Sound hummed in a throbbing, droning way in the chapel. It was the way the room was shaped, a small semi-circular apse with harsh edges. Uncle Halvar Valewyn wasn't a particularly pious man. The reason why the chapel slowly shrank under his rule. But he met his maker in the end, in one of the same ways every noble does; either tucked up warm and ailing of old age in comfort, or grasping at their throat, cursing the lord or lady who snuffed their life out.
Uncle, despite his offences in life, died in the former way. But that was not for lack of trying on the part of their enemies.
Rhosyn bit back the ache in her legs. She'd been kneeling on the barely padded step for the better part of an hour, telling herself that she was there to pray for her father and brother who died in the latter way, so many years ago now. But truly, she enjoyed the peace she got from the odd, cramped room.
Smoke of too many candles mingled in the space, the heat intoxicating, barely bearable and the air thick with frankincense and myrrh. She inhaled deeply, letting it burn in her chest.
A soft rap sounded at the door behind.
"Lady Valewyn, I'm sorry to interrupt your prayers, but your carriage has just arrived," Sir Caerwyn spoke through the thick wooden door, his voice muffled and dampened like everything else in this box room.
"I'll be right out," Rhosyn called back, her own voice deafening in the tight space, but it likely reached no further than the inside of the chapel walls.
She bowed her head, closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, deciding that she should pray while she was there at least. It would be rude not to. If God truly was awaiting her meager words, her pleas, then she should at least voice them for him.
"Forever look after my father and brother, for I am sure their company is far more appreciated than that of my uncle's," Rhosyn murmured, "and look after him, always—amen."
Climbing to her feet, her gown skirt swished around her ankles, her corset cutting in, in the familiar way that reinforced her resolve. Knights and soldiers wore armour—this was her armour.
Breathing one last potent breath, she pushed through the heavy door.
"Lady Valewyn, I'm sorry—"
"Don't apologise, Sir Caerwyn."
Rhosyn stood straighter. Glancing at the few faces that turned her way, eyes meeting, before bowing their heads in an attempt to hide. Caerwyn stood as still as a statue, his face a stoic scene. He wore his short sword and hooked blade as usual at his belt tied around his green surcoat embroidered with his House Hale famous silver willow tree.
"I'm sorry."
A line Rhosyn expected by now from her knight.
Caerwyn Hale had been Rhosyn's knight since the day she'd returned from captivity. He pledged himself to her before she'd even crossed the threshold. She didn't need to see the parchment of condolences or the headstones bearing their names. His oath was confirmation enough. A knight's oath was to death—theirs or their liege's.
"Let's go," Rhosyn said, Caerwyn flanking her as she led, like always.
Ravelocke's manor was always too large for Rhosyn's liking, boxed-shaped and iron trimmings. It was a richly furnished prison with staff planted by the king.
Lady Rhosyn of Valewyn was not permitted to govern such a prestigious title as that of the Duchy of Ravelocke. A woman was not afforded such freedoms. She retained her uncle's right as heir to the duchy. But until she comes of age, marries, signs off all her rights to her husband and allows the men of the land to govern her sovereign right, she's not recognised as a duchess.
The king, by right of receivership, would keep-safe her birth-right. Without him, the title would've been stripped from her when her uncle died and she would've been left landless. Rhosyn owed her life twice over to the crown—once for securing her safe return from captivity with the Crown Prince, and second for backing her right to her ancestral land. If not, it would've fallen to a distant far-removed branch, with little to no relation and with no regard for her or her family's legacy.
It was a small world she lived in, in a large estate she called home.
Rhosyn stepped out into the warmth of a late summer. Days would soon start to bite, in more ways than just the cold. Rumours held the northern lords were already mustering and the kingdom had seen enough war already to last it a lifetime. But yet it seemed to brace for more.
"Can't I ride horseback, Sir Caerwyn?" Rhosyn eyed the uncomfortable carriage of a contraption with disdain.
"I'm sorry—" there he goes again, "—My Lady, but after last time, I think it safer to use the carriage," Caerwyn interjected.
Last month she'd been recognised as a noblewoman near a village where they didn't particularly seem to like nobility. If Caerwyn hadn't been there, she'd likely been killed, if not at least seriously injured.
Tensions seemed to be stemming down from the north ever since a flurry of flyers circulated at the beginning of summer. It wasn't as if any of the commoners could read, but one of the villagers happened to have a family member visit who was a scribe from a town in the upper lands. Rhosyn didn't believe in coincidences, just paper trails depicting the culprit.
