by A Werner
The Crystal Crux
Betrayal
A M
Werner
This is the YA version of The Crystal Crux – Betrayal, a novel originally released January 2016 in an adult format. This YA version is the exact same story with the same characters as the adult version but the language, violence and sexuality has been toned way down to make the story appropriate for readers of all ages.
I won’t even try to list the names of all the family and friends who deserve thanks for having contributed something positive to the creation of ‘The Crystal Crux.’ Rest assured, I love you all and your enjoining spirits exist as one in this hearty tome.
But the one voice amongst the many that I must acknowledge and I am most indebted is my wife, Susan Marie Werner. She has endured two decades of edits, pauses and rewrites. She never lost hope, never let me quit. She kept encouraging me to brush off the dust and get back to it, finish. Her love and encouragement has been priceless. Thank you, Sue!
You can stay current on news concerning
AM Werner and The Crystal Crux series at the following sites …
AMWERNER.COM
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Copyright @2016 by Allen M Werner
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
YA VERSION
ISBN:
Cover Design by: A M Werner
Pronunciation Guide
Anthea Manikos (An-thē-ä Man-i-kōs)
Avenel Fabbro (Ä-ven-el Fab-rō)
Blassilo Velez (Blä-sil-ō Vel-ez)
Gherardus Fabbro (Her-är-dus Fab-rō)
Midonia (Mid-ōn-ya)
Parthenope (Pär-then-ōp)
Pero de Alava (Per-o day Ä-lava)
Rugerius Fabbro (Ra-ger-ē-us Fab-rō)
Sinibaldus (Sin-i-bôl-dus)
Talento Fabbro (Ta-len-tō Fab-rō)
Turstin Fabbro (Térs-tin Fab-rō)
Viridian (Vir-id-e-an)
Chapter 1 – Meliore 1170
Meliore Fabbro paced her husband’s unlit study. Tancred Fabbro was the Lord of Parthenope, an Italian kingdom on the Bay of Naples. This was the time of evening when Tancred normally returned to his private chambers to examine the paperwork which had mushroomed across his desk during the day. His duties were many but they kept the sixty-year-old ruler feeling youthful and vibrant, sharp in mind and body. In fact, Tancred Fabbro had recently confided to her that he never felt stronger or more ambitious. He had no intention of ever retiring.
With weathered hands, Meliore Fabbro brushed dust from her tan riding dress. She had been gone on holiday in Melfi for nearly a fortnight. Her return was early and unexpected. Few had knowledge of her being in the city. She meant to keep it so.
The carriage ride was long and tedious, hard on her hips and back. She travelled nearly the whole of Italy, through orange groves and wheat fields. Nothing about the trip was interesting except Eagles Pass.
Eagles Pass was a trade corridor cutting through thick woods at the Western base of the Apennine Mountains. Here, for reasons only the god’s could fathom, golden eagles, birds known for their unsocial behavior, flocked. Meliore ordered the coach driver to stop as she spent an hour admiring the sight. The eagles were inspiring. They made her think about the intrigues at court, the feuds between kings and princes, the reckless, headstrong knights and their wayward quests for glory and fame. She couldn’t help but wonder if a sight such as this might help them rethink their conspiracies and backstabbing. ‘If they could learn the mind of these eagles, they could learn the mind that brings about peace and brotherhood.’
Meliore lit no candles. She leaned on a wall and began nibbling her fingernails, waiting - waiting.
A common green lizard, a creature no more than six-inches long from the end of its nose to the tip of its tail, climbed up beside her shoulder, its tiny webbed toes clinging confidently to the wall. These harmless reptiles were widespread annoyances in Campania. If they had a soul at all, they would know more about the secrets in the city than anyone else.
Unfazed, Meliore brushed the little fellow away with the back of her hand. It scurried down the wall, dropped to the floor and disappeared under a dresser in the corner.
