Bridgeton had been far behind them when the sun had risen that morning, and they had made good time on the road. Leaving Aran with the jester’s wagon at a small inn a few miles outside the capital city, Mardans and Dinae had ridden the horses into Palisade as the workday ended, passing thousands of workers streaming toward their homes in the city’s lower quarters. He had placed Red into his mother’s care, certain they would be fast friends before he returned home that evening. They had been laughing and swapping stories when he left for the palace, almost oblivious to his departure.
Mardans recalled his childhood lessons about the city and palace. In the distant past, the ancient Leitani had built a small fortress atop a geographical oddity: a massive hill shaped like an irregular half-circle rearing up in the center of a vast rolling plain cut by the White River from north to south. The watercourse appeared to have gnawed away the chalky western side of the hill over millennia, but the landscape presented no clue as to where water and time may have spat out the hill’s other half. Across the narrow Chalk Lake the river had carved out in passing by, the plains continued unchanged, as if a mismatched east and west had slid together along the line of the river.
Those early Leitani had found and improved a game trail leading to the hill’s plateau-like top, which they encircled with a wooden palisade. They called it Huqsela, “chalk fortress,” because of the chalky cliffs overhanging the river. The gentler eastern slopes, more suitable for homes and businesses, allowed its population to grow in the fort’s shadow. It soon became the power center of the Leitan tribes and remained their capital until Margonne’s conquest.
Margonne recognized its strategic importance, too, and took it as his capital, renaming it Palisade after its crowning wooden wall. Ironically, his first project removed the wooden fortifications to expand the palace grounds, after which he replaced the palisade with a wall of thick granite quarried from the Dragon’s Tail Mountains to the east. He built his four-story palace in the plateau’s center, giving him a bird’s-eye view of his realm.
The rest of Palisade, dotted with native, dilapidated structures, he razed and rebuilt to Taurani architectural standards, creating well-defined levels and wide, paved streets to its lower gates and beyond. Late in his reign, Margonne began constructing a second wall—tall and thick with towers every five hundred feet—at ground level, punctured by three massive gates, one each to the north, east, and south. It was well into his son Lorens’ reign when the extensive project was completed.
It was this majestic Palisade that Mardans viewed as he approached the palace. So accustomed to the relatively clean and orderly city of his birth, he had difficulty imagining what Palisade had looked like in its Leitan days. The stories from those times described it as dull, dirty, and foul-smelling. The streets had been unpaved, and even the fortress level, the epicenter of all Leitani government, had offered only muddy, rutted paths after storms.
Qadira had left an account of her sole visit inside the old wooden palisade to the only paved area on the plateau. On its far north edge lay a Leitani sacred place they called the Akan Ganda, the Rock of Arrival, near which stood a small stone house Qadira claimed belonged to a prophetess. This tiny area, nowhere more than thirty yards across, was all that remained from that time.
To avoid offending the Leitani, Margonne had fenced it off, leaving it untouched, as it was reputed to be where the foot of their god, Azuri, first touched the earth when hurtling from heaven. Their legend said that the massive, flat-topped, iron boulder had fallen from heaven just before his arrival so that Azuri would not have to touch the earth’s impure soil. Sitting at the hill’s highest point, lightning struck it during nearly every thunderstorm.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” the guard at the palace gate said, startling Mardans out of his reverie.
With a hasty nod and a mumbled greeting, Mardans walked into the grounds of the king’s residence. He hoped the day’s last remnants of light had covered his embarrassing lack of attention. A few yards later, he suddenly stopped and chuckled at himself, shaking his head at the fact that he had been absent-minded off and on for weeks. It startled him to realize that when he had last worn his palace guard uniform—in Blayne, at night, scrambling to work out a plan to free Dinae from Bardelbee’s grasp—he had never noticed the lieutenant’s silver pips on his collar. The alert guard had noticed them immediately.
Alfons commissioned me as an officer, he thought in amazement. True, having a rank would open doors for him inside the palace, but it could also burden him with responsibilities he knew little about. I need to speak with Lirens about such things as soon as possible. But after tonight’s job. I can’t worry about that right now.
