Necessity's End

Prologue

The nights were dark, but her days were darker. The chains wrapped around her wrists chafed badly, and she had nothing more than tattered rags to keep her from the cold. The wind howled outside the hull, waves battering the vessel left and right, and she stumbled this way and that to keep her balance in the chaos. The lamps went out often, and with no one to relight them until nightfall, she had nothing else to do but to think. The aching in her legs had stopped by the first week or two, replaced by the sheer numbness of exhaustion. Boudica was the only one allowed in or out, the poor girl, to feed her scraps off the captain's table twice a day. The serving girl had grown sullen in their days out at sea, Kalyne could tell, filled with the pompous decorum of a member of the King's Navy...or so the sailor Silvertooh had explained to her.

A queen does not deserve such treatment, she had once thought when they first introduced her to her "accommodations", though she did not know what else she might have been expecting. Day and night were blurs to her now, but from what she could gather from the rare seaman that entered her cell, they had been out to sea for at least three moons, and considering the speed of an unladen sloop even on a bad day...her stomach sank. They must be past Southerning now, she thought, dread filling her stomach like a tar-filled pit. Back into the safety of their own fleet, perhaps hugging the coast, laying low on their journey back to the capital...where...

Kalyne had heard tales, of what these monsters had done to her brethren, her sisters, after they had been taken. Stories too vile to be spoken out in the street, merely whispered in the back alleys in the dead of night. They had been stripped to nothing more than their own bare skin, paraded like trophies and spoils of war down the streets of the enemy. Rows of men with whips keeping the crowd at bay and lashing them when they passed, if they were lucky, or perhaps the men would step aside, to let every able-bodied man in the crowd have their go with her. By the time they reached the end, the poor girl would be too broken and bruised to even beg for mercy, for them to kill her and be done with it.

She had not heard the end of that story. Nobody had seen what happened after. Or rather, nobody had lived to see what had happened after.

They were an enemy without conscience or honour, these men in silver suits and flamboyant colours, serving a King they hardly saw or even knew, yet their loyalties stayed true. Kalyne had often pondered if it were truly the man they served, or the rewards that came with their service. Votirithians. It was a word that came tightly off the tongue, filled with strange and foreign syllables, but yet had come to symbolise all that had plagued her since they had dragged her aboard, hooded and chained.

Her door creaked open slowly, and in slipped Boudica, the light of the one remaining torch gleaming off the surface of her freshly-scrubbed black curls. Kalyne expected the usual old rusted tin tray, perhaps filled with the bones of a half-gutted salmon, but today was different. The girl was empty handed. Her stomach growled in protest. Perhaps today was the day they would begin starving her, allowing her to deflate into nothing more than bones, to whittle away into dust...but no, Boudica did come with something. A tiny hand slipped into her back pocket, pulling a shiny silver key. "The captain wants to see you," she spoke in a monotonous, stoic voice. She was clad in a maroon frock, with white lace trimming, and buttons down the front reminiscent of a fur coat. A golden patch glinted on her right sleeve, carefully sewn. A member of the King's Navy...

"Well?" The girl demanded. "Turn around."

"Right." Kalyne heaved a deep breath as she turned to face the oak beam. What had they done to her? To make her join their side so...willingly. To turn her against her own blood. "Nice dress." She choked out, feeling the tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

"Shut up." A pause. "Thanks."

Kalyne shut her eyes as she felt the key jiggle in the lock above her. The lock slid open smoothly, her legs gave out and she fell to the ground with a thump. "Why does the captain want to see me?" She asked, squeezing her eyes shut.

"No blindfold this time," Boudica said, tapping the tip of her jackboot against the floorboards. "Stand up, we don't have all day."

"I...I can't."

"Get up!" The girl screamed, her voice echoing through the room, shrill and piercing.

Footsteps clattered along outside. "Any problem in here, little captain?" A burly sailor stuck his head through the doorway, one she didn't recognise, his long ashen-blond hair tied into a loose ponytail. Traces of stubble clung to his jaw, his teeth blackened and rotting, reeking of scurvy.

"The bitch won't stand when I tell her to!" Boudica yelled, folding her arms close to her chest.

The man smiled. "Well that's a problem we have to solve, isn't it?"

"Aye!"

"Why don't you run along to the captain now, while I take care of the prisoner." The sailor said, a sadistic twist upon his lips. "I'll teach her how to respond to a...superior."

The girl laughed. Giggled, really, as she squeezed past the burly man and out into the hallway.

The man shut the door, and slid the bolt tightly closed.

"Times have changed, I'm afraid." He said, strutting over to a crate behind her and popping the lid open like it was nothing, smoothly sliding a bottle of some mysterious thick ale out. "It's not often we have a queen onboard our ship." He sat down in front of her, cross-legged.

She knew what was about to happen. Her fingers went protectively to the folds of her tunic, or what remained of it anyways. She shuffled into a corner with what strength her arms could muster.

The man smiled. Friendlily, almost. "I'm not here to have you, Kalyne." He spoke gently. "That's your name isn't it? Kalyne?"

She was taken aback, her eyes fluttering open. He was young, two-and-twenty at the most, his watery green eyes vibrant and filled with life. Before she could reply, however, he spoke. "We sail into Eagle's Perch tomorrow morning. The seat of our crown, the home of our king, however your people may describe it. There, it is customary for the King's healer to meet you, to see how you have fared on the journey, as is the way a foreign queen should be treated in Votirith. He will ask you about any individuals who may have harmed you on the voyage. He will be kind, he will be dignified and he will be honourable, but you are not to tell him anything. Not a word."

"Why?" The question had so many others hidden beneath. Why should I trust you? Why should I not tell him? Why would a healer be sent, even after such deplorable conditions she had been held in. Perhaps this kindly sailor only intended to trick her, to allow his captain and crew to escape any punishment that might befall them should she decide to rat them out to their own King's healer.

"That is not for me to say." The man said, the smile unmoving upon his lips. "Trust...might be something difficult to give to a stranger. An enemy combatant, for lack of a better self-description. But it is trust that you must give to me. You don't know the danger you're exposing yourself to if you choose to speak to the royal healer. The evil."

"Why are you telling me this then?" She was sceptical, disbelieving almost. Was this man dissuading her from accepting the help of an honourable man with honourable intentions for his own gain? On a better day, under better conditions, she perhaps would have been able to sense his true thoughts, the motives behind his words but now her consciousness was raw. Unhinged.

"Because sometimes all it takes to overcome darkness is a tiny crack of light." Poetic, really. The sort of stuff a priest would spout, preaching an unknown god to an unwilling people. "Kalyne, you have to trust me. Everything I say is for your own good." Footsteps thumped noisily outside as he leapt to his feet. "We must go, or the captain will be suspicious." He looked down at his still-unopened bottle, sighed, and placed it back in its crate.

He helped her to her feet, and slid the bolt in the door open.

"Who are you?" Kalyne asked, as she hobbled out the doorway.

"A friend," the man replied.

And then he was gone.