by Spoor, Garry
“Never talk history around Folkstaff unless you want a very long, drawn out, detailed lesson.” Erin said as she pushed passed them and made her way to the gates. Grey said nothing as he followed up the rear.
The front gates were open as they passed under the arch and were met by castle guards dressed in the King’s colors.
“What business do you have here?” One of the guards asked. He was a tall, broad man with graying hair and leathery face. He was also the only guard without a helmet which meant he was probably the one in charge. Erin dismounted.
“The name is Erin Silvia of the Hunter’s guild, I have been tracking someone for several days now and I believe she may be on her way here.”
“Here and gone.” The captain said, and he didn’t look too pleased about it. He turned to a young blond haired man on his left and whispered something behind his hand. The guard nodded and started off toward the inner gate. The captain then turned his attention back to the Hunters.
“The one you seek was here two nights past. She spoke with the High King and then left.”
“She spoke with the King.” Daniel exclaimed, sliding off his horse.
“What did they talk about? What did they say?” Erin asked.
“That is not for me to know.” The captain replied and waited as the young blonde haired guard returned, they exchanged a glance, nothing was said but the second man returned to his post.
“His majesty has been expecting you.” The captain said as he turned. “Please, follow me.”
“Interesting.” Folkstaff commented as he looked at Erin. “Odd that we should be expected since we were not expecting to come here.”
“Odd or not, I’m starting to get used to it.” Erin remarked and she handed off her reins to one of the guards before following the captain through the inner gate.
They didn’t go up to the main keep, but took a side path through the grounds and arrived at a small garden surrounded by flowers and trees. A stone bench sat in the center and upon it sat a man who seemed to be preoccupied. He was tall, slim with a neatly trimmed beard wearing an old tunic and staring down at something he was holding in his hands. He looked up only when the guard made his announcement.
“Your majesty, they are here.”
“See that Denir is brought here then leave us.” The King commanded.
The guard appeared reluctant to actually leave and looked at each of the Hunters carefully as if committing their faces to memory should they do anything that warrants their arrest. He then turned in true military style and marched off.
“Please, be seated.” The King said, waving at the stone benches that sounded him.
“Your majesty…” Erin began, but was stopped as he held up his hand.
“Roland. I’m not in the mood for formalities today.” He said as he set what looked like a dog’s collar on the bench beside him.
“Roland.” Erin corrected herself, and it just didn’t feel right to be calling the High King of Aru by his first name.
“Let me help you out. I know why you are here. I figured you’d show up soon enough.”
“You know why we’re here your majesty?” Folkstaff asked.
“You are after one Kile Veller, are you not?”
“Then she was here?” Grey shouted, probably too loud, as a few of the guards on the wall made gestures that they would shoot him if he did it again. “Are you alright your majesty, did she harm you? I cannot believe she would attempt an assassination of the High King.”
Roland looked up at Grey. The look on the King’s face was clear to read, he thought the man a simpleton.
“If you think that, then we are not speaking of the same person.”
“She is a fugitive your majesty and is wanted by the guild, by the tower and by the crown.”
“She is no longer wanted by the crown.” Roland said, holding his hand up again, this time to cut off Grey’s protests. “I have since revoked that as of yesterday.”
“But your majesty, you can’t be serious.” Grey exclaimed.
“I am.” Roland replied. “The girl that I met last night would not harm me, nor do I think she would harm anyone.”
“Perhaps she didn’t have the opportunity.”
“Oh, she had the opportunity, instead she sat with me and my dog through the night, at least until the guards came, only then did she leave.”
“Your dog?” Daniel asked, looking around.
“Tyler. He passed away yesterday morning.” Roland said as he placed his hand upon the collar that sat on the bench beside him. “I was grateful that she was here that night. She helped me understand a few things.”
“That sounds like the Kile Veller I know.” Daniel added and shot a look at Grey who just rolled his eyes.
“You can’t be serious.” He said again.
Roland looked up at the Hunter. He had taken an instant dislike to this man.
“If you would excuse my honesty, it is my belief that the Hunter’s guild has acted rashly on the persecution of one of their own. Only through their evidence did I believe that their case was valid. I see now that this is more a game of political opportunity than a need to see justice served, and I will not be a pawn on someone else’s board.”
“You presume much sir.” Grey remarked rather harshly, and then thought better of challenging the High King in his court and remained silent.
“Please, your majesty, if you could tell us what happened. How did she get in to see you and how did she out? What did she come for? What happened that night?”
“How she entered Windfoil and how she left it, we still do not know, though I wish we did. It is rather unsettling to have someone come and go with such ease, as to what happened that night… what those dogs did, it amazed even me.” He said with a hint of a smile, but then shook his head. “But now is not the time. You came here seeking answers, and I have found someone with those answers.”
Two guards arrived escorting a tall, slender, older man. He looked bent and broken with his head cast down and wouldn’t even look at Roland.
