The Siege of Ultopja 15 - Corruption and Decisions [Helena]

“General Helena van Dunklen,

I have already sent you three letters and still not received an answer. Do not anger me further and finally send me a report, the situation in Arlheim has worsened and I need you there as soon as possible.

Queen Lydia.”

The messenger rolls together her scroll, now she looks at a bleak Helena and Arlene. Only Anjar, sitting in a corner of the room polishing her fingernails didn’t seem to have a single care in the world. “Three?” Arlene croaks out. “Three.” The messenger repeats with an iron voice. “The first one having been sent five days after you departed from Falkirk.” “We haven’t received a single one.” Arlene says as Helena walks around the table she has sat behind and to a map of Estara that is pinned to a wooden frame. The map is full of pins around their supply lines, where the last patrol had been, where bandits would most likely set their ambush or camp, where natural disasters could strike and which routes would be taken to bring the resources to the siege site while the road would be repaired.

There is no leeway here. The patrols are perfect, everything is planned out. There is no way a spy could still be out there and succeed in intercepting a letter from her majesty herself not once but three times. There must be somebody on the inside, somebody within her army. ‘But which woman would work for Ulal?’ Helena asked herself. She herself was not in direct opposition to the Demonmagus’ desire for equality but she had a duty to her Queendom to uphold and from her understanding she held the moderate position.

She was sure there were people among the wealthy merchants and scholars that wanted equality but soldiers and knights? The military of Estara was founded on the basis of the Saeletristic values of beauty and female domination. Sure, in an army there were bound to be some people that opposed such values but people didn’t stay on patrol duty for an extended amount of time. One or two woman, maybe even a dozen of spies in her army. That would be weird but not impossible. To intercept three letters of the Queen there would be a need for a whole network of several dozen or hundred people.

“Helena~” Anjar muses in the background suddenly turning all of the attention to her. “I told you this would happen. The nobles really hate you.” Helena turned to Anjar with wide eyes. “What?” “What what? There is nothing surprising about this.” “What are you even suggesting in front of mother and the messenger?!” Helena berated her. “These two?” Anjar giggled. “They can’t hear us right now, they are listening to you holding a heart-warming speech about how you are going to uphold your duty.”

Helena looked first at Arlene, then at the messenger. Indeed, both were staring with great interest at the empty chair Helena had left behind. “Alteration.” Helena says with a fair share of disapproval. “The only magic I can do.” Anjar nods and leans back in her chair after flicking away a last bit of dirt she had found under the nail of her index finger.

“You must get it right? A spy network of that size doesn’t just appear from a newly created faction that was a local threat until recently. You try to find your enemies on the outside when they are right under your nose.” Anjar shrugs, both hand folded behind her head. “I told you nobility is stupid. Inheriting rights because of things somebody did 500 years ago isn’t the backbone of a healthy society.”

“But TREASON?” Helena asks. It is not that she can’t believe it, it is that she doesn’t want to believe it. Anjar thoroughly debunks her hopes however. “You know that it isn’t treason to them. They think they are the country. Nobles live and fall with their prestige. They want to sit idly and wait this out, they are here on order of the Queen after all. The walls are set to fall sooner or later and if anything goes haywire they can just push responsibility of to you. And in case you forgot: Your constant berating on how they should treat their servants, about how they themselves should work like anybody else in the army, these things haven’t gotten you many friends among them.” Anjar shrugs again, her matted brown her swaying slightly, “I wouldn’t be surprised if some powerful noble is sacrificing some of her dumber and less influential friends just to spite you.”

Helena takes a deep breath. ‘Anjar is right’ she thinks. “Of course, I am.” “Stop doing that.” Helena says in a calm voice. “Reading my mind is not nice.” “It’s less reading and more interpreting. Although I am pretty good at it.” Anjar defends herself. “By the way can you sit back down behind the table? I am running out of corny lines so I will lift the Illusion soon.”

With a sigh, the general does and the second her butt hits the thin cushion of the wooden chair the messenger begins clapping. “A truly inspiring speech, Lady Light.” She smiles as wide as she can, given the circumstances. “Thank you, messenger. The problem however remains that I must find out who intercepted the other letters. You can return to the capital.”

The messenger blinks. “And what shall I tell the Queen?” Helena looks over to Anjar. The Ushyen woman had made an offer at the start of the siege that Helena now had to take. “Tell her that I will send another messenger shortly, it will either be one telling her about victory or it will be myself bowing before her in the shame of defeat.”

A few hours later all the influential nobles in the army have been gathered in one spot. They all look innocent but that doesn’t mean anything. A noble didn’t get influential without a certain degree of acting abilities. It is only a small gathering, thirty people. ‘Thirty nobles that hold sway over all the others according to Anjar.’ Helena thinks.

“Today it has come to my attention that the Queen has sent me letters. Letters that never reached me.” She says to them. No movement. “I have reason to believe that one or all of you are responsible.” Shocked mumbles a single woman rises up and points at the general. “Are you pushing the responsibility of to us now, Helena?” The noble doesn’t even use her title, the hatred in her eyes plain for a second before being veiled again.

Helena shakes her head. “No. This is my army. You are my responsibility. I will shoulder the punishments for the failures made in this war. I just came to plead and to command.” The room stays silent as she gathers her breath. “If I had known that Arlheim had fallen I could have made my steps accordingly, without that information we now have to hurry. Thanks to that the chances we have are diminishing. My plead is to burry your grudged for times of peace. For my command.” Her voice becomes hard as steel. “Ready your woman, we storm the city at dawn tomorrow.”

The room was silent from beginning to end of her speech, although that silence itself changed from fearful to smug to surprised. That is all the conformation Helena needed. As she pushes aside the cloth that served as a door Helena feels disappointed, not with the nobles but with herself. If only she had seen that her behaviour alienated the nobles to this degree. She could have found some way to communicate with them, now the whole country would be impaired by her disability to work with them. This is her fault.

In the corner of her eye she sees Anjar shaking her head as she looked away from Helena and vanishes between other tents. The Ushyen has her orders:

To kill the one known as Ulal.