Bathsheba’s Diary part 16: The Return of the King

In The Doom that Came to Amber

4^th Snake 3658

In the early hours of the morning, received a message that the King had returned & wanted to see me at dawn. Left orders for Peter, advising. He is trotting off to talk to Rupert.

Met with King & apprised him of situation, including latest intelligence – Rupert leading Miran troops.

Primary concern is food, then defeating the Mirans who have occupied the city.

Apparently Asmark and Khitan have seen the ghost of Oberon in the dungeons. Nice for them, pity Oberon didn’t give them some clue as to what to do next.

At breakfast, Julian handed over Jewel to Random – I suppose there’s some kind of ceremony usually, but it’ll have to wait. Random didn’t pick it up, but left it on the table by his right hand.

Random told us that his abdication would come after the problems have been solved. Briefed us on present position and the additional news that Martin may well try and attack Amber. There is also a fog in the city which is rather unsettling – Aylwin said he had had a dream about being trapped in it – may well be sorcery.

Flora and Llewella turn ashen.

We have a late guest, Llewella’s daughter Terisa. She reports that there are hostiles in Rebma she called ‘Deep Ones’, which seemed to be roaming round unhindered. In discussion, it turns out that Rebma’s ‘Jewel’, the ‘Pearl of Wisdom’ can control sea weather. Well, now we know where the fog comes from.

Spoke to Peter – apparently meeting with Rupert was inconclusive and fairly pointless posturing on both sides. Didn’t pick up any info.

Peter and I devise a crude cipher in case the trumps are being listened in to – 2 maps, arbitrary zones, random names. I return to the docks and Peter takes bowmen and Montford to recce the city.

I will hold the docks as long as possible, but if overwhelmed I will fall back. Terisa has some plan about transporting food through mirrors (sorcery) – she seems to know what she’s talking about so I hope it works.

Mid Afternoon

Fog getting worse. Peter reports there are low to middle thousands of Mirans in the city.

He is on the roof of the Guildhall and intends to make a diversion to escape.

Late afternoon

Peter returned with news of looters in the town, also the fog seems to be directed, almost ‘looking’ for something. Trumped Julian, then Random, to advise.

Fog is making people jumpy – a sentry at the docks had a wobbler about ‘noises in the fog’. Calmed him down and revised the rota to give shorter, paired sentry duty. Might help in the short term.

Got message from Khitan saying there had been a ‘skirmish’ on Kolvir this morning – he had been told about it this afternoon, from the description it sounds like the relief column was repulsed.

And they didn’t bother to tell anyone? It was only ‘a skirmish of a few thousand men? What sort of dribbling imbeciles have we got in the Palace Guard these days? Why the f**k do I bother when apathetic cretins on sentry duty can’t be bothered to do their job because they have decided a major clash isn’t worthy of anyone's attention? Because they ‘weren’t ASKED ABOUT IT???????

Heads will roll. If they’re lucky, metaphorically.