Paladin's Prize

by Gaelen Foley

  “You see, it is not always possible for us to tell you what choices we must make on your behalf behind closed doors. Some secrets must be kept for a time. But believe us, everything we do is for your own good, and for the safety and security of you and your families.”

  “Who could ever doubt it?” Jonty drawled.

  “Of course, there are some secrets that not even His Majesty knows,” the Silver Sage quipped, turning to their ruler.

  Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd as some tried to accept what was going on, needing to believe their leaders knew what they were doing.

  But from where he stood, Thaydor saw that something in the Lord Eudo’s brief glance had left even the king looking puzzled.

  As he turned back to the people, Baynard’s bushy eyebrows knitted into a line across his brow. Uneasy. Still, his mouth tried to hold on to a public sort of smile, as though he were half expecting to be given a statue in his honor.

  Nausea turned Thaydor’s stomach. He could smell treachery in the air. Arms folded across his chest, he braced for whatever came next.

  The Silver Sage paused for a moment. “All secrets must be revealed in time, however. And today, it gives me great pain to reveal the one I’ve kept, even from His Majesty.”

  Baynard arched a brow, but Thaydor knew his king well enough to recognize the glint of terror growing behind his thinning smile.

  Lord Eudo gazed out over the crowd, his bony, gnarled, harmless-looking hands resting on the rail. “My dear people…it breaks my heart to share this awful news with you. But I am sorry to inform you that Queen Engelise is dead. Her husband had her murdered on the road to Aisedor,” he boomed, pointing an accusing finger at King Baynard.

  “What?” Jonty cried.

  The thunderous announcement rocked the square down to its very flagstones. The instantaneous reaction from both the king and the crowd was gigantic. Even Thaydor was shaken, standing up, away from the wall at once while a wave of shock and horrified grief surged through the people.

  “Sanctus solis,” he whispered, narrowing his eyes, while screams and cries erupted here and there. Which was strange, since Queen Engelise wasn’t even that well liked. The general view of her was that of a mousy, stiff, unsociable woman.

  Still, a royal death caused enough of a stir when it came by natural causes. Murder in the royal family was all but unthinkable.

  It struck the kingdom like an earthquake.

  And everyone was too shocked to question it.

  The whole kingdom had heard or seen His Majesty, after all, doting on his beautiful, young, mostly naked mistress.

  Baynard’s face was beet red with fury. He still didn’t seem to have quite absorbed that he had walked into a trap. “This is outrageous! I’ll have your head!”

  Lord Eudo ignored him. “King Baynard, by the laws provided under the Right Noble Charter of Veraidel, you are under arrest for the murder of Her Majesty, our rightful queen.”

  “This is absurd! You treacherous— My wife isn’t dead! She went to visit her father!”

  “No, sire. She never made it there, as you know full well.” Lord Eudo shook his head with a look of outrage. “Her Majesty is slain, along with every member of her traveling party, save one. One soldier from her royal escort survived, escaping the onslaught to bring us the terrible news. But he is only one of several witnesses against you, sire.

  “He told us under oath of perjury that the attackers of the traveling party were dressed as brigands, but this was only a disguise. He saw the leader’s face and the tattoos on his arm, marking him none other than Your Majesty’s current champion, the Bloodletter of Xoltheus, Sir Reynulf.”

  “Damn,” Jonty said. “Good thing you left him back at Eldenhold.”

  “Oh, he is not going to be happy about this.” Thaydor shook his head, stunned at the depth of this perfidy.

  The king looked frazzled as he yelled, trying to convince anyone who’d listen. “This is impossible! I would never do such a thing. Reynulf would never do such a thing, and I am sure my wife is alive and well at her father’s castle!”

  “No, Your Majesty,” Lord Eudo said sadly. “She is right here. Look upon your handiwork with your own eyes!”

  Two Urms carried out something that looked like a long, narrow table covered by a tablecloth, but when Lord Eudo yanked the white fabric away, they beheld a glass-topped coffin.

