Three of Clubs (War and Suits Book 2) Read online

  “Has anyone even tried asking the Hearts for their stocks of the elixir?”

  “I’m telling yer now, Stargazer.” She wagged her finger at me “They won’t give it. Yer think they’ll care if they have men dying here that need it? They didn’t care when they left them on the battlefield, did they? Never trust a Heart!”

  “Doc!” I was surprised at her. While some of the Hearts were well known for being ruthless, saying you couldn’t trust any of them was ridiculous. “They are only people, just like us.”

  Doc made the hrmph sound again and went back to chopping up the Echina root.

  There was nothing I could do to help Doc, so I made my way to the main hall. I stood outside for a few seconds, wondering what the scene inside would be. Would Sage have kept the men calm? Especially, the Hearts who had just lost one of their own to my sister’s sword? I don’t know how she had the guts to go back in and carry on as if nothing had happened. You had to admire her. I’d just plucked up the courage to go back in; my hand was on the door when I heard my name shouted down the corridor. I turned to see Willow running down the corridor toward me. He was pink-cheeked and out of breath.

  “There you are! There was a rumor that one of the Heart men tried to kill you.” He ran up to me and flung his arms round my neck in the most awkward embrace I’d ever received. Just a second later, he pulled back in alarm, his cheeks even rosier than they had been mere seconds before.

  “I’m so sorry, your highness, milady...I...I...” he stuttered, and I almost felt sorry for him. “I mean, I just wanted to know if you were ok. Please, forgive me.” He hung his head, and I didn’t quite know what to say to him. I wasn’t used to the staff hugging me. I wasn’t sure who was more embarrassed, him or me.

  “It’s fine, Willow, honestly. Rose saved me.”

  “I heard. Your sister certainly is a fireball. I’d not like to lock horns with her.”

  “What’s she done now?” We both turned to see a huge warrior walking down the corridor. He was on the large side for a Club, and he had a head of thick sandy hair. I vaguely recognized him as one of the men that trained with Wulfric, the head of the Training Academy. He’d survived the battle unscathed—there wasn’t a scratch on him.

  “May I ask who you are?” I felt he was being a little rude butting into our private conversation.

  “Forgive me, your highness. I’m Rose’s boyfriend. Is she in there?” He nodded toward the main hall door.

  I opened my mouth with astonishment. Rose’s boyfriend? She’d certainly kept that quiet. I could only nod as he thanked me and opened the door. I followed right behind him, forgetting I was talking to Willow. I was intrigued to see if he was telling the truth. Rose had never had a boyfriend before. There was an unwritten rule that the Club Royals were not allowed to date before their twenty-first birthday. It was a rule that had been flouted by most of my siblings, but it was one that I never expected Rose to break (and she’d broken most of the other ones)

  I watched as the hunk strode purposefully over to Rose, picked her up, and spun her around. I guess he was telling the truth, after all. It was so romantic. I wondered if I’d ever find a boyfriend like that.

  I looked for Sage to tell him that I was back and found him talking to Iris and Juniper at one end of the room.

  “Doc doesn’t want me,” I butted in on their conversation. “They are nearly out of the sleeping draught, and there isn’t any Feverthorne elixir left.”

  “What?” asked Sage in alarm. “Why did no one tell me? A lot of these men have infections in their wounds. We’ve been using the water to keep the infections to a minimum, but it’s not going to work for long. The water really only works with the plants that grow near it.”

  “Yeah, so I’ve heard, but there isn’t any Feverthorne left to make any. Apparently, we’ve already used all the stocks of it in the Kingdom.”

  “Where does it grow?” I turned to see Rose. She was glowing. I don’t think I’d ever seen her looking so radiant and then I realized it was a look of happiness in her eyes. It didn’t quite reach to her lips as they were set in a line of determination.

  “I don’t know. Dockleaf didn’t tell me.” I replied.

