by C. J. Pinard
Barclay smiled. “Yes, sir!” With a salute, he turned his horse around and galloped back in the direction they had come.
Alexander dismounted from his horse, glanced behind him to ensure Barclay was gone, then pierced his brother with a scrutinizing icy-blue stare. “You’re sure Zackary is in there.”
Griffin stared hard at his younger brother for a minute, then slowly shook his head. “No, I’m not sure, but my gut tells me he is. Where else would he be? The jester was practically mocking us about how he had Zackary. About how he deserved to die. But, I don’t think he’s dead. I think that bastard was lying, and they just got lucky capturing a royal. Thinking they’d get a big payday by demanding ransom of a Rothhaven.” His brow furrowed, and he raked his fingers through his reddish-blond beard. “What I can’t understand is how. Zackary would have fought them tooth and nail.”
Alexander nodded slightly, and then moved his gaze toward the house, staring unseeing at it. “There were too many. They probably injured or disabled him after they killed Elliot and Jack. It’s a miracle Serina got away.”
Griffin clapped his brother on the shoulder. “You’re right, brother. Absolutely.”
Just then, they heard horses’ hooves and turned to see Barclay and his ten men striding up. The captured bandit was gagged with a cloth and bound with rope, riding double with one of the guards. He wasn’t resisting, but instead, had a maniacal and smug smile on his face behind the gag.
Griffin wanted to run his sword through his chest, but instead looked at his captain. “We’re going in. Have your men surround the house, and kill any bandit who tries to escape.”
Barclay grinned. “Yes, sire.” He looked to his guards. “You heard the king. Surround the dwelling at once!”
The royal guards quickly did as they were told, and once the house was surrounded, the two kings ran for the door and kicked it in. They were immediately greeted by the remaining bandit with his sword out and up at the ready, as he’d heard the horses and knew they were coming for him.
“Where’s King Zackary?” Griffin growled, his sword up.
The bandit, clearly frightened but trying not to show it, grinned and did not bow. “Dead.”
“Where’s the body?” Alexander demanded.
“Burned with the pile of rubbish out back.”
Barclay stepped forward with a murderous look on his face and lifted his sword above his head to cut the man down.
“Wait!” Griffin said, glancing at Alexander and Barclay. “I’m going down, you watch this fool.”
“Be careful, sire,” Barclay replied.
Griffin quickly descended the stairs. Once he reached the bottom, there was only one torch lit on the wall, but it was enough to see through the damp and dark of the dungeon.
“Zackary!” he cried out. “Are you here, brother?”
He was only met with silence. Carefully, he walked along the row of cells, peering in each one. All of the cell doors were open, save for the last two. He looked through the small food slot in the door of the first, but it was empty. Just a pool of blood on the ground and an empty shackle attached to the wall. The second one was also empty.
Frustrated, and beginning to panic that his brother really and truly was dead, he cried out in frustration and rushed out of the dungeon and up the stairs. When he reached the top, the three turned their heads to look him.
“He’s not there. Kill him,” Griffin ordered, pointing at the thief, who already had an alarmed look on his face once he saw the king reach the staircase alone.
“No! Wait!” the bandit cried, his arms up. “King Zackary isn’t dead. He’s in the dungeon! How did you not see him, sire?”
“Lies! Nothing but lies and trickery from you evil little trolls!” Griffin snapped, lifting his sword and swinging it at the man. He screamed out like a woman the second before Griffin’s blade connected with his neck, sending his head lobbing off and rolling away across the floor.
Alexander’s pained look was enough to have Griffin falling to his knees and grabbing at his hair, ripping it out at the scalp while wailing.
Gaylen almost dropped the looking glass, he was laughing so hard. Another simple little cloaking and silencing spell had had the desired effect. He watched as Zackary and Marcus screamed and yelled when they’d heard Griffin calling for them. They banged on their cell doors and couldn’t understand why Zackary couldn’t see them. And since the king’s men had taken out the house bandit, and were clearly planning on torturing the last, King Zackary would be dead sooner than later.
