Theft of Swords

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “We are well acquainted with that little bit of trivia,” Hadrian muttered. “But like I was saying, it’s a nice design for a fortress, except for those trees.” He gestured toward the orchard. “That grove would provide good cover for an attacking army.”

  “This hill never used to look like it does now,” Alric explained. “It used to be cut clear. The Pickerings planted this orchard only a couple of generations ago. Same with those rosebushes and rhododendrons. Drondil Fields hasn’t seen warfare in five hundred years. I suppose the counts didn’t see the harm in some fruit, shade, and flowers. The great fortress of Seadric Pickilerinon is now little more than a country estate.”

  They came up to the entrance and Alric led them in without pausing.

  “Here now, hold on there!” an overweight gate warden ordered. He was holding a pastry in one hand and a pint of milk in the other. His weapon lay at his side. “Where do you think you’re all going, riding up here as if this were your fall retreat?”

  Alric pulled back his hood, and the warden dropped both his pastry and milk. “I—I’m sorry, Your Highness.” He stumbled, snapping to attention. “I had no idea you were coming today. No one said anything to me.” He wiped his hands and brushed the crumbs from his uniform. “Is the rest of the royal family coming as well?” Alric ignored him, continuing through the gate and across the plank bridge into the castle. The others followed him without a word as the astonished warden stared after them.

  Like the outside of the castle, the interior courtyard showed little resemblance to its fortress heritage. The courtyard was an attractive garden of neatly trimmed bushes and the occasional small, carefully pruned tree. Colorful banners of greens and gold hung to either side of the keep’s portico, rippling in the morning breeze. The grass looked carefully tended, although it was mostly yellow now with winter dormancy. Carts and wagons, most filled with empty bushel baskets possibly used to harvest the fruit, lay beneath a green awning. A couple of apples still lay in the bottom of one of them. A stable of horses stood near a barn where cows called for their morning milking. A shaggy black and white dog gnawed a bone at the base of the fieldstone well, and a family of white ducks followed each other in a perfect line as they wandered freely, quacking merrily as they went. Castle workers scurried about their morning chores, fetching water, splitting wood, tending animals, and quite often nearly stepping on the wandering ducks.

  Near a blacksmith shed, where a beefy man hammered a glowing rail of metal, two young men sparred with swords in the open yard. Each of them wore a helm and carried a small heater shield. A third sat with his back to the keep steps. He was using a slate and a bit of chalk to score the match. “Shield higher, Fanen!” the taller figure shouted.

  “What about my legs?”

  “I won’t be going after your legs. I don’t want to lower my sword and give you the advantage, but you need to keep the shield high to deflect a downstroke. That’s where you’re vulnerable. If I hit you hard enough and you aren’t ready, I can drive you to your knees. Then what good will your legs be?”

  “I’d listen to him, Fanen,” Alric yelled toward the boy. “Mauvin’s an ass, but he knows his parries.”

  “Alric!” The taller boy threw off his helm and ran to embrace the prince as he dismounted. At the sound of Alric’s name, several of the servants in the courtyard looked up in surprise.

  Mauvin was close to Alric in age but was taller and a good deal broader in the shoulders. He sported a head of wild dark hair and a set of dazzling white teeth, which shone as he grinned at his friend.

  “What are you doing here, and by Mar, what are you dressed up as? You look frightful. Did you ride all night? And your face—did you fall?”

  “I have some bad news. I need to speak to your father immediately.”

  “I’m not sure he’s awake yet, and he is awfully cranky if you wake him early.”

  “This can’t wait.”

  Mauvin stared at the prince and his grin faded. “This is no casual visit, then?”

  “No, I only wish it was.”

  Mauvin turned toward his youngest brother and said, “Denek, go wake Father.”

  The boy with the slate shook his head. “I’m not going to be the one.”

  Mauvin started toward his brother. “Do it now!” he shouted, scaring the young boy into running for the keep.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Fanen asked, dropping his own helm and shield on the grass and walking over to embrace Alric as well.