Tancred Fabbro was late but Meliore wasn’t concerned. This was common. Her husband had many responsibilities and there were always deceitful bootlickers trying to suck up to him. If only shooing away these deceivers were as easy as shooing away a little green lizard.
Meliore stepped to her husband’s wooden desk. She ignored the stacks of papers and focused on the knick-knacks. She took a moment to touch each of them, remembering what they stood for.
Meliore was fifty-eight-years-old now. She had given birth to three fine sons, Avenel, Gherardus and Turstin. They were wise and intelligent men with castles and lands of their own, each serving their father’s kingdom faithfully.
Meliore smiled at a portrait of herself. Their life together was laid out on this giant desk, decades of valuable lessons in love, pain, triumph and loss. The one thing the desk did not have on it was regrets. No regrets.
The stained-glass double doors leading out to the patio were standing open. It was mid-summer and there was no breeze coming in from the Bay of Naples. She tried but could not see the seas rolling waves in the distance. Thick clouds were covering the full moon making things much darker than they would normally be.
Meliore left the desk to stand beside a high back chair facing the open patio; it was Tancred’s favorite seat. The high back chair was a wedding gift from Tancred’s dead father, Reginald.
The high back chair was tall and slender, sturdy and heavy, built of solid oak. It could hardly be moved by a single man. The back was round and covered in gold, the armrests resembling snarling dragons. From the chair, Tancred could see out over the white walls of the palace to the clear blue waters in the Bay of Naples. Off to the left there stood an imposing tower. On all four sides of the tower hung enormous grey banners of Sarcinus, the gold-tongued, purple dragon sigil of House Fabbro. Tancred wanted the dragon’s image to remind the people he was guarding them, protecting them and policing them.
Meliore never particularly cared for the dragon symbol. She found it intimidating. She much preferred the peaceful iris’ of her father’s crest. But her father was dead, swimming in the eternal oceans of time with her mother. They had left this earth years ago. But this was not a time for sadness. The past was done and living in the memory of it never helped anyone.
As she drifted back into the even darker shadows of the study, she removed the linen wrap covering her head. Her long blond tresses fell to her shoulders. There was some noticeable grey edging through but she didn’t care. Her husband called her beautiful and she knew she was. She felt like she could live forever.
Feeling rather flirty all of a sudden, Meliore slid over to her husband’s dresser and removed her tan gown. Standing naked, she fumbled through Tancred’s selection of clothing. She chose his favorite dress shirt for warm summer nights. It was a black silken tunic that went down just below his waist when he wore it. She was shorter than her husband, so when she put the night shirt on, the hem extended down below her knees. Meliore smiled. She sniffed the sleeves while rubbing the silk against her cheeks. She missed him.
The sound of someone arriving at the door got her attention. She knew it must be Tancred. With all the enthusiasm of a dizzy young girl, Meliore bounced over to t
he high back chair and sat on the red velvet cushion. She crossed her legs and gripped the armrests, her fingers digging firmly into the dragon eyes. This was going to be exciting.
The dark clouds covering the moon began to scatter just as the door to the office cracked open. Moonbeams washed silently over the balcony, passing through the patio doors and into the study. The high back chair where Meliore sat was all lit up. She appeared simply angelic in his sleek black tunic.
And then a strange buzzing sound disturbed the room.
Meliore heard it coming. Her blue eyes barely caught sight of the strange object as it struck her hard, straight through the chest. She couldn’t make a sound. It entered near her heart. All her breath left instantly. She stared at the wavering ocean in the distance trying to imagine that the whole world was tranquil blue, her dying spirit being drawn towards the waves, towards the mists, towards her parents. There wasn’t an iris in the room but still she could smell them, the iris and the salty sea.
Weary, Tancred Fabbro shut the door, leaving the world and his kingdom’s problems outside. He sweated his way to the giant desk, placing a heavy bag of work upon it. A stack of papers was knocked to the floor. As Tancred hunched down to gather them, he heard the sound of a woman sighing. He glanced sideways towards the patio and noticed a tired hand slip off the left armrest of his high back chair.
