Adon Santinetta and Crown Prince Lorens, accompanied by Princess Carena and Lord Bardonnel, make a state visit to Satele.
As the sun rose Sunday morning, Kestrel slipped into Kalkar Bay with the tide, leaving behind the royal dock in Kingsport and a small crowd wishing the prince and princess a pleasant voyage from the quay. Lorens and his small entourage had arrived in the port city, as Crane’s captain had predicted, at sunset on Skyday. A quick carriage ride had taken them to Duke Telsiora’s mansion near the city’s center, where they were feted that night and the following day. Taking advantage of the prince’s stay, the duke made sure to convey his duchy’s trade preferences to the prince and the minister of trade before they left.
Once clear of the harbor, Kestrel’s captain, Rébon Parees, swung the ship southeastward, intending to parallel the coastline from about ten miles out. The routine voyage between the two ports was one of just under ninety leagues by the most direct route, taking most merchant vessels four full days of sailing to reach Satele’s capital city. Due to prevailing westerly winds, the eastward trip was the quicker of the two. When asked, the captain told the prince that he expected to sail Kestrel into Delphino harbor on Seaday morning, provided the weather cooperated.
When Adon boarded the ship, Captain Parees welcomed him warmly, knowing his fellow sea captain by reputation. He personally—and proudly—gave him a tour of Kestrel, even showing him to his berth, a narrow but comfortable cabin recently vacated by the captain of the squad of Marines the ship habitually carried. Adon tried to refuse it as diplomatically as possible, but Kestrel’s captain would have none of it. Adon surrendered gracefully and settled in.
The contingent of soldiers from the Palace Guard, of which he was nominally in charge, consisted of Lieutenant Dalian Archeta, Sergeant Edred Hoden, and eight guardsmen. Just weeks earlier, King Aldons had commissioned Adon as a captain in the Palace Guard, replacing his father, but he had yet to learn the Guard’s procedures or even to get to know the officers and men. In a meeting the previous morning, he had confided to the young lieutenant—with Lorens’ permission—the general nature of his service to the king and crown prince. Because of his inexperience with the Guard, Adon instructed Archeta to take the lead in any military matters they might face, consulting his captain as a courtesy rather than as a necessity. “Besides,” Adon had told him, “if a need for military action arises, I will likely be at the prince’s side, not with the Guard.”
The first two days of the voyage passed without incident. Shining brightly all day, the sun presided over fair weather, and the nights were clear and moonlit by a waning crescent. A few ships sailing west, flying Margonne’s colors, passed them seaward half a mile off.
When Earthday dawned, revealing gray skies, an approaching line of rain, and strengthening winds, the captain and his crew knew they would be battling the elements all day. Deciding to run before the threatening storm, Captain Parees ordered the sails reefed and hatches battened down, and that done, the crew set a storm headsail. He sent all but his sailors below decks and suggested everyone eat a good meal, not knowing how long the storm would last. The rolling swells persuaded not a few of those unaccustomed to sea travel to ignore his advice.
Within a quarter-hour, the visibility diminished to only a few dozen yards, and the vanguard of the storm’s cold, driving rain pelted the deck. As the storm front overtook Kestrel, the winds picked up markedly, and the swells steepened. For the next half-hour, the small ship, buffeted by wind, rain, and a turbulent sea, pitched like a rocking horse. But afterward, the winds and rain diminished, though the cloud cover remained thick as it lumbered eastward.
Throughout the long, gray day, steady rain kept visibility low. With the lighter winds, the captain ordered more sails, and the ship made excellent progress. The rain tapered off just after sunset, and when the brilliant sliver of moon rose a few hours later, its silver light gleamed through scattering clouds.
Late the following day, Starday, they began to see more traffic on the sea lane, mostly smaller fishing boats, but also a few larger merchant vessels of various nationalities. The winds had died down almost completely, and Kestrel struggled to make way. Deep in the night, a breeze out of the west filled their sails, and when the sun rose on Seaday, the ship lay a few miles southwest of Delphino. Captain Parees floated Kestrel into Landing Bay on the morning tide, as promised.
