Only the Worthy

by Morgan Rice

  It wasn’t fair. Royce had given up his life to save hers, had so fearlessly burst into the castle to risk it all. She flinched as she remembered Manfor’s hands grabbing at her, as she recalled her sense of sheer terror. If Royce had not arrived when he had, she did not know what she would have done. Her life would have been over.

  And yet maybe it was still over. Here she was, after all that, still trapped, still waiting to hear her fate. She recalled Lord Nor’s words, and they rang in her ears like a death knell:

  Yet your bride-to-be shall never be yours. She shall become the property of one of our nobles.

  There was no outrunning them; there was never any outrunning them. The nobles ruled their lives, and always had. Disrespecting one of them meant a possible death—and killing one guaranteed it. And yet Royce had not hesitated to kill one for her sake.

  Genevieve reeled at the thought. How much Royce had loved her; she had seen it in that moment. It had been so easy for him to give up his very life for hers. She wanted to risk it all for him, too, and what made her feel the worst of all was that she was trapped here, unable to help him.

  A heavy iron bolt suddenly slid back on the other side of her door, shattering her silence, and Genevieve flinched in her solitary cell. There came the sound of the thick wooden door creaking as it was pulled open, and she saw two stone-faced soldiers awaiting her silently. Her heart fell. Were they coming to lead her to her death?

  “You will be seen now,” one announced gruffly.

  They stood there in silence, waiting, yet she only stood there, frozen in terror. A part of her wanted to stay here, alone, in this cell, a prisoner for the rest of her days. She was not ready to face the world, and certainly not the nobles. She wanted more time to process it all, and more time to think of Royce. Yet returning to her normal life, she knew, was no longer a possibility. She was the property of these nobles now, theirs to do with as they wished.

  Genevieve took a deep breath in the stillness and took one step forward, then another. Walking towards these men was worse than walking to the gallows.

  As they walked down the corridor, the door slamming behind her, one grabbed her roughly, too roughly, his calloused fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arm. Genevieve wanted to cry out in pain. But she did not. She would not give him the satisfaction.

  He leaned in close, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her cheek.

  “Your boyfriend killed my lord,” he said. “He will suffer. You, too, will suffer—though in a different way. A longer, crueler way.”

  He jerked her, leading her down the twisting and turning corridors, the sound of their footsteps echoing on the stone, and as they went, Genevieve shuddered. She tried not to think of what lay awaiting her. How had everything turned out this way? This had begun as the happiest day of her life—and somehow had morphed into tragedy.

  Genevieve glanced out the open windows as they passed by and saw the courtyard far below, the masses coming and going, all of them already back to their daily routine. She wondered how life could just go on like that, as if nothing had ever happened. For her, life had changed forever. Yet the world seemed to be unfazed.

  As she looked down at the stone far below, she felt a sudden rush of hope. She did have one last power at her disposal, she realized: the power to end it all. All she had to do was break free of this soldier’s grip, run and jump out the open-aired window. She could end it all.

  She calculated how many steps it would take, whether he would catch her before she leapt, and whether the fall would be far enough to break her neck. Pondering this, she felt a perverse sense of joy. It was the one power she had left. It was the one thing she could do to show her solidarity to Royce. If Royce was going to die, she should die, too.

  “What are you smiling about?” the guard hissed.

  She didn’t respond—she hadn’t even realized she was smiling. Her actions would answer for her.

  Heart pounding, Genevieve waited for his grip to loosen so she could yank her arm away and run. Yet, to her dismay, he only squeezed harder, never loosening it for one second.

  Genevieve’s heart fell as they turned down a new corridor, one with no windows. They reached a new door and as he ushered her inside, she realized her opportunity was lost.

  Next time, she told herself.

  Genevieve entered a vaulted chamber, dim and cool in here, with soaring ceilings. She was led to the center of the room by the two guards, who finally let go and stood a few feet away. She rubbed her arm from where he had grabbed it, relieved to have it free.

  Facing Genevieve was a man, clearly a noble from the looks of him. He stood opposite her, a few feet away, and stared back with a cool, hard gaze. He seemed to examine her as if she were a statue, or an interesting piece of art which had been brought before him.

  She felt an immediate sense of revulsion upon looking at him: he resembled Manfor. His brother, perhaps?

  He stood there, with his fine chiseled looks, a man of perhaps twenty, an arrogant look on his face, not quite a scowl. Dressed in the finest of velvets, indicative of his position, he was flanked by two older men, dressed equally luxuriously. Behind these stood several attendants. His eyes were red, as though from crying, and his face was framed by longish, wavy brown hair. He’d be attractive, she thought, if his face wasn’t puffed up by such arrogance and cruelty.

  The boy stared coldly at her, and she locked her jaws and stared back at him, immune to his hate. She, after all, wanted no one’s approval.

  A long, heavy silence blanketed the room as they each stood there, staring in stony silence. The room was filled with the silent tension of grief, of blame, of anger, of vengeance. Almost nothing needed to be said.

  Finally, the man spoke.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked. His voice was not unpleasant, smooth on the air, a voice of authority, of privilege, of entitlement.

  She looked into his hard, brown eyes, studying them.