  And there was Queen Engelise, lying preserved under the lid.

  Dead on display.

  The crowd contracted with a unified gasp of horror at the sight of their late queen, and then swayed as a wave of shocked agony moved through them. Only the Urmugoths stood stoic.

  “Engelise!” Baynard fell upon his wife’s coffin with a disbelieving sob. Then he turned viciously to Eudo. “What have you done? I’ll kill you!”

  He lunged at his supposed advisor.

  “Arrest him!” Eudo howled.

  Two of the Urmugoths grabbed the king by the arms.

  Despite the fact that he was too far away to be of help, Thaydor tensed and reached for his weapon, remembering when the monsters had taken hold of his young squire in the same manner.

  But they did not tear Baynard apart. At least not physically. They merely looked to Eudo for their orders.

  “Well, old Eudo’s certainly got a flair for the drama,” Jonty murmured, but Thaydor ignored him, for the panic he had feared would come was slowly taking over the crowd.

  He could feel it building all around him. The people were losing control of their emotions, hysteria prevailing.

  Unfortunately, his former worry about the threat of a stampede was nothing compared to what would happen if the sixty Urmugoths lining the palace wall took it upon themselves to cow the crowd into obedience.

  Then there would truly be bloodshed.

  People around him were crying and shaking and cursing in confusion. “How can this be happening? The queen’s dead, and Urmugoths in Pleiburg? Has the world gone mad?” they asked one another. But nobody had answers. “War with Aisedor? They’re to be our enemies now, and the Urms are our friends?”

  “What will become of us? The king will hang! He’s got no heir!”

  “It’s all right!” Thaydor could not help himself from saying to the wild-eyed people around him. He stepped away from the corner, trying to calm them and stave off the panic, looking around at them. “Take courage! Everything will be well. Trust in Ilios.”

  They weren’t listening.

  “Father Ilios has abandoned Veraidel on account of King Baynard’s idolatry!” the old woman cried, the same one who had defended him before. “The king’s cursed! The paladin tried to warn him! But he wouldn’t listen. And now we’ll all pay the price!”

  “People, be calm! You mustn’t lose hope,” he was saying, when Jonty suddenly grabbed his arm.

  “Would you stop it before someone recognizes you?” he whispered fiercely.

  “We have to keep order!” Thaydor replied. “You’re the bigmouth—talk to them!”

  “You’re my chief concern right now. Your wife made me promise to look after you. Let’s go!”

  “Jonty, you don’t know what these Urms will do to these people if things get out of hand.”

  “I can guess,” he retorted. “You forget what they’ll do to you if you’re captured, Villain of Veraidel.”

  “Wait,” Thaydor said. “Eudo’s not finished.”

  The Silver Sage was holding his arms up, waiting for the crowd to settle down. “Now, I realize how terrible we all feel right now,” he soothed while the two Urms held the dazed, listless king in their grips.

  Baynard was clearly in shock. He just kept staring at the body of his wife, as though he’d lost the will to fight.

  “The public funeral for the queen will be held tomorrow here in Concourse Square. Her Majesty will lie in state for two days, and you all may come back and queue up in an orderly fashion to pay your last respects. In the meanwhile, we shall hold the trial for His Majes
ty tonight. There is no need to drag out this painful process.”

  “You devil!” Baynard suddenly wrenched out, then he broke down, bawling without even trying to hide his unmanly tears. “I loved her!”

  “Be that as it may, we believe that when your wife added leaving you on top of her failure to produce an heir, you took matters into your own hands to be rid of her, sire. Freeing you to marry again—this time to a fertile woman. In fact, we have witnesses to prove as much.”

  “No, you don’t! How can you? It’s a lie!” he wailed, tears streaming down his face.

  No one could blame him, but it was embarrassing to see it all the same.

  “Who bears this false witness against me?” he cried.

