Aeolwyn's Conquest Book 1: The Boy General

Aeolwyn was back in the gardens, in front of Sir Jom’s strategy table. He wasn’t studying strategy this time. He was just playing war with the soldiers. Opposing his army were the Fenns, fresh off an assault on Fort Camulan. After defeating the assault, his army had chased them into the woods across the River Tyr, and the Fenns weren’t in a good position.

He had the Fenns surrounded and had sent a messenger to their general offering terms for surrender. The general sent the messenger’s head back as a reply, so Aeowlyn’s little army had no choice but to attack. They were in the process of wiping out their opponents. The Fenn’s morale was low, and they were close to a route.

“Whatcha doing, Aeowlyn?”

Aeolwyn nearly jumped out of his own skin. He stumbled back away from the strategy board, dagger in hand before he recognized that it was his brother Alfyn, the crown-prince who had snuck up on him. Embarassed, he put his dagger away.

Alfyn raised his hands up in a mocking gesture. “Whoa, easy there, brother! I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Sorry,” Aeolwyn said, his head down and cheeks burning. “You scared me.”

“Where’s Sir Jom? Isn’t he teaching you tactics today?”

“No, Aeolwyn replied, “I’m just playing.” He was embarrassed to admit that. He was 12 years old, after all. Almost a grown up, and his older brother caught him playing.

Alfyn studied the board. He brushed his hand over Aeolwyn’s pieces and then touched the general of the opposing army. “Hmm. It looks like things are going badly for the white team.”

“They’re the Fenns. I offered them a surrender, and they sent the messenger’s head back in a box.”

Alfyn took his hand and wiped away the whole battle, knocking down all the pieces and scattering them all over the table.

“Hey!” Aoelwyn said. He’d spent all morning and most of the afternoon on that battle, and his brother just ruined it. He felt tears trying to force their way out of his eyes, but he fought them down as best as he could. He would not cry in front of his brother, no matter what he did.

“Pretend adventures are for babies,” the crown-prince said. “Real men go on real adventures.”

Aeowlyn folded his arms across his chest. He wasn’t a baby, he was almost an adult! “When have you been on an adventure?” He asked.

“I’ve been on adventures!” Alfyn protested. “A lot of them.”

“Oh yeah? When?” Aeolwyn hadn’t seen Alfyn ever sneak out of the palace to go on any sort of adventures. If he had, the servants would have said something when Aeolwyn snuck down to the kitchen for a treat.

“I can’t tell you,” Alfyn replied. “It’s a secret.”

Aeowlyn didn’t need a Detect Lie spell to know that meant Alfyn had never been on any adventures like he was claiming. He wasn’t going to point that out, though. Alfyn was bigger, older, and stronger than him. If he were to accuse Alfyn of lying to him, he was liable to be on the wrong side of Alfyn’s rage.

“Have you been on an adventure, Aeolwyn? A real adventure?”

Aeolwyn wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell Alfyn all the amazing adventures he’d had with all sorts of people. He wanted to tell him how he rescued a maiden whose father was a Shielder, and how they took him into their stronghold and showed them all of their secrets.

He wanted to tell him how he commanded armies against the Fenns and the elves and how he defeated them even though they had him flanked. He wanted to tell them how the Fenns offered him the Lake Crown and he took it.

But those were all pretend adventures, and he would know it. He’d never even been outside of the palace alone like Ulfnar had. He hadn’t ever been in a real fight like Wlfryn and Alfyn had. He hadn’t done anything fun.

“No,” he answered.

Alfyn stared at Aeowlyn with a combination of condescension and pity. He smirked and then looked back to the table, idly fingering the soldiers on the board. He moved Aeolwyn’s general around the board a bit and then stopped.

“Do you want to?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

“I mean, it would be a secret, of course. You couldn’t tell anyone. If anyone found out, it would be bad for father. Really bad. But it’s something he wants done. Can you keep a secret?”

Aeolwyn put his hands on his hips. “Of course I can keep a secret!”

Alfyn leaned forward. “You’re sure? If you get caught, you can’t say anything. You can’t even say whose idea this was. If you do, they’ll kill all of us.”

What kind of adventure was this? Did he really want to go on it if his life was on the line? Yes, yes he did. He didn’t want to look like a coward and weak in front of his brother. If he did, how could his brother trust him in battle when Alfyn was king and he was a general?

He raised his right hand and put his left hand across his chest. “I won’t tell, I swear.”

Alfyn looked shocked and took a few steps back. “Are you sure you want to do the Laryn Oath? That condemns your soul if you break that oath!”

