Violya

Chapter 9 Toby

9

TOBY

The sack was whipped off his head and the shunt from dark to light struck him forcefully with a sickening dizziness. He blinked to steady the swaying, and his vision adjusted to see green. The outline of hills sharpened, and a stunning view down into a valley came into focus. Beyond, fields for as far as the eye could see.

He knew precisely where he was – Forty Marshes. Only a week’s march from Cleland Castle, he realised, and his heart grew heavy.

The Thorne army had rested at Horfe Castle for five days and then were on the move again. He’d been shoved back in the covered cart and the morning broth and s**t ritual had been reinstated.

That morning, after his breeches had been pulled up again, a sack had been pulled over his head. He’d been carried over someone’s shoulder to a horse, slung over its back so his belly rested on the beast’s shoulders, and then continuously pounded in the ribs as the horse plodded, following whoever led it.

With the sack removed, Toby was forced to turn and kneel on a blanket, his arms still bound behind him and his ankles tied. The blanket was laid out for a picnic, food in parcels, wine, cushions. He shook his head in bewilderment.

A horse whinnied and he looked to the crest of the hill to see his brother’s majestic white stallion tethered to a tree next to the bareback horse he’d arrived on. The guilt at Hugo’s death was a dead weight around Toby’s neck and it tugged savagely at the sight of the stallion. A few paces away, the Peqkian traitor Captain Denya – who had clearly commandeered King Hugo’s horse for her own – held her arms up to nothingness, as if helping someone down.

Then the horse materialised, and an old woman was in Denya’s arms. She was dressed in the finest linen, sumptuous leather riding boots and with a delicate silk shawl around her shoulders. Gently the warrior placed her feet on the grass. The old woman looked up and smiled. Toby gasped, his eyes widening. They have a Flame!

The Flame horse snorted and meandered under the shade of a tree and grazed on the grass. It wasn’t tethered and it didn’t stand close to the other horses, instead showing them its rear. The horse’s coarse hair shimmered as if a fire blazed beneath it and its eyes glowed a deep red. Fertilian Flames granted their rider complete invisibility. Sight, sound and smell were masked. Although if you were to walk into one, you’d still feel it. The breed had supposedly died out, but Toby had heard rumours a few still lived. He’d never seen one before and was mesmerised.

The two women strolled downhill, arm in arm towards him. Only when they reached the blanket did he tear his eyes from the Flame to consider them.

“Ah, Toby Cleland. Once a Prince, now a pauper,” the old woman said.

“Ah, Charlotte Thorne. Once a false queen, always a false queen,” Toby croaked. He hadn’t spoken a word since his doomed conversation with Lippy.

Denya stepped forward and slapped him viciously. He slumped to the side like a tree felled. Denya grabbed his hair and pulled him up to kneeling again.

He eyed her and then looked back to Charlotte. “And her pet cat.”

Denya slapped him again. She held his hair this time so that he wouldn’t topple.

“Speak again without leave and I’ll break your teeth,” the Peqkian captain said.

He glared back at the woman who had once been on his side, who he’d vehemently vouched for, and who had lost him his brother. Guilt and anger coursed through his veins.

“That’s enough, Denya, my dear. I simply can’t abide to see blood at lunch.” Charlotte beckoned for the warrior to help her sit. Denya obliged, helping the old woman to get comfortable on the cushions in front of Toby.

Denya, a hulking warrior, the fiercest fighter Toby had ever seen, then lay down on the blanket, on her back with arms folded over her hard stomach and head in the old woman’s lap. Charlotte stroked the warrior’s cheek and Toby was certain the mountain cat purred with pleasure. She melts like butter under the False Queen’s attention. If Denya was faking it to play the long game, as Lippy suspected, she was doing a commendable job.

Toby stifled a frown and hid his contempt by turning his attention to his knees. Already they ached, and his arse cheeks were digging into his heels.

Charlotte took in her surroundings. “This is such a beautiful spot. My Benjamin used to bring me here when we first moved to Cleland City.”

“You didn’t move to Cleland City, you took it by force, you bitch.”

Denya growled and made to sit up but Charlotte rested a hand on her collarbone and Denya settled to gladly receive the old woman’s fuss.