Gaylen put the looking glass down and made his way into the kitchen. He planned to relax and recharge with a book and some tea and biscuits after a long, hard day of evildoing.
The following day, as Mariselle walked through the foyer toward the dining room, a loud bang on the castle’s front door startled her. “Ah!”
She looked over to see David opening the door. Sir Francis quickly arrived. “What’s going on?”
A harried-looking pageboy, with flushed cheeks and scared brown eyes, bowed slightly and handed the telegram to Sir Francis. He then quickly turned away, but Francis was quicker, grabbing the boy by his tunic and yanking him into the foyer. “Not so fast, lad. Stay put.”
David handed the telegram to Francis, who quickly broke the sloppy wax seal and scanned the page with anxious eyes. Then, they went wide as saucers, and he looked up at David and Mariselle.
“What is it?” she asked, wringing her hands together.
Sir Francis handed her the telegram and grabbed the boy, barely in his teens, by his tunic and shook him. “Who sent that? Tell me right this instant, or I’ll lock you up in the dungeon.”
“I… I don’t know, sire. A man in the village paid me a coin to deliver it to the castle. I’m not even a real pageboy, I just needed the money to buy some bread and vegetables for my… my… my brother and me. You have my word, that is all I know!”
Francis’s stormy gaze pierced the boy. “Who was this man? Describe him for me.”
As the boy stuttered, Mariselle gasped. “You’re going to give them the money, right?” She handed David the telegram and grabbed Francis by both arms. “Please tell me you’re going to!”
“What’s going on?” Mathias asked, obviously sensing the tension.
“Ransom note for Zackary, Your Highness,” David said, holding out the telegram for Mathias to take.
“Can I go, please?” the boy begged, almost in tears. “I didn’t see the man’s face. He wore a dark cloak and it was nighttime. All I could see was a dark beard. He was very tall and had a low voice.”
Sir Francis made a sweeping motion with his hand at the boy, and not having to be told twice, scuttled out the front door and ran as fast as he could away from the castle.
“Bloody hell,” Mathias murmured, lifting his eyes from the note.
Francis looked pained. “We cannot give them the money.”
“What!” Mariselle squealed, her panic rising. “Are you mad? Just pay them and we’ll have Zackary back!”
He shook his head and glanced at Mathias, then back to her. “We cannot. If we do, that puts a target on every royal in Syracuse. Stealing kings for handsome payouts. It would be a disaster. No, we are going to trust Alexander, Griffin, the captain, and his royal guards to successfully bring the king back to his home.” He raked his fingers through his dark, wavy hair and pierced Mariselle with apologetic blue eyes. “It’s going to be okay, lass. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to inform the remaining sergeants of the guard about this.”
With that, he was off. Mariselle had tears streaming down her cheeks. Mathias was quick to embrace her as she sobbed into his chest. “They have Zack. They are probably starving him or… or…” She sniffed. “What if they are hurting him, Mat? Oh, I can’t bear the thought!”
“Shhh,” he soothed.
Shawna, Serina, and a dozen other castle staff looked down from the second floor and into the foyer, a range of emotions from worry to sobbing on
their faces.
Chapter 15
They searched the entire property, the surrounding woods, and the lake nearby, but there was no sign of Zackary’s body or any human remains. Defeated, the two kings, their captain, and the ten royal guards began the slow trot back toward Castle West Haven to deliver the bad news.
Griffin was having a very difficult time accepting that Zackary was dead. A forceful questioning of the captured bandit, who was still tied up on the horse with one of the guards, yielded nothing. The man’s attitude had changed, but he, like the other, insisted that the king was simply chained up in the dungeon, and that they were awaiting a ransom to be paid, having sent a courier to deliver the note earlier in the day.