He placed the important papers back on the desk and moved towards the chair. “Meliore,” he grinned. “Is that you? Did you return from Melfi early?”
The full moon made the room appear as day.
Tancred found his wife sitting on the throne; her head slumped to the left, an arrow buried deep in her chest. His brown eyes grew wider as he noticed blood oozing down her chest, staining his favorite shirt. Tancred started to shake. He couldn’t utter a word or lift his hands to touch her. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. His chest hurt. A stinging sensation ran through his whole body, first the left side and then the right side. Tancred’s old heart burst. He fell down dead at his wife’s feet.
Meliore Fabbro was not dead yet. She was aware of her husband’s collapse. She could do nothing for him. She was exhausted and in pain. The arrow had her thin body pinned to the back. She could not move. She could not raise her left hand or unclench the fingers of the right from the dragon’s eyes. Her dry lips could produce no sound. ‘Please Lord,’ she prayed, ‘let me touch my love one last time.’ Meliore Fabbro drifted away as she sensed the presence of cool seawater washing over her, the eternal saltiness absorbing her into a peaceful calm.
In the heavens, the winds changed direction. The dark clouds returned, slowly rolling up over the city as if in mourning, veiling the moon, dropping tiny tears of rain. Tancred Fabbro’s study disappeared in the darkness.
Chapter 2 – Scapegoats
Avenel Fabbro stared at the fletching on the arrow spearing his mother’s chest. The quarrel kept her body pinned to the back of the chair, still sitting. He couldn’t stop himself from focusing on the torment she must have felt during those last few seconds of life. When she died, he died. He could feel it in his bones, the cold grip of her rigor mortis creeping up inside him and twisting him in knots.
Avenel Fabbro, however, did not look upon his dead father. Tancred Fabbro was gone and good riddance. It was about time the old bugger journeyed on.
Avenel Fabbro was forty-two-years old now and was tired of waiting. He prayed his father might retire, take ill or keel over, something, anything. Today was the day he stood to inherit everything. Parthenope was his. But the grim shadow of his mother’s assassination made any joyous thought he wished to entertain seem utterly morose.
Avenel looked up for a moment and watched his younger siblings, Gherardus and Turstin, both grown men, whispering to one another behind their father’s wide desk, their hands pointing this way and that, eagerly dissecting the murder mystery. It was no mystery for the boys knew who the responsible parties were.
Fresh summer sunshine entered the room through the open patio doors. The blue waves in the Bay of Naples were spilling over one another in a race to the shore. The tall, imposing tower to the left of the view was all lit up, the loophole from where the murderer was positioned standing guilty and in plain sight for all to see. Hanging beneath the loophole was an enormous grey banner displaying Sarcinus.
Avenel breathed deep and ordered the guards to leave.
When the guards obeyed and closed the door behind them, the three brothers assembled over the bodies of their dead parents.
Avenel was angry. He glared at Gherardus, the only one of them wearing armor, the shiny silver plate of the royal guard. He growled at his brother. “How did this happen?”
Gherardus Fabbro was two years younger than Avenel and Castellan or chief protector of the city. He was a veteran of many campaigns, having killed more people than both his brothers put together. He was confident and proud, beyond intimidation.
“You were there,” Gherardus scolded. “You saw what I saw. The room was dark. We saw someone stirring around down here. We thought it was Tancred. There were no lights. When the moon finally lit the study up and Pa was sitting here in his chair, in his clean black shirt, I took the shot. How was I to know it was Ma. She was supposed to be in Melfi. How did she get back in the city without us knowing? Why was she in here? Why was she wearing Papa’s shirt?”