  “Manfor’s brother, I would assume,” she replied, her voice scratchy from lack of use.

  He shook his head.

  “I was his brother,” he corrected. “My brother is dead now, thanks to you.”

  His eyes narrowed in disapproval as he looked at her as if she had stabbed his brother herself. She wished she had. She wished she could take her beloved Royce’s plight away from him, wished that he had not had to suffer because of her.

  She desperately wanted to end this. Here, after all, was her enemy, standing before her. She furtively scanned the room, looking for any weapons—a sword she could draw, a dagger she could throw—anything to plunge into this man’s heart. Her thought quickly turned to resolve. She noticed one of the guards, now looking away, had a dagger in his belt, at his waist, and she wondered if she could snatch it, wondered how quickly she could take the few steps and stab him before they could stop her.

  “Did you hear what I asked you?”

  She blinked and looked back at him as she snapped out of it, unaware that he’d been speaking.

  “I said,” he repeated, “my name is Altfor. And your precious Royce would lie dead right now if it weren’t for the peasants. Indeed, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to watch him beheaded in the square. Yet ultimately, it does not matter. He will die regardless, albeit in a long, torturous way in the Pits. I suppose that is better off, though it does rob me of my satisfaction.”

  Genevieve burned with indignation while Altfor took a step closer. His sneer deepened.

  “My brother’s life was robbed from him,” he seethed. “My brother. And by a poor peasant. It’s disgraceful!” he yelled out, his words echoing off the walls and the floors, his anger lingering in the air.

  He lowered his voice.

  “And all for you,” he concluded with contempt.

  A heavy silence fell again. She had no intention of responding. She couldn’t care less that he was angry—indeed, she wanted him to be. She wanted him to suffer, as she had suffered.

&n
bsp; “Have you nothing to say?” he finally prodded.

  A long silence remained between them, each staring back, each equally determined, until finally she spoke:

  “What is it you would like me to say?” she asked.

  His gaze hardened.

  “That you are sorry. That you never meant for it to happen. That you are glad that Royce will die.”

  Genevieve clenched her jaws.

  “None of those are true,” she replied, her voice filled with a calm that she had not felt until now. “I am thrilled your brother is dead. He was a thief and a murderer and a rapist. He stole me away on the day of my wedding; he robbed me of the greatest joy of my life; and as a result of your brother’s heinous actions, the man who loved me, the man who came to save me, is now an outcast. I regret only that your brother did not die sooner—and that I myself did not wield the blade.”

  Her words came out with anger and venom to match his, and she could see each one hurting him. She saw, too, his look of surprise. Clearly he had expected her to buckle—and she had not.

  He stared back now with shock and, perhaps, with something close to respect.

  “You are a willful girl, aren’t you?” he said, slowly nodding. “Yes. That is what they say about you. A girl with much spirit. And yet, what use is spirit in the life of a girl? What shall your occupation be, after all? Wife. Mother. You shall be spending your days sewing and knitting, wiping the behind of babes. What purpose shall your spirit serve you then?”

  She glowered.

  “You tarnish a profession that is more noble than yours,” she spat back. “You tarnish your own mother’s profession—though from her handiwork, I am not surprised.”

  He frowned, clearly at a loss for words, and she stared back, silently fuming. She had in fact resolved to be a devoted wife and mother, and for her there was no greater calling. She had also resolved to train, to be a warrior in her own right; she was already finer with a sword than most of the boys. She had taken her fair share of the hunt, something other girls wouldn’t do, and had truer aim with the arrow than most men she had met. Even Royce was not as accurate as she.

  “The irony is,” she continued, “if I had a fine bow and arrow at my disposal now, I would place the arrow between your eyes before you could finish speaking. Wife and mother are not exclusive talents,” she replied. “I have other talents, too, which I would gladly display on you.”

  He stared back, clearly stunned.

  Then, after what seemed like an eternity, he broke into a smile.

  “They underestimated you, indeed,” he replied. “My brother snatched you as a sport to discard at day’s end. He clearly had no idea whom he had chosen.”

  He looked her up and down with a new look, one that clearly held respect, and perhaps even admiration. She did not like the look; she preferred it when he looked upon her with scorn, only.

  “I am above your station,” he continued. “And yet I see something in you. My brother happened upon you by mistake; I shall happen upon you by choice. You cannot be killed, if we wish to appease the peasantry. Nor can we set you free, after all you’ve been involved in, whether willingly or not.”

  He sighed.

  “So I will take your hand in marriage,” he concluded, as if bargaining at a farmstand and concluding to buy a particularly fine sheep for the night’s meal.

  Genevieve stared back, flabbergasted.

  “Consider it a lucky fortune that I found you here today,” he continued. “Endless women in this countryside would die to be my bride; you have won. Count your blessings. You shall walk into a life of nobility, and I shall settle this matter on my father’s behalf and bring peace to the peasantry. We shall put all this unpleasant business behind us, for the sake of our families, and the sake of our kingdom.”