“I did think you’d be better company than this, Toby. I was certain your mother, dear Olivia, would’ve brought you up to be polite and respect your elders.”

Toby sneered. This woman had no idea about his mother.

At his silence, Charlotte continued, gazing into the distance as old people did when they thought of the past. “It was such a fabulous change to the bleak and dreary Froggerton where Benjamin and I holed up with the twins until he was ready to reclaim the throne from your grandfather. Such a dreadful place, overrun with damn croaking frogs.”

She leaned forward and surveyed the picnic spread. She picked up and examined each morsel of food before either delicately adding it to one of two plates or replacing it with a tut.

“We ruled happily as King and Queen for fifteen joyous years. And then your nasty brother came and took the throne back, killed my darling husband and banished me and the twins. Hugo should’ve killed us, the fool. It may have taken twenty-four years to exact revenge, but the throne will soon be in Thorne hands again.”

She popped a cherry tomato into Denya’s mouth and then put one in her own. Toby’s stomach grumbled. He’d eaten a watery gruel that tasted of old underclothes and stale bread since his capture. It was growing tiresome.

Charlotte looked at him expectantly.

“Oh, come now, you must have something to say?”

Joyous my arse! he wanted to shout, for fifteen years you persecuted the Fertilian people, raised taxes and ruled with torture and intimidation. But the only sound that came from Toby was a low grumble from the pit of his hollow belly.

Charlotte sighed. “Arthur and Clement are off pretending to work out a strategy to lay siege to the city and take the castle. But we already have a plan, don’t we, my darling.” Charlotte patted Denya’s head and the warrior stretched out her toes in apparent bliss. “And my sickly daughter is resting with a headache, as usual, and I desired conversation. And I thought, we have a guest who I should meet.”

Toby snorted. His knees were in agony. They certainly weren’t being treated like a guest’s knees ought to be.

“Well, yes, I admit, Denya wanted to torture you for information, but I did insist on conversation first. Food is ready, sweetling.”

Denya turned on her side, hitched herself up on one elbow and ate the food Charlotte had put on her plate without question, without even glancing at what other delicious fare was on offer in front of her. The warrior gazed dreamily at the view as she chewed, unfocused, and openly at peace on this late autumn’s day. Toby watched her shamelessly. He was still having trouble connecting this soft woman with the hardened warrior captain he knew. It was as if she had a twin with a starkly opposite nature.

Charlotte brought her plate up to her chest and ate from it. She swallowed and said, “It took me years of bargaining, of nagging, of cajoling to make Arthur and Mary see sense. To join their forces. The fools both take after their father in that respect – stubborn and self-obsessed. Although Mary was simply following her husband’s orders. Particularly headstrong that man. But of course, their mother was right.”

Charlotte looked at Toby to ensure he was still listening. He tore his eyes away from Denya’s soppy double and looked back, forcing himself to focus. The old bat wants to boast. Listen carefully, she might reveal a titbit of information I can use to bring down this bastard Thorne family once and for all. Toby lowered his gaze and nodded, to encourage her to continue.

She did so willingly. “And then I had to get Princess Matilda on side. Oh, that did take some doing. She was fiercely loyal to her daddy, although Hugo had married her off at a young age to get rid of her. She still loved him dearly and she was a proud Cleland. But I got to her through her family, as is usually the way of these things.”

The old hag laughed haughtily and a soggy, saliva-saturated crumb of pie flew from her mouth and landed on Denya’s forehead. Denya let it sit there, apparently too in love with the woman whose lips it had sprung from to mind.

“It took oh so many spies, and oh so many years, but we turned Matilda against her family. My infiltrators twittered in her ear and she became convinced that you had killed her boy Johnny on that salt flat excursion. As Hugo’s grandson, Johnny was heir to the throne and she believed you wanted him out the way to claim that position for yourself.”

Toby gritted his teeth as anger sizzled up his throat. The Thornes had been responsible for that unexplained disappearance. He should’ve known. They had searched for weeks for the boy. It had been a horrific mess. He caught himself from shouting, from attempting some kind of launch across the picnic blanket. But what could he do bound and trussed? Nibble at her shawl? Headbutt her knee?

Seeing the effect of her revelation on Toby, the False Queen Charlotte continued with glee.

