Part 2

This afternoon, like most afternoons, Dax had worked on physical conditioning in the training yard in addition to lessons on riding and fighting. He enjoyed riding and swordsmanship, but Dax doubted he needed to spend so much time learning how to alley-fight and wrestle. He remembered wrestling and rough housing with his father all the time for play. Learning how to fight in battle with a sword and lead a charge from horseback seemed kingly enough, but he didn’t think a king would need to wrestle in the dirt or break peoples’ arms. For now, however, Herne decided what he needed to learn.

The unexpected reassurance from Herne at the end of his training session had Dax thinking of his father and his own childhood. Dax’s given names were Kort Leith Tavas, but he was of the Ambegriff line, and he would rule as the tenth named Darius in memory of the first Darius Ambergriff who had united the tribes of Landly and gone on to found a dynasty. Dax didn’t feel like a dynasty, but he did feel the weight of the past and the expectations of the future. Since his father had died, his step-mother Mathilde was regent and head of the Ruling Council. In just over a year, he would take his rightful place on the throne. The kingdom would be his to rule, and he had to be ready.

Orin Herne had been one of his father’s best friends, and Dax had known him all his life. Dax and his father had hunted with Herne in the forests north and east of Tazzelton, and they had shared many an evening’s cook fire with the other Guardsmen who accompanied them. They talked of many things, and Herne would call his father Conal, his given name. That impressed Dax because no one else addressed his father so casually.  General Herne had been close to his father in those days, and Dax had been a little afraid of the tall, stern man with one arm. Herne wasn’t exactly cold, but he was reserved and never said much. His father enjoyed Herne’s company, and he had been a fixture in Dax’s young life. 

General Herne had retired from his command in the Guard after he lost his arm battling raiders from the Tharan Empire in the south. The king, however, had kept him on in his old rank to see to Dax’s training. Now with his father gone, it seemed Hern lived only to make Dax a warrior, not a king. The man had no mercy and was never satisfied unless Dax worked his hardest which was just the thing to endear him to the heart of any youngster. Still, Dax could feel the Herne’s strong support every time Dax looked at him. He sighed to himself. If only the man’s expectations were not so high.

Dax trudged back towards the family wing of the Castle across the training yard, an open area within the Castle walls on the south side of the complex of buildings within the walls. The yard, after a clean up, served as a parade ground for outdoor ceremonies. Adjacent to the Guard barracks, portions of the yard had stone paving, but the training and exercise grounds were packed sand. It was a good thing too. With the number of times Dax had been thrown, tripped, pummeled, and stumbled to the ground, the sand’s soft but abrasive surface gave him scuff marks, but kept him from serious harm.

Once back inside the Castle proper, Dax wiped the sweat from his young forehead with his sleeve and headed for the kitchen. Just outside the door, he caught the rich aroma of baking bread and roast goose. His training sessions always left him sweaty, dog tired…and hungry!

Mama Suse was in the middle of preparing supper, and grunted a hello as she lifted a pot onto the stove. Her hair caught up in a bun, she wore her usual worn but clean apron. Her arms were well muscled from kitchen work, and she handled pot with ease. “There’s one cookie to be had before supper,” she said, “but no more.”

Everyone in the kitchen called her Mama Suse, but to Dax, she had always been “Ma Cookie.” The busy kitchen had always been one of Dax’s favorite places, and Dax had frequented the happy kitchen with Mama Suse. With his mother gone, the warm affection he always felt from her and the rest of the women made it a happy refuge. He always called her “Ma Cookie,” a baby name he carried over from his early days, but it was apt because Dax enjoyed her cookies. At her invitation, Dax helped himself from the tray. She always pretended to be gruff and ordered him around just like she did her kitchen helpers, but Dax knew her warm feelings toward him. He liked to tease her, but she always gave as good as she got. And, she always had cookies around somewhere in the kitchen for him.

“All hot and sweaty today,” she said. “General Herne gave you a good workout, ha?”

“You know he always does,” he mumbled around a mouth full of cookie. He knew Mathilde would have reprimanded him for talking with his mouth full, but in the kitchen with Ma-Cookie, Dax didn’t care.

