“The tea is steeped, Lord Marche”.
A set of elderly hands placed a fine Cathayan tea pot upon the unbroken end of the little table next to the high-backed chair Marche sat in. With methodical grace they placed the saucer and cup down next to it, then picked up the pot again and poured out a thin stream of dull brownish liquid, specked with wrung out red-brown leaves. When the tea reached halfway up the floral design of the cup, cresting a small lily on the outside, Marche raised his hand and motioned for the pourer to stop. His job done, the elderly man set the pot down again and stood back whilst his lord continued staring ahead through the open window.
Silence fell on the room again, though outside the work of taking over the fortress was in full swing. It was a place of peace, a room high in the formerly restricted portion of Ipsosez’s heart away. Sunlight from the morning came in through the large stone window at an angle, warming the parts of the room its rays fell upon. By now the light was warming Marche’s feet and had begun its retreat back towards the other side of the mountain range. Looking out across the plains he could even see the ocean here, a resplendent sight glimmering promise in the distance, though he knew not what to call this seaboard now there was no Greater Aenilia.
Marche furrowed his brow, taking the tea to his lips. Greater Aenilia, Ethiala, Lasanar, Arcachon, Papania, all gone to make room for Arcaea and her empire. Not a realm has been unchanged or destroyed by her expansion. And the glory belongs to my family and countless others.
He left the cup there for a short while until he could not manage the train of thought any longer. It was a painful thing to think so he made sure he drank before it went cold. He’d grown up hearing about the strength of Arcaea and the foundations it had been built upon, but he was finding it difficult to reconcile with what he saw now. The war with the South was still going on. Topenah was still the barren husk he was told it was in the wake of Ethiala 40 years ago. His voyage through there had been truly unpleasant, with gangs marauding the streets. The only thing the city produced now was what it could cannibalise from itself, a city of hundreds where once over thirty thousand had lived.
In a satchel by the desk was the only thing he’d found of worth there. The journals of Sir Aerywyn Haerthorne, Duke of Topenah and Lord Protector of Arcaea. That held more to his interest and inspiration than anything he’d found from here to the far north of Coralynth’s dark isle. At points the book had read like the readings of a madman... that fear was always in the Haerthorne line, but there was more to it than that.
But it wasn’t a secret that he was at all prepared to have ever known.
“The tea is too bitter, Daniel. But thank you nonetheless.” Marche rose to his feet and put on his attire. “Let us go for a walk round the battlements.” It was time to learn what he could from the knights who had fought here with him. Out the window he saw again that mighty banner of the Arcaean Empire, which had been erected over the fallen fortress when the siege had been won.