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The port of Delphino was vast, with wharfs stretching into the distance along the coast in both directions and inside the wide mouth of the deep Avarado River. Margonne’s ships usually docked at a leased wharf just west of the river’s mouth, a furlong from the ancient Temple of the Sea, a prized location. But because Kestrel brought honored royal visitors to Delphino, the chief harbor pilot steered the ship to the Satelen crown’s dock a half-mile up the river’s west bank and closer to the palace. From there, it was a five-minute carriage ride to its gates.
Adon and Captain Parees flanked the pilot at the wheel, admiring the constant activity on both sides of the harbor. They saw flags from every nation on Osegra and even a ship from the exotic Southern Isles that had braved the late winter storms to get an early start on the trading season. At this early hour, cargoes were being hoisted on and off dozens of ships, and a steady stream of stevedores emptied or filled wagon after wagon of goods. The full wagons spilled onto nearby streets and avenues, heading to warehouses or directly to markets around the sprawling city.
Shaped like a horseshoe with a longer eastern leg, Delphino curved around the wide estuary of the Avarado River. It and another, smaller river, the Delphis, split the city into three wedges: the Western Downs, where the Palace and Temple lay and the nobility lived; the North Hills, a largely residential area; and East Delphino, composed primarily of commercial enterprises supporting the city’s immense shipping industry. Further along the eastern edge of Landing Bay, a recently established area, South Coast, was attracting the wealthy, who had begun to build elegant homes on its cliff tops to take advantage of the stunning views of the bay.
His visage suddenly darkening, the chief pilot swore under his breath as he brought Kestrel alongside the pier, where dockhands secured her mooring lines to large bollards and settled bumpers along her hull.
“What’s the matter?” Captain Parees asked. “You did a remarkable job bringing her in.”
“Thank you, captain,” the pilot said in a lyrical Satelen accent. “But it’s not for that reason I cursed.” He pointed across the road that ran by the head of the pier, where a dozen toughs milled about, casting dark glances at the ship. “Do you see those men over there? They are part of a vile mob that harasses everyone going to and from the palace. I was hoping they would not have heard of the prince’s visit.”
Adon rubbed his neatly trimmed beard. “I doubt they do this sort of thing on their own,” he said. “Someone with contacts inside the palace tells them where to go and what to do. How long has this been going on?”
“Weeks. Months,” the pilot answered glumly. “And these are not the only ones. All over the city—protests! Riots against the king on a few wharves. Last week, when some dock workers fought back, a few rioters got hurt. It’s only natural, but the scum retaliated by torching one of the royal warehouses over in East Delphino! Our streets are getting dangerous, especially for loyalists.”
“Do you know who is behind it all?” Adon asked.
The pilot shook his head. “No one knows for sure,” he said after a moment. Then he narrowed his eyes. “But people have their suspicions. You’re a Santinetta. You must know all the family alliances and the political factions that form and split and merge and collapse all the time. There is no telling who is allied with whom from one day to the next! You have shipping and mining and agriculture blocs. Religious sects want their say. You have monarchists and anti-monarchists—and anarchists, for pity’s sake! There are pro-Angevans, pro-Margonnians, pro-Aertellans, and even pro-Khostans, if you can believe it! This country’s politics are so confused no one could rule it peacefully, though if you ask me, King Mirando has done as fine a job of it as anyone could. I fear Princess Grania will never inherit the throne.” He looked both exhausted and depressed by the end of his long rant.
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Adon could only nod. He did indeed know the many and deep fractures in Satelen politics. His great-grandfather had ruled Satele as one third of a triumvirate before the Valleroi family came to power, and his grandmother, Tiena Santinetta, had been his firstborn. But knowing that her father would pass her over in favor of her younger brother—and more truly because she had no desire to become enmeshed in Satele’s political circus—she had become a lady-in-waiting to Margonne’s Queen Karasta and thereafter made Palisade her home. She used her connections to become a skilled and powerful collector of vital information, better informed of critical intelligence than some kingdoms. Nearly nine years ago, on her eightieth birthday, she had finally passed her lucrative enterprise into the hands of his father, Mardans, and Adon and his children would someday inherit it.
