Paladin's Prize

by Gaelen Foley

  But when she reached to cure the worst of the scrapes and bruises, he brushed her off with a defensive air and sat up swiftly. “That’s enough.”

  “Hooray, he can talk,” Wrynne said, stung by the way he held up a bloodied hand to ward her off.

  Reynulf probed his side, found it fixed, and then eyed her in wary astonishment. “Thank you,” he said gingerly, even as he edged back from her a bit, as though he half expected her to add a curse to the healing just for fun.

  She might have, if she’d known any curses.

  She scoffed at him. “I’m not a witch.”

  He grunted skeptically, watching her.

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “Feeling better?” Thaydor offered him a hand up with his usual princely magnanimity.

  Wrynne found it rather vexing at the moment.

  Reynulf looked at him and seemed to decide on the spot to give up their rivalry, clasping the paladin’s hand.

  Wrynne eyed the sword at the Bloodletter’s waist. “Maybe you should take away his weapons before you get too close to him.”

  “Never mind that. What news?”

  At her husband’s dismissive answer, Wrynne spun on her heel and headed back to her horse.

  “My lady!” Reynulf called after her.

  She paused, fought with herself again, and then begrudgingly turned around.

  He lifted his hands slightly. “I am sorry about the babe.”

  “That’s all you’re sorry for?” she cried.

  “Wrynne, don’t start,” Thaydor warned. “I need to talk to him. Details?”

  “Eudo’s gone mad,” Reynulf said. “He’s got a company of Urm mercenaries marching into Pleiburg tomorrow morning, about a hundred strong. Some are already there.”

  “What?” Thaydor breathed.

  “They’re meant to replace the knights who’ve sided with you, to put down what he calls your rebellion. There’s a gathering in Concourse Square tomorrow morning to let the people know the Urms are here with the king’s permission and not to be afraid.”

  “Baynard actually went along with this?”

  “The man’s a jellyfish, Thaydor! He has no idea what’s really going on, that Eudo’s just imported his own praetorian guard. A few Urms are already lurking in the palace, under Eudo’s command. I know because they paid me a little visit.”

  “You weren’t aware—”

  “No! If I had known this, I wouldn’t have opposed you. Eudo wanted me to stand up as leader of his Urms so the people wouldn’t panic. They tried to pour some witch’s brew down my throat to make me obey. Sana’s part of his conspiracy. I fear the king’s a walking dead man. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “You did the right thing coming here.”

  “First time for everything,” Wrynne drawled, keeping her distance.

  Reynulf looked regretfully from her to Thaydor. “All your lady said of me is true.” He glanced around. “I had my orders. They wanted Thaydor out of the way. Kill me if you think I deserve it, but I’m here to help now however I can.”

  Thaydor gave him a searching look, needing no words to communicate what would happen to Reynulf if he betrayed them again.

  Reynulf’s face was still defiant, but he dropped his gaze, silently acknowledging that Thaydor was in charge.

  Thaydor clapped him on the shoulder with a guarded nod. “Best go get your horse.” Then he beckoned to his men. “Come on, open the gates! Let’s go inside and get everybody settled. We’ve got work to do!”

  As he turned, waving them toward the cave mouth, his gaze met Wrynne’s. He gave her a hard look that warned her she was in more trouble than Reynulf had been.

  But of course. For her, the paladin had higher expectations. A knot promptly formed in her stomach as she wondered what her warlord would say to her in private.

  Chapter 15

  Uncloak

  The next morning, the gates of Pleiburg had been reopened but were heavily guarded. That hadn’t stopped Thaydor from getting into the city, of course.

  He moved through the crowd gathering in Concourse Square to hear the king’s proclamation, planning his next move. He couldn’t stop thinking about Wrynne, though, and hoping he hadn’t been too hard on her last night.

  She had sat through his lecture in stiff, wifely obedience, but he had seen the mutiny in those pretty gray eyes, tracking him as he paced back and forth, commander-like, outlining his expectations. She hadn’t argued, which worried him a little, in hindsight. Instead, she had expressed her opinion of his rules by denying him her body for the first time in their marriage.