“This is Samuel Denir, up until yesterday he was my advisor.” Roland said as he stared at the man. “After Kile left, I questioned him and he has told me a story that I think you will find very interesting.”
“But your majesty.” The old man whispered.
“Tell them Samuel, from the start.”
“Very well.” He said as he sat down on one of the benches. “What you have to understand is we did what we thought was right.”
“On with is Denir.”
“As you wish your majesty. It begins in the summer of 1252, when High King Jusen Waltair II was badly wounded in a hunting accident. His horse was startled by a wild boar and he was thrown. It was believed that he would not survive his injuries and as custom dictates, his eldest son, Prince Jonland Waltair III took the throne in his absence. He was only eighteen at the time, still young and not ready. We tried to aide him the best we could, but power does… strange things to people. He did not heed our advice, nor did he hear our concerns…” Denir looked over at Roland as if he feared the truth of the tale would hurt the young King, but Roland was staring at the dog’s collar that he was now turning over in his hands. It was obvious that he did not like the story any better the second time around.
“What you have to understand.” Denir continued. “Prince Jonland was not very well… accepted.”
“What my advisor is trying to say so diplomatically was that my brother was hated. Jonland had a dark side. He could be cruel and manipulative, even to me. I was only eight years old when my brother became king, if but for a short period of time. I did not understand what he did back then, probably because it did not affect me personal, but I could tell he was not very well liked.”
“The people feared Prince Jonland.” Denir continued. “They feared what he could become should he take the throne and during the King’s absence, that fear came to fruition. He denied King Jusen the aide he needed, it is my belief that once Prin
ce Jonland tasted power, he desired nothing else, and he was loathe to relinquish it.
“A small group of us petitioned the Tower for aid behind Prince Jonland’s back, and it was granted in the hands of a healer. The mystic was able to save the King’s life, bringing him back from the very edge of death. Upon King Jusen’s return, Prince Jonland was forced to step down, but the King was never completely healed. We had seen how close he had come to dying and knew that it was only a matter of time before he was beyond the aide of even the mystics, so we formed what we called the Dark Conspiracy and we set our plan in motion. Please believe me when I say that this was the only way would could see to save the Kingdom. Should Prince Jonland become King, the Kingdom would have torn itself apart from the inside out, and it would have been a war the likes of which none of us had ever seen.”
“So you had him assassinated?” Erin asked.
“No.” Denir said shaking his head.
“But everyone knows that Prince Jonland was assassinated on the eve of the winter’s feast back in 1254.” Folkstaff added.
“Nobody died that night.” Denir said. “We could not bring ourselves to cross that line, and so we had Prince Jonland arrested for his own murder.”
“So what you’re saying is that the assassin that was arrested for Prince Jonland’s murder, was Prince Jonland, and that no crime was actually committed?” Folkstaff replied.
“That is correct. We could not bring ourselves to actually commit the heinous crime of regicide, and so we simply had him arrested, tried and taken to Blackmoore prison… for the rest of his life. With Prince Jonland out of the way, that left the line to the throne clear for Prince Roland. I will not apologize for what I’ve done, for I did it in the best interest of the Kingdom.”
“Who was involved in this conspiracy?” Erin asked.
“There were seven of us all together. Besides myself there was Rothershire, Prince Jonland’s bodyguard who was the one that actually arrested Prince Jonland on that night. Elmer Saybela identified the body because no one would question the Prince’s own tutor who had taught the prince for the last sixteen years. The magistrate that presided over the hearing was David Draw, Brian Tally was the clerk that made out the proper certificates and Arthur Linny was the warden that admitted Prince Jonland into Blackmoore. Once the Prince was in Blackmoore, nobody questioned the proceedings. I’m not sure if it was because they believed the story that we spun, or that they didn’t care.”
“You said there were seven, you only mentioned six.” Folkstaff said.
“There was the young hunter that we hired to escort the Prince to Blackmoore, we couldn’t do it ourselves. It would have raised too much suspicion. He knew who the prince was and questioned us about it, once we explained what had happened and what we had decided to do, it was easy to convince him to look the other way. He was even rewarded by the King for his part, although the King never knew what we had done. His name was Garret Boraro.
***~~~***
20
“Boraro, as in Master Boraro of the Hunter’s Academy.” Kile exclaimed.
“I should think… it the same man.” Saybela replied although his breathing was getting shallow.
“Then Ravenshadow isn’t the assassin that killed Prince Jonland since Prince Jonland was never assassinated. Ravenshadow is Prince Jonland. That’s what he meant by justice. He is punishing everyone that had a hand in his imprisonment for a crime that was never committed.That meant that the poison that Scarlet used on me was supposed to be for Master Boraro, Scarlet is going after Master Boraro.” She said as she got to her feet and started to pace the bedroom floor.
- Kile? -
“Now the pieces are starting to fall together.”