  “I do,” said Juniper. “I saw a patch of some once when I was away from the castle. It grows up in the mountains near to the source of the River Club.” The River Club was the biggest river in The Club Kingdom. It began as a small stream up in the mountains and wound its way through the land before ending up in the ocean. It was the very same stream that the Hearts had tried unsuccessfully to divert into their own Kingdom.

  “Where the battle was?” asked the man next to Rose.

  “Yes, but I saw more, much higher in the mountains. It’s not Hearts that are the problem, it’s …”

  “Dragons!” said Rose, cutting him off. “Well, I’ve already dealt with dragons once in the past week. I’m sure I can do it again.” She turned to me. “How is Elphin? It looks like we are going to need him.”

  “You’re not seriously suggesting that you are going to go into the mountains?”

  “Yep,” grinned Rose. “Oaken, are you up for it?”

  “Hell, yeah. Just let us know what it is we are looking for, and we’ll get it to you within three days.”

  “I won’t allow you to!” Sage stood, looking angry. I just wondered how my sister had got so brave. If I’d been through what she had in the last week, I’d have locked myself in my bedroom and refused to come out for a month.

  “You are busy here,” Rose argued. “Father is busy with trying to prevent an out-and-out war, and mother is so exhausted that she probably won’t wake up for the next three days. Therefore, I’m not exactly sure who is going to stop me.” I guess, having already stood up to Sage once that morning had left her feeling like she couldn’t lose. I don’t know where she got her pluck from.

  “It’s dangerous, Rose,” I said, trying to calm the situation. I didn’t want to take sides, but I didn’t want my little sister getting hurt either.

  Sage didn’t back down but didn’t reply either. A grim look of determination was on both my siblings’ faces, and I wondered who would win. I wouldn’t have liked to place bets. Sage was in charge as the eldest sibling and as The Jack of Clubs, but I’ve known Rose to be extremely stubborn at times, not to mention she’d already won one argument with Sage that morning.

  “Look at it this way. If we don’t get the root, a lot of these men are going to die, correct? I’m offering to get it. Oaken will be with me. We’ll just fly up on Elphin, fill a sack with the root, and come straight back. We won’t mess with the dragons. We’ll be back in three days.”

  “She has a point, Sage,” Iris said. “Just look around you. These men are dying, and I don’t see anyone else volunteering to help them.”

  “We have hundreds of troops that could go up into the mountains, many with experience.”

  “And most of them are here. Just let her go.” Iris didn’t live in the castle anymore. She lived in a small village called Yelpish. It seemed that she had returned to the castle to help us, much to Sage’s obvious chagrin.

  “It seems I’m outnumbered,” grimaced Sage.

  “Elphin has healed well,” I said, “but he’s not up for traveling up into the mountains. Unicorns prefer warm weather. He’s currently sharing a stall in the stables with the doe and fawn I rescued last week.” Elphin had already had one big adventure this year that ended up with him losing a few feathers on his right wing. I didn’t want him doing something as hazardous as flying up into the Dragon Mountains.

  “I have a friend who raises sozelles,” interjected Juniper. “I’m sure he’ll let you borrow two. They are much better geared to flying in cold weather than unicorns. They have a really thick coat of hair, and their natural home is the mountains.”

  “Looks like it’s all sorted out then,” Rose said.

  Sage just sighed. He looked tired, and I felt sorry for him. In any other situation, he’d have both Mother
and Father on his side. Neither of them would let Rose go either, but he didn’t really have a choice.

  “Have you slept yet, Sage?” I asked once Rose had gone. Juniper had gone with her to get the two winged beasts.

  “No, I can’t.”

  I could see the exhaustion in his face. He reminded me of our mother. I knew there was no point trying to get him to go to bed, though. Instead, I took over tending to the man he was looking after and sent him to the kitchen to get a coffee.

  I began what was to turn out to be a fifteen-hour shift of changing bandages, cleansing wounds, and general nursing. We managed to send a few of the men home but nowhere near enough. It was becoming obvious that we were unequipped, understaffed, and overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the task before us. The palace staff did what they could to help, but apart from Dockleaf, they knew about as much about healing as the rest of us. At some point, some healers who had responded to fathers call in the newspaper showed up, allowing me to finally fall into bed at sometime around midnight.