The Duke of Harrowfen had become more bold, other northern lords rallying at his side. If the country was an ocean of unrest, he was the one fanning the waves. But Rhosyn had bigger problems closer to home to deal with, and until she found the right trail to point her to the conspirator, she'll refrain from jumping to conclusions.
Too many businesses were mimicking a new style of administration in the past few months. Local smiths switched to using ores from overseas, bakers relying on Celandre rye, rather than locally sourced wheat and barley from the low lands of Aramor.
Rhosyn knew prices had risen due to unexpected harvests falling short and with tensions in the north, the price of ore from the upper lands had all but doubled. Though she couldn't help but notice the waterway toll income increased substantially since then and any business that didn't choose to follow suit with these new optics was forced to close.
Checking her leg for the blade secured to her calf, Rhosyn took a hauntingly difficult step onto the carriage rung, feeling the whispers of terror trembling through her memories—and then they were gone.
"Rhos," her name called to her and she paused midway ducking into the closed carriage.
Hooves beating on cobblestone and the man sitting atop the fine breed, a pleasant sight—Crown Prince Edrien.
Rhosyn waited for him to near, Edrien dismounting swiftly before the horse had fully halted, a charming smile spilling across his face at the sight of her.
"Rhos, I need your help—it's urgent," he pleaded with her, stress lining his brow as he held out a thick wallet of writs.
Interest nagged at her and she took the outstretched wallet, hopping to the ground, Edrien's hand coming up instinctively to balance her. She flipped through the first few pages, reading snatches of headlines and bold lettering.
"It's a hit piece," she murmured, digesting the threat these papers portrayed.
"It came across my desk this morning," Edrien explained.
"All of it?" Rhosyn fanned the wad of papers.
He nodded. "This—" he flipped back through to an open letter at the front of the pile, "—is what came with it."
The words painted across the parchment were delicate—purposeful.
To His Royal Highness Edrien Vaudren, Crown Prince of Aramor,
I include the offenses the crown defends in a nice neat document for your personal use. A copy is being sent to His Majesty's Council Register, though I know they don't meet until Friday. As you are our future king, I thought it prominent that you be well informed of the kingdom's issues and men in it who are to serve you.
From your most honest subject,
Leoric Karsyn, Duke of Harrowfen.
It was a cursive warning and mockery. Rhosyn knew the north was rallying for something, but this was the tinder to the flames peoples' outrage would light. He was far more cunning than she imagined, and far more irritating.
Friday, that gave them just two days. It seemed her own issues were going to have to wait, her future king and friend came first.
"Let's go to uncle's old office."
Edrien's hand never fell away as they started into the manor together, Caerwyn following a few steps behind, Rhosyn's eyes rereading the letter from the duke. It had been so long since any noise was heard from the north that she thought it had simmered to a halt. But she should've known he was just gathering more ammunition.
They turned into the main hall where her uncle used to reside—mostly empty now. It was probably why she liked it in this wing, the quiet of disused corridors and memory of family like a faint scent lingering in the fabric. When they reached the large double doors of uncle Halvar's office, Rhosyn pulled the handle, only to push against the iron bolt of a lock. It had been a while since she'd used the room last, but she hadn't expected it to be locked. The only person with the key was Master Oswin and he could be anywhere in the estate.
Edrien dropped to a knee, pulling something out of his pocket and slipping it into the lock with an expression on his face that looked all too happy.
"What are you doing?" she scolded.
"What does it look like?" he threw over his shoulder, "I'm unlocking the door for us."
Rhosyn rolled her eyes. He'd been doing this ever since a boy in the kitchens taught him when they were still kids. The kitchen boy didn't know he was the prince, thought everyone was playing a joke on him by claiming it. Long story short, Edrien learnt how to pick a lock and since then, no door or chest had kept them out. It was probably something he sought comfort in. Knowing that if they ever found themselves locked in a cell again, that he'll be able to get them out.
"Just don't break my uncle's door," she bit back, finger anxiously picking at her thumb.
He made a noise that had Rhosyn leaning in worried.
"Could you both turn around," Edrien asked a little awkwardly. "I can't do it when someone's watching." He self-consciously chuckled and she turned her back with a huff.
A few beats later, a click sounded and she turned to find an awfully smug prince holding the door ajar.
