Five of Clubs (War and Suits Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  War and Suits book 4

  The Clubs

  22nd January

  23rd January

  24th January

  25th January

  26th January

  27th January

  28th January

  Other books by J.A.Armitage

  A note from the author

  Five of Clubs

  War and Suits book 4

  J.A.Armitage

  Copyright 2016

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  War and Suits

  The Clubs

  Two of Clubs – Rose Persimmon Club

  Three of Clubs – Stargazer Lily Club

  Four of Clubs- Tarragon Brodie Club

  Five of Clubs – Ash Ever Club

  Six of Clubs – Iris Larkspur Club

  Seven of Clubs – Juniper Hawthorne Club

  Eight of Clubs – Fern Foxglove Club

  Nine of Clubs – Sorrell Snapdragon Club

  Ten of Clubs – Sequoia Hollis Club

  Jack of Clubs – Sage Salix Club

  Queen of Clubs – Heather Lotus Club

  King of Clubs – Reed Cardamom Club

  22nd January

  “Damn it, Mother! I’m not sick anymore. Stop mollycoddling me.”

  “It’s just soup, darling. You need to build up your strength.”

  “I’m fine!” I replied coldly. I didn’t like being rude to my mother, but I’d had just about as much looking after as I could take. Yes, I nearly died a couple of weeks ago, but that was then, and this was now. There was a war going on, and here I was, stuck in bed being force-fed broccoli and swamp rat soup, a concoction I detested at the best of times.

  “I want to see Father, and for Monsatsu’s sake, don’t tell me he’s busy. It’s urgent!”

  “I had this prepared specially for you.” She still stood there, holding the silver tray with the bowl of the infernal soup on it. The look on her face gave me pause.

  For the first time in weeks, I got out of bed. I took the bowl from her, discarded the spoon, and drank the whole lot straight from the bowl. Wiping my mouth, I placed the now empty bowl back on the silver tray. The action made my mother purse her lips, but I’d done what she’d asked, and she had no reason to complain anymore.

  “Now, can I go and see Father?” I’d left her no reason to say no. I’d eaten my soup like a good little boy and dragged myself out of bed onto my own, albeit shaky, two feet.

  “He’s busy, Ash,” sighed my mother for the umpteenth time in the past two weeks, but I knew she didn’t have the strength to argue with me.

  I strode past her purposefully, or, at least, as purposefully as I could with my jelly legs. I held onto the wall to steady myself, then opened my bedroom door, and walked out. Up until a week ago, I was in a sickbed in the banqueting hall along with hundreds of other injured men. But as they either died or got better and left, the banqueting hall became emptier and emptier. Finally, it was decided I was well enough to go back into my room. I’d thought it would be easier up here, but it just gave my mother more opportunity to fuss. A bevy of helpers, servants, and healers were constantly coming through my door to give me medicine, food, and baths. I’d not had a moment alone for weeks, and I was sick of it. However, it wasn’t the constant fussing that was giving me the greatest cause for concern; it was what I’d seen up in the hills near the Dragon Mountains. At first, I thought it was a dream or hallucination brought on by the fever I’d suffered. But the dream persisted, and a week or so ago, I realized it wasn’t a dream at all, but a memory. A memory so terrifying that I didn’t want to believe it was real at all.

  The walk down to my father’s office was more difficult than I had thought it would be. My legs weren’t cooperating with me, and just the effort of walking was making me feel nauseous. I wished I’d agreed to having a pair of crutches when they were offered to me, but I didn’t want to appear pathetic at the time, so I’d declined them.

  “Are you ok?”

  I turned to find my sister, Star, behind me. Of all the people in the castle, I’d like to have seen, she was number one. Since her ordeal at the Heart Castle a couple of weeks ago, she’d been as mollycoddled as I had, and what was worse, she was on a total ban from leaving the castle. If anyone would know how I felt, it would be her.