That was true. The Laryn Oath was a thing that nobles and kings had to do when in a ceremony when the king was crowned. The king took the oath to promise that he would be a good and faithful ruler, and the nobles pledged their loyalty to him. It was an oath before the ruler of all the gods and the source of magic. Jor Bashi said that tragedy befell anyone who would break such an oath.

He took it because he needed Alfyn to believe that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Otherwise the crown-prince wouldn’t let him go on this adventure, and he really wanted to go. He especially wanted to prove to his brother that not only wasn’t he a coward, but he could be trusted.

“Okay then,” Alfyn said. “We’re meeting at the Forlyn Fountain in the Upper Quarter at midnight. See you there.”

With that, Alfyn strode out of the garden. The fountain at midnight? He would have to sneak out. How? He had never done it before, he didn’t know the slightest thing about how to sneak out of the palace

“Wait! What are we doing?” Aeolwyn shouted after him to no avail. Alfyn was gone. He chased after his brother, but could find no sign of him. It was like he had disappeared completely. What Aeolwyn would do with such a skill! No army’s general would be safe from him then.

The sun was going down in the garden, and thankfully, there wasn’t going to be a family dinner tonight. Last night’s was enough for him. He loved his family to the ends of the earth, but they were a lot to take all at once.

He started to hurry off to the kitchens to grab a snack, and started thinking on what would be the best way to get out of the palace without being seen. He knew there had to be a way, since his brother seemed to do it all the time.

Of course he couldn’t just come out and ask Ulfnar, that would be courting disaster. Ulfnar liked to share precious knowledge if he thought it would get him leverage. The fact that he would get Aeolwyn in trouble was inconsequential. He probably wouldn’t even notice.

So he had to puzzle it out on his own. The servants ran around unseen all the time, why couldn’t he? Well, he didn’t have his own network of secret tunnels like they did. Or did he? What if he were to use their network of secret tunnels to get out of the palace? They had their own tunnels, their own exits and everything. All he would have to do is dress up like one of them and no one would be any wiser.

Where would he get a servant’s clothes though? He realized that would be the easy part, and changed his direction towards the outer yard. That was where the laundry was done; all he would have to do was swipe one of the servant’s uniforms off the line and sneak off with it.

It was dark by the time he reached the laundry. He had hurried, but didn’t want to look like he was hurrying anywhere particular, otherwise someone might have noticed, and if he was noticed, he might have been in trouble. He had no reason to be at the servant’s laundry.

The crude wattle-and-daub building that housed the laundry was dark; the fires inside had been put out, and the laundresses had gone home for the evening. Since it was a hot summer day though, they left a few of the wool coats with his father’s livery embroidered on them on a line that had been strung between the laundry and a post.

He grabbed what he judged to be the smallest one and ran into the laundry with it. He didn’t want to be seen trying it on. It was tight at the waist and loose in the chest; it had been made for a woman. Some of the female servants in the household wore dresses, but others wore the same doublets as the men, only paired with skirts instead of trousers. It would do.

On his way out he grabbed a skirt too. He was still too little to not stick out as a male servant, since they were all much taller than him, but he might be able to disguise himself as a woman. It wouldbe a bit embarrassing if he were caught, but it was a small price to pay to get to go on an adventure with his brother.

Someone delivered his dinner while he was gone. By the time he got back from sneaking around the laundry, it was cold. That was alright. He didn’t mind cold food. As a general, he wouldn’t be guaranteed a hot meal anyway, so he had better get used to it. He wolfed it down as fast as he could and climbed into bed. If he was going to be out late, he would have to get a little bit of rest where he could.

He took the magical clock from beside his bed and set it for an hour before midnight. It was a gift from his father for his birthday. His father said a general needed to be able to wake whenever he chose, and couldn’t trust his servants to wake him. It was a useful gift.

He drifted off the second his head hit the pillow. When the alarm sounded its magical tones, Aeolwyn thought he was in another world. He couldn’t understand why it had gone off but it was still so dark outside. Did Sir Jom have him doing an early morning training?

As he slowly came back to life he remembered why his alarm had went off so early. He leapt out of bed and put the servant’s coat and dress on over his clothes. He hadn’t bothered to undress before he climbed into bed. He had to get moving. He grabbed his empty tray with the remainder of his food scraps and went to the door.

He cautiously opened his door and listened. He could hear faint footsteps echoing through the hallway moving away from him. Either a guard or a servant retreating from their rounds. He poked his head out and saw no one in the dim light. Carefully, he crossed the hall, trying to make as little noise as possible. He debated going back to his room to retrieve his slippers, but decided against it. Once he was out of the palace, he would need his boots.

