“Do you mind if I continue on a little way?” Tristan asked casually. “I thought I heard voices up ahead, and there’s that cursed smell of smoke again.”
“All the more reason you should come back with us,” Alex said firmly. “None of your men are out here at this time of day. I can’t pretend to hear what you’re talking about, or smell it either, but if there is someone out there I don’t want you here alone.”
Tristan drew the sword he always carried when he left the estate, again, in spite of Mayra’s protests. “Alex, men are coming this way. I have no idea how many, but it sounds like at least twenty. They’re still a mile or two off. As you say, they aren’t ours, but I do hear sounds like armor and swords clashing. I need you to take the Lady Mayra back to the house and bring some of our men as quickly as you can.”
“I can’t leave you here!” Alex cried.
“I can’t run,” Tristan said desperately. “I can try to hide, and I will, but I have to know that you’re taking Mayra to safety.”
The Baron’s Ring
by
Mary C. Findley
copyright by Mary C. Findley 2010
Findley Family Video Publications Edition
The Baron’s Ring
copyright 2010 Findley Family Video Publications
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Exception is made for short excerpts used in reviews.
Findley Family Video
“Speaking the truth in love.”
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is coincidental
Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: The King James Version, public domain.
Chapter One
The waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to be cut off. I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit.
Lamentations: 54-55
Tristan stood at the farthest edge of the crowd at his father’s funeral, his height allowing him to easily look over the heads of most of the attendees. It was no small event, the burial of the King of Parangor. King Lorcan’s second son was sure that if anyone in the entire city of Kenborana could walk or be carried he was there. No one would break ranks before the hearse left the castle courtyard for the family vault. Parangor was the largest of the kingdoms in the Realmlands, which consisted of a more-or-less peacefully coexisting group of independent monarchies trading freely with one another and sharing many common aspects of language, culture and religion.
A heavy black woolen cloak shielded Tristan from the drops of rain that began to fall. He pulled up the hood over his dark, shoulder-length hair and let his light, amber-brown eyes pass into shadow. Many identical hoods drew up over heads and many collars gathered tighter. The carriage bearing his father’s body moved slowly past where he stood. “My Prince,” a voice behind him said. Tristan turned and let the hood drop again immediately. The crowd around him had parted and a woman approached. Yenscha was a heavy, towering creature, almost as tall as himself, with a broad face and huge hands. She wore a grim and forbidding look as she made her way past the others, but then her look changed to that of an anxious schoolgirl about to recite for an exacting master.
She had covered her head and shoulders with a heavy, fringed shawl, leaving tufts of wiry gray hair and shawl fringe sticking out about her face at every possible angle. She bobbed and stopped before him. A silver tray rested on her splayed hand from which she barely lifted the cloth cover.
“Yenscha! What about a taste for the new king?” Tristan was shouldered aside. There was no mistaking the man’s bulky outline, shorter and broader than his own slender build, dark red hair falling untidily onto the magnificent green leather cloak with a silk brocaded lining of many colors. As soon as he knew his father could not recover, over a year ago, Tristan’s two-years-elder brother Dunstan had commissioned the cloak especially for his coronation, to be held that afternoon.
Yenscha’s hand flashed to a large steel spoon tucked into her apron like a sword. She rapped Dunstan sharply on the knuckles.
“For my Prince,” she growled. “Not for you.” Dunstan retreated, nursing his hand and glaring at Tristan. Yenscha shook the spoon at him and he disappeared into the crowd. She presented the tray again to Tristan as if nothing had happened, and he was forced to pretend that nothing had.
Tristan spent some time looking over the morsels on the tray, almost as if he didn’t find anything to his liking. Others lined up behind him, practically drooling for a chance at that tray. Finally Tristan lifted a swirl of pastry with an artful drizzle of sugar, breathed in the still warm cinnamon smell, and put it to his lips. Everyone around him watched in anticipation.