“Well,” he said after a long moment, “we still have to get the prince and princess to the palace. Do you think those men will give us any trouble?”
The pilot shrugged, but his face showed little hope. “Your royals will be riding in a palace carriage. The thugs will certainly shout curses and perhaps throw vegetables, maybe rocks, but nothing worse, I think.”
“Thanks for your help,” Adon said, shaking the pilot’s hand. He turned to Kestrel’s captain. “Rébon, please inform me when the palace sends the carriage for the prince and princess. My guards will accompany it in formal kit. Maybe a show of force will dissuade the protesters from going too far.”
“Very good, sir,” Captain Parees replied, coming to his own decision. “I’ll send half my boys with you. Those goons would be foolish to mess with my Marines. I almost hope they do.” His smile was all but feral.
Fifteen minutes later, a luxurious carriage and a wagon arrived from the palace along with a platoon of Satelen soldiers armed with pikes and shields. Above one of its rear wheels, the carriage sported conspicuous remains of a tomato. As soon as it stopped, the driver and footman, prepared with rags and a jar of water, hustled down from their perches to clean it off. The soldiers, arrayed between the carriage and the toughs, rumbled dangerously, primed for a fight, but their lieutenant barked an order, bringing them to attention.
Kestrel’s crew and a few dockhands quickly loaded the wagon with luggage and covered it with a tarp. In full dress uniforms, the Palace Guard troops, led by Adon and Lieutenant Archeta, filed down the gangplank after the last trunk, forming alongside and behind the wagon. Wearing black uniforms with purple piping on cuffs, collars, center front, and outer seams, four Marines followed, glaring menacingly toward the toughs before taking up stations at each of the carriage’s four wheels.
Finally, Prince Lorens led a nervous Carena, her maid, and Lord Bardonnel to the carriage, entering swiftly. After the footman closed its door, Adon bid him to leave the folding step where it was, intending to stand on it as a guard on the door for the short ride. Back on his perch at the rear, the footman announced that all was ready to depart for the palace. The Satelen soldiers hustled to line up in files to march on each side of the carriage.
When the horses turned onto the road, the thugs surged to its edge, shouting insults and brandishing an assortment of crude weapons. Adon grew concerned that the small knot of men had, in just a moment, swelled to several dozen, and as they proceeded, the dissenting mob grew to more than a hundred jeering, angry men and women lining both sides of the road. As the carriage and wagon passed, the screaming protesters filled the road behind them, following mere yards behind the rearmost guards.
A chant began as they neared the palace gates: “King Mirando, he must go! King Mirando, he must go!” The gates opened, and the procession passed through, safe within the walls. But with the closing clang of the gates, the mob let loose a storm of stones and rotten vegetables and a final ringing shout, “King Mirando, he must go!”
A note:
Half a dozen old, wealthy families formed the nucleus of Satele’s governing and mercantile aristocracy:
The political Valleroi family, who ruled through King Mirando, had held the ascendancy among them for the past half-century, garnering enough support to win the crown.
Shipping magnates, the Santinettas, despite their overwhelming wealth and popularity as evenhanded in every respect, had never desired royal power, preferring joint rule with other families.
The neutral and incorruptible Marinis, Adon’s mother’s family, often acted as impartial judges and mediators among the other families.
The Marinacci clan, which began as smugglers, had in recent decades polished its image and become involved in legitimate commercial and political activities.
The Andalo family, its riches gained by mining, often positioned itself at the center of Satele’s affairs by listening to both sides, and its support was always for sale.
Finally, the Bacalars, foremost in fashion, were high-minded and progressive—and distrusted by most of the other families.
With these influential families vying for position and power, Satelen politics and society were never boring.
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Delphino seems like a powder keg just waiting to blow! Also, it's nice to see the world being fleshed out a bit.
Shades of what's happening in the US these days.