  Eudo turned to the doorway and beckoned to someone in the shadows.

  Out stepped Sana, dressed as demurely as Wrynne, all draped in pilgrim’s gray.

  You bitch, thought Thaydor, shaking his head. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was evil masquerading as good. But that seemed to be the theme of the day.

  The former temple prostitute proved quite the actress. She came out with a long white handkerchief trailing from her hand, dabbing away false tears.

  “The king’s own mistress was the one who exposed his treacherous plot,” Eudo said. “Speak, woman.”

  His tears interrupted, Baynard stared at Sana in astonishment.

  She looked around at the people. “The king told me…w-when we were alone…that he would soon be rid of his wife. He offered me the chance to marry him once he was ‘free’ if I bore him a son. He said we could easily lie about the child’s birth date on the court records to make it legal.” She paused for effect. “But I would not hear of any harm coming to Her Majesty!” she insisted with a fetching stare full of sincerity, before lowering her head. “I know what I am, and I’m not worthy to be queen.”

  Her virtuous refusal of a crown seemed to make her instantly credible in the eyes of many in the largely unlettered populace.

  Jonty let out a low whistle of amazement, but Thaydor was seething at this mockery.

  “Go on,” Eudo urged her when Sana paused to dab at her eyes.

  “I feared if I refused to go along with it, the king would have me killed, too. So I pretended to cooperate, but at the first opportunity, I fled to Lord Eudo and exposed the whole plot. Unfortunately, it was too late by then. Sir Reynulf had already been sent out with his men to murder her. He was very well paid for it.”

  “Sana.” Baynard finally found his voice, staring at his mistress. “How could you?”

  She turned her back on him and hurried to Lord Eudo’s side as though frightened.

  At last, the incredulous king seemed to come back to life and started struggling against his captors. “People! Not a word of that is true! You have to believe me!”

  “Judge and jury will determine that, sire, just as they do for any other citizen accused of murder. All are equal under the law,” Lord Eudo countered. “Guards, take the accused inside. He will stand trial at once so the citizens of this good land need not suffer under his misrule any more than they already have.”

  Then he addressed the crowd again. “You see, ladies and gentlemen, as soon as the dreadful news reached me, I used my role as royal advisor to order a full investigation of the matter. I kept it hidden from the king in strictest secrecy. I had no choice. I knew he would only thwart me to hide his guilt, but at the same time, my greatest fear was that his evil deed would bring down the wrath of the kingdom of Aisedor upon us.

  “We cannot risk going to war with the nation that has long been our strongest ally and lose thousands of brave young men, all because of one royal marriage disintegrating.

  “I promised Aisedor that I would get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. My investigation has been ongoing for a fortnight. I assured Queen Engelise’s parents that if our king had indeed done this to their daughter, he would be punished like any other criminal. And so he will.”

  “How could you do this to me, Eudo? I trusted you!” the weeping man shouted, his crown askew. “He’s mad! Do you hear me? Don’t listen to this!” he screamed at his subjects. “I’d never kill my wife!”

  Sana shook her head dramatically and kept her eyes down.

  Thaydor marveled that she could so coolly betray a man she’d lain with for the past year.

  All around him, meanwhile, the people were growing all the more bewildered and devastated as the situation sank in. Their whole world had just gone topsy-turvy.

  Lord Eudo forged on, apparently determined to show he had everything well in hand. “You will be granted lawyers to argue on your behalf, sire, but your trial will take place this very night. The complete findings of our investigation will be revealed, and if you are found guilty, justice will be swift.”

  “Oh, you will hang me? You and what army?” the king roared.

  The Urmugoths growled and pushed back the crowd.

  Answer enough.

  “No, sire, the punishment for murder is beheading, as you well know,” Lord Eudo corrected him.

  “You bastard!” As they started to pull him away, Baynard looked frantically over his shoulder. “Somebody find Thaydor! Tell him what’s happened! He’s no outlaw! It was all lies—”

  His confession of having framed his former champion was silenced as he disappeared, abruptly dragged inside.