  He hadn’t liked that. It had quite startled him, in fact, but he was not fool enough to insist. As if she doesn’t enjoy it, too, he grumbled mentally. But so be it. Let her have her sulk. Hopefully by tonight when he returned to the Eldenhold, she’d be over it and things between them could return to blissful normal.

  He pressed on through the throng, his face hidden by the draped hood of his pilgrimage cloak. He kept his head ducked a bit, trying not to draw attention to his height.

  Once again, he wore chain mail under his civilian clothes. Likewise, he was sensibly armed in case of trouble, but took care to keep the jeweled hilt of Hallowsmite from sight. He had also brought five of his most trusted knights with him from the Eldenhold, similarly garbed, and the Runescar Trumpet.

  The bard had insisted on coming along. “I canna miss this! I’ve got to be there to document whatever stunt these sneaky bastards try to pull off next.”

  Reynulf had offered to come, as well, but Thaydor had ordered him to remain at the citadel. The Bloodletter was too recognizable—and too valuable, given the eyewitness testimony he could bring to bear against the Silver Sage. In their discussion of the situation, Reynulf had revealed that it was Lord Eudo, in the presence of King Baynard, who had given him the order to let the Urms in the gate.

  Thaydor only hoped he had not made a mistake, leaving Wrynne and Reynulf alone in the same building. He did not want any fighting when he was gone, and his dainty little wife bore the Bloodletter a hatred of dragon-sized proportions.

  He could understand why, but in such times, they did not have the luxury of indulging their personal feelings about someone offering crucial help. Besides, as he had told her in his gentle scolding last night, it was a tenet of their faith to forgive those who were genuinely sorry for whatever they had done, no matter how distasteful. All were to be given another chance if they were sincere, and Reynulf seemed so.

  In any case, there were more than forty knights left back at the Eldenhold to break up any feuds his bride might start with the deadly warrior. They’d all be busy enough as it was. Thaydor had ordered the men to spend the day in spiritual purification to prepare their souls for battle. As a Daughter of the Rose in good standing, Wrynne would have a role in that, leading all knights willing to participate in the prayers and oblations of atonement in the rock-hewn chapel deep inside the Eldenhold.

  Attendance in the ritual was not required, but for the truly penitent, Thaydor had also suggested they fast. Frankly, they would never defeat the foes arrayed against them in the degraded state in which he had found them. Ilios, as far as he knew, was under no obligation to help those who chose to live like pigs.

  Thaydor still could only shake his head at how he had found them debauching those women—willing or not. Chivalrous knights should know better. The girls of Fonja were sadly misguided. For all their flaunting of pleasures, he had never met one who seemed happy—and now the king himself had taken up with one of their kind. Sana was the worst of them all, plotting with Lord Eudo, as Reynulf had reported.

  Thaydor took up a position at the west corner of the square, where he had a good view of the royal balcony and the crowd. He leaned against the wall of a house there, eyes and ears alert.

  His men were arrayed around the square in other advantageous spots, and he exchanged nods with them across the wide space. Sirs Ivan and Gervais had fanned out
on his left, Richeut and Godefroy to his right, while Hugh had wandered up the middle, getting as close to the front as he could.

  Marking their positions, Thaydor wasn’t sure where Jonty had disappeared to, but he returned his attention to surveying the crowd, calculating the various exits from the square if violence broke out.

  He was one of the few, after all, who already had a fair idea of what the king was going to say when he came out onto the balcony any minute now.

  How the people would react to the introduction of the Urms as the new palace guards was hard to predict. Most citizens had never actually seen one of the creatures before, and most people’s first impression of the ogre-born race was flat-out terror.

  There could well be a panic, which could turn into a stampede. People could be hurt, even killed, if all this went badly. Scanning, Thaydor noted countless children in the crowd and many old people, too.

  He was worried. He had told his knights to be ready to speak up and try to keep order if the crowd ran. But he suspected that the silver-tongued bard would have even more of an impact on panicking people than his knights would.

