The King's Pursuit

by L. R. Patton

  “Your uncle was a foolish man,” King Willis says.

  Prince Virgil takes a bite of a roll, as inconspicuously as he might. It is, you see, too wonderful to leave on a plate so it cools. He does not say a word, for Prince Virgil knows better than to talk with food in his mouth. He mostly dines with his mother, you see, and mothers are good for teaching manners. But his father does not desire an answer, for he is accustomed to delivering his monologues without a single word spoken from anyone else in the room who may have the very great privilege of hearing their king’s mindless chatter. Oh, for sure, not everything out of the king’s mouth is mindless chatter. There are nuggets, of course. But King Willis, now, talks and talks and talks about the foolishness of his brother, the true and rightful king, though he would never admit that title aloud. His brother did not deserve the throne, though he was the one born with magic. His brother made his choice and must now live with it.

  “He would not have made a good king,” King Willis says. He wipes his mouth with a blue napkin and places it on the table, as if he is finished. But a man like King Willis is hardly ever finished with eating.

  His words bother Prince Virgil, for there is still so much of the old prince that has not yet been touched by his father and the golden glory of a throne. “How do you know?” he says.

  King Willis tilts his head. His eyes rake his son’s face. He does not like to be contradicted, you see, especially from a boy. “What is it you say?”

  Prince Virgil realizes, then, that it might have been more prudent to close his mouth. Was that not what all the sages wrote in their volumes of proverbs? A man with many words is a man deemed foolish. A man who speaks without thinking may as well wear a fool’s cap.

  The boy clears his throat. “Nothing, Father,” he says, for he hopes his father did not hear him at all.

  But King Willis, though he is not a great listener, is a skilled listener. He listens to the mumblings of servants. He listens to the talk of the village, through his trusty spy, who flits about the town, landing on windowsills and collecting the conversation within. The spy has not been needed for some time, for the people do not seem to move from their homes.

  The king has, alas, heard the words of his son. “How do I know?” he says.

  Prince Virgil drops his head. He may as well wear the fool’s cap for a moment. “How do you know he would not have been a good king if he never sat the throne?”

  The silence between them is worse than the speaking. Prince Virgil much prefers the chatter. The quiet steals across him like a cold breath of fear.

  King Willis does not rise. He does not strike the table. He does not breathe, one might think, for it is obvious when King Willis breathes. The very buttons on his shirt tremble. But the king must be in good humor this afternoon, for when he speaks, his voice smoothes calm across the whipped waters. “I know,” he says, “because he was just like my grandfather. Weak.” He leans back in his chair, though there is not much difference between King Willis leaning forward and leaning back. It is merely a slight movement, imperceptible, almost, though Prince Virgil, observant child he is, notices. And if he did not notice, his father’s chair would have given it away, screeching its pain. “It takes a strong man to lead a kingdom. Especially one as desired as Fairendale.” He stares at his son. Prince Virgil tries not to look away from his black, beady eyes. “Are you a strong man, son?”

  He does not know the answer to his father’s question. Is he strong? Is it a strong man who would give away the secret of his friend for the safety of the village children? Is it a strong man who stands by while his father destroys the village and all the people he loved anyway? Is it a strong man who sits in a warm castle while village children sit in the dark dungeons below the dungeons, kept alive only by bread and water?

  Well, you see why it is such a difficult question to answer. Strong, yes. Weak, yes. He is both.

  Prince Virgil turns it over and over in his mind. Is his father a strong man? What does it mean to be strong? Does it mean cruelty? Does it mean kindness? Is it stronger to be cruel or to be kind?

  King Willis answers for his son. “I think you are a strong man,” he says. He stands from his chair with great difficulty, peeling layers of his belly from the sides of it. “Come now. Let us return to the throne room. Perhaps we shall have some news today. I feel change afoot.”

  So Prince Virgil follows his father through the wide double doors and back into the room that does not bear light as it once did. He watches the window as he walks to the platform where his father’s throne waits. The sky has grown increasingly darker, though it is day. The gray reaches into his heart. He has a bad feeling about this day. He does not want to be here, in this room, for whatever may come. He suspects there will be news, but it is not the kind of news he will want to hear. So while he is concocting his reasons for leaving court early—extra studies, perhaps, though it is not an instruction day—his father stuffs himself into the golden chair.

  Prince Virgil remains, in the end. For a king must be strong, and he will one day be king. He will have to find his strength.

  As we all must.

