Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (ebook audio reader .txt) 📖

had been near nice dining halls, he had always been sent out with the servants. Never in all his discourse with the Sky Children had he ever actually sat among them. Only Sadena appeared to be at ease while eating the supper with all those aristocrats. Tiler and Callen also struggled as he did. Key picked up his spoon then set it down again.

“Look, maybe we had better start off with business,” Key said, keeping his blush from his face. “I’m a little anxious to—”

“Are you not hungry?” Madame Olisa asked, blinking her long painted lashes at him.

Looking at her staring at him with that flirtatious expression made him feel even more uncomfortable. Though perhaps in her younger years she would have been quite pretty, for some reason the face powder, the liner, and the rouge on her lips and cheeks just made her look drawn-on. He couldn’t help comparing it to Lanona’s fresh healthy face. This woman in comparison was a caricature of beauty.

“Starving,” Key admitted, but then he tapped the china bowl with his finger. “But I’m afraid I’ll break what you’ve got. I’m a common man not used to fine dining. This is….” He couldn’t find words to describe it. Taking hold of the frilly wrist cuff to the clothes she had set out for him, he said, “Do you mind if I lose these, if we must eat first? I’d don’t want to ruin this nice coat either.”

Madame Olisa chuckled. She placed her hand on his knee. “You can take anything off that makes you feel uncomfortable.”

Key jumped up, nearly tipping over his chair. He cheeks were red. Trying not to look flustered, he immediately removed his suit coat, unbuttoning his cuffs also. He rolled up his sleeves.

Tiler took that as a sign that he could do the same. When both men sat back down, they did indeed look like a pair of common men that had snuck into a dinner party and just helped themselves to the food.

“The round spoon,” Madame Olisa suggested to Key the moment he grabbed the dinner spoon. “We always start with the outside utensil first. And scoop it away from you.”

As Key did, Madame Olisa rested her hand on his as if to help him. His ears now turned a shade of pink along with his cheeks. He tried to avert his eyes from the full view of her ample and strategically open cleavage, especially as she leaned over.

Sadena groaned. Clenching her forehead with her delicate fingers, her fingernails looked particularly shined as if she hadn’t been living in a refugee camp for the past several years. He kept his eyes on that.

“Are you not feeling well?” Callen asked her.

Looking up, Sadena merely shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s not that.” She then turned to face Madame Olisa. “Please, I think it is best for all of us if you do get to business. You are making our friend even more nervous.”

“Oh, very well.” Madame Olisa sat back. Her arms lounged on the rests of her ornately carved chair, though she angled her body back in a provocative manner, as if to entice the men at the dinner party to come at her. “The main course will be served shortly—but I suppose some people can’t think of anything else but business. It is as if you don’t care for pleasure at all.”

“Pleasure?” Key took his napkin and wiped his mouth, trying to keep his eyes on only her face. “Please tell me that is not the reason you invited us here. There is a war going on out there.”

“Small skirmishes,” Madame Olisa said with a flick of her wrist.

Key’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“All right. All right!” Madame Olisa snapped, now becoming ruffled. “Business. I see you cannot be dissuaded. You made your special delivery, and I am working on fulfilling my vow. Though with the blue-eyes watching so closely these days, I wonder if it is possible for anyone to gather for reading lessons.”

His expression relaxed some.

“Nevertheless, I must say, how do you intend to win this war?” She turned her eyes to Sadena now, casting a glance at Callen. “Your armies and spies are scattered still. Your recent battles have been defensive, not offensive. To win a war, you must stage offensive attacks. Have you planned any of those?”

“We still need a full factory retreat,” Sadena replied, giving a glance to Key who was already appearing worried. “The discovery of our spies has been a heavy blow to our plans. If we had more time—”

“Well we don’t have more time, now do we?” Madame Olisa replied with a shrew-like turn of the nose. “And though I am still willing and ready to enter this union of armies with you, I cannot risk my men without a clear strategic plan of attack for them to follow.” She then looked to Key. “The blue-eyes are saying that you are some genius strategist, which is why they are trying so hard to catch you. And I am inclined to believe them.”

“Why’s that?” Key asked, blinking at her. “I had a few ideas, but that doesn’t make me—”

“No.” Tiler rose from his seat to be noticed. “She’s right. Our triumph at the battle of Wingsley was because of your plan. The problem is, we really haven’t completely organized our army. General Holbruk has trained the men, but we really aren’t as organized as those blue-eyes. I think now someone ought to make an executive decision. Someone has to act as patriarch to our armies, and I don’t think it should be Dalis.”

“It can’t be me,” Key replied, looking to the others. “Even the patriarch of a small hamlet has to be the most respected person of the place. No one in our group really respects me. Half of you think I’m crazy. Just imagine me giving an order to Captain Freyman. He’d reject it flat and do something the opposite just to spite me. And I can name others who would do exactly the same as him.”