  9th January

  I had a full twelve hours of delicious uninterrupted sleep. The arrival of the healers last night had given us all a bit of a break, but I knew I’d have to be back in the hall straight after breakfast. The kitchen was heaving with people when I went down for breakfast. It was almost as chaotic as the hall, with a huge oak table filled with meat, cheese, cereals, yogurts, bread, and jam. Healers crowded around, having their breakfast standing up as there was no space to sit, while kitchen staff prepared trays of food for the men in the great hall. There was something about war. It showed the very worst in people, but it also brought out the very best too. The kitchen staff must have also worked through the night to prepare food for everyone. They usually only cooked for the twelve of us and occasionally put on banquets such as the one on New Year’s Day. Was that really only just over a week ago? It seemed like an age since all the royal families of Vanatus had sat together in our great hall, to eat and talk about peace between the four suits. The thought of it would have made me laugh if it wasn’t so horrible. There was no way the four families could sit together and talk about peace now. How drastically things could change in such a short space of time!

  I grabbed a couple of pastries and made my way up to the hall to begin, what I expected to be another long day.

  When I got up to the hall, it was immediately obvious things had changed from the day before. The stench of death had increased. It was a smell that I’d never get used to. Some men had recovered sufficiently enough to leave so we had more space, but there were still eighty or so people still in beds. The moans of the men had increased, and even with the additional healers arriving, they were still rushed off their feet. I could see them running between beds trying to comfort those that needed it. For some reason, everything seemed worse than yesterday. I scanned the room, finding Sage sitting by Ash’s bedside along with my mother and Iris. As I got closer, I saw that something was terribly wrong with Ash. Yesterday, he’d been one of the least critical. He’d broken a couple of bones but had been sitting up chatting and smiling most of the day. Now, his face was pale, his skin clammy. He was awake, but barely. His eyes were rolling about in their sockets, and he was mumbling incoherently.

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “We are completely out of Echina root and Feverthorne now. There is some kind of infection sweeping through the men. We had twenty die from it overnight.” My heart fell as I realized that the empty beds I’d seen and assumed were from men that had left were, in fact, from men that had died.

  “But Rose will be back in a few days!”

  Sage just looked at me, not saying a word.

  “He’s not going to survive a few days. He needs the Feverthorne in the next twenty-four hours. Rose might be back by then, but it’s unlikely. The weather outside is appalling, and they only set off yesterday morning.” mother sobbed loudly.

  I suddenly felt very afraid and completely helpless. I already knew that the whole of the Club Kingdom had been scoured for more Feverthorne. It was a difficult plant to acquire, owing to the fact that most people wouldn’t want to go anywhere near the Dragon Mountains, and that was the only place it grew.

  “Surely, there must be something else? Another plant or remedy. If we ask Dockleaf...”

  “We already have. She doesn’t know of anything that could help us. Feverthorne is the only thing that will knock out infections this severe. We’ve been using water from the Club River, but it has limited magical properties. It’s just not touching it. We’ve got all the Feverthorne we can find. We’ve managed to buy some from both the Spade and Diamond Kingdoms, but it’s not enough.”

  “There must be something...What about the Hearts?”

  “The Hearts aren’t going to give us anything. It’s the Hearts that got us into this mess in the first place,” replied mother, her head in her hands.

  Ash moaned and rolled his head. His cheeks appeared hollow, and his skin had taken on a grayish tinge. I knew then what I had to do. Despite the fact that The Hearts had caused this, we still weren’t officially at war. The borders were open, and there was nothing to stop anyone from asking the Hearts for help. After all, it was their men that were dying as well as ours.

  “I’m going to go to Urbis. I’ll try Cerce. If they won’t give me what I want, I’ll try Diamas and Vangaville. Someone has got to have some Feverthorne Elixir. Mother, I’ll need some money. I have a feeling it’s going to be expensive.”