Something wasn’t adding up, and Griffin knew he needed to get back to the castle to get a proper washing, some rest, a hot meal, and to converse with Sir Francis and the rest of the guards as to their next course of action.
They had been gone almost two days, and it would take several hours to reach the castle, so it gave him the rest of the day to think about the situation. After reaching forward and giving his horse an apple, he pulled a second from his satchel and munched on it as they continued to trek through the dense forest. The sun was high in the sky, and light began to break through the treetops.
After about two hours of riding, the group halted their trots when a royal guard on horseback came charging toward them. He pulled the reins on his steed and stopped short.
“Elio, what are you doing here?” Barclay asked.
“Sir, I have a message for the kings.” He hopped off his horse, approached the two royals, and bowed low. He handed Griffin a piece of paper. “Your Majesties. From Sir Francis.”
Griffin took the paper and opened it so he and Alexander could read it together. After scanning the page, he looked up at Barclay and his men. His face paled. He swallowed hard, glanced at the remaining bandit, who now wore a smug smile behind his gag, and announced, “A ransom note has been delivered to the castle earlier today. One thousand shillings for the safe return of King Zackary Rothhaven of Syracuse.”
The bandit started laughing and the guard he rode with slapped him on the side of his head. “Shut your bloody pie hole!”
Griffin handed the note back to Elio, threw his apple core to the ground, and dismounted his horse. He stalked to the bandit and yanked him off the horse, throwing him to the ground. He crouched down and pulled the gag off his mouth. “Why would you send a ransom note demanding money, when you’d already killed him? Is this some kind of trickery, planning to take the money and not give us our brother?”
The man’s smile fell. “No, you arsehole. Your brother is in that house, I don’t know why you won’t believe me. We weren’t gone long enough for Seamus to have moved him and the other prisoner anywhere. Your brother is injured, and—”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Alexander said, jumping from his horse and approaching the man. “First of all, what other prisoner?”
“A man we captured on horseback a few days ago. His garments suggested he had some kind of nobility or clout, so we threw him down there, too.” He sniggered.
The kings looked at each other.
“And how is my brother injured?” Griffin asked.
“Seamus sliced up his ankle good, so he wouldn’t try to run.”
“That explains the blood I saw in the cell,” Griffin gritted out. “And the other prisoner, he cut his ankle, too?”
The bandit shook his head and grinned. “No. He’s an older bloke. Already walked with a limp, and had a cane, so we figured he wouldn’t get very far if he tried to escape. Dumb imbecile, traveling alone.”
“But the cells were empty. Two had doors closed, while the rest had doors open,” Griffin replied, frustrated.
“Aye. We put them in the last two on the left.”
Griffin stood, kicked the man in the ribs, and walked away, running his hand over his beard. He had a hard decision to make. Go back and check the house again, going solely on the word of this bandit, or keep forging back toward Zackary’s castle to devise another plan of attack, or maybe torture the truth from the bandit? If they went back, they’d definitely be losing daylight by the time they turned around the started the journey all over again.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Alexander said to his brother quietly, pulling him off the side. “Why don’t we send Elio or one of the other guards to go check, and we’ll keep heading back?”
Griffin shook his head. “I thought of that, but what if they really are there? He can’t bring two injured men back by himself with one horse. Besides, if he is there, I want us there to greet him. He’s going to need us.”
Alexander nodded slightly and replied, “You’re right. And I won’t sleep tonight if we don’t at least go back and check one more time. We scoured the house and property, but perhaps there is magic afoot there. The whole house was not visible to us when we first arrived.”
Griffin nodded. He went back to the bandit, who still lay on the forest floor. “Do you have a witch or warlock working for you?”
His eyes widened and he shook his head. “No. I don’t fool about with the dark arts.”
“Then how did your home suddenly appear as we were riding away from it, when seconds before it had not been there?” Alexander asked, folding his arms over his chest.
The bandit shook his head. “For that, I have no answer. Perhaps you are going mad?”