Standing before the colossal granite mansion, memories of his childhood began flooding his mind. He recalled exploring every corner of the grounds, from admiring the endless view from the top of the southern wall to sneaking into the restricted area under the north wall. Thinking of some of those adventures with Alfons and Lirens made him smile. They had done their best to make the lives of their minders as onerous as possible.
Cheered by his memories, he continued to the palace’s magnificent entrance, behind which lay his goal, the Captain of the Guard’s office. The guards themselves also had a barracks on the ground’s front wall, but because of the time of day, he expected it to be all but empty. If a guard was not on duty, he was likely eating in the Great Hall or drinking in a tavern with his buddies.
The guards at the palace’s massive doors saluted formally as he approached, and he threw them a more casual imitation, not stopping as he entered. Act like you’ve done this many times before, he reminded himself. You can do this. You’re an actor. He straightened and fully entered the role.
The captain’s office lay almost immediately on the left. At the door, he knocked lightly and turned the knob upon hearing a faint, “Enter!” He strode to within a few feet of the desk and saluted smartly, imitating the guards outside. “Lieutenant Tinetta reporting for duty, sir!”
The officer at the desk, a lanky man approaching his fortieth year, stood and extended his hand, which Mardans shook firmly. “Ah, Tinetta! Captain Arius. The king told me you would report soon. I didn’t expect you until tomorrow at the earliest. You’re early! That’s a fine quality in a soldier.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mardans said, sitting down after the captain motioned him to a nearby chair.
“Hungry?” the captain asked. “I often take my dinner here, and the kitchen always sends enough to feed half the guards in the palace! I’m exaggerating, of course, but there’s plenty left.” Mardans politely declined, but once the captain insisted, he gratefully took a small plate and a glass of ale. He had missed dinner.
The captain cleared his throat. “The king tells me you are on a special assignment for him and that you will report directly to him. I’m old enough to figure out this has something to do with the dagger theft, so you don’t need to worry about the Guard getting in the way. Normally, as a lieutenant, you would lead a shift and run training drills, but the king said your work for him takes precedence and will occur at odd hours. So, I get it. You are assigned here but will act independently.”
“Yes, sir,” Mardans replied. “You have summarized the situation accurately. Even so, I will meet the men, get to know them, and accompany them on their rounds. Perhaps go out for drinks now and then, if they don’t mind. If there is trouble, I will run to it with them. But my priority is the dagger and finding the thief. I will appreciate any cooperation from the guards.”
“You will have it,” Arius said, leaving no doubt that he meant it. “We’ve all taken the theft personally. It hurt our pride that something like this could happen right under our noses. We want to make it right, believe me!”
“I would like nothing more than to see the king truly smile again,” Mardans said. “He needs that dagger back as much as we do.”
The captain lowered his eyes. “So you’ve noticed that too, eh? Finding that dagger would be a tonic.”
Mardans drained his glass and put it and his plate on the tray. “Thank you for the snack, Captain Arius! It did me good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I came in early to get a march on the enemy, so to speak. I have a suspicion about something, and if I’m right, it may get us closer to solving our problem.”
Arius rose and shook Mardans’ hand. “By all means! The sooner, the better! Can I help at all?”
Mardans took a moment before answering. “Yes, you can, sir. Will you accompany me? If we find something, you can corroborate what we did and allay any suspicions about us and our motives.”
“Splendid!” the captain said. “Happy to help! What will we be doing?”
One corner of Mardans’ mouth lifted. “Tonight, good captain, we are investigating Prince Lirens!”
A note:
The Leitani myth about the Akan Ganda hints at the origin of the hill that became Huqsela/Palisade. Scientists would describe it as a devastating meteor shower that struck nearby, destroying and reshaping the area in a moment, not over many ages. Half of the hill somehow survived the cataclysm, and the White River found a new course through the flattened landscape past the hill and to the sea. Believing the disaster to be an act of their god, the ancient Leitani found a chunk of the iron meteorite on the plain nearby and hauled it to the highest point on the hill’s summit, making it an altar. The myth of their god hurtling to earth and landing there was a later embellishment.