-Kile?-
“If I can stop Scarlet and with your testimony, I’m in the clear.”
-Kile?-
“What's wrong vesper.”
Vesper didn’t have to say anything, she could feel it, could sense it. She knelt down beside the old man and took his hand into her. There was no more warmth, no more life. Elmer Saybela was dead.
She cursed as she got to her feet and paced the floor again. With Saybela gone that meant there were only two people left that knew of the Dark Conspiracy, three if she counted Ravenshadow but he wasn’t going to help her. Garret Boraro, who she knew all too well, would go out of his way to convict her for each and every murder if it was in the best interest of the Sons of Terrabin, and the last man on the list who she still didn’t have a name for. With each death her chances of clearing her name was getting slimmer, and now it looked as if she was going to have to save her old weapon’s master, the one person at the academy that made it painfully clear that she was not welcome.
“Come on Vesper, we have to go.” Kile said as she took the blanket off the bed and draped it over Saybela. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Vesper climbed up onto her shoulder as she made her way back downstairs and to the front door. Pushing it open, she half expected to see the full force of the local Guild House standing outside waiting to arrest her, but the streets were deserted, save for one man asleep on a park bench.
The academy was close, just on the opposite side of a forty foot tall, six foot thick stone wall, she could only hope that the gates remain open as they had done during her time at the Academy. It amazed her that it had come to this. That she had to now try and protect the one man that would never have returned the favor. In the back of her mind she wondered how disappointed she would really be if she arrived too late.
Pickman’s square gave way the lower merchant’s district that ran along Cannon street which ran up through the higher levels. She followed the street back down to the gates and found that, not only were they opened, but they were unguarded. That should have been a red flag since she had always remembered seeing guards posted along the walls during her time at the academy, and although they weren’t numerous, they did make their presence known. She wasn’t going to question her good fortune, if it was good fortune, as she slipped under the gates, keeping to the shadows and once again finding herself back in the Academy.
It was a far cry from the first time she had ever set foot in the Academy, when she arrived in the supply wagon through the southern gate. The headmaster Sir Oblum had told them that there were only two ways to leave the academy. The Venator gate or the western gate, sometimes known as the Hunter’s gate, or the Pudora Gate, the Eastern Gate, otherwise known as the walk of shame, the path of disgrace, the losers walk and about thirty other euphemisms pertaining to failure. Now she was entering the Academy through that gate.
Little had changed during her time away, but then it had only been about a year. The times she had walked these grounds during the hot summer nights, and the talks she had with… Gorum.
She sensed the dog before she saw him as the big Mastiff was walking his usual route around the outer edge of the stables, although the stable was much larger now since the fire. She wanted to call out to the dog but knew that yelling across the compound while everyone was supposed to be asleep probably wouldn’t go unnoticed. She crept across the field, trying to get closer to him.
-Didn’t you leave already?-
Kile spun around to see Hunar approach.
-You still wouldn’t make a very good thief.-
“I was trying to get Gorum’s attention.”
-Oh, is that all.-
Hunar replied and let out a loud sharp bark.
“Will you keep it down?”
-You wanted his attention and whispering to him isn’t going to work, he’s as deaf as a post these days.-
“Maybe, but I don’t exactly want to attract too much attention to myself either.”
-Are you planning on stealing something from the vir’s hall?-
“No, of course not. I have reason to believe that Master Boraro may be in danger.”
-Ah, that one. He has been acting strange lately.-
“Strange, as in how
?”
-He has been wandering the grounds at night. He goes to the place of horses. He is there now.-
“He’s gone to the stables? Why?”
-Like I care what the vir do.-
She looked up at the stables, sure enough there was a light inside. Not a very bright light, probably a candle or a single lantern, but it was out of place.
“Have you seen or smelled anyone else around?”
-I don’t know.-
Hunar replied and within those words Kile was stuck with a vision of a shadowy movement. It was fleeting and could have been just about anything from an old bag blowing in the wind to a stray cat, but it was enough for Hunar to think on and Hunar was not the type of dog that thought for very long.
“Find Gorum, tell him I’m in the stables, keep watch on the doors and warn me if you see anything out of the ordinary.”
-Will do.-
Hunar replied and set off to find her mentor.
Kile quietly made her way to the stable doors, they were unlocked, yet another indication that something was wrong. Pushing them open slowly, she slipped inside.
There was a familiar feeling to the place, even if they weren’t the old stables she was used to, it was more like coming home, more so than the Veller farm.
“So, you came for me at last.” A familiar voice said as the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath cut the silence of the old barn.
“Master Boraro.” She said, turning around.
The man stepped out of the shadow holding a sword tightly in his right hand. He looked very much as he had looked the last time she had seen him, that was during the graduation ceremony when he had refused to shake her hand in front of everyone. Of course she had refused to shake his hand as well, so there was mutual disrespect.
“You’re in danger.” She said and her hands fell to the grips of her own blades.