  Warrior though he was, Thaydor knew full well that the right words at the right time were far more powerful than any sword. He just hoped this didn’t turn ugly. The square was packed with two, maybe even three thousands souls by his estimate. People overflowed into the surrounding streets, peered out the windows, sat on the roofs, and crowded onto the balconies of the houses that had views of the square.

  Despite the occasional undercurrents of uncertainty over what all this was about, a festival atmosphere presided. As it happened, he overheard several conversations around himself as the citizens of Veraidel speculated on what the king had to say.

  “Maybe the queen’s finally pregnant.”

  “Pah! She’s barren. More likely they’ll announce another war.”

  “I hope not! We can’t win without Thaydor!”

  “Well, he’s abandoned us and turned outlaw,” somebody muttered.

  Thaydor frowned.

  “Maybe Their Majesties are getting a divorce,” some matron suggested to her neighbors. “She left him, after all. Serves ’im right!”

  “Nay, I’ll bet she’s back from her parents, and they’ve thrown that tramp of his out of the palace,” an optimistic female assured those listening.

  She was laughed at.

  “Maybe they’ve finally decided who’ll be successor to the throne, since they got no children. That’s it! I’ll bet they’ll tell us who the next king will be.”

  “Care to make a wager on that?” a grinning man tossed back to the aproned shopkeeper who had spoken.

  The latter waved him off with an easy laugh. “Not a gamblin’ man, sir.”

  “Oh, I know!” someone else piped up. “I’ll bet they’re going to announce that they finally took Sir Thaydor into custody!”

  The grinning man scoffed. “Ach, they’ll never catch him unless he wants to be caught. He’s too clever.”

  “Why would he want to be caught?” someone asked.

  “Because Sir Thaydor always does what’s right,” a young girl piped up earnestly.

  “Daft chit,” some robed scholar sniffed, looking uncomfortable amid the press of so much humanity. “What, just because he’s got a handsome face?”

  “You ask me, he couldn’t’ve done what they said. Not ’im,” the shopkeeper declared.

  Thaydor kept his head down but was gratified to hear many people agree with the man.

  An old woman sighed. “All I know is things used to make a lot more sense around here back when he was royal champion.”

  No one disagreed.

  Then a sudden blast of trumpets proclaimed the arrival of the king on the royal balcony.

  “What lies have you got for us today, Your Majesty?” Jonty murmured, appearing out of the crowd to lean against the wall beside him.

  Thaydor looked askance at him. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh, here and there. Why? Did you miss me?” He flashed a grin.

  Thaydor’s lips twisted as they both joined in the clapping for the sake of blending in. He returned his attention to the royal balcony, where various attendants of the king were stepping out. But he had to admit the bard had grown on him, especially since Jonty had left off making fun of him.

  For the most part.

  Then the proceedings began as King Baynard held up his jeweled, pudgy hand to quell the obligatory applause. “My dear subjects, I am so grateful for your loyalty in these trying times. You may be wondering why I called you here today. Well, I regret to say some very disturbing news reached the palace yesterday afternoon. As many of you know, our former champion, Sir Thaydor Clarenbeld, has sadly turned traitor to the kingdom.”

  He clenched his jaw, hard-pressed to maintain his implacable outward calm.

  “What a load of shite,” Jonty muttered loudly enough to be heard by several surrounding townsfolk.

  “Yesterday,” His Majesty continued, “we found out that matters have just got a good deal worse.”

  The crowd went very quiet, worry suddenly palpable in the air.

  “Through some misguided sense of loyalty to Thaydor, nearly all my knights and military officers have defected to side with this outlaw against the Crown. Now, do not fear,” he hastened to assure them. “We do not feel you are in any immediate danger. However, we believe the knights are planning some sort of violent rebellion. War may come to the very streets of Pleiburg.”

  Murmurs of alarm ran through the square.

  “You have our word that these traitors will be found and brought to justice. But in the meanwhile, until the rebel knights can be replaced, their defection has left the palace and, indeed, our city undefended.