“Mmmm,” he murmured. “Yenscha, it’s perfect.” Tristan planted a kiss on a cheek as red and hard and round as an apple. A broad smile burst out onto the woman’s face, making it positively beautiful. “Special for my Prince,” Yenscha whispered. “None for that other one.” She tossed her head and sniffed. The watchers moved in as he stood aside, everyone certain that the best of Yenscha’s art lay upon that tray. She reluctantly removed the cover, sighing that “her” prince couldn’t eat the whole tray load himself. Yenscha’s sweets and savory bits were legendary, and none of the mourners would even begin to disperse until all the trays now being carried about the grounds, bearing the gift of food for the people, were emptied.
“Come now, Tristan, I know Yenscha loves for you to go through that ceremony, but have they ever been anything but perfect? And would you dare to say so if they weren’t?” Tristan turned to look down at Jonathan, the strongly built, blond young man dressed in the uniform of the king’s guard.
“I became Yenscha’s official first taster when I was about four years old,” Tristan said, “Because I was the only person who had ever said, ‘Thank you. These are wonderful.’ And they always were, and I always said something like that, except for one time when I was about ten. She had a new kitchen maid who somehow managed to put something very awful in the batch by mistake. I don’t know what it was. I tried to hold my face in check but Yenscha saw it immediately. She threw her apron over her head and ran out of the room howling. She did not come out of the kitchen for a month. I had to go in and beg her to make sweets for me again. I told her I would die without them, and at the time I rather thought I would. I have no idea what fate befell that poor maid, but Yenscha’s never failed since.”
Jonathan had come to Kenborana to be Tristan’s squire. Tristan had never succeeded in becoming a knight, but Jonathan had so excelled at fighting skills that he had found a place in the king’s guard. Jonathan was only twenty but Dunstan had vowed to make him captain after he was crowned.
“Tristan, what are you doing still here?” Jonathan hissed, coming very close and seizing him by the arm. “Dunstan has been hag-riding you as if he were your own personal demon since you could toddle. You’re twenty-five years old. Get away from this place and make a life for yourself.”
“This is a kingdom, Jonathan,” Tristan said faintly. “It has people in it. Someone has to help them.”
“Tristan, there are two things you’ll never be able to do,” Jonathan retorted. “One is win a swordfight with anybody. Two is make your brother into a good king.”
“I only want to try to mend what Dunstan will break,” Tristan replied, “to build up what he’ll tear down, to protect what he’ll attack.”
“You’ll fail and break your heart or he’ll break every bone in your body,” Jonathan warned. “God’s mercy, Tristan, you’re a good man. You love God, and deserve His
blessing. It isn’t here, on this king. He’s a pagan, a man who doesn’t even pretend to serve God. That new cloak of his – Do you know it has his river god embroidered on the inside, that he’s going to have a throne made with that foul idol carved into it? Go find someplace where your love for the true God is appreciated. Get a home, a wife, a place where there’s some peace.”
“I’m here in this world to serve, Jonathan,” Tristan said softly. “We all are, aren’t we? To serve, not to escape from duty and chase fairytales of happiness.”
“You’re chasing a fairytale that you can change your brother,” Jonathan snorted. “Only God can do that. Maybe He wants you to get out of the way and stop covering up Dunstan’s mistakes and fixing what he breaks.”
“I wish He would tell me what He wants me to do,” Tristan said.
Tristan chided himself that the grief he felt at his father’s passing was only a selfish one. He wanted to weep at the thought of the coronation to be held later that day, the final slamming of the prison door that would condemn his people and especially him to untold years of misery. Tristan would have given much to change the crowning of the next king of Parangor. For the thousandth time or more since his father had fallen into his last illness, Tristan bowed his head and begged God not to put on the throne the man who would surely receive the crown later that day. And still there was no answer. Jonathan turned away in frustration, leaving Tristan alone again.