“That was my opening and, naturally, I exploited it to full effect. How? You might wonder. I targeted the husband. According to my little moles, Lord John Iddenkinge had a stallion Flame, the last in Fertilian. And we had the last female Flame. He wanted to continue their race, as did we, so I negotiated with him to breed them.”

She selected a small sweetcake and held it up, as if offering it to Toby, and then slowly tongued the icing off the top in an odd sensual movement that turned the bile in Toby’s empty stomach.

Charlotte licked her lips. “And, next, the icing on the cake. I arranged for Princess Grace, Matilda’s eldest, to be betrothed to Arthur’s eldest boy Jeremy. So, Iddenkinge and Matilda would still have a royal child. A Queen though, rather than a King, but better than nothing. Well, that sealed the deal of course – and the fate of that bastard Hugo.”

Suddenly, headbutting her knee felt like a solid option. Toby wanted to cause even the smallest amount of pain to this vile old woman.

Charlotte swatted at a wasp that was bothering her plate. Toby urged it to bite her. But in a flash, Denya’s hand shot forward, caught the wasp, crushed it and threw it into the grass with a snarl. She continued to eat.

The False Queen put down her plate, poured wine and handed a glass to Denya. The warrior refused and Charlotte held it out to Toby. Before he could catch himself, his entire body leaned forward, his buttocks lifting off his heels, led by his gaping mouth that was yearning for the taste of wine. Spittle gathered under his tongue.

Charlotte smirked and then tipped the wine into the dirt at the side of the blanket.

Old hag.

The Flame plodded down the hill and stood behind Charlotte whickering. She picked up a juicy apple and held it up to the horse. “Here you go, Ruby.” The horse took the apple from over her shoulder and then stalked away munching it.

Charlotte watched as the Flame retreated.

“Such a good old girl,” she mused. “She was Benjamin’s pride and joy. Carried him into battle against your grandfather Edward. She just keeps going. Flames are blessed with long life if treated well, and I treat her very well.”

Denya sat up and stretched her head from side to side. “It is time.”

Charlotte squeezed the warrior’s arm. “War is such a drain. No time to yourself to enjoy simple pleasures. I’m delighted to be able to picnic, however briefly, in this beautiful place that reminds me so much of my late, great husband. But there is a throne to reclaim.”

Denya leaned in and kissed the old woman passionately on her wrinkled lips.

Goodness, no, they can’t… they won’t… not in front of me… Toby scrutinised the blanket below his knees and attempted to shut off his ears to the wet smacking noises.

To his relief, Charlotte gently pushed the warrior away. “Less of that, ha!” She stroked Denya’s face tenderly. “And of course, once we secure Fertilian for ourselves, then, just for you my dear, we’ll take Peqkya.”

Toby let rip a snort as he recalled Lippy’s hunch and Charlotte looked at him, mistaking his reaction for disbelief.

“Don’t you believe we can? Denya knows all the country’s weaknesses, just like she knows all the weaknesses of Cleland City and its castle. I do hope you’ll join us to watch its defeat, should be quite a show. Then we’ll take Lian and wipe out all the repugnant Clelands once and for all. I don’t imagine Hugo’s pathetic wife will put up much of a fight.”

The smirk on Toby’s face faltered and slid away. Jessima. His love. God help her, for I have failed and cannot.

Denya sprung to her feet. She helped Charlotte to stand and to mount the Flame horse. The old hag and the horse turned invisible as soon as she was settled in the saddle.

Denya turned to Toby. All softness had evaporated from the woman and the scowling, coiled tension was back.

The False Queen’s voice came from nothingness. “It was a success, you know,” she said. “Well, of course it was, because I managed it.”

Toby rolled his eyes. What is the old bat boasting about now?

As if she’d heard his thoughts, she said, “The Flame breeding. Turned out Iddenkinge didn’t just have one stallion, he had four. And we discovered an old farmer in the west had hidden two female Flames. So, now we have quite the herd. We were all ready to use them in the battle at Yettle Valley, but then Denya dearest crushed the doleful Cleland army so completely it was unnecessary.”

Charlotte cackled like the old hag she was, as Denya pulled the sack back over his head, heaved him up and flung him over her shoulder.