  “You won’t get any. There is no way The Hearts will sell it to you,” Sage replied.

  “Go down to the treasury room and tell them that I’ve authorized as much as you need,” my mother said. “Here take this to prove I’ve sent you.”

  She pulled her ring with the royal seal from her finger. It was the one that my father had given to her on the day Sage was born. I’d never seen it off her finger before.

  The treasury room was a mystery to me. I’d never been allowed to see inside it, although I knew it was where all the royal antiques were kept. We might not have been the richest Royal family in Vanatus, but we had a lot of gold, and as Royals, we were often gifted precious artifacts. We had way too much to fill a castle and so a room had been set aside to store everything. We had a member of staff, purely to keep and catalog every antique and piece of furniture we owned. He was also responsible for swapping many of the pieces around so they all got time on display in the castle. My mother also kept her jewelry down here, the royal jewels, which were worn on special occasions. How ironic that I’d been begging to be allowed to go down there to see them my entire life, and now that I was allowed, I’d not have the time.

  The door to the treasury had been imported specially from a Heart manufacturer. The whole thing was covered in cogs that moved in synchronization when the door was unlocked.

  I found Crassula, the Royal Treasurer, at his desk just outside the treasury. He was an old man with thin papery skin and thinning hair that was much too long. He looked up from the book he was writing in and peered at me over half-moon glasses.

  “I’m afraid I cannot let you see the royal jewel collection, Princess Stargazer. I think you already know that.”

  “I’m not here for that, Sir.” We called him Crass behind his back, but I wouldn’t dream of being so informal to his face. “My mother told me to show you this and to tell you to let me take some money. It’s an emergency. My brother is sick, and I need to go into Urbis to purchase some medicine for him.”

  He took the ring from my hand and studied it under a looking glass as if trying to disprove what I was telling him.

  “This is indeed the queen’s ring made from jet by the royal Spade jeweler. It was made especially for the queen on request of the king for the occasion of the royal birth of an heir.”

  Crass had a habit of doing this. He knew the history and value of everything in the castle, and he liked to tell everyone else.

  “I know, sir, but I’m in a hurry!”

&nb
sp; He passed it back to me and then stood. He walked slowly on spindly legs until he reached the door. There was no lock or key. Instead, he had to place his hand on a plate in the center of the door. The door had been imbued with Diamond magic and would only recognize three palm prints. My mother, my father, and Crass. I watched mesmerized as the cogs slowly began to turn and bolts were pulled back, each giving a click as it did. When the door came to a stop, it opened, and for the first time, I was going to see the room I’d dreamed about for years.

  Disappointment coursed through me as I saw box after box, neatly lined up on shelves. By each box was a label and a catalog number. In my imagination, I’d seen a huge room filled with gold and jewels and a myriad of exquisite objects d’art. It never occurred to me that everything would be stored away in boxes.

  “Where is the money, Mr. Ovata, sir?” However much I wanted to open all the boxes and peek at the treasures I knew to be inside, I had more important things to worry about, and every second I spent wasted on the history of objects was another second less of Ash’s life.

  He took me to a cupboard, which, when he opened it, I found to be filled with money. Piles of one-hundred-Clubian bills filled the shelves, stacked from floor to ceiling.

  “I don’t have time to change the Clubians to Urbis Dollars. Do we have any of those?”

  Currency in Vanatus was a pain in the ass. In The Club Kingdom, we used Clubians. We could also spend them in the Club District of Urbis. The other suits operated a similar system. However, the people living in Urbis quickly got fed up having to change currency when they went to different parts of town. To begin with, the Urbisites kept bits of all four currencies in their purses, but when people's purses had to become larger than shopping bags to accommodate all the change, the Urbis dollar was invented. It was a cross-currency note with each of the suits symbols on it and could only be used in Urbis. The benefit was, though, that people could shop in every part of town without having to visit the Bureau de Change every five minutes.