  “Has any word reached you from Medford in the last several days?”

  “Not that I know of,” Mauvin replied, his face showing more concern now.

  “No riders? No dispatches for the count?” Alric asked again.

  “No, Alric, what is it?”

  “My father is dead. He was murdered in the castle by a traitor.”

  “What!” Mauvin gasped, taking a step back. It was a reaction rather than a question.

  “That’s not possible!” Fanen exclaimed. “King Amrath dead? When did this happen?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure how long it has been. The days following his murder have been confusing, and I’ve lost track of the time. If word has yet to reach here, I suspect it hasn’t been more than a few days.”

  All the workers stopped what they were doing and stood around listening intently. The constant ringing of the blacksmith’s hammer ceased and the only sounds in the courtyard were the distant mooing of a cow and the quacking of the ducks.

  “What’s this all about?” Count Pickering asked as he stepped out of the castle, holding up an arm to shield his squinting eyes from the morning’s bright sun. “The boy came in panting for air and said there was an emergency out here.”

  The count, a slim, middle-aged man with a long, hooked nose and a well-trimmed prematurely gray beard, was dressed in a gold and purple robe pulled over his nightshirt. His wife, Belinda, came up behind him, pulling on her robe and peering out into the courtyard nervously. Hadrian took advantage of Pickering’s sun-blindness to chance a long look. She was just as lovely as rumor held. The countess was several years younger than her husband, with a slender, stunning figure and long golden hair, which spilled across her shoulders in a way she would never normally show in public. Hadrian now understood why the count guarded her jealously.

  “Oh my,” Myron said to Hadrian as he twisted to get a better view. “I don’t even think of horses when I look at her.”

  Hadrian dismounted and helped Myron off the horse. “I share your feelings, my friend, but trust me, that’s one woman you really don’t want to stare at.”

  “Alric?” the count said. “What in the world are you doing here at this hour?”

  “Father, King Amrath has been murdered,” Mauvin answered in a shaky voice.

  Shock filled Pickering’s face. He slowly lowered his arm and stared directly at the prince. “Is this true?”

  Alric nodded solemnly. “Several days ago. A traitor stabbed him in the back while he was at prayer.”

  “Traitor? Who?”

  “My uncle, the archduke and lord chancellor—Percy Braga.”

  Royce, Hadrian, and Myron followed their noses to the kitchen after Alric had left for a private meeting with Count Pickering. There they met Ella, a white-haired cook who was all too happy to provide them with a hearty breakfast in order to have first chance at any gossip. The food at Drondil Fields was far superior to the meal they had eaten at the Silver Pitcher Inn. Ella brought wave upon wave of eggs, soft powdered pastries, fresh sweet butter, steaks, bacon, biscuits, peppered potatoes, and gravy along with a jug of apple cider and an apple pie baked with maple syrup for dessert.

  They ate their fill in the relative quiet of the kitchen. Hadrian repeated little more than what Alric had already revealed in the courtyard; however, he did mention that Myron had lived his life in seclusion at the monastery. Ella seemed fascinated by this and questioned the monk mercilessly on the subject. “So, you never saw a woman before today,
love?” Ella asked Myron, who was finishing the last of his pie. He was eating heartily and there was a ring of apples and crust around his mouth.

  “You’re the first one I’ve ever spoken to,” Myron replied as if he were boasting a great achievement.

  “Really?” Ella said with a smile and feigned bashfulness. “I’m so honored. I haven’t been a man’s first in years.” She laughed but Myron only looked at her, puzzled.

  “You’ve a lovely home,” Myron told her. “It looks very … sturdy.”

