Grímnismál 34

A personal prayer to the Unicorn from Constance, daughter of Julian, pt 19

My days at the other end of a Trump connection continued and I continued to busy myself with security. Havelock had vanished. Margrath was communing with the tree. I checked on Princess Fiona and Lady Rachael and both were busy with patients. I could offer them no more than mint tea for their comfort. But we are in the field after all. I also reported back to my Father and agreed that I would start sending out patrols later in the morning. Father said that I had missed a wonderful meal, courtesy of the King of Chaos. I shrugged at my, misfortune. Sadly that was the nature of duty. I had rations and some fruit. He had a banquet.

William trumped me to update me and to ask whether the Deniable Moth could be trusted. He doesn’t believe so because a member – and not even the member one might expect – tried to kill him. I pointed this out to him, but as I can’t entirely put aside my mistrust of House Karm I don’t really blame him for his attitude towards the Moth. I said as they had fought without invitation with the Family in the recent skirmish that yes, on balance, they should be trusted. He told me that Benedict had his silver arm, which was welcome news, and with that he ended the call. Clearly busy at his end.

I spoke with Prince Bleys about Lord Torc. He was surprised I hadn’t already mentioned it to my Father. My mind was in a turmoil of sorts. I felt incredibly guilty about not having told my Father about him. About the why and the how and the thought of his radiating disapproval aimed at me made me both guilty and more reluctant. I had a concern that Torc might have been in one of the lost companies or killed or turned into a Chaos creature in the last attack, but he had my Trump and had always had the means to contact me. Unless his was a sudden death I have to believe that he was still alive. I have to tell my Father about Torc. It will prove every suspicion that he has ever had about me and I may as well hand in my Commission now. And I like Lord Torc. I know that it is his job to be liked but I really do quite like him.

I drank from the water near Ygg and sort some equilibrium in my head again. Out of curiosity I tried the trumps of both Prince Gerard and Prince Random – or His Majesty, as I must get used to thinking of him. I could reach neither. Prince Gerard’s was cold, but I could not reach him. His Majesty’s was just wrong.

I spoke to Princess Fiona and she gave me a lesson on Trump. It was concise and valuable and boiled down to… Trumps are a focus – literally a meeting of minds. The difficulty in using Trumps is a focus of distance and, more importantly, it is the similarity of minds. Thus, I was unable to contact Prince Gerard as I have no more than seen him once at distance and the King is likely to have significantly changed as a person - therefore his Trump, as it is, has little relevance to who he may be now.

I asked her whether the main army body could be transferred through to us via Trump and she said not. I thanked her, paused and mentioned my quandary about Lord Torc and getting him through to us. She listened and said she wasn’t going to lie for me – and that I wasn’t good at lying. Torc was my problem and I knew who I had to speak to.

Fiona seemed unaware that Prince Brand’s spirit was not quiet. Thinking back, unless someone had actually told her, she wouldn’t have known. This was not the state for a Prince of Amber to be in, was all I said. I bowed and went about my actual duties.

I took out the first Patrol. Scrubland in one direction, in another there is mixed-type woodland and somewhere else pines were growing. It is an unsettled land. We came across people of sort. About our height but bigger in build – brutish, Neanderthal looking, if anything, all dressed in skins and carrying spears and or hand axes.

We watched as the group came under attack from Serpent Men. They reminded me a little of Kageorgis but only because they were both lizard-like. They were similar stature to the humans and had long necks and were armed. One of them was larger than the others. I brought Pattern up to look at them and got an immediate smell of something magically unclean. Sorcery! Pattern destroyed their Sorcery – and I thanked the Unicorn under my breath that I was once again able to use it. We engaged and destroyed the Lizard men and left the humans to resume their business.

I decided to track the Lizard men and, in an hour or so, I could see in the distance a kind of a city back towards Chaos. The architecture was unfamiliar to me. It was a walled city but behind the walls we could see Towers. Some thin but with bulbous tops. The top of the tallest of those towers reminded me of the head of a Cobra. It felt non-human to me. Just a sense of that but when I brought up Pattern sight the ugliness of Unclean magic [there is no more elegant name for it] was all over the City.