“What will you do, now that your father is dead?” Mischnal, who had been the king’s advisor, appeared out of the mist behind Tristan. Tristan turned, startled by the older man’s appearance, more startled at being spoken to by the sadly smiling gentleman with iron-gray hair and beard and eyes like deep black pools.
“I will – Dunstan has asked me to assist him,” Tristan faltered. “I will stay at the castle and--” He couldn’t seem to continue.
“And try to spare the people as much of your brother’s rule as you can?” Mischnal murmured. “There is no obligation for the king’s second son to do the bidding of his brother when he becomes king, Prince Tristan,” Mischnal said. “Particularly when the king means to make his kingdom a haven of idols and false worship. We all ought to rise up against him, but none of us has the strength. As for you, you’ll wear yourself out trying to save the kingdom from him.”
“Do you think God would have me just go away and forget what will be happening here?” Tristan demanded, dizzy at the thought of two so very different people coming to him with the same message. “I can’t believe that. If I have any power at all to do good in this world, I must do it. And I think I can have power to influence what Dunstan does to the kingdom if I stay as he has asked me to.”
“You have no power over your brother at all,” Mischnal said bluntly. “You never have had. It is your weakness, that you are paralyzed where Dunstan is concerned. You represent all the good he should be doing. It’s as if he sees that and resents it and lashes out against it by bullying you. And you let him.”
“I don’t understand,” Tristan said miserably. “Would you have me take the throne away from Dunstan? It isn’t as if he’s murdered anyone, or stolen from the treasury, or done any monstrous evil yet in the peoples’ eyes. There’s no cause I could take before the justices and say, ‘because of such-and-such a law he’s not worthy to wear the crown.’ In public Dunstan claims he doesn’t worship that river god, only likes the image as a symbol of his kingship. He will be crowned this afternoon. What do you expect me to do?”
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” Mischnal sighed. “I’ve spoken out of turn, because I can’t advise you and I was supposed to be the king’s advisor. I just pray that God clearly shows you what to do, because it’s surely His wisdom that you need. I understand the plight you find yourself in. Your father was not so easy a man to convince to do right, either. I am relieved Dunstan has not asked me to stay on. God guard you, lad.”
Tristan leaned against a tree after Mischnal had left him, staring up into the leaden sky. “I never considered that I might make the kingdom worse by staying with Dunstan,” he said to no one. “But it’s true. I’ve never made him better. Only God can change his heart. Perhaps I should keep out of the way, and he’d be forced to turn to God for help. He’d never do it, though. Dunstan is so hardened, so ignorant, nothing will ever change him.”
“A good horsewhipping still might,” growled a man with the bowed legs and ramrod-straight carriage of a cavalry soldier. “No, we tried that, didn’t we?” Gladring, the king’s Master of Horse, reached up to pat Tristan on the back and rubbed his grizzled beard. He had taken a whip to Dunstan more than once when he had caught him terrorizing Tristan. “My poor young Prince,” he said. “It’s a sadder day for you than anyone can imagine, isn’t it? You deserve better than what’s coming with your brother on the throne.”
“Why is God letting this happen, Gladring?” Tristan cried. “You always told me to pray and God would work. It’s time for Him to work.”
“God’s ways aren’t ours, my boy,” Gladring said. “Just keep doing right, and remember that this life isn’t all there is. He makes it uncomfortable here so we won’t love it, but look forward to heaven. And he does bless the faithful, so He can’t fail to bless you. Remember, lad, if you need to chop some wood, you know there’s always plenty at the forge. Pretend it’s that river-god throne your brother’s having made.”
“I’ll be by later to take you up on that,” Tristan said with a wan smile. “But you’d better have a mountain.”
Tristan watched Gladring move away through the crowd. The sound of a woman’s giddy laughter caught his ear. Two figures slipped into the fringe of Tarpin Woods, only a few yards away from where he stood. There was no mistaking Dunstan. Tristan reluctantly turned to follow as his brother slipped his arm around the waist of the silk-clad girl.
