Plight of an Empire

Chapter Twenty Two- part 1: Elendil

Ardith, Sarmunian Isles

Gray clouds painted the foreboding sky overhead and reflected miserably into the surging waves below.  Whitecapped waves battered the sides of the flat-bottomed cogs and carracks laid at port.  Gulls cawed as they wrestled with the strong northern winds that violently whipped the flags of the ported ships.  The winds sprayed the cool seawater up onto the docks, sprinkling Elendil and Gared Hart with its mists.  Elendil licked his lips, tasting the salty water that threatened to drench them.  He prayed that his friend, the lordling Mathis Barlett, would arrive to port safely.  His father, the Lord Owyn Barlett, would wage war against nature herself if anything were to happen to his son.

“Must we wait out here from his ship to arrive, my Prince?” Gared asked as he rung the seawater from his tunic.  “I’m certain Mathis can find his way to us inside.”

Elendil snorted.  “Does the water hurt you, my friend?”  A wave crashed against the stormwall, dousing them in yet another layer of the cool water.  Gared’s sputtering drew a laugh out of him.  “I believe that has answered my question.  But it would be unbecoming of me to not greet my guest at port.”

“Your Islander ways are strange, Prince Elendil,” he said in a flat voice.

“Bah.  Enough with this ‘Prince’ nonsense.  I am just Elendil.”

Gared nodded once.  “Yes, my Prince—I mean Elendil.”

He chuckled to himself at his new friend.  Though the Harts are native to the Isles, Gared had been raised on the mainland.  The ways of the Isles were foreign to him.  But he had the water of the sea flowing in his veins, so everything would return to him as if he had never left them at all.  Perhaps finding himself an Island girl would help.

He drew out the folded parchment from his pocket again and rubbed the broken seal with his fingers.  The indigo wax was pressed with the sigil of House Barlett—the twin fish circling each other.  A new sigil compared to the ruling families: Pellinor, Haerich, Thurston, Strom, and Atwood.  It was the same sigil that marked nearly every flag in the harbor.  The Great Empire Trading Company, the flags read.  It was the Barletts’ own empire within the empire.  He opened the letter and read it again, confirming that today was the day Mathis was set to arrive.  It was indeed, but Mathis’s ship was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” Gared asked, his tone sharp.  The shells of his bracelet clattered as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Elendil shrugged, leaning forward over the railing of the dock.  “The oncoming storm may have delayed his ship.”  He glanced up at the darkening skies.  “He will have to approach from the north as to not fight the storm.  Knowing his father, he will be sailing a small but swift vessel, likely The Flying Lady or Diligence.”  They were two of the fastest vessels that were a part of the family’s private fleet.

“You know his father well?”

“Very well.  Lord Barlett is my father’s greatest supporter and closest friend, as his son is my closest friend.”

“And will one day be your greatest supporter when you are king?”

The statement stopped him in his tracks.  He rubbed the back of his neck and forced a smile.  “Yes,” he stared into the horizon, “when I’m king.”  The string of pearls and earth gems hung heavy around his neck.  A part of his urged him to fling the binding chain into the sea and steal onto one of the ships so that he could make his way to his Cherche.  Mathis knew and he understood.  He thought of the plans they had made years ago to steal away into the night and sail to Rundil, but neither could.