the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (snow like ashes txt) 📕

happen to him. Yes, he had been briefed where to find the harbour and given maps. The fact was, however, that no one from Prosperania had ever found the place and no one knew exactly where it was. That was enough reason to worry.
Alfred now had a nice, elegant head of hair. He was pulling himself up by the furniture and waltzing down the aisles with a steady bounce and sometimes falling down. Belinda tried to read books to him, but he was more interested in eating them than listening to the stories.
Steven took the toddler on piggyback rides and ran through the hallways. This made the little man scream with joy. His bedchamber lay next to his parents’ bedchamber and contained a gilded bed made of pear wood and a tapestry of a lamb and Jesus with the inscription:
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
Alfred has switched from just drinking breast milk and eating apple sauce mixtures to actually eating meat and sometimes wallowing in Geena’s special Gooseberry Fool Cream, containing gooseberries and cream and sugar, or strawberry custard cake. His favourite was still Ruby’s Pear Pie, a dessert he always called Peh Pah.
Bantrard played him so much music that it seemed as if he wanted to transform the boy into a full-fledged musical genius. All in all, again, it was normal life disguising the fact that everyone was waiting. Life went on as usual. Nothing very special happened.
There were parties and church services. Alfred’s first words Mama and Papa and Music and Food, all symbolising the basics of life. It was a wonderfully drunk Christmas with Senatorial conferences and sibling rivalry. There was Morgana sharing her husband with Patricia and Patrick having affairs and there was Erica crying herself to sleep at night.
There was lovemaking in the corners and there was custard pie. There were people waiting in the wings, ready to take over and make royal life a living hell.

Monday, March 5th, 1425 A.D.

