Exalted War: Ch 3 (rough draft) (Patreon)

Chapter 3: Formal Declarations

Safety in numbers produces the best sleep, I thought. I had grown accustomed to having soft, smooth, silky bodies pressed against me, though getting out of bed required the cooperation of several people.

Milly objected when I withdrew my arm. She accepted my pillow in exchange, tucked it beneath her cheek, and closed her eyes.

“We have to get ready,” I said.

“You could have told me before giving me something comfortable.”

Ashley and Rachel had gone to dress for the Mundness mandatory propaganda class. A drawer shut in the adjoining room, followed by Ashley asking who had moved her hairpins.

“They’re in the blue dish, mistress,” Sasha called from the bedding.

“I looked in that dish.”

“The one beside the mirror.”

A pause followed.

“Thank you, darling.”

Tiffany sat on the edge of the bed with her robe across her knees. She slipped her arms into the robe, drawing its folds across herself. She nodded, though she kept hold of the robe after tying it.

I washed, shaved, and dressed in the college’s black and gold. Sasha straightened my collar while Milly knelt to search beneath the bed. Her nightdress stretched over the plump curve of her upturned backside, shifting with each wriggle as she reached beneath the frame.

I lost track of which button I was fastening.

“Found it!” She emerged with a slipper, caught me looking, and smiled. “You could have helped; I might have gotten stuck.”

“I was supervising, and would have provided proper assistance if you had gotten stuck in such a compromised position.”

“Mmm, then I might get stuck tonight. I’m starving; are we eating together?”

Sasha glanced at my shirt and undid the button I had put through the wrong hole. "Wrong hole, though I guess no hole is really wrong," she said with a smile.

We reached the breakfast nook before the others. Strafa brought eggs from the kitchen while Faith arranged cups beside the cossa pot. Butter melted into a stack of toast, and Milly took the chair nearest the honey cream.

Ashley entered with Rachel, both wearing the college colors to different effects. Ashley’s black bodice fitted beneath the fullness of her breasts, with gold braid following the narrow turn of her waist. Her skirts brushed her hips as she walked, and the open neckline made the formal collar seem like an argument she had won against her dressmaker's protests.

Rachel wore a fitted jacket over a cream blouse, its gold buttons tracing her waist above a pleated black skirt. When she reached across me for her cup, the blouse drew against her breasts, and her braid slipped over my shoulder.

“You’re sitting on my notebook,” she said.

I retrieved it from beneath my thigh. “Anything important for today?”

“I’ll know when I see it.”

Tiffany appeared while Rachel inspected the cover. Her black dress had a square neckline edged in gold lace, framing pale skin and the swell of her breasts. The fitted waist opened into skirts that moved around her hips, and she paused with a hand against the doorframe when she found me watching.

“That suits you,” I said.

Her fingers left the frame. “Thank you, husband.”

Ashley waited until Tiffany sat before pushing the cossa toward me.

“Drink some of that before you offer to help anyone out of her uniform. We have a problem to discuss.”

“I remember the problem.”

“Good. Have you thought of an answer?”

“No. Have you?”

She poured her drink.

“We could say Adelia has family business,” Rachel suggested.

“Which family?” Ashley asked. “Where is she staying, and who escorted her? We can refuse to answer a curious classmate. Her father will expect more, far more.”

I set down the pot.

“Then we arrive close to the start of the lecture and take our seats. We don’t give anyone time to corner us in the hall.”

“That would help,” Ashley said. “But we must arrive before it begins. I don’t want us standing in the doorway while everyone counts how many women you’ve brought and which one is missing.”

“We can wait in the carriage if we have time to spare,” Rachel said.

“And leave when it finishes. I need to speak with Titus he is going to meet me in the dungeon after the lecture.”

Tiffany touched the handle of her cup.

“What should I say if someone asks me? Adelia and I attended everything together. They’ll assume I know.”

“Tell them to ask me.”

Ashley shook her head. “That sounds as though you’ve forbidden her from speaking.”

I looked at my breakfast. The eggs were getting cold while we invented reasons for a woman to have left a house she had tried to murder me in.

“I could say she didn’t tell me,” Tiffany offered. “I mean, the truth is she didn’t. I wouldn’t have to remember anything else.”

Ashley considered her over the rim of her cup.

“Use that if someone catches you without us. Don’t offer an explanation they haven’t asked for.”