Turstin Fabbro didn’t dare add a word to the discussion. Turstin was suffering miserably from a hangover. Twenty-seven-years-old, Turstin Fabbro didn’t wish to be part of this conspiracy. He was the Provost of Parthenope, the record keeper, managing all the financial transactions in the region. He avoided fighting like the plague. While his brave brothers were shooting the fatal bolt down on their mother, he was cowering behind them on a shadowed bench, praying they missed, praying they would change their minds. He knew, however, he had to be party to their crime if they were to trust him. They might kill him otherwise. Gherardus was always so violent, hitting him for no reason. Turstin just looked at his mother’s dead body, holding back the tears.
“So, what do we do now?” Gherardus demanded.
Avenel Fabbro knew it was his decision to make but he couldn’t see beyond his sin. He had killed his mother and was worried that God had a hand in this strange unfolding, that God was judging them. ‘We killed our parents,’ was all he could think.
Killing their father was not really a problem. No one seemed to like him anyway. They wouldn’t care that he was gone. But their mother was different. Meliore Fabbro was loved by nearly everyone in the city, even the Church. People were going to ask a lot of questions about her death. They would want answers.
“Fine,” Gherardus blurted out, waving a strong fist. “I’ll take the lead on this - again.” Gherardus was a natural and his ability to lead was quickly rising to the surface.
“Turstin,” Gherardus commanded. “You and I will stay here and go through Pa’s papers. We’ll find some slackers behind on their taxes. They will be our scapegoats. Avenel, you lead the guards back to the tower and search it. Make it look like an official investigation. Knock some things over, tear the place apart and put on a good show. When you come back, we’ll have the names. You can arrest them and look like a hero. We’ll hold court before dawn and hang them by sunset.”
Avenel had his eyes closed the whole time Gherardus was speaking. This was getting out of control. He didn’t want to kill anyone else, especially innocent people. But he too realized that the Pope might get involved. They needed more believable scapegoats than the common criminals they already had jailed for their use. More people had to die if they were going to live.
‘I can’t live with all this blood on my hands.’ Avenel thought. Avenel bent down beside his mother and yanked the arrow out of her chest. Her body started to fall away from him. Turstin dropped down on the other side of the tall chair and helped Avenel catch her. They looked across at one other with similar expressions of sorrow and guilt.
Gherardus Fabbro stood tall abov
e the back of the chair, his grey-blue eyes glaring down on them. “Avenel,” he demanded, “are you going to carry out my command?”
Avenel did not respond. He wasn’t really listening to him anymore. His mind was already settled. With ease, he swept his mother’s body up in his muscular arms. He pressed his lips against her cold forehead before turning to face Gherardus. “I’m out, brother. This is the last time I will ever see you. I’m leaving the city. With me gone, you are next in line. Parthenope is yours.”
Turstin was shocked and his bloodshot eyes got quickly sober.
Gherardus was unmoved. He was the Castellan of the great city and the chief knight of the royal guard. He intended to eventually challenge Avenel for the throne anyway. This made the transition easier, simpler.
Turstin started to stutter. “Wh… where… where will you go, Avenel? Are you taking Ma?”
Avenel smiled at Turstin. He always liked Turstin. Turstin was weak but likable. He was much like their mother, quiet and gentle.
“First,” Avenel revealed, “I’m going to the chapel and pray for forgiveness. I advise you both do the same. Second, I’m going to sell everything I have, purchase a cart, and leave. I don’t deserve to live like this. I will go wherever the Lord leads me. I will seek redemption. I cannot live with the advantages her death offers.”
Turstin smiled believing this a good idea. “I will help you brother.”
“No you won’t,” Gherardus interrupted his fist rounding into view. “I need your help here, Turstin. Avenel won’t even reach the city gates if the Church suspects we had a hand in this. We can’t let anyone know, not even the royal watchers. No one must know.” He looked at his older brother. “You know you don’t have time, Gherardus. You have to leave right away. Slip out quickly and quietly. The people of Parthenope are going to rise up and demand justice. The Church will demand it. We must give them some scapegoats or it’s all our hides.”
