The Beacon: Palisade (2)
Episode 7: "Old Hatreds Never Die"
The orphanage owned and managed by Gran stood surprisingly close to the royal palace, just beyond the thick stone wall that encircled the plateau atop the hill on which the Margonni kings had built Palisade. The semi-circular district immediately below the palace, called the Second Level, boasted most of the foreign embassies and the city’s wealthy citizens and prominent businesses. People considered a home or office here to be prestigious.
It had not always been so. Many hundreds of years before, the earliest settlers had quickly realized the strategic advantages of the hill. The highest spot for many leagues around, it featured difficult slopes to the east and Chalk Lake to the west. The plateau’s western edge fell sharply in white, chalky cliffs to the water nearly a thousand feet below. On that eminence, the native Leitani people had built a wooden fort surrounded by a palisade of heavy logs. They called it Huqsela, “Chalk Fortress,” and it became their capital city.
During the city’s earliest centuries, its entire population had lived behind the fort’s log wall, which followed the contours of the flat hilltop, creating a space of several acres. The Leitani, originally a nomadic people who knew little about cities, did little to improve their capital. After a while, leaving the protection of the palisade, its citizens erected shelters, usually leather tents at first and later crude log buildings, wherever it suited them. Streets followed old game trails, and none were paved. It was a reeking town of blowing dust in the dry season and mud during the rains.
After conquering the Leitani in a decisive battle at the hill’s foot, the kingdom’s first monarch, Margonne “the Strong” Ankara, saw the site's advantages and made it his capital, renaming it Palisade after its crowning wooden wall. Yet, among his first acts was to remove the wooden palisade and replace it with thick granite walls, inside of which he built his extensive and luxurious stone palace.
A farsighted man, Margonne planned his capital city to encompass the entire hill. Engineers terraced the hillside extensively to create five distinct levels, digging multiple wells and containing natural springs in pools and watercourses. Citizens soon built their homes and businesses along rerouted, leveled, and paved roads. The population expanded considerably.
To provide another defensive barrier to assault, the king and his heirs constructed a new wall in an extensive half-circle just beyond the hill’s foot, sweeping eastward from the bank of Chalk Lake above the city and ending on its shore more than twelve miles to the south. They built three main gates in this wall—one each to the north, east, and south—which opened into large squares containing inns, shops, stables, and other necessary enterprises. Every two hundred yards along the wall, towers rose to command their sections of the wall and the gently sloping open grassland beyond. Later monarchs added defensive enhancements—crenelations to its top, glacis before it, steel portcullises, sally ports, mounted catapults, and the like. Since Margonne’s conquest, the city had never been in serious danger.
The last few Margonni kings had diligently maintained their capital, making numerous improvements. They primarily invested in adding parks and promenades, founding the kingdom’s Royal College, and keeping it safe and clean. The royal house so consistently encouraged learning, trade, and craftsmanship that by Lorens III’s reign, two hundred years after the kingdom’s founding, most of its citizens considered Palisade the kingdom’s chief governmental, educational, and commercial center rather than its foremost citadel.
Basket in hand, Adon passed under the onyx-faced arch of the palace wall’s main gate, turning left onto the gray block sidewalk of the broad, cobbled avenue that ran along its length. His destination stood across the way and less than a hundred yards to the north, near his grandmother’s house, long used as the hub of her intelligence agency. The original builder of Gran’s Orphanage had run a store and warehouse, constructing a long, low structure of rough gray stone with a gently sloping slate roof. By royal decree, he could not raise his building higher than the wall’s top for defensive purposes.
Adon paused while a heavy wagon rumbled past, then crossed to the orphanage. Steps rose directly from the street to a small porch before a bright red front door, the only spot of color in the whole façade. Nothing identified the building as an orphanage other than a black metal silhouette of a child tacked to the center of the door’s upper third.
Letting himself into a small, dim foyer, he closed the door softly behind him. He had his choice of three doors that led further into the house, but being a frequent visitor, he chose the windowed door to his right, knocking politely before opening it. He entered a bright, cozy office where a fire burned merrily in the grate behind a whitewashed desk with a polished black stone top.
A small and finely boned, gray-haired woman sat behind the desk, smiling fondly up at her guest as she always did when he arrived. Only a few in the city knew her to be Princess Grania Valleroi of the Satelen nobility, who had lived in exile since just after the first skirmishes of her country’s civil war. Gran was a few years older than Adon, who, though Margonni-born, descended from the Santinetta noble family that had once ruled Satele for generations. The two had maintained a close but platonic relationship through the years, bonded by shared culture and experience.
Grania rose gracefully and stepped around the desk, giving him a traditional Satelen greeting, the two clasping each other’s forearms and leaning forward to place a kiss on each cheek. Adon held her arms long after custom demanded he let her go, taking a long look at her before saying, “My lady, you are beautiful sight for these old eyes. I always look forward to our visits.”
“Adonis, you old sea dog!” she said, playfully slapping his chest. “What do you want this time? Old ladies—even old princesses—are hardly beautiful, so you must have some ulterior motive for your flattery. Out with it!”
He grinned and winked, letting her go. As she busied herself with setting out cups and saucers for tea, he settled into a chair near the hearth, putting the basket on her desk. “I bring you a small offering from the king and myself. He sends his thanks, as is his wont.”
“He has thanked me enough,” she said with finality. “Too much, if the truth be told. I did him one small favor, and he has repaid me far more than I deserve. I am in his debt and will never be able to repay.”