"After you, My Lady." He gestured gentlemanly.
"Why, thank you."
The room was large, lined with tall shelves and fine furniture organised so that there was a sitting area to receive guests around a low table, and a massive desk big enough to fit two—which it did, her and Edrien.
Rhosyn sat in her uncle's old seat, Edrien pulled up a spare and they began to sieve through the wallets contents. Most of it was recorded reports from Lower Houses and common people. Witnesses to injustice, or victims of grievances. Occasionally, the northern duke would detail a section, his handwriting standing out stark against the scribbles of the serjeant-at-mace's clerk.
"What's the plan then?" Edrien asked, reading the way Rhosyn searched the pages laid out in front of them.
"We need to find probable deniability for as many as we can and set up a plan to resolve any offenses we can't justify," she explained. "We'll make two piles; one for those that are undefendable, another for those that we can refute."
"Why not just answer each of the charges with their demands?" he asked, reading over a request that a lord had underpaid on a contract arguing that he didn't compensate the merchant after prices of the raw materials went up, meaning the goods were sold at a loss.
"Because the duke knows what he's doing and lords don't like being told they are wrong."
Edrien blinked at her as if he was made uncomfortable by her words. She didn't like it anymore than he did, but it was the ugly truth. If they conceded and forced all the lords named in the wallet to pay back all the gold they owed, there would be an uproar, and it'll be aimed at them, not the duke. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't, so they needed to vindicate as many with appropriate reasoning—which was going to take a lot of hours of reading financial ledgers.
"I'm going to need ledgers with dates and yearly finance dockets to absolve most of these," Rhosyn ran her finger over a few issues aimed at underpaying or outright dodging tax.
"My secretary will have copies of those, how far back would you need?" he queried, pulling out a fresh piece of paper and starting a request in his own hand.
"It'll have to encompass any dates in question on the accusations."
Edrien raised his eyebrows, realising the size of the job at hand.
"Sir Caerwyn," she continued, still searching through the pages scattered haphazardly. "Can you go to the palace and return with what we need please?"
The shadow next to the doorway stood straighter. "I can't do that, My Lady—line of sight." His code that overruled her command, a repetitive and tiresome battle between them.
"We're not going anywhere and there's no danger here," Rhosyn combated. "Besides, Edrien has his own guards stationed outside the door—a position you requested—and they followed their Prince's command."
"My first duty is to your safety, My Lady," Caerwyn replied, with no tone change as usual.
She simply rolled her eyes and her knight didn't need to see it to know she was vexed. Though he'd see it as her being irked, but safe.
No matter, she'd decided she'll just have to ask the next maid to send for a page and—ah, Master Oswin, just the man she needed.
"Perfect, Master Oswin."
"My Lady," he bowed, "Your Highness." He dipped again.
"Can you ready a room for Crown Prince Edrien, he'll be staying the night—" Rhosyn asked, seeing the again tell on the man's face, "can you request a light dinner, something not messy as it's a working dinner." She could see Oswin pale at trying to convince the chef to cook something so basic for the prince and smiled. "And fetch someone who doesn't care for my safety nor security who is free to run documents the prince needs from the palace." She felt Caerwyn hang on that one, Oswin hearing yet another argument masked by a simple request and wielded as a weapon.
"Of course, My Lady," he bowed, taking the offered letter from Edrien, "thank you, Your Highness." He dipped again and then he was out of the door, his shoes slapping on the hallway floor as he rushed to complete his tasks.
Edrien rolled his head, giving her a jesting look as if to scorn her. "You don't have to give him a hard time."
"I don't, he gives himself a hard time fretting over the important guests I get," Rhosyn replied swiftly, starting to pile the papers in a fashion that made sense, seeing a pattern.
"'Guests,' as in more than one? Who have you been making friends with?" Edrien pried, dripping with interest—and maybe a bit of jealousy.
"You very well know it's just you. Everyone else doesn't know if they should try to befriend me, not knowing if it'll benefit them, or bow to me—and all because I'm playmate of the prince," Rhosyn teased straight-faced.
"They do it because you're the prince's favourite," Edrien teased.
"No," she replied firmly, "This—" she slapped the pile of papers, "—is what favouritism leads to."
Edrien grinned. "Well, we should get good at this then," he kicked back into his chair, flourishing a page out prepping it to be read, "because I plan on buying you a pony as soon as I'm king—just as I said I would when we were children."