He slid the girl under the cloak and she nearly disappeared from view. No doubt she was one of the flocks of ladies-in-waiting to the nobles who had come out of respect for their king and the king who was to be. Tristan curled his lip at the thought of respecting Dunstan. Not far into the woods wound the Brenget River, running even deeper and faster than usual in the spring wetness. Tristan quickened his pace as Dunstan staggered, took a pull at the flask that always accompanied him, and planted a kiss on the girl’s cheek. She broke away from him with difficulty and hugged herself in the chill and damp.
“Where is the shrine of the river god you promised to show me, your majesty?” the girl asked. “We are at the river, and it’s raining harder. I can even feel it through the trees.”
“Why, Dunstan, brother mine!” Tristan called out heartily. “Who have you brought in search of shrines?”
Dunstan swung around, his muddy brown eyes dazed at first, then angry. “If it isn’t my little brother,” he growled. “Interferin’ in my business again. Sweets for you, ‘n’ none f’r me, is it? Well, this time they’re all f’r me.”
“So you’re determined to get more worshipers for this idol of yours, before you even have an idol,” Tristan accused. The shrine was a plan still in Dunstan’s head, but he meant to install it here on this ancient stone pavement by the river’s edge. Dunstan hoped that people would begin to accept it as a part of the history of Parangor if it was on the site of a historic ruin. “But, after all, the gentle lady’s right. It’s growing very wet. Look at her, she’s shivering.”
“I’ll warm ‘er up quick ‘nough,” Dunstan promised, forcing another kiss upon her. “Feel th’ power o’ th’ river god in this place, li’l girl,” he rasped. “Feel my power.”
“My brother’s overcome with his own greatness,” Tristan said with forced heartiness. “You know, it’s no fit weather for a delicate maid to be out in.” He made a great show of bundling her in the cloak and effectively got between her and Dunstan. “Let me escort you back to the castle.”
“Ge’ back here, wench,” Dunstan snarled. Tristan understood his words, but they were garbled by drink and he prayed the g
irl would not comprehend.
“On second thought, my lady,” Tristan said, “you can find your own way, can’t you? Sorrow over our father’s death has made my brother’s mind as misty as this wood. He forgets what he ought to remember. God guard you.”
The girl wound the long cloak tightly in her hands to get it clear of her ankles and bounded away like a deer. Dunstan’s thick hand caught Tristan’s arm in a brutal grip. He swallowed another long draught from the flask. Tristan stared at him in disgust. Ten o’clock in the morning, as their father’s body passed by them, a crowd of mourners a hundred yards away, and Dunstan was already drunk and getting drunker.
“You’re almost King of Parangor, Dunstan,” Tristan hissed. “Our father’s almost in his grave. You can’t afford a scandal. And how dare you flaunt that paganism in front of strangers. The shrine of the ancient river god!”
“Tristan, y’ know ver’ well nothing’ll stop me from b’comin’ king,” sneered Dunstan. “The river god does look out f’r me, whatever you may think. Maybe ‘f th’ chit’d pleased me I’d’ve made ‘er my queen. I’d’ve made a river goddess throne f’r ‘er.”
“Is it possible for you to do anything honorable?” Tristan cried. “What about the true God, the one our people have built churches for, have supported ministers to teach us about, the One Who has real words in real Scriptures that we can believe and live by?”
“I’m goin’ t’ take good care ‘f my baby brother,” Dunstan slurred, “an’ make ‘im my chief advisor, an’ let ‘im live in my castle, even though he can’t learn how t’ keep his nose outta my business,” sniggered Dunstan. “I’m all but king, Tristan, and ‘f I wan’ m’ own god, one I c’n see and touch, I’ll do ‘s I please. All you have t’ do ‘s keep y’r mouth shut, an’ do what y’ love t’ do anyway: Take care ‘f th’ people an’ their business, pay for those pretty churches and those dull, sleepy-headed ministers if y’ like, an’ let me ‘n’ my river god alone.”
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