  “Can you help me with these stairs? I seem to be having a bit of trouble.”

  She ran to me and put her arm under mine to steady me. She was a lot smaller than me, but just the extra bit of support helped a great deal.

  “I’m surprised to see you out of bed,” she mused as we finally made it to the bottom of the first set of stairs.

  “I didn’t really give Mother much of a choice. Tell me, Star, do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Yeah, you know, spirits, manifestations, specifically, evil ones?”

  “Are you sure you should be out of bed, Ash? You are looking a bit pale.”

  She felt my forehead. I was well aware how clammy I felt. The last thing I wanted was for her to turn me around or go and get Mother to take me back to bed.

  “I saw something. Out there.”

  “Where?” She looked out of the nearest window to the gardens. “It’s just Rose and her new boyfriend practicing sword fighting.”

  “Not them,” I sighed in exasperation. “I saw something in the mountains when I was out there fighting.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. It was near the entrance to the brook that ends up as the magical river. It wasn’t just a spring of water coming up from the ground, as you’d expect. It was a cave. I saw someone there. A man.”

  “He was probably just one of the soldiers. If you didn’t recognize him, he was likely one of the Hearts.”

  “It wasn’t one of the Hearts!” I said irritably. “You know how they dress like they are all going in for a Mr. Naked Competition. This guy was wearing long silver robes. He had a long beard.” The corridor we were walking down was long. I could feel the sweat dripping off me as we walked. I’d never have made it this far without Star’s help.

  “Perhaps it was a farmer or someone out for a walk, who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I was beginning to feel angry. It wasn’t Star’s fault. The way I was describing him, he could have been anyone, but how could I describe the feeling I got when I saw him. It was a feeling of powerful malevolence. Even thinking back on him now, was enough to scare me and yet he’d done nothing. He’d just stood there, unmoving, watching us fight.

  “Nevermind,” I said. I’d have to come up with something better to tell my father or he’d have the same attitude as Star. She guided me to the next set of stairs, and we took them very slowly and deliberately. Each one felt like a mountain, even though we were walking down, not up.

  “You know,” began Star, “if you think he was a ghost, you are probably better off talking with Iris. She’s always going on about stuff like that.” Iris was my next oldest sister. Where I ranked the Five of Clubs, she was the Six. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of her before. If anyone in my family could understand what I’d seen, it would be her. She studied mysticism, ancient alchemy, and spiritualism, or Hocus Pocus, as we liked to call it. Just like the majority of Clubs, she wasn’t magic, but it had fascinated her since she was a child. It wasn’t the magic of the sorcerer Diamonds that interested her but otherworldly stuff. To be honest, I had passed off her mumbo jumbo as a complete waste of time. But after the encounter with whatever it was, I was beginning to t
hink I might be a convert. There were two reasons why I hadn’t gone to see Iris (besides the fact that I, along with the rest of my family thought she was bonkers). The first was that I’d wanted to tell my father. For some reason, I felt it was important that he knew that there was something going on in the distant Club Kingdom. The Dragon Mountains were a two-day’s walk away, but they were still on our land, and I felt that Father ought to know. The second reason was that Iris didn’t even live in the castle anymore. The second she turned eighteen a couple of years ago, she’d moved out into the country to a small hippy commune near the river that was well known for housing complete crackpots. We rarely saw Iris. She’d come home for important events such as the New Year’s Eve ball and other social gatherings, but kept her royal duties to a minimum, preferring, instead, to commune with nature and hug trees or whatever they did in her village. My parents let her be most of the time as whenever she did come home for a special occasion, she’d invariably turn up in some hideous smock. Despite my mother’s best efforts, she wouldn’t be able to wrestle her out of it for love or money. It was no secret that the reason we’d not had a formal family portrait painted for so long was because of Iris’s unwillingness to dress for the occasion. Right now, however, her particular brand of crazy might be exactly what I needed.