“Aye, but the Old Bear will make you into a fine king, he will.” She bustled about the kitchen focusing her attentions on a large lump of flour-covered dough.

He finished the cookie—it had soft bits of dried fruit in it and was still warm from the oven. He told her that supper smelled good, and he and turned to go while at the same time helping himself from the cookie tray again. Her back was turned, and although he tried to be casual about it, Ma-Cookie expertly caught his wrist in her floured fingers before he had gone two steps. Even though stout and graying, she caught him easily.

“Naught but one, I said,” and she forced him to put the cookie back. Leaving kitchen, Dax pretended a hangdog attitude, but once out of sight, he bit into the cookie he had concealed in this other hand. It was an old trick, but it always worked. After he left the kitchen, Dax headed for his room. 

The Castle, home of the kings of West Landly, sat atop Adok, the huge domed rock outcropping that dominated Stone Harbor and the city of Tazzelton, capital of the kingdom of West Landly. Minute flecks of mica in the castle’s tall stone walls caught the afternoon sun which gave the whole edifice a silvery sheen when viewed from the city itself. Outside, the Castle was a bright, imposing symbol of royal power in the kingdom, but the Castle was impressive on the inside as well with vaulted passages of worked stone and aged carved wooden buttresses.

As grand as the Castle appeared inside and out, Dax enjoyed the insides of the Castle’s inside the most. His father had shown him the secret passages over a year ago and not long before he became bedridden with the flux that finally killed him. His father had told him the passages were a kingly secret, only a very few of even his inner circle of advisors were trusted with the knowledge. Dax’s father had not even told his new wife, Mathilde, after he had remarried a few years ago. Since Mathilde had become regent, Dax had not seen any of his father’s old inner circle, and it gave him secret pleasure to think he was the only one in the Castle now who knew the secret. In the time since his father’s passing, Dax had found a hidden refuge in the dark, musty paths within the castle walls. After a year of exploring, he knew most of the narrow, irregular passages by heart.

Mathilde berated him constantly for soiling his royal finery since as his step-mother and regent she looked after his personal affairs. Yes, the passages were dusty, and in some places sharp corners of building stones or fingers of mortar plucked and dirtied his clothes, but he never let on where he spent his time. She thought he was off “tussling with the castle brats” in the kitchen, cellars, and stables. He did that occasionally, but most often he roamed the castle unseen. Hidden inside the close, dark spaces between the walls he felt safer somehow.

By the time he got back to his room on the third floor of the family wing, the purloined cookie was long gone, and Dax felt a little less hungry. Mathilde met him in the hall, and she examined him with her cold, ice-blue eyes. “You stink of sweat. Go clean up, and change your clothes to something more fitting.” Dax felt a ripple of distain, but that was nothing new. 

As he turned to go, she added, “Oh, and I left you a glass of milk in your room.” She reached out and flicked a crumb from beside his mouth. “I knew you would stop by the kitchen after training, and it should help you cool off.”

Dax mumbled a thank you and went to his room. Since his father died, Mathilde had seldom acknowledged him except to critique his behavior in one way or another, and he was surprised by her thoughtfulness. He had felt the honesty of her statement—but not quite. Dax had puzzled over this before. He could always tell when someone was lying or telling the truth, but sometimes the truth felt hollow. Maybe she had left something unsaid? He drank the cool and refreshing milk she had left on his writing table, but it tasted a bit off. Maybe the cows had been moved to a different pasture where they couldn’t get as much sweet clover?

He stripped off his drenched training clothes and toweled himself dry. He found an outfit Mathilde would expect him to wear at supper and dressed quickly. Although it had felt as if the training match with Trimble had lasted forever, Herne had let him go a little early today. Dax wasted no time once he had changed his clothes. He opened the secret panel beside his room’s fireplace and slipped into the dark passage behind. Just inside he picked up the tiny lantern he used for light. With a couple of practiced strokes of his steel, he lit it. Its glow was dim and feeble, but Dax didn’t need much light. He already knew the ways inside the walls, and a number of small openings, spy holes, let in a little light from the castle itself.