Only the Valiant

by Morgan Rice

  Genevieve considered her options as quickly as she could. Again, she felt caught between her husband, his uncle, and the man she actually loved.

  “I think that we need to learn more about it,” Genevieve said. “I doubt the magic would have come from Royce, so we need to understand who is performing it, and to what end. Only then can we be safe from it.”

  “Perhaps,” Lord Alistair said. “Or perhaps we will strike at their heart. If it is not them producing this chaos, then we have nothing to fear from attacking them. We will seek them out, and we will slaughter them.”

  “You know where they are?” Genevieve said, trying not to show how frightened she was by that prospect.

  “When we burned the villages, they ran. There are only so many places they can run to,” Lord Alistair said. “They have gathered together somewhere, a boil ready to lance. I have already started to summon men back together. We will find them, and then we will destroy them.”

  “We will,” Altfor agreed. “Together.”

  “Yes,” Lord Alistair said, seeming slightly caught off guard by that. “Together. Come on, all of you.”

  He led the way from the room, and the courtiers followed him.

  Genevieve froze as they did so, not sure if the moment they were gone she would find herself facing Altfor’s violence again. A part of her considered trying to tag along with the courtiers, but that would only be putting this off.

  As the door closed behind them though, Altfor seemed curiously pleased.

  “My uncle thinks that he has control of this,” he said. “He thinks that everyone is loyal to him, but did you see the courtiers there? They’re seeing the fact that I took control of the battle as proof of my leadership.”

  “And when you’ve run away enough, do you think that they’ll help you overthrow him?” Genevieve asked.

  A flash of the anger was there again.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” Altfor said. “Do you think that you get to talk to me like that?”

  “I think that I’m tied to you for better or worse,” Genevieve said. “If you overstep, you get both of us killed. I have to help you succeed.”

  “Ah, so I’m supposed to believe that we’re one partnership now?” Altfor asked.

  “You can believe that I don’t have another choice,” Genevieve said. “What’s good for you is good for me.”

  It sounded so cold when she put it like that. The worst part was that it was even kind of the truth. She needed Altfor, even as she hated him.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Altfor said. “Which means that you will be only too happy to watch me succeed in the battle to come.”

  “You’re going to make me come with you?” Genevieve guessed. “Like to the pit? Because that ended so well?”

  Altfor rounded on her again. “You need me, and perhaps you can be of help to me, but do not pretend that you are in control in this marriage. I say that you will come to the battle. You will see your precious Royce fall. You will kneel before me in the aftermath and proclaim your love.”

  “You can make me do a lot of things,” Genevieve said. “You can even make me go to the battle, but you can’t make me love you.”

  Altfor turned away from her. “And that is why I hurt those you care about. Why should they be alive to receive your love, when you will not do as I command?”

  “That’s not love,” Genevieve said.

  Altfor shrugged, turning back before Genevieve could think to grab an object and strike him.

  “I don’t care. I tried to persuade you to truly be mine, and you thought of Royce. Now, you will be what I require, and I will leave you with nothing to distract you from that.”

  In that moment, Genevieve knew that as desperate as her plan was, it was the right one. Altfor was a monster who could never be allowed to rule. She would do whatever she had to for the time until her child was born, and she would keep that birth as secret as she could, so that Altfor couldn’t whisk the baby away from her.

  Then Altfor would die, because there was no other way that the people she loved would be safe.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Royce led the way as he and a clutch of the others rode south, heading for Earl Undine’s lands. He tried not to show any of the worry he felt as they rode through the night, using the stars for guidance, taking any road they could find so long as it was heading in the right general direction.

  Was he doing the right thing by taking them this way? Every stride of his horse brought fresh worries for Royce, whether those were about the people they’d left behind to wait for them, the scale of the danger that they were facing, or simply the fact that they were about to walk into the home of a noble who had no more reason to love peasants than any other.

  “What if they decide that we’re traitors?” Lofen asked him. He’d obviously been thinking the same thing.

  “They won’t,” Royce said, hoping that he could sound confident enough to convince his brother and the others around him.

  “But what if they do?” Lofen said.

  “Then we find a way out, and we work out what to do next,” Royce said. What did his brother want him to say? That there were only about thirty of them, and that they couldn’t hope to fight Earl Undine’s forces if it came to a fight between them? That they probably wouldn’t even have a chance to run, and that this noble had every reason to see them as a threat to his power, as much as anyone else’s?

  “You’ll find a way to make it work,” Garet said.

  Royce smiled at the trust in his brother’s words, and he hoped that trust didn’t prove to be misplaced. He was sure that this was what they needed to do, but he could still see all of the ways that it could go wrong. He could try to plan for all of the things that might go wrong, but some things just couldn’t be prepared for.

  Daylight started to break as they continued their journey, slowly turning the landscape into something that stretched out before them, shrouded in morning mist. Royce kept on his path, using Ember’s eyes to guide him, and he could see the speck of their destination in the distance.

