TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 29 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 29 - More Gossip

Rumor, gossip, slander—single  drops of poison can pollute an entire system.

- Bettan Hughes.

Lady Seraphina de Sariens of Aranthia had been politely dismissed from court once the Emperor decided to move on to other pressing matters of state. Ordinarily, the young noblewoman would not have been especially interested in such boring administrative issues. Taxation, grain levies, salt licences, provincial appointments, roadl maintenance, military provisions, and the thousand other dull little matters by which states continued to exist were necessary, of course, but necessity did not make them entertaining. Her current delicate position, however, gave such things a certain rather important value.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall, she considered. Then she paused. Wait a moment. I have the Beast Lore amulet, do I not?

A second later, she remembered the limitations of using animals as spies, namely, the animals themselves. Animals, it seemed, even the mystical and legendary variety, simply did not have the intellectual capacity for proper espionage. Spike would report, with great sincerity, that men around him had spoken many words and that he had hated all of them and wanted to kill them. Yes, even the spoken words. And Kiwi, well the three-eyed crow might notice shiny things, movements, and whether something seemed edible. 

Perhaps she could use Tia, but getting a straight answer from the Fae creature was like expecting rain in the desert and then being told that rain had always been a kind of bird. Tia was also limited by the fact that she could not roam too far away from Seraphina, which also put a dampener on any ad hoc assassination plans.

So she would have to rely on human agents.

How irritatingly traditional.

But how was she to recruit them? And what tools would be most effective? Appealing to simple vice was one possibility, though it would be difficult to source Dust this deep in the Empire, and creating a network from nothing sounded like the sort of thing that required time, patience, and a willingness to speak with rather unsavory people. It was a thing that poor people did. 

Then there was money, and simple bribery had a certain honest elegance to it. It could begin with little things from the serving staff of the court: schedules, topics of discussion, lists of visitors, harmless details no one would think too much about. From there, acceptance of coin could become habit, and habit could, with suitable pressure, be turned into blackmail.

Or perhaps her suitors could be used to gather information? 

That, too, had a sort of promise. Men were often desperate to appear useful before a woman they wished to marry, especially if that woman smiled at them in precisely the right way. The difficulty was that such usefulness had an expiration date. However, once she chose a husband, the smiling faces of the rejected would sour, and whatever little channels of information they provided would either close or become poisoned. Men were never good at losing at the game of hearts with dignity.

“I see they all looked rather surprised by your temerity in insisting that your husband not openly sleep around with every young maid or scullion,” Desdemona commented as they reunited with Frest. “Shocking. Barbarians, truly.”

“Sleep around?” Frest inquired, looking suitably confused, his hand shifting toward the artifact slung across his shoulder.

“Nothing to worry about, Sir Knight. Merely a small cultural misunderstanding,” Seraphina explained dryly. “Now then, if you could escort us back to the Spring Palace without too much talk, I have much to think about,” she added with a small exasperated huff.

***

Courtship, the young girl decided over the following days, was certainly a chore.

With Desdemona and Meilin acting as smiling but silent chaperones, Seraphina received her suitors over tea, accepted gifts that could be accepted without her eventual rejection becoming an insult, and returned those that could not with the appropriate degree of gracious regret. The conversations were bland, tepid, and, at best, vaguely interesting when one of the men brought some fresh tidbit of court gossip. It took true effort not to look as though she were dying of boredom.

Later, Seraphina would discuss the faults and virtues of her would-be suitors with Desdemona and Meilin, but the truth was that, after having a Crown Prince as a fiancé, anything less felt like something of a downgrade. Even if some of them were easy on the eyes.

And, despite everything, the programming of the damned game still made her feel something for Crown Prince Velens of damned Aranthia. Or rather, that was what she told herself. The truth was that she was vacillating, and that irritated her more than the feeling itself.

On the second day, she received a rather nice present. It was a small thing in the grand scheme of courtship, but charming nonetheless: a beautiful, bright yellow songbird in a wire cage.

Kiwi disliked the creature immediately.

In truth, the little creature was rather full of itself, hopping from perch to perch with the aggressive confidence of something that weighed less than a letter opener. Still, it was very cute. Tia, after inspecting it with grave seriousness, stated that she did not think the songbird would be able to carry her weight. Seraphina had first thought to release it, seeing the cage as rather cruel. But a caged animal did not live long outside the prison that had become its home. Freedom, like most expensive things, required maintenance.