His insistence on getting her a pony was because he wanted to make up for her eighth birthday. But that was in the past and she didn't wish to dredge it back up.
Rhosyn simply gave Edrien an unimpressed look.
"Come on. You like this really," Edrien prodded. "I know you still read Ravelocke's monthly finance ledger before handing it off to my father."
"Because habits are hard to break and uncle taught me that; 'numbers never lie—'"
"'Where people with words bend the truth,'" Edrien finished for her. "Well, I'd never lie to you Rhos," he announced, leaning casually propped up by an elbow.
"That's because you can't lie to me," she replied, not looking up from the audit she studied. "I know your tells."
Edrien looked generally hurt—but she knew it was put on, he was good at acting. Rhosyn simply rose an eyebrow at him and set her lips in a half smirk and the prince rolled his eyes, smiling innocently.
"I swear, you can read people, like people read books."
She scoffed, the idea of reading books was irksome.
"What?" Edrien pinned her a look. "There's books out there that aren't all fiction and lies, you don't have to read that 'Beatrice Fairleigh' stuff."
"No, but even the non-fiction out there are questionably lies. Last centuries facts, disproved this century," Rhosyn sieved through the stack in front of her. "What next? In the future they'll be saying that God doesn't actually exist, that we made him up to keep people in line and control them."
"That'll never happen, we'd prove them wrong."
"What, the Crown Prince and his playmate using equations that calculate nature with numbers to prove how only an intelligent higher power would be able to create such a feat?" Rhosyn asked, sarcastically.
"By then, I'll be king and I can command their thesis to be ignored."
"And risk censorship which would only seem to prove them right and create an environment that'll stoke rebellion in pursuit to be heard," she questioned.
She knew he meant well, but Edrien was a dreamer. He always saw the world in some pleasant shade, finding the humour in the glum. He hid it—rather well sometimes—but he was actually rather intelligent, with the ability to read and write in three different languages, one of them being a dead one.
It was just everything they did, they did together. He knew words and had the power of his station as Crown Prince and Rhosyn understood numbers and how to string a plan together, keeping the delicate balance of the lords interest and that of the crown's.
A runner returned with the boxes of papers requested ages ago now. The sun kissed the tree-tops and Caerwyn still clung to the wall, only now he wasn't the only shadow in the room.
Rhosyn had sieved through petty squabbles between lords about border disputes, lower lords claiming their business was hijacked from underneath them, and the grim realities of how many lords didn't pay the high taxes despite the reported empty coffers and resulting high cost of bread and other basic commodities. No wonder the common people were outraged by what a noble lived on—Rhosyn was too.
"You look like you need a break," Edrien sat forward, wearing concern.
She massaged a headache starting to form. "There's just too many words," she cursed. "It's like he knows my weakness." He was getting bolder, Rhosyn gnawed on the skin of her thumbs pad, a nasty habit that itched at her.
"By him, you're referring to the Duke of Harrowfen," Edrien guessed, his brow set in a way that told her he didn't agree. "Don't you mean the Northern Bloc or whatever the north lords are calling themselves."
"It has his signature all over it," she waved, annoyed by the stack of papers. "He uses words like an executioner uses an ax. It's the way he dots the 'i's and crosses the 't's—"
"Oh, how blasphemous," Edrien mocked.
"Making everything seem so much more sinister," Rhosyn continued as if he hadn't interrupted.
"Well, this one is actually quite sinister without his help," he threw a sheet of paper over the large desk.
The words played in a familiar way, a low ghostly voice whispering the words in her head. It detailed an incident where a lord failed to pay the wergild, or man money, for ordering the death of a man without trial. It was injustice in more ways than one and yet it was swept under the overly sized gold-threaded rug, just because the lord felt in the right. The man had been accused of stealing, but there was no evidence. Rather than drag out an investigation and run a fair trial, the lord decided to take matters into his own hands.
Rhosyn sighed, burying her head into her hands. "The southern lords are not helping us here. It's like they want the north to split from us, just to be proven right rather than co-exist under the same roof."
"Well, we won't let that happen," Edrien gently retrieved the page. "Nothing can beat us when we put our heads together."
"I suppose you're right," she smiled fondly at him, through the dull ache pounding behind her eyes. "You deal with the words and I'll follow the money trail, because—"
"Numbers," they both said together and she can't help but share a laugh with Edrien.