  “Iris!” I panted. We’d not even reached the bottom of the second set of stairs yet, and, already, I was beginning to feel defeated. Star was holding me up more and more, and even she was beginning to sag under my weight.

  “I think I should go and get help,” Star said as we made it to the next landing.

  “No!” I shouted. The effort made my ears ring, and the walls started to move by themselves, first in and out; then they began to spin. The last thing I heard as the world turned black was Star shouting my name.

  23rd January

  “You silly, silly boy!”

  I opened my eyes to find my mother standing over me with a cold, damp cloth. She dabbed it on my forehead.

  “Father!” I yelled.

  “I know you are desperate to see him. If you are going to nearly kill yourself to get to him, I can only assume it’s for a good reason. I spoke to him last night after dinner, and he has promised to come and see you here today. He’s a very busy man right now, Ash, so I hope that whatever you have to tell him is important.”

  “It is, Mother, thank you.” I felt so grateful to her. If my father was coming to see me, I could tell him everything.

  “He’s only going to come if you promise to stay in bed and eat and take your medicine.” She passed me a couple of tablets and a glass of water. I took them and swallowed them right down, eager to show that I could be trusted.

  “You have a very special guest waiting outside. Would you like me to show her in?”

  I had no idea who she could be talking about. Special guest? I didn’t know many people and certainly no one that my mother would call a ‘special guest.’

  “Ok,” I replied uncertainly.

  My mother opened the door and in walked Iris. Now I understood. It was extremely rare that Iris made an appearance without having to. She was dressed as she always was in a long green smock with pockets full of strange things and stars and weird symbols embroidered all over it in gold thread. Her hair was as messy as it always was, and her blond, tangled curls resembled a bush.

  For a second, I wondered if her crazy magic was real, and she’d somehow read my mind, but then she told me what had happened.

  “Tarragon’s manservant, Willow, came all the way to Yelpish to tell me you wanted to see me. Something about a ghost?”

  My mother arched her brow at hearing this.

  “It’s nothing really, thanks, Mother. I think I’ll feel up to some more of that delicious soup later.”

  “Oh, great!” my mother turned and left, closing the door behind her. Iris sat on my bed, taking the space my mother had just left.

  “So, brother, I can’t believe you’ve managed to drag me back here for the second time in a month. I think I’ve spent more time at the castle in the last few weeks than I did all of last year! You told Star that you’d seen a ghost. Can you describe it to me?”

  “I don’t think it was a ghost as such. He wasn’t transparent. Ghosts are transparent aren’t they?” I felt crazy asking it. I’d never believed in ghosts. Still, I know what I felt and that whatever it was that I saw was no normal person.”

  “Most ghosts are otherworldly and therefore transparent as you call it. Some you can’t see at all, but there are a few that are corporeal.”

  “Corpo what now?”

  “They appear solid. They can manifest themselves to look alive. It takes a ghost with strong magic to do that, though. I’ve never seen a Club ghost do it.”

  “This guy was definitely solid,” I replied.

  “Which makes it all the more strange. I’m intrigued, little brother.”

  “He was no Club, Iris. He was seven feet tall. I don’t know what he was.”

  “Seven feet? Even the tallest of The Diamonds don’t grow to be that tall. Are you sure? Perhaps you just saw him from a funny angle. If you were standing below him on a hillside, for example, he’d appear taller.”

  “Star thought he could be just a farmer or a guy going out for a walk. You know, just a normal person. I’d have thought you’d have believed me.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, brother. I’ve just not heard of anything that could be seven feet tall. What did it look like? You keep calling it a he.”

  “It was definitely a he. He had long gray hair and a long beard. His robes were silver, but they were dirty. They didn’t reflect the sun. He held a staff in his hand. A bit like a shepherd would; but there were no sheep, and this was no shepherd.”

  “So, apart from his extraordinary height, what makes you think he’s a ghost? You said yourself that he was corporeal. There are many strange things in our lands.”