He found an entrance to the servant’s corridors, unlatched it and disappeared inside, and not a moment too early. Just as he opened the door, he could here footsteps and voices heading his way. From the sound of the noisy equipment and deep voices, he suspected they were guards on patrol. If they had found him in woman’s servant clothes, there would be a lot of questions to answer, particularly to his father.

He didn’t have time to check and see if anyone was in the servant’s corridor when he entered, because the guards were coming. A tall thin servant with a thin moustache walked by just as he closed the door. He didn’t give Aeolwyn a second glance. He figured servants were as practiced at ignoring each other as the rest of the household was at ignoring them.

He tried to copy the way he had seen the servants carrying the tray, with a single hand underneath, fingers splayed out to balance the load it carried. He figured he would garner less attention if he had a prop with him.

He was right. None of the servants he encountered seemed to even notice he was there. On the two occasions he saw a steward, essentially a servant who was in charge of other servants, he dodged into a side corridor before they saw him, and waited until they passed before continuing on. They would definitely recognize him. A woman with short hair? That was something that would stand out among the stewards, though it wasn’t unheard of. Some of the women who worked in certain places where hair would be a danger to their job would keep it short, but most of them would have gone home by now.

He was glad he didn’t see the chamberlain. Lord Smyton was the man his father appointed to lead his household staff. He wasn’t a rich or powerful lord, but he was noble, and would have definitely recognized Aeolwyn, disguise or not.

He finally made it to the end of an outside corridor. It took him much longer than he had planned. He didn’t know the layouts of the corridors as well as he thought and he’d gotten lost a few times. He didn’t dare ask anyone for directions, so he just wandered around until he found something that looked familiar. He worried how he was going to find his way back without getting caught. He wasn’t sure if he could retrace his steps inside the servant corridors all the way back to his room.

He knew there was a guard on the other side of the outside door, and another across the yard where another door led to the city streets, and then two more guards on the outside of that door. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get past all those guards without being noticed. He’d already discarded the tray, as they would have thought he was trying to steal it if he’d walked out with it.

Maybe he could just chance it? Guards were probably more worried about someone nefarious getting in than they were about someone getting out. If he hurried and walked with purpose, they might just let him go through.

Just as he was about to risk it, a small group of servants appeared from around the corner. They were stumbling as they made their way down the hall. Obviously drunk on some of his father’s expensive wine. He was always complaining about how fast the wine seemed to disappear. When he ordered Lord Smyton to investigate it, he had come up empty. Now that he saw these men, it didn’t take long for Aeolwyn to figure it out. Smyton had lied to his father in order to keep the staff happy. That was reasonable, and Aoelwyn wouldn’t betray that.

One of the men grabbed Aeolwyn and put his arm around the boy. He could smell the alcohol on his breath. He absolutely reeked of it. Both the alcohol, old meat, and body odor. The man was disgusting and he needed a shower. But this was just the opportunity Aeolwyn needed, so he went along with it.

“Come along, lass,” the man said. “Let’s go to the pub and have a good time together.”

The men were a perfect disguise for Aeolwyn. The guards didn’t even notice him among them. They just shoved the men along. It looked as though they could care less about drunk servants. Aeolwyn stored that bit of information into his memory. It could be useful later.

“Don’t let the boss catch you drunk on his wine!” one called out as they stumbled onto the cobblestone street.

Once they were around a corner and out of eyeshot of the guards, Aeolwyn tried to pull away from the drunk servant. He was strong, and held the boy tight. He felt panic start to set in, but fought it down; now was not the time for it.

“C’mon,” the servant mumbled and pulled Aeolwyn along with him. This could be trouble if Aeolwyn didn’t think fast. Thinking fast was one of the best traits a general could have. It was why Sir Jom gave him memory tests and puzzles to solve during their training.

Aeolwyn thought fast enough. He stuck one of his legs between the servant’s and they both went down hard to the earth. The drunk released the boy in an attempt to break his fall with his hands, but it did little. There was a crunching sound as the man went down and Aeolwyn landed on top of him. And then a scream a moment later when the servant’s brain caught up to what had happened.

Aeolwyn quickly disentangled himself from the man and sprinted away. He wished he could have stayed and given the man a witty remark, but there wasn’t any time for that. He was already late.

He shed the coat and skirt and stashed them in a bush near the palace and ran off to the fountain in the Upper Quarter.