Timmothy entered carrying the morning papers.

“The last of the gala guests have departed, master. Including those who required rooms after the festivities.”

“Everyone recovered?”

“One gentleman maintains that he was resting his eyes. I have instructed the staff to agree.”

Milly laughed into her cup.

“And did anyone mention hearing anything?” I asked.

“No, master. I spoke with the guests and the servants who attended them. There were complaints about headaches and one misplaced shoe, but no mention of the disturbance in your rooms.”

“Good. Thank you.”

He placed the papers beside us. I unfolded mine while Ashley asked about traffic along Emperor Drive.

Imperial Tribune: November 1, 3212 T.E. Mundness (Monday)

Beneath an imperial appointment, a heading stopped me with my cup against my mouth.

EXALTED LADY ADELIA WILDPOINT CHOSEN FOR SACRED SERVICE

“Ashley, are you seeing this.”

She turned toward me.

I lowered the cup and read.

“The Holy Church of Ack has confirmed that Exalted Lady Adelia Wildpoint, of the household of Exalted Prince Eric Grayson, has been chosen by Ack for a period of sacred service.”

Rachel opened her copy.

“By declaration of Exalted Lord Octavian Korvax, Lord of the Pillars of Ack, the exalted lady has withdrawn from her studies at the Imperial Royal College to undertake duties beneath the Church’s protection. The nature and duration of this service shall remain within the keeping of the priesthood.”

Ashley reached for her paper before I finished the next paragraph. It praised both houses for their devotion and directed inquiries to the Church.

“Does that mean we can tell people that?” Milly asked.

“Yes,” Ashley said, reading.

Tiffany leaned toward Rachel’s copy. “Does it say where she is?”

“No. It says they won’t tell us.”

Chosen by Ack. Fuck me.

I had spent breakfast wishing someone would provide an explanation. I hadn’t expected to dislike the favor.

“Octavian,” I said.

“His declaration,” Ashley replied. “We don’t know what he’s been told. And before you decide to ask him, remember that we’ve been given an answer her father can’t demand you change.”

“I wasn’t going to charge into his temple.” I said.

She looked at me.

“I wasn’t, really.”

Rachel turned the paper toward Tiffany so she could finish reading.

“Amara said he believes the guidance comes from Ack,” I said. “He could believe every word of this.”

“Then let him answer the questions,” Ashley said. “We respect the Church’s discretion. Her service is an honor. That is what people will hear from us.”

Tiffany held out her plate when Strafa offered the eggs.

“Are we changing when we leave?” Rachel asked.

“No,” Ashley and I said at the same time.

Rachel took another piece of toast.

We finished breakfast, and Ashley folded the notice into her bag.

At the entrance, Brie checked Ashley’s collar while Allie collected her gloves. Faith handed Rachel her satchel. Strafa joined them, followed by Tiffany’s two attendants, Lira and Nessa, carrying their mistress’s things to the plain slave carriage behind ours.

Timmothy opened our door. The four centaurs waited in their harnesses, leather creaking as Thalia turned toward me.

“The college, master?”

“Yes. The eastern entrance.”

I helped Ashley, Rachel, and Tiffany into their seats. Sasha climbed in and settled on the padded floor beside my place, gathering her tails around her legs. Milly lowered herself onto the cushion beside her, tucked her skirt beneath her thighs, and left room for my boots.

“I found both slippers,” she informed me.

“A productive morning.” I sat, and she leaned against my knee.

Through the doorway, I watched Tiffany's and Adelia’s four slaves enter the second carriage after Strafa, Faith, Brie, and Allie had taken their places. Timmothy checked Sasha’s tails before closing our door.

The harness drew taut. Hooves crunched against the white stone, and the centaurs pulled us down the crushed marble gravel drive, the slave carriage following behind.

The carriage slowed beneath the white bulk of the college tower. Through the window, I watched two students hurry up the eastern steps, one gathering her skirts while the other attempted to read the Tribune without walking into her.

Ashley leaned across me. Her breasts pressed against my arm, and she rested a hand on my thigh as she looked through the glass.

“How much time do we have?”

I checked my watch. “Enough to reach our seats before the lecture, starts.”

“A shame. I had begun to appreciate arriving with time to spare.” Her fingers pressed against my leg. “Perhaps on the way home you could ask Thalia to take the longer route.”

“I thought you preferred getting home.”

“That depends on what you intend to do with me in the carriage.”