“Lorens doesn’t see it that way, lady,” he said. “Your help was invaluable in his estimation, so he sees himself forever in your debt.” She looked as if she were about to argue, but he held up a hand to forestall her. “Can you stop the tide? You might as well accept that he will never stop giving you whatever aid you need—and a lot more you probably don’t. You’ll want for nothing as long as he lives.”
“Unless he does something foolish, he should outlive me by decades,” she mused. “And he’s a king, so there’s no chance of changing his mind.” Spooning tea leaves into her porcelain teapot, she poured hot water from a copper kettle over it. She took her seat as it steeped, sitting with the straight-backed posture of an aristocrat. “What really brings you to my humble home today, Adon?”
He pointed to the basket. “This offering, commanded by the king, and for the pleasure of your company. Mostly, though, I just wanted some tea.”
“Adonis Santinetta, you are a cur of a sea dog and a rogue!” she snapped, though with a smile. “Out with it, Captain! I know you well enough to tell when you are toying with me.”
“You know me too well, my lady, and I have no wish to incur your wrath. I have just returned from snooping around fair Delphino for Lorens, so I have firsthand news of the war and of a few of your relatives. Not that I have good news about any of them. They are all still trying to kill each other in one way or another. I heard some talk—more than the last time I was there—that people want to throw the lot of them into the sea with rocks tied to their feet and start over with someone new. I even heard your name mentioned wistfully a time or two.”
“Now you are back to your flattery,” Gran said, checking the color of the tea in the pot. “They know in their hearts that my return to Satele, even at the head of an army, would not solve anything. I am too old for all that foolishness, and I have no heir—and I’m past the time for producing one. I’m content with my life here.” She poured him a cup.
“So, Satele will continue to be torn by civil strife,” Adon said, sighing. “We can do nothing.” He sipped his tea, noting that it was perfect, as usual. Gran was nothing but consistent in her excellence.
“I’ve lived long enough among my countrymen to know that old hatreds never die,” she said. “And I dare say, people are the same everywhere. Until a strong leader or family arises to bring some order to Satele, the news will be more of the same, I fear.”
“I can’t argue with that,” he said, swirling the aromatic liquid in his porcelain cup. Drinking tea with Grania was among his favorite pastimes, and he regretted that he would not have the pleasure for several weeks. “As you have likely figured out, I am off on the king’s business later today. Have you heard anything about these ‘waves of evil’ people are talking about?”
“‘Waves of evil’?” she replied, eyes widening. “That sounds ominous! But, no, I have heard nothing. My orphanage lies far from the rumor mill, and I never visit the place.”
Adon grunted. “True. You are no gossip. Anyway, the king has received reports of these things floating through the kingdom, causing people to go mad, more or less, and committing all sorts of crimes and doing all sorts of foolishness. He has tasked me with finding out what they are and where they’re coming from.”
She shuddered. “Pray the Shepherd keeps them from Palisade, whatever they are!”
“I fear I am out of my depth on this assignment,” Adon said, sighing again. “Maybe I should have retired when I had the chance.”
Gran laughed heartily. “You will never retire, you old ruffian! I can see you sitting in your apartment for two days—no more than that!—and then start begging for something to do! You would swab decks, Captain, just to fend off the boredom!”
Adon flushed a little. “You know me too well. But with this job, I feel like I will be chasing my own stern. The king is sending us to The Corner—of all places!—where one wave went through, and nothing happened. I’m literally investigating nothing happening.” He shook his head, frowning. “It sounds futile.”
She chuckled, amused by his forlorn expression, and poured him more tea. “Well, look on the bright side: You will see a part of the kingdom you have never visited and perhaps meet some interesting people.”
Adon grunted. “I’ve been hearing that all my life! Did I ever tell you the story about my parents meeting the Leitani Prophetess before I was born? No? Well, the Prophetess—it was Zereda—had a vision in the split-second she touched my mother’s hand. When she came to, she prophesied that my mother would have a son who would meet the White-Haired Young Mother they are awaiting. So, growing up, my mother frequently reminded me to keep an eye open for the Young Mother, but as far as I know, I’ve never laid eyes on her.”
“It could still happen,” Gran said, smiling. “You are still breathing, are you not? Maybe she lives in The Corner!”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t say I put much stock in prophecies and such—at least about me—but it would make the trip worthwhile, I reckon! I’m more likely to meet a few farmers or woodsmen who distrust city folk, and I’ll have a time prying any information from them.”
Gran scoffed. “Knowing you, they will spill their life stories to you after about five minutes once they get a whiff of your adventurous life.”
Adon barked a laugh. “My adventurous life! Long periods of sheer boredom punctuated by bright flashes of abject terror! The terror makes for engaging stories, but to be honest, I prefer the boredom.”
A note:
Adonis and Grania met during a tense state visit to Satele over a decade earlier. As a member of then-Prince Lorens’ official party, he had accompanied the dashing future monarch from luncheons to meetings to soirées all over Delphino. As princess and heir to the Satelen throne, Grania had attended several of these events, and she and Adon had struck up a friendship, at first out of boredom and then because they found they enjoyed each other’s company.
As the Margonni delegation prepared to return home, the Satelen opposition rose against Grania’s father, infiltrating the palace. Lorens and Adon found themselves defending Grania from the rebels, who, after assassinating the aged king, came after the princess. Knowing the palace intimately, Grania led them through secret passages to the safety of the harbor, where Lorens’ ship bore them back to Margonne. For her part in helping his party escape, Lorens considers himself in perpetual debt to her, supporting her orphanage with frequent gifts.
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Adon will most likely find out quite a bit more than he thinks when he visits The Corner.