The Forgotten King

by Jonathan Dunn

  Leggitt stood beside de Garcia. He was as trim as ever, as perfectly manicured, in spite of the recent troubles. His hair was haggard though – aging and worn like so much mown grass – for he was no longer fueled by the passions of youth. His mouth was small and terse, as one of silence, and that is what he had become. In his youth: a rebel spy; in his age: a mere prison master and captain of the guards. Such years of service and so easily discarded – even if the whole of it had been in treachery. “Or was it?” he thought to himself, “If I was truly a spy, why did I not take the numerous chances to assassinate Gylain? I told myself I would have patience for something greater, yet what is above that? Montague might have replaced him, but not with the same restraint or foresight, the same passionless vigor that reigns over Gylain. Here I die, an outlaw in France in the service of Atiltian rebels, while at heart I cannot know which side I am truly on. But so should it be: I deserve death.”

  Ivona stood beside Leggitt, pale and composed. Her face was dirty from the trek through the forest, her white cheeks bloodied. Still, she was beautiful; for she was a woman whose beauty was but a reflection of her mind and whose enchantments could not be lost. Her hair fell loose like little streams of night and her lips, like rainbows, were not raining. “My God, my God,” she thought, “Why have I forsaken you?” A solitary tear escaped her eyes. Khalid turned away when he saw it, knowing the innocence he snuffed out of a guilty world. Yet it was not death that made her cry. She was no longer innocent, she thought, and though a righteous man do good all his life, if he turns wicked in the end he is considered wicked. She had fallen into love as into sin. It was her damnation. She feared she had given love where it should not have been and made love where it was not already found. But such is the way of the world: to the pure, a guilty conscience; to the wicked, a hardened heart.

  Next was Lydia. Her red hair grew richer by contrast to the twilight and her eyes by contrast to themselves. Her face was as divided as her heart. Even in her final thoughts the mental melee ravaged on. “My father will be displeased with France and join Gylain without doubt for my sake. But what of my father? He is with Gylain already. He already pushes de Casanova like a stone around my neck. If Patrick is a rebel, at least he has passion for me, and even a farm boy can plow a heart as much as a field.” She looked to Patrick, beside her. “I will be his. My father can keep his crown.”

  Patrick McConnell was last. His thin lips were pressed together, his wiry frame extended between the noose and the block. His hair was light and as fiery as his eyes. His only emotion was passion, his only character zeal. “We cannot be thus delayed,” he muttered aloud, but what he thought was, “I will lose her, and with her my own life. To the devil if I survive or am hung, if she is not beside me. Am I the people, that I care for freedom? Fool that I am, I love her. I do not know how or why, but that I do. If I tell her, she will scoff; and if I show her, she will laugh. Yet how can I forget? For she is my life.”

  Khalid stood before them, pacing and preoccupied, so he did not notice the carriage that sped through the tunnel and into the courtyard. He looked Willard over one last time, gave him a dutiful wink, and said, “The end, Montague.” Then he turned to the executioner who held the latches for the trap doors, and cried out in an echoing voice, “Release the doors!”

  But another voice came the second his had gone, and it was even greater, even louder.

  “Stop, do not hang them! That is not Montague, but the King of Atilta!”

  Chapter 79

  At the same instant, however, the executioner pulled the lever that dropped the trap doors, hanging the seven freedom fighters. For an instant, they remained in stasis above the gap, then began to descend. The ropes had several feet of slack. With every passing second the slack grew less and the danger more. Willard was placid, his eyes closed with his mouth. Patrick, however, writhed in impatience; and as he saw Vahan emerge from the carriage he turned his head and looked about him with vulture eyes.The executioner was unable to react, but stopped in confusion. Only Khalid could move. He set himself in motion before Vahan had even cried, just at the instant he gave the order. He leapt off the platform – in his heavy armor – and rolled twice on the ground before regaining his feet directly in front of the lever. This he grasped with his giant hands and forced upward, closing the trap doors with a resounding snap. The seven were caught up in their downward motion. Just as the ropes grew taunt to kill them they came to a stop. The soldiers rushed to unbind them. They were saved.