  “It wasn’t so much what he looked like. He was an old man, but he looked strong. It was...”

  I paused. I wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase the next bit. I wanted Iris to believe me, but I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. If I couldn’t convince Iris, I’d never be able to convince my father.

  “What was it, Ash? What did he do to you?” she looked at me in earnest, as if she was willing me to say something interesting or exciting. She lapped stuff like this up usually.

  “I...he didn’t do anything to me, as such, but I felt something. I can’t explain it, really. This has all come to me in dreams and flashbacks since, but I’m sure it was real. The dreams are so vivid. I just have a feeling it was something bad. Something really bad. He was standing in a cave near to the entrance to the magic river. I felt as though it had something to do with that, but I don’t know what. He was...he was... he was bad news Iris. It felt as though he was taking my very soul away from me.” I slammed my fist down on my bed, frustration running through me. I was making such a mess of explaining it. Iris studied me for a moment, and to her credit and my relief, she didn’t laugh at me.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like this before, but the chief mage in my village will know what it is. He knows everything. I’ll go home and speak with him today. He’s just as busy as Father, but I know he’ll want to hear about this. Whatever you saw doesn’t sound good.”

  “You’re telling me that you believe me? You don’t think I made it up?”

  “What possible reason would you have to make it up? I’ll admit, it could be a reaction to your illness or post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by watching your contemporaries die. If that’s the case, then I’m sure Mother and Father will get you the help you need.”

  “But you don’t think it is that?”

  “No. I think you saw something. We just have to figure out what it was. Anything that makes you feel the way you said it did needs looking into. Leave it with me. I suggest you get yourself up and about as quickly as possible.”

  “I plan to!
”

  She gave me a swift kiss on the cheek and then was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts. That lasted all of three minutes until Dockleaf, the castle physician, bustled in with a tray of dried herbs.

  “Sit up!” she ordered and plonked the tray on my lap. “I heard that you decided to go walk around the castle yesterday. I’ve told you, and I’ve told your mother. You need to rest. Have you forgotten that you nearly died? It was a miracle, and a miracle alone, that saved you going up into Monsatsu’s arms.” (I always found it strange that a woman of science could be so religious)

  “It was Rose and Oaken, going up to the Dragon Mountains and getting me the Feverthorne root that saved me, not a mirac...” A thought suddenly struck me. My youngest sister, Rose, and her boyfriend had gone right back to the place where I’d seen the apparition. What if they’d seen him too?

  “It was with Monsatsu’s help that they made it back in time, which constitutes a miracle in my book. Now, I’ve brought you some herbs to make you feel better. The feverthorne elixir will keep your temperature down, but I’ve also brought some roots to build up your strength.”

  “If I eat all this, will I be able to get out of bed soon?” I said, looking down at the disgusting tray of roots in front of me.

  “If you eat all this, I’ll come and check how you are doing later. If you have made a vast improvement, and I mean vast, then maybe I’ll allow you to get out of bed tomorrow. I’ve brought some crutches for you to use. Make sure you use them as you’ll be unsteady on your feet for a few days.”

  “Thanks, Doc. Is there any chance you could ask Rose to come visit me, please?”

  “Do I look like a maid or a messenger boy? Eat your roots. I’ll be back this evening to see how you are.”

  I picked up a root and began to chew on it. It actually tasted better than it looked. It had a faint taste of raspberries. So, Doc wouldn’t get Rose for me. There was bound to be someone coming through that door any second, I could ask to fetch her.

  Three hours later, I was beginning to understand irony. I’d been bothered no end by people coming into my room every ten minutes for days, and, now, when I needed someone, the whole castle had gone quiet. It was times like this I envied the Hearts with their phone technology or the Diamonds who could just magic themselves where they wanted to go. I’d heard that some of them could communicate with others in their heads without having to be nearby. On second thought, though, I didn’t know a single person I’d particularly want to get inside their head or have them inside of mine.