia or Kunlun Mountain. A ‘heaven on Earth’, so to speak, although I suppose the term should be ‘heaven on Huade’. The colonel’s troubled expression made clear that she was aware of the absurdity.
“Excuse me?”
“The operation is under the direction of the Viceroy,” she answered tautly. “I don’t have any other information for you. It’s being treated as strictly need-to-know”
I was a little distracted, from that moment onward, through my remaining meetings with Aerim Samau, the new business affairs aide, and Viscount Amalis, the mayor of Narses, with the repeating thought, Rod, what the hell are you up to?