  Captain Khalid fell to the ground in exhaustion after his inhuman exertion. Yet it was for only an instant. Then he retook his feet and his strength, hurrying up the stairway to the platform and kneeling before Willard.

  “By the duty of a soldier! I knew you could not have been Montague!” He exhaled with an air of fealty. “You must excuse the duties of a soldier,” he continued, “I had not the power to do other than I did. Yet I felt – even as I did otherwise – that if you were indeed a king, I would zealously serve you.”

  “Arise,” Willard said, “Did I not respect you, even as you treated me so? You are a man of nature, of the forest. This is what a man should be.” He reached down and grasped Khalid’s hand, pulling him up.

  “My dear Vahan!” the King of France said, sticking his head through the shattered window pane, “My dear Vahan, are you well? In your zeal you forgot that a door is freely opened.” The king unlatched the door and stepped out, kneeling over his powerful adviser.

  “What orders have I given,” Vahan moaned, his face buried in his hands like an ancient sculpture in the desert. “May my quills ever run dry, and my glasses fall as I read!” Vahan rolled over, assisted by his sovereign, and spied Willard standing freely on the platform. “He lives! I did not think it possible.”

  Willard answered: “I do, and without your faulty orders and their strict obedience we might not have. For we journeyed three days to the mountain and were a day within. Had not your soldiers abducted us and taken us here without delay, we would still be two days from the coast. As it is, we have arrived in time to reach Atilta ere the end is decided.”

  “Then my grief is assuaged; but I am not pleased with you in this, Captain Khalid.”

  “My duty, sir.”

  “Indeed, Vahan, he is a model soldier,” and Willard walked down the stairway. “I am well pleased with men of this type.” The King of Atilta approached the King of France, the latter preoccupied until this time with returning Vahan to his feet. The bureaucrat’s face was cut and his arms bleeding, but he was well.

  “Uncle, I am pleased you have come,” Willard said.

  “A few miles is not a great distance, for the sake of my brother’s son.”

  “We will make servants of many more miles ere our presence is divided, so devotions can still be proved.” He paused. “I come to you as your nephew and as the King of Atilta; it is to you how I am received.”

  “As both, and as a great warrior. Vahan has told me of your exploits and your exile. My brother would be proud if he lived, but as he died he will be revenged.”

  “Your majesty,” Vahan turned to his king, “And, your majesty,” he turned to Willard, “We would be better served to finish this aboard The Bas Bleu , as we sail to Atilta. The squadron is ready.”

  “Then we had best be aboard.”

  “Without delay!” came from Patrick McConnell, who stood behind Willard.

  “So this is the English rebel?” the French King gave Patrick a close look. “We will see more of you, later.” He turned to his nephew’s other comrades and his eyes could not pass Ivona. “There will be dessert this evening, after all,” he winked at Vahan. Yet Ivona’s eyes sent him backwards, for he was not used to being rebuffed by his feminine pursuits.

  “Tonight our only feast is the blood of battle,” she said in a cold, prophetic tone, “And our dessert but death or victory.”

  Willard met her with his eyes. “So it will be; let us go.”

  Khalid’s battalion was th
e last of the garrison to be loaded. Everything was prepared for their boarding. A majestic vessel, The Bes Bleu ,sat in the river, waiting for their arrival. It was a galley of a hundred oars, a hundred feet from fore to foot and twenty-five across. Six masts were stationed across the deck and the sails were spread between them, rather than from the cross-trees of one. Much less rigging was needed and the sails could be swiveled from one mast to another to catch the wind at varying angles – a uniquely Atiltian ship, built for France by the late King Plantagenet. Below deck, the sleeping quarters had been commandeered for supplies. The entire fleet was at full strength. They could not spend the night aboard, perhaps, but they did not plan to. This was all done by Vahan Lee, whose strength in matters of detail and pedantry was unsurpassed. What he lacked in military prowess he made up in preparation.