  They drew closer, and now the mist started to burn away, revealing the land as if a cloth were being pulled aside. They were crossing a space of heathland, cut through by a road that looked so ancient Royce could barely begin to imagine the days when it had been built. Perhaps it had been before even the Picti. That road stretched out like a gray ribbon into the distance, through the space where the land gave way to field after field, their ridges and furrows forming a patchwork around the villages there.

  At its end lay Earl Undine’s castle home. It was a square, stone-built keep that stood blocky and huge atop a hill with a small settlement at its base. A tower stood near it on an outcrop, jabbing up toward the sky like a pointing finger, with a slender bridge connecting the two. It seemed stern and imposing, but bright blue and green banners and pennants turned it into something more colorful than the gray stone might have made it.

  “That’s where we’re going?” Matilde asked.

  Beside her, Neave snorted. “What’s wrong, scared?”

  “I’d have thought you would be scared,” she snapped back. “After all, don’t the nobles kill Picti?”

  She was obviously doing it to get under the other girl’s skin, but even so, Royce wondered if she had a point. It was another thing to worry about as they continued to make their way toward that great block of a place.

  It didn’t look far away, but as they traveled on, Royce realized that was a trick of its size. The keep was big enough that it could have swallowed a settlement, big enough that an army could have stood safe within it. They kept marching toward it, continuing as the heather gave way to fields, and ignoring the way some of the people there looked at them: as if worried that they might be invaders or worse. People stood there leaning on their tools until Royce and the others were out of sight, or hurried back into their homes as if to hide.

  The sun was high in the sky before they reached the settlement benea
th the castle. It seemed quieter and sleepier than the one around Altfor’s home, and although the people there gave them the same wary looks that the ones in the rest of the countryside had, most of them seemed more content too. There were certainly fewer guards about.

  There was a group of guards up near the keep, standing by the spot where a staircase led up to an entryway on the second floor. They stood around with horses nearby, and some of them were richly dressed, the house signs of knights upon their shields. As Royce and the others approached, they formed up in a line, their hands on their weapons even if those weapons weren’t drawn.

  “Hold there, strangers!” one of the men called out. He was a little older than Royce, but not much, with brightly shining armor edged in cobalt. “Come no closer! I am Sir Bolis, and you are trespassing on Earl Undine’s lands. We will not suffer raiders or invaders!”

  “We are neither,” Royce said. “We’re here to see Earl Undine.”

  “And we’re supposed to believe that?” Sir Bolis demanded. “You walk with Picti! They slaughter our people when they see them. You’re lucky we don’t slaughter you where you stand.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Lofen said beside Royce, and perhaps his hand strayed to his sword or perhaps it was one of the guards there who drew their weapon first. Either way, Royce quickly found himself in the midst of a sea of steel, swords, and spears all around.

  He could have drawn his own, could have cut his way past those swords, but what would that have done? Earl Undine would never offer his help if Royce fought with his soldiers, and even trying might endanger his friends. Instead, he stepped down from his horse, keeping his hands open as he walked forward, so that the men there would see that he had drawn no weapon.

  “Wait!” he called out. “Wait, we are just here to talk with you.”

  “There will be no talk!” Sir Bolis said. “You will step back, and you will leave now, or—”

  “Wait, Bolis,” another armored man said. He was older, with flecks of gray in his hair. The sign on his shield was of two snakes fighting, tangled so completely that it seemed that each was attacking itself.

  “Sir Simeon, this is not the moment!” Sir Bolis said.

  “Look at his palm, you young fool,” Sir Simeon snapped, and something about the tone of it was sharp enough to compel the younger knight to stop and look, staring at Royce’s hands where he held them up.

  “So he has a burn,” Sir Bolis said. “A raider like him probably got it burning some dead peasant’s home.”

  “I’m not a raider,” Royce insisted.

  “And he couldn’t have gotten that mark like that,” Sir Simeon insisted. “Two snakes, wrapped around a moon, with a dagger between them?”

  “Your mark, Simeon?” Sir Bolis said.

  Sir Simeon shook his head. “Mine is a parody of it. He gave me mine, and you know whose mark that is. Think, or did none of your heraldry lessons sink in?”

  Sir Bolis seemed to think for a moment, and then Royce saw his eyes widen in shock.

  “King Philip. That is King Philip’s mark, but he’s—”

  “That’s the mark of my father,” Royce said, thinking of the man in white armor he’d seen in his dreams before. Shock hit him in that moment, so deep and sudden that for several seconds, all he could do was stand there and stare. He knew he should say something else, but he just couldn’t think.

  “The man who taught me on the Red Isle told me… he recognized it,” Royce said, and he was talking to himself as much as to anyone else. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He’d known that his father was someone special, and the things that had started to happen to him had shown that he was special in some way too. “This was his sword…”

  He drew the crystal sword, and he saw the guards around him turn their attentions his way, their blades at the ready. The older man pushed past them.

