Him, here? What is my aunt up to? Vlad ran a hand over his chin. “Describe the man.”
“Captain Strake’s size perhaps, blond. He wears the Fifth Northland Cavalry uniform, with wurmrider badges.”
“Very good. See them into the audience chamber… what is it?”
The aide glanced down. “The Colonel insisted that he see you in private.”
“I see. Send him to me in the audience chamber. Tell Captain Strake to wait outside.” Vlad pointed at the well-worn, brown leather case. “Finish up with this and get it into the cart, whenever it arrives.”
“As you wish, Highness.”
His aide withdrew and Vlad crossed to the wardrobe. Within it hung several coats. For official business he often chose a red-and-gold brocade-a gift from his aunt, the Queen, after the Anvil Lake affair. The gold threads had been worked in a wurm design. It impressed visitors, though tended to make Mystrians of Virtuan stock uneasy because of its sheer ostentation.
No, that won’t do for this man. Instead he selected a forest green woolen jacket, cut after the military style, with black facings. This, too, he’d been awarded after the Anvil Lake campaign, and he prized it much more highly than his aunt’s gift. The Mystrian Rangers had all voted him the rank of Colonel and presented him with the coat on the first anniversary of the battle. Within two weeks, his son Richard had been born, making August 1765 the single best month of his life.
Vlad had instantly recognized his visitor’s name. Scant few would not. The Battle of Rondeville nine months previously had ended the long war between Norisle and Tharyngia. Colonel Rathfield-then Major-had been sent into the city by Richard Ventnor, Duke Deathridge, to offer the Tharyngian commanders a chance to surrender. Laureate-General Philippe de Toron laughed at the suggestion, accused him of being a spy, and imprisoned him. Rathfield escaped and killed de Toron and his command staff. Without leadership, the Tharyngian forces collapsed and the war ended.
Norillian forces entering the city found Rathfield seriously wounded and barely alive. He managed to recover and became the sort of hero Norisle desperately needed.
Vlad frowned. The Crown must have had a very good reason for sending him here. I don’t think any good will come from this at all.
Pulling the Ranger coat on, he entered the audience chamber through a side door. When the Colonial assembly was in session, wooden desks filled the room and a podium occupied the same spot as his throne. Because of his royal blood he was permitted such and, occasionally, in his role as the Mystrian Governor-General, he used it. He opted against it with Colonel Rathfield and hoped he would not regret that decision.
The double doors at the room’s far end opened. Sunlight from the windows in the hallway opposite poured in, initially reducing Rathfield to a tall slender silhouette. He moved easily and powerfully into the room, the squeaking groans of floorboards seeming muted by his steady tread. He came with hat in hand, his face impassive and noble. The only visible scar ran from forehead to right cheek, over his eye and splitting the brow, but the eye had suffered no apparent damage.
Rathfield paused a dozen feet before Vlad, then dropped to a knee and bowed his head. “Highness, please forgive my interruption. I am…”
“I am well aware of who you are, Colonel Rathfield. News of your heroism has spread even here.” Vlad stepped forward, offering his hand. “Please, rise.”
Rathfield came up and shook the Prince’s hand firmly. The man looked the Prince up and down. A slight tremor rippled through the Colonel’s grip as puzzlement faded into a hint of shock on his face. He let Vlad’s hand drop, then drew himself up and clasped his hands at the small of his back.
“If I might be given leave to report, Highness.”
Vlad purposefully delayed his reply. His wife often chided him for playing games with people as he did the unexpected and gauged the results. Rathfield expected more formality, clearly, and Vlad’s wearing a colonial militia uniform surprised him. The Mystrian Rangers’ reputation had suffered horribly because of the Battle of Villerupt in 1760. The victory at Anvil Lake in 1764, being an action in the colonies misreported back in Norisle, had done little to rehabilitate it. Vlad took the man’s reaction and behavior to mark him as somewhat vain. This tallied with the story of his heroism, and would be a factor to temper Vlad’s reading of anything he said.
“Yes, please, Colonel. Report.” Vlad turned, took a step toward the throne, but did not mount the dais before turning back. “I’m anxious to hear news of court.”
“I have little of that, Highness. I am a mere soldier acting under orders. I have written copies of them in my luggage.” He reached inside his jacket. “I was, however, asked to personally convey a letter from your father.”
Vlad accepted it, turning the yellowed package over to verify the red wax seal, then tucked it into a pocket. “Thank you. Now, if you would not mind communicating that which my aunt or her advisors feared to consign to writing.”
Rathfield almost covered his surprise at Vlad’s deduction.
Ah, his vanity extends to thinking he is more intelligent than most.
“As you wish, Highness. The Crown has received a petition for the charter of a new colony. It calls itself Postsylvania. The petitioners are vague about the location of their colony because, it appears, they already have founded several towns. What they ask for-demand really-is a claim which runs from the Gulf in the south, north to the Argent River, and from west of the mountains to what they refer to as land’s end. We do not know if this means the Misaawa River or the far coast.”
Vlad’s brown eyes narrowed. Aside from the characterization of the petition as a demand, he instantly recognized two problems with the claim. The first was that by either measure, the petitioners were requesting a vast amount of territory-virtually all of it unknown to Mystrians. While ships had circumnavigated the world, inaccuracies with measuring longitude meant that no one could reliably state how far away the continent’s west coast actually lay. The Queen, even on her least lucid day, would never consent to such a concession.
More immediately, however, the claim would overlap with Tharyngian territorial claims. Having just ended a war, the Crown would never grant a charter for a colony that would immediately reignite that war.
Vlad nodded slowly. “You were sent to assess how far settlers have gone in the mountains and beyond?”
“Yes, Highness. Toward that end…”
“There is more, isn’t there, Colonel?” Vlad killed a smile prompted by the flicker of distress on the man’s face. “You betrayed nothing, sir. You described the petition as a demand, which my aunt saw as mutiny or treason or worse. Given the colonial reaction to last year’s document tax and resentment over the Crown’s refusal to compensate the colonials for expenses incurred during the Anvil Lake expedition, she wants you to assess the level of loyalty among her subjects.”
Rathfield’s hands appeared open from behind his back. “You understand the situation very well, Highness. Queen Margaret became quite alarmed when Lord Rivendell read from Samuel Haste’s A Continent’s Calling in the House of Lords. He said it was a seditious document, claimed the colonials revered it more than they did the Good Book, and suggested certain passages advocated regicide.”
“That’s a bit hyperbolic, but this is Rivendell we’re talking about.”
“True, Highness. By your remark, I take it you’ve read the book?”
“Several times, in several editions.” Again Vlad reveled in the surprise on Rathfield’s face. I hope you do not gamble, sir, for you certainly will lose. “I suspect my aunt would be even less enamored of Haste’s latest pamphlet The Blood of Liberty. ”
“He has new work available? You’ve seized it, of course, and destroyed the press.”
“Hardly.” Vlad refrained from mentioning he’d financed the first print run. “One cannot kill an idea by suppressing its publication, Colonel. One can merely mount a counter-offensive through reasoned discussion. This, however, is a point we may debate more fully at a later time.”
“Yes, Highness.”
“If you don’t mind, I will invite Captain Strake to join us. Your mission will require an expedition, and he has particular insights into these things.”
“Highness, I was told this information is to be held in the utmost secrecy.”
Vlad smiled easily. “I know, Colonel, that you do not mean to suggest you doubt the soundness of my judgment as to Captain Strake’s character or intellect, nor that you understand the administration of Her Majesty’s affairs here in Mystria better than I do.”