  Once on board, they went to the dining room – reserved for the king – and took their evening meal, in preparation for the coming battle. The King of France took the head of the table, with Willard to his right and Vahan Lee to his left. Ivona sat by Willard, then Horatio, Leggitt, and Captain Khalid. De Garcia took the foot of the table, and on the other side were Leggitt, Patrick, and Lydia. Their conversation proceeded as follows:

  VAHAN: What has come of your journey? You return, but Montague does not.

  WILLARD: He is no more, at least in this world.

  KING: Montague destroyed?

  WILLARD: He went to his god. The mountain was full of hideous creatures. He disappeared among them.

  KING: So it is! My father was right to decree that none should approach that lonely peak. I will not revoke it, for there is unspeakable evil within.

  WILLARD [with a smile]: Unspeakable, indeed.

  VAHAN: And the Holy Graal?

  WILLARD: We will see what comes of it. If Milada is healed, we will know.

  IVONA: It is done.

  KING [to Lydia]: And you, my glowing sun, are some royal creature, in blood as well as beauty?

  LYDIA: Indeed, I am the daughter of the King of Hibernia, Emperor Lyndon.

  KING [rising to his feet]: What! You keep strange company, Willard; I, however, disdain to keep spies within my circle, least of all to feed them from my table!

  WILLARD: And do I? She is with us by chance.

  PATRICK: Chance, and in the same degree as that which formed the heavens and the earth. She is by my side and by the side of my people. Birth is not worth, in royalty or in peasantry.

  KING [sitting]: So I see. I will leave the politics of the Three Kingdoms to Vahan. But beware lest your loves lead you to wrong, Patrick McConnell. Even I, the king, must guard against the temptations of the flesh.

  PATRICK [with a wavering voice]: I will take your majesty’s saintly lead in the matter.

  The king seemed to linger on the precipice of anger; but, thinking of his dignity, pretended not to understand the young man’s remarks. The others did likewise. Silence fell like snow and through it their thoughts could not be seen. As they finished, the silence was shaken by a knock on the door. No one answered. It opened to reveal a windy old man, the Admiral of the fleet.

  “Your majesty,” and he lowered his head in respect, “The storm has come full force and has churned the waves against us. We will be late reaching Atilta, if we can pass through at all. Not even my old comrade William Stuart could pass this storm, such is its temper!”

  Chapter 80

  “At last, it is time,” and Gylain took the hand of his ally and equal, the King of Hibernia.

  “We will both bruise their heel and crush their skull,” the other returned.

  They stood on the deck of a great warship, The Barber , the centerpiece of the navy of the Three Kingdoms. It was four hundred feet long and seventy-five wide, with three stories above water and four below. The materials were Atiltian – as were all good ships of the time – but the construction Hibernian. Atiltian sailors used swiveling masts, but foreign sailors could not handle them as well; instead, the largest ships used a system of multiple masts similar to the French King’s flagship. The masts were arranged in rows on either side of the ship, placed at equal distances from one another either along one side or across the center. Sails could be hung across the width of the ship or at an angle perpendicular to it; one system assisted in turning such a massive hull, the other in propelling it. Since the sails could be easily rotated, The Barber could turn almost in a complete circle when the sails and rudder were aligned together. Still, it was inferior to the Marins, for those did not need to tack or come about at all.

  TheBarber stood in the center of Eden’s harbor, surrounded by two hundred battleships: half from Atilta, half from Hibernia. Hibernia had never been a sea power, and thus did not have as large a navy as France; Atilta, on the other hand, was a sea power whose navy had been diminished by its Admiral’s forced departure. Ships that had been in the Atiltian navy were now pirates haunting distant waters, or mercenaries for other nations. Hibernians were by nature precise, and were – as their ideas of beauty professed – enchanted by a uniform, consistent architecture. Their navy, therefore, was made of ships built from a single design. The Admiral of the fleet knew the exact proportions and abilities of each ship, and each captain could know what his comrades could achieve; the result was a systematic fighting force. The Hibernian navy was run as if it were an army: their formations, lines, and maneuvers came directly from the Emperor’s experience as a general. Each ship held a battalion of archers and of soldiers, with a limited number of sailors, and the ships were treated more like floating islands than maritime vessels. Yet what they gained in consistency and force they lost in genius. A single, dexterous ship could confound a whole fleet of this kind.