  She laughed again. “It’s not mine, ducky, I just work here. It belongs to the nobles, like all the nice places do. Us normal folk, we lives in sheds and shacks and fights over what they throw away. We’re sorta like dogs that way, aren’t we? Course, I ain’t complaining. The Pickerings aren’t a bad lot. Not as snooty as some of the other nobles, who think the sun rises and falls because it pleases them. The count won’t even have a chambermaid. He doesn’t let no one help him dress neither. I’ve even seen him fetch water for himself more than once. He’s downright daft, that one. His boys take after him too. You can see it in the way they saddle their own horses. That Fanen, why, just the other day I seen him swinging a smith’s hammer. He was having Vern show him how to mend a blade. Now I asks you, how many nobles you see trying to learn the blacksmith trade? Can I get anyone another cup of cider?”

  They all shook their heads and took turns yawning.

  “Lenare, now she takes after her mother. They’re a pair, they are. Both are pretty as a rose and smell just as sweet, but they do has their thorns. The temper those two have is frightful. The daughter is worse than the mother. She used to train with her brothers and was beating the stuffing out of Fanen until she discovered she was a lady and they don’t do such things.”

  Myron’s eyes closed and his head drooped, and suddenly the chair toppled as the monk fell over. He woke with a start and struggled to his knees. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  Ella was so busy laughing she couldn’t answer and simply waved her hand at him. “You’ve had a long night, dear,” she finally managed to say. “Let me set you up in the back before that chair bucks you off again.”

  Myron hung his head and said quietly, “I have the same problem with horses.”

  Alric told his story to the Pickerings over breakfast. As soon as he finished, the count shooed his sons out and called for his staff to begin arranging for a full-scale mobilization of Galilin. While Pickering dispatched orders, Alric left the great hall and began wandering through the corridors of the castle. This was the first time he had been alone since his father’s death. He felt as though he was caught up in the current of a river, whisked along by the events unfolding around him. Now it was time to take control of his destiny.

  Alric saw few people in the corridors. Aside from the occasional suit of armor or painting on the wall, there was little to distract his thoughts. Drondil Fields, though smaller than Essendon, felt larger due to its horizontal layout, which sprawled across the better part of the hilltop. Where Essendon Castle had several towers and lofty chambers that rose many stories high, Drondil Fields was only four stories at its tallest point. Because it was a fortress, fireproofing was essential, so the roof was made of stone rather than wood, requiring thick walls to support its weight. Because the windows were small and deep, they let in little light, which made the interior cave-like.

  He remembered running through these corridors as a child, chasing Mauvin and Fanen. They had held mock battles, which the Pickerings had always won. He had always trumped them by bringing up that he would be king someday. At the age of twelve, it had been wonderful to be able to taunt a friend who had bested him with “Sure, but I’ll be king. You’ll have to bow to me and do as I say.” The thought that in order for him to become king his father would have to die had never really occurred to him. He had no idea what being the king really meant.

  I am king now.

  Being king had always been something he had imagined to be far, far in the future. His father had been a strong man, and Alric had looked forward to many years as prince of the realm. Only a few months ago, at the Summersrule Festival, he and Mauvin had made plans to go on a yearlong trip to the four corners of Apeladorn. They had wanted to visit Delgos, Calis, and Trent and even planned to seek the location of the fabled ruined city of Percepliquis. To discover and explore the ancient capital of the Old Novronian Empire had been a childhood dream of theirs. They wanted to find fortune and adventure in the lost city. Mauvin hoped to discover the rest of the lost arts of the Teshlor Knights, and Alric was going to find the ancient crown of Novron. While they had mentioned the trip to their fathers, neither one had brought up Percepliquis. It hardly mattered, given that no one knew where the lost city was, but it was considered heresy even to search for the ancient capital of the Old Empire. Still, walking the fabled halls of Percepliquis was probably the boyhood dream of every youth in Apeladorn. For Alric, though, his adolescence was over.

  I am king now.