  “So, on the wisdom of my top advisor, Lord Eudo, I have made arrangements to install new defenders who can easily repel any attack Thaydor and the knights might try to mount against our city.”

  “Repel being the key word,” Jonty muttered.

  “Now, I don’t want any of you to be alarmed when you see the fierce countenances of our new soldiery. They are not going to hurt you,” the king said slowly, emphatically. “Some of you may doubt this, since the Urmugoth tribes were once the enemies of our kingdom. But that was centuries ago.”

  The reaction of the crowd was instantaneous.

  “Wait, what?”

  “Did he say Urmugoths?” the people said to one other.

  “A new age has dawned,” His Majesty continued. “An age of peace and hope, trust and mutual understanding, as the Silver Sage, in his wisdom, has long taught us to expect. Well, my dear people, the age of peace starts with each and every one of us.”

  Jonty made a gagging sound.

  “Therefore, until other arrangements can be made, these fine Urmugoth warriors are here to help with the defense of our palace.”

  “Urmugoths? In the city?” a nearby woman asked in alarm.

  “And we should all be grateful,” the king added. He turned to the doorway behind him. “Gentlemen? Will you please come out and let the people see you?”

  A collective gasp of horror rose from the crowd as six huge Urms—probably including the ones who had beaten up Reynulf—trudged out onto the royal balcony to show themselves to the citizenry in all their gray-skinned, yellow-eyed, tusk-jawed glory.

  The crowd recoiled at the sight. A few people screamed, and several children burst out crying. The expletive Jonty uttered was particularly blue, even for his foul mouth.

  “Now, I charge you, citizens of Veraidel, do not be alarmed by the appearance of our new friends!” the king shouted, holding up his hands to try to calm the frightened crowd.

  His voice was nearly drowned out by the exclamations of dread.

  “What you do not know is that we have quietly been conducting trade negotiations with our northern neighbors for some time now! The Urmugoths have become our allies. You have my word as your king. They are only here to keep everybody safe!”
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br />   None of the courtiers on the balcony seemed bothered by the fact that the Urms towered over the king, made old Eudo look extremely frail, and caused the two human palace guards flanking the doorway to cower a bit. But much worse than the ones on the balcony with the king were the line of them marching out into the square to stand guard along the exterior wall of Lionsclaw Keep. About thirty Urms lined up on either side of the palace gates.

  The beasts’ nearness to the crowd after what he had seen them do to the peasants of Mistwood tangled Thaydor’s stomach into knots.

  His knights looked over at him from their posts in various degrees of shock and disgust.

  Hearing from Reynulf that the king was going to allow this was one thing; seeing it firsthand was quite another.

  Thaydor’s heart pounded. He’s lost his bloody mind.

  “Excellent!” Baynard congratulated his subjects from his perch on high. “Very good. You show great courage, my people. Ah, now, no tears,” he fondly scolded the few screaming tots with an oily smile from above. “At this time, Lord Eudo would like to say a few words. I want you to know that you can and should trust him just as much as I do. Heed him well.”

  While the king stepped back and beckoned the old man in silver robes to the fore, Jonty shook his head at the Urms. “You killed how many of those things?”

  “Twenty,” Thaydor said, his stern stare fixed forward.

  “Yourself?”

  “Through the might and mercy of Ilios, Jonty.” He did not take his eyes off the creatures.

  “Well, hang me,” the bard said wryly. “Paladin of Ilios… You’re the real deal, mate. Imagine my surprise.”

  “Shh! I want to hear this.”

  Jonty leaned against the wall again, drumming his fingers idly, as he was wont to do.

  The whole crowd was full of whispers while the Silver Sage looked around at everyone with a lizard-like smile.

  “Your Majesty. My fellow citizens of Veraidel, Urmugoth friends,” he began. “I feel very sure that all the gods are smiling this day to see our peoples united, and I am ever mindful of the trust that has been placed in me.” His smooth tone seemed to soothe the people. “But as His Majesty has said, these are serious times,” he continued in a lulling voice. “We know you find these developments as disturbing as we all do, but we ask humbly for your trust.