  “Stop, all of you!” he demanded. “You can see that the boy’s almost as shocked by this as we are. And yes, that’s the old king’s sword. I saw him fight with that, and they said that his reign was done when he lost it. The master of the Red Isle had it?”

  Royce knew that the other man was looking for answers, but he didn’t have any to offer. All of this… he hadn’t expected to find this here. He hadn’t expected to learn any of it.

  “Earl Undine will want to know about this,” Sir Simeon said. “I need to go to him. Bolis, if I leave you here with him, you won’t do anything stupid like pick a fight?”

  Sir Bolis’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. The older man turned and ran up the stairs into the keep, quickly disappearing from sight.

  “Sir Simeon might see the old king in you,” Sir Bolis said, “but I just see an old man who wants the past to come back. Just because you have a mark on your hand, and a sword, doesn’t mean that you’re who you say.”

  “I didn’t claim to be anyone,” Royce pointed out. He turned to his brothers, ignoring the knight. “They know who my father is. They know.”

  It felt so strange, knowing that one small piece of information. It was no more than a name, but it seemed like the key that clicked everything else into place.

  “I can see some of the old king in him from this angle,” one of the guards said. He was another older man. He looked at Royce as if seeing something there that filled him with awe.

  It felt so strange, standing there with the soldiers looking him over like that. The older ones there seemed to be looking at Royce as if seeing him for the first time, while the younger ones didn’t seem to get it, or looked at him with suspicion, the way Sir Bolis did.

  Then another man came down from the keep, and instantly, Royce knew that he had to be Earl Undine. He was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties, who must once have been massively strong but was now running to fat. He was clean shaven, but something about him suggested that he would have been more at home with a luxurious beard, as if someone else had told him that he looked better without it. The overall effect was of some great bear who had been tamed and who now chafed at being civilized.

  “What is all this?” he said, and even then, it felt as though it was a voice better suited to shouting orders.

  “Earl Undine,” Royce said, struggling to remember that he had a reason for being there, and that it didn’t matter who he was if he couldn’t get help for the people around him. “My name is Royce, and I have come to beg for your help.”

  “Sir Simeon said that you had a mark in the shape of Philip’s old sigil,” Earl Undine said, cutting past any chance Royce had of keeping things on track. “Is it true?”

  Royce held up his burned hand for Earl Undine to see. Even so, he kept talking. Partly, it was because he knew how desperately he and the others needed help in their battle against Altfor and his uncle. Partly, it was because he still didn’t know what to say, or think, about everything he had just found out.

  “My lord, we are here to ask for your help,” he said. “We are in conflict with Lord Alistair and his nephew, Altfor. They are burning our villages and killing our people. We are trying to stand against them, but we need your help.”

  “You want me to help peasants stand up and fight against their sworn lord?” Earl Undine said.

  “It is said that you are a fair lord,” Royce said. “Surely you can see that what Altfor is doing is evil?”

  “Are you the boy who killed the old duke?” Earl Undine asked, out of nowhere.

  Royce thought about trying to find a way around the question, but one look at this man said that he was no courtier to be flattered.

  “Yes,” he said. “He’d thrown me into a pit to die after I tried to stop him from taking the girl I loved.”

  “Then you have my sympathies,” Earl Undine said. “Even so, the current king has commanded that his nobles shall not go to war, and you are traveling with Picti. To help you would be… it’s not something I should do. I should send you away, at least, or better yet, hold you in a dungeon until I can hand you back.”

  Out
of the corner of his eye, Royce saw his brothers start to edge forward. He raised a hand to stop them. It wasn’t a coincidence that it was the one with the mark on it. Royce might only have learned about the implications of it a few minutes ago, but if it would keep the others safe, he would use it for all it was worth.

  “You say it’s what you should do, my lord,” he said. “But what will you do? Please, we want your help, and I… if you know more about my father and who I am, then I need to know.”

  Royce stood there, not daring to say more than that, and certainly not daring to move. He could see Sir Bolis there, still looking as though he didn’t trust Royce even a little. Royce wasn’t sure whether to treat him as an enemy or be impressed that he was so determined to drive away what he saw as a group of raiders.

  Finally, Earl Undine nodded to himself, then set off back toward the keep. He was almost at the top of the steps when he turned back, waving an arm in Royce’s direction.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? Come up, boy, and join me to eat. Your people can camp down here if they promise to do no harm.”

  “They won’t hurt anyone,” Royce said. “Not unless they’re attacked first.”

  “Good enough,” Earl Undine said. “Now come with me, and you can tell me all about how you came to be at my door. Maybe in return, I’ll tell you the stories I remember about your father.”

  Royce looked around at his brothers, who nodded. He set off in the direction of Earl Undine. The prospect of hearing more about his father was too good an opportunity to pass up, and maybe once he was actually in the room there, he would be able to find a way to persuade Earl Undine to help.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dust staggered through a writhing mass of vision things, barely able to tell what was real from what would be, or might be, or had never been by now. He concentrated on the feel of the ground under his feet, and staggered onward.