Rachel smiled over her shoulder. “Leave him enough sense to find the classroom. I want my turn beside him.”

The door opened before I could promise anything I might struggle to fit into the day.

Sasha rose from the padded floor and helped Milly untangle her skirt from beneath her knee. The cloth drew across Milly’s hips as she stood, and she caught my eye before smoothing it.

“Will you want us ready for the dungeon, master?”

“Have my gear prepared, but I’m going with Titan’s Shield. The rest of you can stay at the royal apartment or attend to whatever you have planned.”

Milly considered that. “Then I’ll make sure there’s something worth coming home to.”

Sasha touched her arm. “He’ll need dinner as well.”

“That too.”

I stepped onto the drive and helped Ashley, Rachel, and Tiffany down. Tiffany’s hand lingered in mine after her shoes reached the stone.

“Will you be back for dinner?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Then I would like to sit beside you.”

Ashley glanced at her and smiled. “Claim him before Rachel brings her notebooks to the table.”

Rachel slipped her arm through mine. “I can leave the notebooks in my room. Eric is welcome to help me find something else to do there.”

Brie and Allie joined us with Faith, Strafa, and the four slaves who had served Tiffany and Adelia. Inside the entrance hall, I kissed Sasha before she followed them toward the elevators.

“My armor and supplies,” I reminded her.

“I’ll have them ready, Master Eric.”

Milly offered her cheek. When I kissed it, she turned enough to catch my lips.

“For luck,” she said, and went with Sasha.

We took another elevator to the lecture level. Voices filled the corridor beyond it, with the bronze doors standing open beneath the lights. Ashley kept us moving when a young lord turned from his companions to greet me.

“Exalted Prince Grayson, I hoped to congratulate you—”

“How kind,” Ashley said. “You must tell us after the lecture. I would hate to miss a word.”

Her hand tightened around my arm as we passed him.

Inside, thousands of exalted mages occupied the curved tiers of upholstered seats. Newspapers lay folded on laps. Gold embroidery flashed between the black uniforms as students stood to admit others into their rows.

Rachel found four seats beside an aisle. She took the farthest, leaving me between her and Ashley, with Tiffany beside Ashley.

As I sat, Rachel leaned against me to arrange her skirt. Her blouse brushed my hand.

“You could spend the lecture thinking about what I said,” she whispered. “I would enjoy hearing your ideas afterward.”

Ashley settled against my other shoulder.

“He has two hours. That ought to produce something worth hearing.”

I was considering how to answer when the door beside the stage opened.

The lecturer emerged carrying a sheaf of papers. He paused to hold the door.

Octavian stepped through behind him.

Ashley’s fingers stopped moving against my thigh, and Rachel closed her notebook with a crisp snap.

The lecturer crossed to the podium, his thin black robe hanging open over his clothes. He was the same older man who had delivered my first Mundness lecture. I recognized his habit of lifting his chin before speaking, giving the upper rows time to notice him.

Octavian remained beside the podium.

“Welcome, exalted Lords and Ladies. Please, all rise for the Imperial Devotion.”

Seats creaked throughout the hall. I stood with Rachel and Ashley, while Tiffany set her bag beneath her chair before joining us. Above the stage, the black imperial flag unfurled. Its golden eagle spread its wings within a border of chains and shackles.

“Eternally devoted, we stand with the emperor, forever the exalted, noble mages defend! Under Ack we obey! By Alleystra we thrive! By Sippsie we are pleased! And by Roxclou we are served!”

The words struck the stage and came back from the high walls as thousands shouted the devotion fervently. A man in the row ahead gripped the seat before him, his neck reddening as he shouted the final line. Beside him, a woman held her folded Tribune against her chest.

I remembered Rachel working on an enchantment through my first lecture, Ashley occupied with her little puzzle. The responses had been something to get through between other concerns.

Neither woman had anything in her hands.

Octavian surveyed the tiers. When his gaze reached our section, I kept my mouth moving with the last of the response.

“Thank you. Please, take your seats.”

The lecturer waited for the sound of settling bodies to subside. He gathered his papers, tapped their edges against the podium, and placed them beneath its shelf.

“Before we begin, we have a special announcement from one of the esteemed Holy Pillars of the Church of Ack. We are honored to receive Exalted Lord Octavian Korvax, Lord of the Pillars of Ack, who brings word concerning one of our own exalted ladies.”