“Bloody useless,” Griffin murmured. Then, a thought hit him. Knowing he would, indeed, look mad, but not caring, he lifted his face toward the sky and said, “Witch! Hecate witch! Where are you? We need your help!”
The guards all looked at each other. The bandit’s eyes went wide and he screamed, “No sorcery. No! Do not summon a witch!”
Grinning because he’d finally found something the bandit feared, he called for Hecate again. But she never showed.
There was a faint voice calling her, niggling at the back of her brain, but she paid it no mind. Hecate was on a mission, and nothing was going to stop her. Furious at what she’d seen Gaylen do, and feeling helpless to stop it, she floated on a breeze toward his cottage in the woods outside King Alexander’s North Haven castle. She knew the old wizard would be drained and off his guard after performing such powerful cloaking and silencing spells. When the spell wore off after the kings and the guards rode off, she knew Gaylen had to be weak. Even a two- to three-minute cloaking spell could be draining, but he’d held it in place for almost an hour as the royals had searched the premises. She wouldn’t be surprised to find the old wizard sleeping it off.
With a grin, she flew at speed through a the walls of his stone cottage and made herself whole as she set her feet on the floor of his tiny sitting area. She wandered quietly, the charmed knife in her hand, and crept around the corner to where his bed was.
But the bed was empty. Hecate screamed in rage. Taking on her ethereal form once more, she flew out of the house and toward Zackary’s castle.
Nighttime had fallen, and Mariselle once again found herself in the courtyard, sitting on the bench and pulling petals off the rose she’d plucked two days prior from the garden. The flower had started to die, the rose matching her mood. The only thing she had to be happy about was that her monthly was pretty much gone.
“Thinking deep thoughts?” Mathias asked, walking toward her with a soft smile on his face.
She looked up at him and grinned weakly. “Something along those lines.”
He handed her a cluster of grapes. “I noticed you weren’t at dinner. Not hungry?”
She took the grapes, and shook her head. “No, not really. Thank you, though.”
Mathias sat down next to her and plucked one grape from its vine, and said, “Well, you need to eat something. You missed supper, too.”
She opened her mouth and let him pop the grape in. She smiled at the sweetness, chewed, and swallowed it. “Those are very juicy.”
He yanked another one off and pushed it against her l
ips. She opened up and took that one, too. “Are we going to talk about what happened out here the other night?”
Mariselle shrugged. “What’s there to discuss? Did you not enjoy yourself?”
He chuckled. “That would be a gross misunderstanding. I have never had that much fun with a woman—ever. I cannot stop thinking about it.”
“Is that so? No woman has ever done that for you? Aren’t you the king, after all?”
“Yes, they have, but not like that. There was something about your lips, your eyes… the way you seemed to actually enjoy the act. It makes a difference, you know.”
Her eyes went wide. “Does not every woman enjoy that? It’s quite delightful.”
He laughed again. “Oh, no. I’ve heard the castle maidens talking when they think nobody is around. Some describe it as some kind of chore. Or ‘filthy’ or ‘disgusting’. It’s quite confusing, I must say.”
Mariselle was now feeding herself the grapes, and she swallowed. “That is interesting, for sure.”
He stood and reached for her hand. “Come on, let’s go to the garden house. I would love to see that look on your face again.”
“What look?” she asked as they exited the courtyard and rounded the back of the castle toward the dilapidated-looking greenhouse.
“The awe and wonder. It was so adorable on your beautiful face.”
She laughed. “You flatter me.”
Mathias pushed on the door and it squealed open. He quickly closed it behind him and Mariselle wasted no time making her way to the rose bush to treat herself to another flower. As she painstakingly looked over each one, choosing the prettiest, she said, “Do you think it would be okay if I chose a variety of flowers and had one of the kitchen staff arrange it on the dining table for us to enjoy while we dine?”
“I do not think that would be a problem,” came Mathias’s voice and hot breath right in her ear.
She started, and then laughed. “You frightened me.”