We came across another Lizard Patrol. They were using Sorcery [but not for long] and spears and caught a couple of my men. We took two prisoners and chased down escapees. On return my injured Rangers were beginning to show signs of poisoning in their wounds. It was a very swiftly acting one. I contacted Princess Fiona and brought them back to camp via Trump. I handed over my horse to another Ranger and got my injured Rangers into a Med tent immediately. The Medics were on the job immediately. I had significant concern that we would lose one of my men – the Sorcerers were short on the necessary spells and Isis was indisposed. They held him until Isis could carry out the necessary healing. Damn those Lizards for using poison! I do not like losing my people and we lost too many on our way to Ygg. Lesson learned.

I reported the attack and passed the two Lizard prisoners through to Darig for interrogation and suggested that Kageorgis might be able to help with translating.

I then swallowed deeply and Trumped my Lord Warden. I gave him a report on the Patrol and the engagements that followed and then I paused, actually in fear of his reaction and told him about Lord Torc. He was displeased. I have seen him worse – though barely. I gave him my reasons for my actions but I should have told him about Torc before now. My reasons for my actions probably won’t mitigate anything and I am female and more importantly half Fey and therefore not to be trusted. He said that he had noticed that Timotei was far more dutiful than he normally was – more keen on his duties.

He said nothing there and then. He will keep that for later. Instead he ordered me to take the Rangers out to help defend the wagons as they were Trumped in near to us. I nodded ascent and closed the contact.

I took out a new patrol. We hit no problems but Prince Benedict had sent out air reconnaissance in the form of Sorashi and various Chaos demons. Alitta – a demon new to me contacted me. Sorashi had been in combat and was injured – poisoned. Sorashi is pretty hardy but I am no medic and not a poison expert so I Trumped Princess Fiona and passed her body through to her for immediate treatment.

We returned to camp with the wagons intact. Once our horses were comfortable, my men fed and orders and guard rotas in place – I could take a couple of hours rest and then resume command for the night. Delambre was in charge of camp for the next while.

I retired to my tent. I drank my water and ate a light meal of fruit and rations and sat there just thinking. I was about to pray to the Unicorn when I remembered my thoughts of weeks ago now. I contacted Prince Caine by Trump.

He answered and invited me through. His tent looked a damn sight more comfortable than mine. I think at times that I have been brought up to be too austere. Caine’s tent was furnished. Somewhere to be comfortable in but, as I noticed when I sat down, the coverings were over campaign boxes and trunks. Still it was nice and so was the wine he gave me.

I said I wanted to talk to him about the nature of the Unicorn and afterlife. He said he’d been expecting this conversation with me for some time. He told me that I had a streak of evangelism in me and I couldn’t disagree. Father went to the services at the Unicorn Church on every occasion he was available, but I always suspected that he did it because he was who he was. Not because he actually had any deep attachment to Her. He was very much a ‘religion was the opiate of the masses’ kind of man. I was a woman of faith.

I asked Caine about an afterlife. He said that the Elysian Fields sounded rather boring but that Oberon had believed in an afterlife. I thought of the dragons that had swooped up with his coffin. Caine would not be drawn into his personal beliefs. They were personal. But if Grandfather had faith in an afterlife of some sort than that gave me courage.

Caine asked me how often I had seen Her – other than when she appeared after the Battle. I replied never. But why should that have any effect on my faith? He had seen her four times in all – on or near Kolvir. And why did I think that, of all of his brothers, he was the only one to have done so? Because he had looked? Because he did have faith in her – it really could be as simple as that. I wondered. She was an interventionist – so is Caine, I thought. But it was something I needed to think on. She had directly intervened in his actions. Saved his life twice and stopped him killing Brand, but not intervening when he shot that silver arrow into his throat.

He sent me on my way and on my return to camp I prayed to the Unicorn with some fervour and for some time before finally, I slept.