Ashley’s knee touched mine.

“My lord, the floor is yours.” The lecturer stepped aside and bowed at a near ninety-degree angle, the posture a clear sign to all that this man held station far above him. Octavian took his place at the podium without notes.

“Exalted Lords and Ladies, I bring you tidings of the High God’s favor this day.”

Octavian rested his hands upon the podium. The lecturer stood beside the wall, his papers held against his stomach.

“Exalted Lady Adelia Wildpoint has been chosen by the High God Ack for sacred service. From among those blessed with exalted blood, he has recognized in her a purpose that requires her withdrawal from the concerns of ordinary life.”

A skirt rustled in the row behind us. Someone whispered Adelia’s name.

“Her instruction shall pass into the keeping of the Holy Church. The duties entrusted to her are not matters for speculation, nor should her absence be mistaken for neglect of her obligations. She answers a summons whose authority exceeds that of this college.”

He paused.

“House Wildpoint and the House of Stars may take pride in this distinction. To have one of your own called into the High God’s service is an honor that reaches beyond the person chosen.”

Ashley’s hand covered mine.

“Should any among you hope to obtain a similar exemption from your lessons, I advise consulting the priesthood before informing your tutors.” The corners of his mouth lifted. “We examine such claims with considerable care. You may discover that your college examinations were the more merciful arrangement.”

A laugh came from the front rows. Others joined it, and the lecturer offered a smile that showed most of his teeth.

I kept mine small.

Octavian waited for the laughter to end, looking pleased with its reception.

“But I have little cause to doubt the devotion of those assembled before me. Your tutors speak of your progress, and I am gratified that so many understand the gravity of their studies. The empire entrusts its defenses, its provinces, and the continuation of its noble houses to you. These privileges are sacred charges. Through your strength, Ack’s order endures.”

His gaze passed over the tiers.

“I would, however, welcome more of that devotion within his temple. The Divine Mistress Sippsie appears to suffer no shortage of worshippers from this institution.”

A woman in the row ahead lowered her eyes, smiling into her collar. As a low chuckle rumbled through the room.

“Her blessings have their place. See that gratitude for them does not lead you to neglect the High God whose order permits you to enjoy them.”

He lifted a hand in blessing.

“May your learning strengthen the empire, and may your conduct prove worthy of your blood.”

Octavian yielded the podium. As the lecturer approached, his eyes found mine. He held my gaze, inclined his head toward the side door, and took the vacant chair beside it.

He intended to wait.

“Thank you, Your Holiness, for your words and for honoring this college with your presence,” the lecturer said.

He retrieved his papers, found his place, and addressed the hall.

“And for today we will look at the origins of civilization and the limits of beast-kin understanding.”

The lecturer adjusted the top sheet of his notes.

“Those of you who manage estates will recognize that beast-kin possess considerable practical ability. They cultivate our fields, work stone, and learn demanding trades. A competent mason deserves to be called competent, whatever his breeding.”

A few students reached for their notebooks.

“The error lies in confusing execution with understanding. A mason may construct an excellent arch from a pattern. That does not tell us who devised the pattern, established its proportions, or understood why it would bear weight.”

Rachel uncapped her pen.

“Give that mason the same stone, the same measurements, and the same task, and you may be pleased with his work for twenty years. Ask him to accommodate a greater span or a change in the foundations, and you discover the limits of his education and mental ability. He remembers what his hands must do. He cannot reason from the principle to the unfamiliar problem.”

The lecturer spread his hands.

“This is no fault in his character. A limited intellect is not a moral failing. It becomes a danger when we entrust it with decisions beyond its capacity. As such the importance of proper guidance is made apparent.”

A young lord two rows ahead nodded and wrote something in the margin of his book.

“Much confusion concerning the ruins of the outer provinces arises from this distinction. Students see dressed stone and irrigation channels and assume the inhabitants must have developed the knowledge required to produce them. Human instruction, migration, and the occupation of abandoned human settlements account for these supposed mysteries.”

He drew a sheet from the middle of his papers.

“Consider what an excavation reveals. Houses clustered about a square. Wells. Workshops. A wall enclosing several thousand inhabitants. We have evidence of habitation, perhaps of industry. We have not established who conceived the settlement or organized its construction.”

He held the sheet by its corners.

“A family of beast-kin may occupy a house for six generations without producing a single architect. Multiply the number of houses, and you have a town. You have not multiplied the intelligence of its inhabitants.”