  As he spoke, Genevieve felt the life slowly slipping from her, felt her body go numb with shock. She was not surprised that he would have her; indeed, she had expected to be raped and tortured by him, if not killed. What surprised her were his words. How soaring, how elegant they were. He had complimented her when he had not needed to; he had even spoken admiringly of her. He would not take her as his plaything, as she had expected, but as his wife. As a member of his family. As a noble.

  It was all, of course, supremely insulting given what had just been done to the love of her life, to the man she loved most. Yet what bothered her the most was that there was also something complimentary in it. She wished there hadn’t been; it would make all this easier to accept as punishment. Despite herself, despite her intense hatred for him, despite wanting to stab him through the heart, she had to admit to herself that there was a part of her, deep down inside, that was surprised by him and that maybe even admired him, too. Despite his arrogance, he was cut from a shockingly different cloth than his brother; the contrast was startling, and completely caught her off guard.

  Genevieve felt ill, feeling a sense of betrayal for even thinking these thoughts, and she hated herself for it. There was only one way, she knew, to drive away these less-than-negative thoughts about him from her mind: she scanned the room again for the dagger. Her heart beat faster as she prepared to lunge for it.

  He laughed, surprising her.

  “You will never reach that dagger,” he said.

  She flinched and looked back to see him staring back at her, smiling.

  “Look carefully,” he added. “It is strapped in on all sides. Try to draw it, and you will get stuck. And you forget this.”

  She followed his hand and saw it resting on a dagger in his own belt.

  She reddened, feeling foolish, knowing her mind had been read. Altfor was much more perceptive than she had given him credit for.

  He looked at his guards, his eyes suddenly cold again.

  “Take her away.”

  Suddenly the rough hands were grabbing her again, yanking her arms, pulling her away. She fully expected Altfor to order them to take her to the gallows, to order her killed for attempting to kill him. But instead, he gave them a command that shocked her more than sentencing her to death ever could:

  “Have her cleaned up,” he said. “And prepared to wed.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Royce sat in the hold beneath the ship, curled up in a dark corner with his hands wrapped around his knees, and opened his eyes slowly, awakened from a fitful sleep. He peered out, on guard immediately, as he had all the time since he’d been thrown down here. His eyes adjusted slowly as he stared out at a room filled with chaos and death.

  What he saw made him wish he had never woken. It was as grim as ever, more people dead down here than alive, bodies covering the floors, covered in boils and vomit. The stench was nearly unbearable. He marveled that more and more boys had been shoved down here, a seemingly endless stream, this hold used as a dumping ground, presumably for punishments up above, or just for the unlucky ones.

  All the hammocks were filled with kids, some alert, others snoring, some staring blankly at the ceiling, all of them swaying more wildly than usual as Royce felt waves pound the boat. He wished he was in one now. Yet he had learned long ago to vacate the hammock in favor of the floor. He had seen too many kids killed by sleeping in hammocks, others creeping up on them and stabbing them for their sleeping place. They’d been helpless to resist while trapped in the hammock’s net. Royce had long since kept to the floor, finding the darkest corner he could and sleeping with his hands across his knees, his back to the corner so no one would attack him. It was safer this way.

  Once a day the guards opened the hatch, letting in a burst of ocean air and light. At first Royce thought that meant they would let them all go up and have a little freedom to move. But then he saw huge sacks being opened and dumped down, heard the scattering of what sounded like sand on the floor, and as he’d watched the boys dive for it, like savage animals, grabbing fistfuls, he realized: grain. It was their feeding time.

  The boys shoved it in their mouths, shoving each other aside, punching, elbowing, blood l
anding in the grain. It was a brutal competition for survival—and it happened once a day. The guards always left the hatch open long enough to watch, grinning down at the spectacle, then slammed it shut.

  Royce had told himself he would never participate in that mosh pit. Yet after a day his hunger got the best of him and he dove in with the others, grabbing a handful of grain just as another boy tried to pry it from his hands. They fought over it briefly, until Royce yanked it away and the boy moved on to some other place. Royce gulped it down immediately. It was crunchy and tasteless and it hardly nourished him. But it was something. He learned his lesson, too—the following day he would try to grab two fistfuls, and ration it.

  It had been a grim existence down here, one of survival, day after day of watching for the hatch to open, grabbing whatever food he could, and retreating back to his corner. He had seen too many boys die; he had tolerated too long the perpetual stench. He had watched as too many bullies roamed the hold, predators, waiting until other boys appeared too weak to fight—then pouncing on them and taking whatever meager possessions they had. It was constantly unsettling.

  Royce barely slept. He was troubled constantly by nightmares, images of being stabbed in his sleep, of floating in a coffin in a sea of blood, of being engulfed by the massive waves of the ocean. These, in turn, morphed into nightmares of Genevieve, of her being raped by the nobles of the castle, of his arriving too late to save her. Of his brothers and family back home, their house and fields burned to the ground, all of them having moved on, having long forgotten him.

  He always woke in a cold sweat. He did not know which was worse these days: to sleep or to wake.

  On this day, though, as Royce woke, he immediately sensed something was different. He felt his stomach dropping more severely than usual, heard the crashing of the waves against the deck more strongly, heard the high-pitched whistling of the wind, and he knew right away that a storm had come. And no normal storm. But a storm that might change everything.