The Elemental Guard #2: The Queen’s Tour Departure
Winter passed while the new Queen prepared for her tour of the realm. She was not looking forward to being forced to reflect the sadness on the faces she would meet. Her feelings had been directed toward the group setting off to the north to get answers for why her father was dead. She spent many of her days walking around the levels of Queen’s Cross. She checked on the merchants and wanted to get a feel for the people that moved in and out of the city. Her father had been an excellent manager of the city, and the merchants had all they needed to make it through the winter. Her father may have died, and the people may have shown her their sad faces, but living didn’t stop. People always moved through the center of the realm. All was well as far as the mood of the city was concerned.
She could have spent days riding around the ground levels of Queen’s Cross, but tradition required her to spend time higher in the city to plan her springtime tour of the realm and get the Messengers ready for their trip north. The Royal district of Queen’s Cross started where the streets and steps started to climb. To visitors, the most obvious indication of the Royal District was the continuous patrol of heavily armored soldiers who walked the streets where the staircases began. The soldiers wore the colors they took from their home fort of the Elemental Guard. It was a reward for service to be offered a post in Monarch’s Cross. Visitors would call them rainbow soldiers as groups would pass on patrol in greens, blues and reds. Different colors and different patterns on their cloaks, but their armor was the same darkened steel with the crossed swords surrounded by elemental symbols shown on the right shoulder and left chest. A smattering of these soldiers had markings on the right chest, but few in the city knew what the markings meant.
The Queen held her final meeting with the Messengers, who would depart a week before her Realm Tour departure. “I don’t care how long it takes. I want to know why my father died. Bury yourselves in like a tick if you have to,” she told the three Messengers standing in front of her. They were dressed in clothes made by merchants in the lower city. They looked out of place in the upper parts of Queen’s Cross, but they used the tunnels to move in and out of the city. Anyone in the upper city who saw lower city clothing, knew who they were looking at a Messenger. A non-Messenger dressed like that would have an Elemental Guard walking with them.
The Realm Tour departed with their first stop being the Plains of the East. The duke would greet them at the Granary but that was more than a week’s travel away. After the tour of the east, she would go to the Canyon. Her destination would be Skyhaven where they would want her to travel South but she wanted to get to the north for a report. Messengers would be able to find her on the road. The Queen’s Caravan was large enough, but she couldn’t risk being seen talking to the Messengers outside of Queen’s Cross.
As Queen’s Cross slowly fell behind the horizon, one of the Scholar’s approached the Queen. They went on about the farms they would be passing in these early parts of the eastern plains. She was polite because she had nowhere else to go, but she wasn’t interested in what the Scholars had to say unless it was an answer for her father’s death. “This will take time to figure out your majesty,” was all they had said to this point. Not one of the Scholars volunteered anything they might have learned.
“See there and there your majesty,” the Scholar continued. “These are the north and south guard forts of the plains. We will be stopping at the southern fort on our way back to the Canyon.”
The Queen made a mental note but limited her reply to, “do go on, please.” The Scholar was happy to continue providing details about the soldiers, where they were from across the realm and the Wives’ Depots that serviced this area. He would eventually stop when he asked a question, and the Queen did not answer. It may have taken 8 miles, but the Scholar clued in to the level of her interest.