  Dreams of endless days of reckless adventures, exploring the frontier while drinking bad ale, sleeping beneath the open sky, and loving nameless women, blew away like smoke in the wind. In their place came visions of stone rooms filled with old men with angry faces. He had only occasionally watched his father hold court, listening while the clergy and the nobles demanded fewer taxes and more land. One earl had even demanded the execution of a duke and the custody of his lands for the loss of one of his prized cows. Alric’s father sat, in what Alric felt must have been dull misery, as the court secretary read the many petitions and grievances on which the king was required to rule. As a child, Alric had thought being king meant doing whatever he wished. But over the years, he saw what it really meant—compromise and appeasement. A king could not rule without the support of his nobles and the nobles were never happy. They always wanted something and expected the king to deliver.

  I am king now.

  To Alric, being king felt like a prison sentence. He would spend the rest of his life in service to his people, his nobles, and his family, just as his father had done. He wondered if Amrath had felt the same way when his own father had died. It was something he had never considered before. Amrath as a man and the dreams he might have sacrificed were foreign concepts to the young prince. He wondered if his father had been happy. When Alric remembered him, the images that came to mind were his bushy beard and bright smiling eyes. His father had smiled a great deal. Alric wondered if it was due to his enjoyment of being king or because being with his son gave him a much-needed break from the affairs of state. Alric felt a sudden longing to see his father once more. He wished he had taken time to sit and talk with him, man to man, to ask for his father’s council and guidance in preparation for this day. He felt completely alone and uncertain about whether he could live up to the tasks that lay before him. More than anything, he just wished he could disappear.

  The shrill ring of clashing metal awakened Hadrian. After Ella’s breakfast, he had wandered into the courtyard. The weather was turning distinctly colder but he found a place to nap on a soft patch of lawn that caught the full face of the sun. He thought he had closed his eyes for only a moment, but when he opened them again, it was well past noon. Across the yard the Pickering boys were back at sparring.

  “Come at me again, Fanen,” Mauvin ordered, his voice muffled by his helm.

  “Why? You’re just going to whack me again!”

  “You have to learn.”

  “I don’t see why,” Fanen protested. “It’s not like I’m planning a life in the soldiery or the tournaments. I’m the second son. I’ll end up at some monastery stacking books.”

  “Second sons don’t go to abbeys; third sons do.” Mauvin lifted his visor to grin at Denek. “Second sons are the spares. You’ve got to be trained and ready in case I die from some rare disease. If I don’t, you’ll get to roam the lands, fending for yourself. That means a life as a mercenary or on the tournament circuit. Or if yo
u are lucky, you’ll land a post as a sheriff, a marshal, or master-at-arms for some earl or duke. These days, it’s almost as good as a landed title, really. Still, you won’t get those jobs, or last long as a merc or swordsman, unless you know how to fight. Now come at me again and this time pivot, step, and lunge.”

  Hadrian walked over to where the boys were fighting and sat on the grass near Denek to watch. Denek, who was only twelve years old, glanced at him curiously. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Hadrian,” he replied as he extended his hand. The boy shook it, squeezing harder than was necessary. “You’re Denek, right? The Pickerings’ third son? Perhaps you should speak with my friend Myron, seeing as how I hear you are monastery-bound.”

  “Am not!” he shouted. “Going to the monastery, I mean. I can fight as well as Fanen.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hadrian said. “Fanen is flat-footed, and his balance is off. He’s not going to improve much either, because Mauvin is teaching him, and Mauvin is favoring his right and rocks back on his left too much.”

  Denek grinned at Hadrian and then turned to his brothers. “Hadrian says you both fight like girls!”

  “What’s that?” Mauvin said, whacking aside Fanen’s loose attack once more.

  “Oh, ah, nothing,” Hadrian said, trying to recant, and glared at Denek, who just kept grinning. “Thanks a lot,” he told the boy.

  “So, you think you can beat me in a duel?” Mauvin asked.

  “No, it’s not that. I was just explaining I didn’t think Denek here would have to go to the monastery.”

  “Because we fight like girls,” Fanen added.

  “No, no, nothing like that.”

  “Give him your sword,” Mauvin told Fanen.

  Fanen threw his sword at Hadrian. It dove point down in the sod not more than a foot before his feet. The hilt swayed back and forth like a rocking horse.