A few students laughed. The lecturer waited, his expression unchanged.

“And where there’s no record of human settlement, sir?” someone asked from an upper row.

“An excellent question. Records perish. The quality of the work can itself establish the presence of an educated human influence.”

He consulted his notes.

“The poorer examples, of course, show what occurs when a borrowed practice survives its teaching.”

Rachel had written the title, a show for the one sitting in the chair. Her pen rested beneath the final word, leaving a dot that spread into the paper.

“In some settlements, later walls follow the lines of earlier foundations despite changes in the use of the buildings. Channels are repaired without correcting their fall. Ornament is reproduced after its meaning has been forgotten. These are the habits of a people preserving instructions they lack the intelligence to improve.”

“Could they have lacked the money to rebuild?” the student asked.

“An estate may lack money, my lord. Its steward should retain enough judgment to recognize a defective drain. Poverty accounts for a repair being postponed. It does not account for generations mistaking the defect for part of the design.”

He returned the sheet to the podium amongst chuckles.

“I commend your concern. You must take care, however, that sympathy does not lead you to attribute abilities the evidence fails to support.”

The young lord lowered his hand. His neighbor leaned across to look at his notes.

“Accounts supplied by the inhabitants require equal care. Beast-kin traditions preserve loyalties, fears, and impressions. A beloved chieftain becomes a king. A fortunate season becomes a blessing. We must distinguish what a people remembers from what actually occurred.”

A woman near the front raised her hand.

“Does that apply to written records?”

“Writing can preserve an error as it can a truth, my lady. The scholar’s task is interpretation. We do these peoples no kindness by accepting every claim their ancestors committed to clay, bone or sticks and twigs.”

He placed one finger upon his notes.

“A tablet may name the builders of a canal. It may record their rations, their tools, and the number of seasons spent upon the work. None of this establishes that those named understood the project beyond their assigned labor. A list of workers is not an account of the mind that directed them.”

I shifted in my seat. Ashley lifted her hand from my knee to let me move, then put it back.

“Their religious accounts provide useful examples. A spirit brings rain, and farmers call it a goddess. A fire spirit accepts offerings, and the feeding of a creature becomes a sacred covenant. Such beings were nothing more than common beasts possessed of uncommon power.”

I looked toward Octavian.

He sat with his hands folded, listening and nodding his head.

“You will encounter claims that these creatures taught laws, settled disputes, or instructed their followers in agriculture. Ask yourselves what such testimony establishes. A creature capable of withholding rain need not possess wisdom to have its wishes obeyed. Among minds unable to distinguish fear from reverence, a threat acquires the dignity of a commandment, and as common an idea as put seeds in the ground become divine agricultural guidance.”

“Consider the consequences for government,” the lecturer continued. “If the harvest depends upon pleasing a creature, who questions its demands? Who improves the irrigation channels? Prosperity lasts while the patron beast remains indulgent. When it departs, the settlement fails.”

He took a drink of water.

“Ack’s divinity, established through scripture and expressed in the enduring achievements of the empire’s great bloodline, belongs to a different field of study, though its crystalline purity is well used to show the fault and defect of the silly beliefs of those who thought themselves to know the truth of the divine. We see in that comparison the mistakes made of common spirits thought gods, when the flickering candle flame of their ignorance is held to the blazing truth of our churches.”

Rachel screwed the cap onto her pen.

The lecture continued through examples of pottery, boundary stones, and a fragment of a harvest song whose translation the lecturer found wanting. I lost part of the explanation while watching him smooth a crease from his sleeve.

When he gathered his papers, half the hall had begun packing.

“For your next reading, consult the approved account of the provincial settlements. Pay particular attention to the distinction between beast kin testimony and the real evidence. You are dismissed.”

We stayed seated while the rows emptied. Tiffany watched a student retrieve a dropped glove from beneath the chair ahead of her.

“Are we waiting?” she asked.

I nodded toward Octavian.

She set her bag back on her lap.

Ashley let the last cluster of students pass our aisle before standing. Rachel slipped her notebook into her bag with the pen marking the page.

Octavian remained beside the stage. He watched us descend the steps, and as we approached, he rose.

“Exalted Prince Grayson, might this lowly servant take a measure of your time?” Octavian asked, motioning to the door.

“Certainly, Exalted Lord,” I replied, my voice steady enough to pass for respectful.