After four months and five days of impatient waiting, Tom Barnes had finally arrived back at Iuventus Sacrum alive to tell the tale of the secret harbour. He had already met Cretan even before meeting the King, riding up to the Senate unannounced and telling the old fart the entire story.
The adventurer rode in unannounced that day, hungry, thirsty and weather beaten, wearing clothes that stunk of dirt and sweat for a mile. Tom was promptly given three plates full of peacock, swan, snail, ostrich, hen and rooster. He had dumpling soup and four bottles of mead. The orange cake made his mouth water. After that he jumped naked into the thermal baths with Morgana and Patricia.
The Alexander Room was full that night. Tom told the entire assembly his story by a crackling fire and accounted the tale of how he had lived on berries and grilled rat for weeks before even reaching Nocturania. It was not until the 1st of December that he arrived at the secret location of Fraytollah. He had been struggling through the snow and overcoming blisters and wounds and meter high snowdrifts to arrive there. With a blanket around his shoulders in front of the fireplace in the Alexander-Room that eve, he sat with a hot cup of Geena’s spicy wine and told them about what he had seen. His hair was wet and his face red with blood-shot icy wounds.
“I arrived much sooner in Fraytollah than I had thought possible.”
“What did you find?” Queen Sieglinde asked.
He looked at her from the side, and then he looked into the flames. “Nothing but the harbour at first.” He shook his head. “Disgusting place. There were brothels at every corner, smugglers openly stealing from storage, illegal business, disgusting people making love in alley ways, rats crawling in the corners. Ooh, those rats. Huge. I couldn’t do anything, but not look at all this crime. It wasn’t my authority to complain, since it wasn’t my country.” He took a sip of his drink. “Oooh. This wine is great.” He looked at the companions that were gathered around him and sighed.
Steven signalled to him with his head and responded with a casual look.
“Is there a harbour dock that seems like the one Lucinda spoke of?”
Tom grinned. He nodded. “In my view it seemed to be that unimaginable nerve centre of a dark kingdom. I had to have a Bular tattoo needled into my forearm to get in there and find that out...”
“You did what?” Belinda asked quietly.
He looked at her. “Belinda, it was the only way to get in there. The docking space is completely run by defective forest gypsies. The new chief is an ugly brute named Manuel something. There is a rumour that Nina Ray had him evicted before being caught, that the forest queen sent him to the Rumzils and by some miracle he escaped to Fraytollah and found himself living in a whorehouse before meeting the right people and getting in this weird kind of business.”
He now had the feared Bular Tattoo upon his arm and was not very proud of it. It was the sign of an international pirate and it was the mark that any forest gypsy or criminal in Medatlantia had to bear if he was part of the dark order that was founded by Simon’s brother John.
Belinda shook her head. “A tattoo like that can’t be taken away. You were careless.”
“I am known in royal circles. Everyone knows that I am not a Bular.” He indicated toward the King. “Even your father advised me to have it done, if necessary.”
“How did you find out about Manuel’s path to fame?” Alexander asked.
“I disguised myself as a Nocturanian smuggler and soon enough I was communicating with people I never knew existed. I told them this story that I was a defective guard from the army and it must’ve hit well with them.”
”Why?” Sieglinde asked, leaning forward.
“Well,” he said and turned to her. “The army is notoriously unpopular with smugglers, because they raid the pier once every year and kill a lot of people. Adnicul secretly runs the harbour, but sends his army to kill some pirates on a regular basis in order to keep them on their toes. The pirates smuggle weapons in order to take over the country one day. That I was a defective guard made me popular and we were soon introduced to the chief. It took me about a week after arrival to get to that point.”
“What happened when you did?” Belinda inquired.
Tom sipped his wine. He turned to her. “He said he might be able to get me into a more lucrative position and lead me to where the ships were built.” He shook his head again and laughed. “I couldn’t believe my luck.” He looked into the flames. “I was lead right into the lion’s den.” He looked distantly into the flames. Everyone saw how mysterious that gaze was and waited for him to continue.
He looked at Steven, who gave him a discarding smile. “You do know that the Bular tattoo is a dangerous thing?”
Tom waved his warning away with his left hand. “I rarely take off my shirt, friend. Besides, in order to see what was in there, I had to have one burned into my skin. Manuel would never let me enter if not. It is like the guild of masters and craftsmen.” He looked at Belinda and nodded. “The funny thing is that the dock is run mostly by these defective army-smugglers who oppose the state and want to outsmart it. At the same time, everyone knows Adnicul runs the operation so he can start a war against us. So in actual fact he uses state opposing mechanisms to strengthen his own state.” Tom looked at Alex. “Strange, huh?”
Sieglinde thought for a moment. Then she said: “What was in there?”
“It is a large wooden structure with four channels and it’s run by close to three hundred workers simultaneously on four ships, one of them being Prosperanian.”
“Which one?”
“The Wilta.” Tom responded. “The one that still is in our harbour.”
“And the others?”
“The Yorkshire, a Britannic vessel, a Hispanic sailing ship named Silvia Regalia and the Margetanian vessel The Raphaela.”
“When are they planning to use them?”
“The Yorkshire is being planned, as far as I know, to engage in embarkation upon the Hispanian Coastal town of Mormidaria next spring under false pretence. One of the gypsies told me. The Margetania won’t be used if it isn’t absolutely necessary. As to the Hispanic one, they’re planning to attack Prosperania with it at the same time as the Yorkshire.” There was a pause. “There is much more. The Londonium wasn’t accidentally shipwrecked. There are continental-wide spies at work here. In Dublin, where the Londonium was built, there were Nocturanian traitors who infiltrated the majesties to engage in a plot to overthrow the Islandian king and replace it with a continental chieftain. His Britannic majesty was never very happy about it, so he sent a rebel such as Zebulon to do the deed. The whole thing was a plot to destroy The Londonium so that they could rebuild it and send away the fake ship. In this case, the whole project was just there to lead us on. Adnicul does these things all the time. Zebulon was actually a forest gypsy who was retired warrior. They retire at forty. The man impersonating Zebulon was never willing to do it, but did anyway for a large sum of money. Obviously, Lucinda had a part in transforming him into Captain Zebulon as well as actually shipwrecking the actual ship.”
Alexander rubbed his chin. “They are planning to launch continental war on false premises.” There was a long pause. Alexander stood up and walked out of the room.
The four others looked at him, surprised. Outside the room, Rolf seemed to be receiving orders from the King. Belinda used the time to question Tom. “How did you manage to escape?”
Tom chuckled. “Wasn’t easy, but eventually I did when I found out that people were suspicious of what I was all about. I think they are still looking for me. I have arrow splinters in my buttocks to prove their hatred toward me.”
Alexander entered the room, closed the door and came to sit down. “I told Rolf to send Simon and Marcus up to meet me tomorrow at noon. Cretan is being notified. I want you all to be there. I will send Simon to Hispania to warn Mormidar. Marcus will ride to Ulfaas tomorrow. The ball is rolling, gentlemen. We will counterattack.”
Belinda, Steven and Alfred went back to their chambers to read fairytales, whilst the King continued mapping out his battle plan. Tom sat for a while in the Alexander Room with Sieglinde and Patrick. The conversation was mainly quiet, a still and thoughtful chat before the launch of a storm.

Monday, May 21st, 1425 A.D.

As soon as Tom returned, King Alexander issued an official proclamation that was read by Cretan to the Senators, that the Fraytollah harbour was being attacked. They had finally found the place where the pirate ships were built, it was said in the official document, and now the neighbouring country would pay. It was also said that it was to be kept a secret within the parliamentary community.
Mormidar was notified and so was Mustafus and by the end of April two thousand soldiers were on the march toward the Danish Channel.
The fleet by the channel was a joint one and so the ships by the harbour had two flags, the Prosperanian and the Olandian. The royal motto of each country was written on every ship insignia on the