  Jonty huffed in disgust while murmurs about this new revelation raced through the crowd. “Can you believe that blackguard just assumes you’ll still rescue him after what he did to you?”

  Thaydor glanced at him in surprise. “Of course I will,” he said. “I took an oath.”

  The bard, for once, was speechless.

  Chapter 16

  Citadel

  Restless tension filled the dramatic limestone caves of the citadel under the mountain as everyone waited into the night for Thaydor to return.

  Only Jonty had stayed with him in the city to await the verdict in the king’s trial. The rest of the knights who had set out with them this morning had come back by late afternoon and recounted all the awful news.

  Wrynne sat in a high rocky nook with a narrow window that overlooked the starlit road below and grieved for her country. She prayed that the Urms did not start butchering people in the city. But one thing was clear. With such troops under his command, who would dare protest Lord Eudo’s rise to power? Most of the simple folk of Veraidel would not even recognize it for a coup until it was too late.

  Thankfully, the knights saw it all quite clearly now that her husband had shaken them out of their torpor. Their collective fury thrummed through the Eldenhold’s labyrinth of tunnels and caves. But they neither shouted nor raged. Not even Reynulf, despite being blamed for murdering the queen.

  Looking at him now, slowly sharpening his sword, Wrynne realized that she had not seen the Bloodletter truly angry until now. When he’d heard the accusations against him, Reynulf had retreated into himself with dark, brooding patience. His icy silence made him ten times more frightening. Thaydor had warned him his masters would betray him, and once again, the paladin was right.

  The whole place was eerily quiet with the warriors’ grim anger.

  Only the three boys vented their outrage, taking up their swords and training hard. Kai, Petra, and Jeremy clashed with surprising ferocity. Wrynne was impressed. The squires were more dangerous than they looked.

  The older and more experienced veterans saved their strength, however, waiting for their captain to return with news and a plan. They merely readied their armor and their horses and rested as best they could ahead of the coming battle.

  Wrynne had done her best, too, earlier today in the chapel to help them prepare their souls for the possibility of death.

  The thought of the looming confrontation made her shudder as she sat peering out the window into the canyon. It was hard not to worry, knowing that when the time came, her husband would be the one in the thick of the fight. It certainly put their tiff i
nto perspective.

  Listening to the wind and the night birds, and ever searching the pale ribbon of the road, she ached for his solid, steadfast presence.

  Where are you?

  She missed him, and she didn’t like the way they had left things this morning. The oracle’s warning not to let herself be separated from him was ringing in her ears. What if something had already happened to him? What if he’d gotten caught in the city?

  She had been so vexed at him last night, subjecting her to his stern talking-to, as though she were a child. He had scolded her once before—at that cave where they had first kissed—and it had irked her just as much then.

  Never lie to me again, he had said that evening.

  Well, he had added several more rules for her last night. Arms folded across her chest, she had sat there seething, mentally sticking her tongue out at him, while he had lectured her.

  Thou shalt not defy me in front of my troops.

  Thou shalt not disobey a direct order in matters of strategy.

  He was the chief. Yes, she understood perfectly. She was a neophyte to all this war business, lower than the squires, and he had put her in her place.

  Of course, all the while, she had wanted to strangle him. Especially when he’d had the nerve after all that to ask for sex!

  Unbelievable, she had thought, staring at him in astonishment, still stung by his dressing-down. She had huffed at him, rolled over, and feigned sleep.

  In the morning, when he had ridden off for Pleiburg, she had glared after his broad back, thinking, Yes, please. Go away for a while. I need a break from you.

  It frightened her to wonder if this was the Kiss of Life spell wearing off. But with every hour that passed, her anger at him seemed less urgent…even unfair. She didn’t like being told what to do, but in hindsight, were his requests really that unreasonable? Wasn’t he only trying to keep order and cohesion among his fighting force?