So she named it Hana, after her old incompetent secretary. The girl had always been a nervous wreck and had spent half her life raising her shrill voice over one problem or another. The remembrance brought a wry smile to the young girl’s face.

Instead of freeing the bird, Seraphina explained to the new Hana that she must not fly beyond the bounds of the palace, because outside the walls all kinds of dangerous things lurked. Simple animals did not understand deception very well, and Hana accepted this as fact with all the confidence of a creature that had never once questioned the universe. Just like the original Hana would have.

The young noblewoman arranged with the servants for treats, nuts, fruit, and other delights to be placed around the palace for the songbird, reinforcing its behavior so that it would remain within the Spring Palace. Animals, as well as being rather stupid, could also be rather lazy. They would always choose the safest and easiest option when trained to recognize it. They were designed that way. And Hana, born in captivity, was already half-tamed. This, too, reminded her of the original Hana.

Seraphina de Sariens wondered if there was a lesson to be learned there, some ironic little metaphor about cages, kindness, and the dangers of mistaking comfort for freedom, but eventually let the thought slide. She had other, more important things upon which to spend her energies. Namely, actually finding a husband who could help her achieve her goals, was decent to look at, was not a chauvinist pig, was not twice her age, and respected her for who she was.

Was that so much to ask?

She was watching Hana investigate the latest offerings left by the servants in the garden, the little yellow songbird scoffing down bits of fruit and crushed nuts, when she noticed a cluster of the help beginning to form near one of the covered walkways. At first, it was only two maids speaking in hurried whispers behind their sleeves. Then a third joined them, then one of the younger kitchen girls, then an older woman carrying folded linen who had clearly intended to continue walking until curiosity had seized her.

Their voices were low, but their excitement had a certain animation that spoke very loud indeed.

Flower General… Defeated… Western barbarians… Buried alive… however were all the snippets she could glean at this distance.

Seraphina’s gaze narrowed. What nonsense is this? she thought, and despite herself felt drawn toward them like a little flake of metal toward a lodestone.

The maids noticed her approach a heartbeat too late. Panic moved through them in a small wave. Sleeves fell, backs straightened, and eyes immediately dropped to the stones. The kitchen girl went so pale that Seraphina almost laughed.

“Barbarians? I pray you are not talking about me. Now, what is going on here?” Seraphina asked, her voice mild enough to be dangerous. “And why are you gathering together like a gaggle of geese?”

“My lady,” said the oldest maid, bowing at once. She was a narrow woman with silver threaded through her hair and a careful air of dignity. “Forgive us. We did not mean to disturb your peace.”

“No one ever does,” Seraphina snorted. “And yet, here we are.”

The younger maids bowed lower, and the old maid’s mouth tightened. She looked to the others, received no help from their cowardice, and turned back to Seraphina with the expression of a woman stepping onto thin ice.

“There is news, my lady,” she offered carefully. “News from the western provinces.”

Seraphina stilled, then gestured for her to go on. “Continue,” she ordered.

The maid hesitated, then remembered her place. “They say the barbarian warlord Enkarn has been defeated, my lady. His horde as well.”

For a moment, the blonde girl said nothing. Water murmured somewhere nearby. Hana chirped above as a breeze moved through the budding branches overhead.

“Defeated,” Seraphina repeated.

“Yes, my lady,” the old maid replied, still with that same careful caution. “Annihilated, they say.”

One of the younger maids swallowed audibly. “By the Flower General.”

At that, all of the others nodded at once in agreement.

“Fan Xiwei,” the kitchen girl whispered, before realizing she had spoken out of turn and clapping both hands over her mouth.

Seraphina turned her eyes toward her. “You may as well finish now.”

The girl looked ready to faint, but the older maid gave her the smallest nudge with one elbow.

“My cousin serves at the southern post station on the western road, my lady,” the kitchen girl stammered, words tumbling out in a rush. “He changes horses for couriers, sometimes Gryphon riders too, when they come in low and tired. He heard it from a courier who came through before dawn. The courier was carrying sealed dispatches for the Ministry of War. He said General Fan Xiwei came from the east with her army and caught the barbarians near the river flats.”

“The eastern army,” added another maid, a round-faced woman who had been clutching a basket of folded cloth to her chest as if it might protect her. “My elder brother serves in the supply train. Not near the fighting, my lady, only with the carts. But he wrote to his wife, and she came to the servants’ gate this morning because she was so frightened and proud of the news she could not keep it in her own breast.”