Tiler just shrugged. “Ok, but you can be the right-hand man to the patriarch, right?”

“Will a matriarch do?” Sadena asked.

The men around the table blinked, turning to stare at her.

However Madame Olisa chuckled. “I thought you already were the leader of the so-called organization. Every one of the leaders in the council defer to you and respect you.”

“Only because they are afraid of me,” Sadena said with a tired sigh. “The one advantage to being a wizard.”

“Only one?” Tiler murmured.

But that reminder that she was a wizard made Madame Olisa straighten up. “But your manner—”

Lady Sadena smiled with all her grace. “Yes. I know. I used to be an aristocrat in Wingsley once. Much like you. And I, like you, saw the suffering of so many. The only difference between us, aside from our families and what we consider acceptable behavior, is that I ran away from home and joined three mercenaries to attack the enemy as much as I could.”

Feeling the not-so-hidden insult in her remarks, Madame Olisa stiffened more. “Then are you prepared to face them now as the leader?

Sadena looked to Key. “If he will support me, then I will do it.”

Key flushed, flattered that she actually did value his opinion despite their differences of opinion before.

“Do you think anyone would object, since she is a woman and all?” the aristocrat from Kolden asked.

Callen shot him a steely glare. “No one would dare cross Lady Sadena.”

“No one with intelligence, anyway,” Tiler said.

Key looked up at the ceiling, wondering if that was why they secretly thought he was insane. He had no problems crossing Sadena.

They shared a look. Lady Sadena passed over a gentle smirk as if she knew what he was thinking. However, he nodded to her as if to say she had his support—though he might not do it all the way she liked all the time.

“Then we’ll need to gather our armies,” Madame Olisa declared.

Just then the servants stepped out and removed the soup from their plates, now bringing in the main course. The only bowls still mostly filled were Key’s and Callen’s. Tiler had managed to drink his down when no one was looking. Plates of roasted pheasant with jellied sauce, thinly sliced beans, and water chestnuts on the side were set in their places.

“Actually,” Key said with a look to Sadena. “What we really need is a home base to direct the war from. We just lost our last one, and we really need a location close to a telegraph office we can commandeer. We just gave the word for our men to wait for the notice to clear out of the telegraph stations we had taken control of. The men there have been trained in their code and are now waiting for their new posts. I was thinking we ought to assign at least two telegraph workers per army.”

Sadena blinked at him. “You thought this up already?”

Key nodded. “I’m sorry. But the only word I got from you is that we had to come to Tobi. I was thinking more in terms of salvaging the spy operation before we lost more of them. We have to move faster.”

“My home,” Madame Olisa lifted her chin and declared. “It can be here. There is a telegraph station in the town we can commandeer, though I don’t know how we can do that without drawing up suspicion. The blue-eyes will find out sooner or later.”

“Is there a way to make a telegraph station from here?” Key asked, glancing about the dining hall. Everything was way too fancy to make it a rebel hideout. The likelihood of her actually allowing them to turn her home into a military post did not seem real.

“We can run a wire,” Madame Olisa said with a nod. “A friend of mine keeps saying I ought to modernize. I don’t use electric lights in my home. I prefer the smell of the oil lamps. They’re so refreshing in comparison to the stench out on the streets.”

“That might work.” Lady Sadena then leaned over towards Madame Olisa and said, “Consider me a permanent guest. Traveling doesn’t fit me anyway as my strength has not fully recovered.

Callen reached across the table and grasped her hand. “If you wish, I’ll remain in the city to keep watch.”

Sadena nodded with a weak smile. “I’d like that.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Key had started into his pheasant, taking it up in his fingers and chewing before he realized that everyone else except for Tiler was using his fork and knife. He blushed, dropped the pheasant on the plate and wiped his hands on the napkin. He paid especial attention to his fingers that had gotten jelly sauce all over them. He took up his knife and fork and attempted to eat, though by the end of the main course he had only managed to get just a few bites. By that time, the servants had taken the still meaty pheasant away and replaced it with pear compote, the small spoon sticking out of it. That, he just stared at as his stomach gnawed at his insides.

As dinner wound down, Madame Olisa introduced him to her other guests, all of her allies in the north from noble families. She introduced him as Kemdin Smith. It had been silently agreed upon that the name of Key had to stay out of discourse among newcomers from then on. Sadena intended to send a letter to the other camp leaders informing them to no longer speak of Key at all since the blue-eyes had become so determined to find him. They were to call him ‘our man’ or ‘the smithy’ rather than Kemdin, since most still were not familiar with his given name. It made him feel strange to hear it. It was like being called ‘boy’ all over again.

Dinner adjourned and they were shown to their rooms.

 

It was late at night when Key snuck downstairs in his nightshirt for a midnight snack, hoping the larder was unlocked.

“Hey,”