  The fleet of Atilta was of an entirely different character than that of Hibernia. Its ships were gathered from wherever they could be had and manned by whatever seasoned sailors Gylain could find. Some were small cutters, barely fit for combat though fast and agile. Others were galleons, meant for pirating but used for privateering. Still others were massive frigates or triremes. Their captains came from an equally assorted mix: some were pirates working with a license, others mercenaries, others Atiltians fighting for their fatherland.

  The Floatings was now empty but for the warships, for the larger vessels had withdrawn into the river system at the sight of the force – afraid of being plundered – while the smaller vessels had been taken ashore. A few merchants worked to supply the fleet at a great profit, though they risked black-market sanctions by the largely rebel trading force. While they were supplied, the two fleets floated there a bobbing military city: upwards of thirty thousand men in a few square miles. Gylain sat beside Lyndon – the King of Hibernia – at a table put out on the deck of The Barber , covered by a canopy of sail cloth.

  “We rule by strength, and our only justification is our strength,” Gylain said. “We do not claim to rule by the people, nor by the blood of destiny: our only mandate is our strength, our might, our power to enforce our wills upon the people. The only consent of the governed is the strength of the governor. Thus, we now go to prove our right to the throne, Lyndon. Let us not prove our weakness instead.”

  “For order and hierarchy among men, and equality of man with God,” the King of Hibernia returned. “I am with you in this, Gylain. But tell me, where is Cybele?”

  “She is a prisoner of the Fardy brothers, on her way to the rebel headquarters even now.”

  “This is dark news, if not quite dark forebodings; for we still have her armies. The strength of the commander is important, but we have other commanders. What we lose most is legitimacy among the ignorant people.”

  “In Saxony, perhaps, but not in Atilta. But so be it, for the people are ignorant, as you say.”

  Lyndon turned to face the deck behind him, where Montague and de Casanova were approaching. “I see you have found your way to Gylain’s side, de Casanova,” and he motioned for them to be seated.

  “I have, though by bitter turns of which I am not pro
ud.”

  “I have heard as much,” Lyndon sighed. “Yet we will feast on revenge, and in our repast you will undo the dishonor done your name. Do not think that I feel you weak, for if you had won you would be a god. What of my daughter?” He said this last part carelessly, but with a disguised meaning, a masked sincerity.

  “She denied my love.”

  “What is lost in love is won in war, and what the heart forfeits power regains. Be at ease.”

  “Am I not? The ardor of my love grows chill. At each remembrance I am more sane to the world of reality. Her enchantment is passing.”

  “Then it is well, for I feared I would lose my adopted son to my earthly daughter, even as I lost my earthly son to my adopted riches. In the end, however, you will not go astray as he has.”

  “Your son is of no concern,” Gylain said, “For Lionel is lost in exile.”

  “Were it true!” Jonathan Montague exclaimed, rising from his seat to expend his passion in pacing before the table. “But I saw him in the streets of Eden last night, though I could not catch him in the darkness. I meant to tell you, but I forgot after my vision of Nicholas.”

  “Lionel, in Atilta?” cried Lyndon. “Then he is among the rebels.” He lowered his face, frowning, but then laughed silently. “Weakness is punished, even in the son of a king. Yet how would I have it? For his weakness would be my only inheritance and he would rule what I conquered with his foolish notions. It is well that he had abandoned me, as I did not have the strength to abandon him.”

  “You need not fear for that,” de Casanova said, not realizing the potency of his prophecy. “For your kingdom will be ruled by a mighty hand, whose strength will not be forgotten. Do not fear for that!”

  “There is much to conquer,” Lyndon replied, “And each man must begin anew.”