“How very interesting,” Seraphina murmured.

The maid bowed lower, missing or wisely ignoring the tone. “He said the Flower General struck them with heavy cavalry first. They smashed the barbarian horsemen against the riverbank and drove them toward the infantry. Then the Iron Legions closed around them.”

Iron Legions, the Empire’s heavy foot. Clad head to foot in steel, they were the Empire’s attempt to rival Aranthia’s armored might. They still vaguely followed the outdated Roman traditions when it came to formations, if not their dedication to actual training.

“They say the barbarians could not break them,” the older maid continued, voice quieter now. “Their arrows did little. Their charges broke apart. The Flower General had prepared well. When the westerners tried to scatter, her riders cut them down. When they tried to surrender…” she continued before something forced her to stop.

The kitchen girl finished for her with a whisper. “They were buried alive.”

Silence gathered. The silence of servants repeating news of horror from very far away in front of someone who did not suffer gossip lightly.

“All of them?” Seraphina asked, mildly annoyed that her intelligence network was the help assigned to her.

“They say all,” the old maid answered. “Or near enough that the difference does not matter in the telling.”

Another maid touched the charm at her throat. “It was said the Flower General ordered it because the barbarians had burned villages, taken children, and defiled ancestral graves. They say she said the earth should have back what came crawling across it.”

There was fear in her voice. And pride. And something else too. Relief, perhaps. The relief of people who had been afraid of a storm and then learned it had decided to go somewhere else.

“Is this confirmed?” Seraphina inquired. “You all seem rather well informed… for servants, at least.”

The maids exchanged nervous glances.

“Lady de Sariens, it has been this way since my great grandmothers’ time. The hands that bring the rice to market know the price faster than the miller. And this is the truth, as much as such things can be before the court proclaims them, my lady,” the old maid returned with a shrug. “There have been couriers all morning. The Ministry of War is in motion. The kitchens have already been told to prepare for officials staying late. My nephew works in the outer records office, and he says the scribes have been called in by name.”

“And General Fan? What about her?” Seraphina asked.

If the young noblewoman’s memories from her other life served her correct, General Fan would be problematic.

“She is coming to the capital,” chirped the maid with the basket. “For a victory parade. The Prince’s promised.”

The words seemed to awaken the others from their fear and then came a stream of words from the gaggle. 

“Yes, my lady. Soon.”

“They say the Emperor will honor her himself.”

“They say flowers are already being ordered from the southern gardens.”

“My cousin heard that the cavalry standards will be carried through the Avenue of Heavenly Peace.”

“And the Iron Legions,” whispered the kitchen girl, eyes wide. “The ones that broke the barbarians.”

Seraphina listened to them with her hands folded before her, face arranged into polite interest while the pieces shifted behind her eyes. The would-be suitor who had decided to bring fire and slaughter toward the capital had been cut down and swallowed by the Empire’s answer to him: a beautiful general with a flower for her title and iron in her command.

It was all so rather anticlimactic. 

She had rather thought Enkarn might make a useful disruption, a northern disaster arriving at precisely the wrong time for everyone else. Instead, he had been removed from the board before she could even decide on how to use him. Worse, the woman who had done it was now coming to Tianhua crowned in victory, public gratitude, and military glory. The Flower General, herself.

The maids immediately looked terrified, for something about the young girl’s aura must have changed.

“Thank you,” she said gently. “You have all been most informative.”

“My lady,” they murmured, bowing in relieved confusion.

“Do continue with your duties. And if further news arrives, any news of note, I should be very grateful to hear it. Very grateful indeed.”

The old maid understood first. Her eyes flicked up, sharp beneath the lowered lashes. “As my lady wishes.”

The cluster scattered with more discipline than it had formed, each woman carrying away a piece of fear, excitement, and the delightful knowledge that gossip had just become a new, perhaps profitable, form of service.

The little yellow bird had alighted onto an offering bowl and had found the sweetest piece of fruit and was now guarding it from absolutely no one.

“So,” Seraphina said softly, “the barbarians are buried, the Flower General is coming, and the capital will soon have a new heroine to celebrate.”

Hana chirped.

“Yes,” Seraphina agreed. “Annoying, isn’t it?”

Then she realized, much to her chagrin, that one of the maids had referred to Fan Xiwei as the Prince’s promised.