  THE sleeping soldier wakes. He looks around. He takes in the missing traps, the tracks of an animal that is more tame than wild, and there, a footprint. A single footprint that Arthur did not think to wipe away, for when fear beats a heart, a mind can forget the most important parts.

  Someone has been here. And this soldier has missed it. He drops to his knees, examines the footprint, examines the tracks—sheep, he thinks—pats the grass all around. He crawls, searching the ground, searching for a clue, for there must be something here. Something left behind besides this most universal footprint that tells him nothing, only that someone was wearing shoes. To whose foot does it belong? How can he explain what he has found when there is no actual person in his possession? What might the captain do? The captain is a merciful man, to be sure, but this soldier fell asleep on his shift and missed the very ones that could have sent them all home.

  The soldier sits back, drops his head to his chest. He should not have stayed up playing cards. That much is certain. He will never do it again.

  His hand moves to his eyes, rubbing them. He is still so very tired. So he lies down, on his back, but something pierces between his shoulder blades. Something tiny. Something hard. Something left behind. He rises, turns, and leans ever closer to the grass, and finally he sees it, what looks like a tiny shoe. Is his exhausted mind playing tricks on him? Does it mean a thing at all? Could it belong to the missing children, or just another enchanted being of this haunted forest? He does not know. But he does pick it up, for this is enough news. This is enough discovery. This is enough hope. Or so he hopes.

  He clutches the tiny shoe in his hand so he does not misplace it in his haste and runs as fast as his legs will carry him, back to the captain.

  Escape

  IT has been said that all good things, alas, speed toward their endings. And because this, the learning of magic, the practicing of magic, the love between a teacher and his pupil, was, indeed, a very good thing, one might suppose that it is only natural for this good thing to end (though no one likes an ending, dear reader. Perhaps endings are unappreciated because they bring with them the unknown, as is certainly the case in our story.).

  Maude’s father came home one evening, so angry she could see the sweat forming on his brow and above his lip, even through the splatter of black hair growing there. She had seen this anger before. Sometimes, you see, the wine was too great for her father. He walked in through the door and promptly stumbled and fell. Maude caught him. “You,” he said. That one word was so full of contempt and revulsion that Maude nearly dropped him. She had never heard her father speak in such a way, but, as they say, there is a first time for everything. (Beginnings and endings are very much the same, are they not? Bringing with them a great unknown.)

  “Father,” she said, for whatever her father had done in the past (and he was, for the most part, a
n honorable man), she could not bear to be the brunt of his anger.

  “You!” he roared again, and he pushed her away. “Get your hands off me.” She stumbled, her head smacking against the dining table. He pointed a finger at her, a fat finger that she had not noticed had even gotten fat. Had she been so consumed with Arthur and magic that she had not noticed how her father’s bulk had changed? “You dare soil our name?”

  What was he saying? What did he know?

  “Father?” she said. “I do not understand.”

  She tried to see her father in her father, but she could not. She could see only a great, hulking mass standing before her and the door. For the first time in all her nineteen years, she felt afraid of him.

  “You and that boy,” he said. His voice broke in the middle of it. His words slurred together, one into another. “Bringing a curse on me and your mother!” His face had turned purple in his effort to form the words.

  “It is not what you think, Father,” she said. Her mind whirled. How did the villagers know? What was it they had told him? Where was Arthur?

  The thought of Arthur squeezed her throat. Was he safe? Was he waiting? Could she summon him?

  “Not what I think,” her father said. His voice shook the walls. Everyone in the village could likely hear him, shouting as he was. Her insides burned. She must get away. She must get away now. And then he said the very words she dreaded hearing all along. “I know more than you think.” His eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Magic.” He growled the word, as if there was something evil in magic, as if her mother had not carried magic before she was born, as if he had never loved a person with the gift. The thought of it stole Maude’s breath and blurred her eyes. Her father. He was her father, you see. A daughter longs for nearly nothing as she longs for a father’s love.

  “No,” Maude said. “No, you are wrong.” But her voice was weak, jagged, too unconvincing.

  “He shall die!” her father shouted. “He shall be executed!” He leaned in, and she could smell the sour wine on his breath, even at this distance.

  “No,” she said. “Father, please!” She could not bear it any longer. She moved toward the door, but her father threw her back. This time her head cracked a wall, and she saw black for a moment but grasped desperately at the light. By the time her vision cleared, her father loomed right above her. She rolled away quickly, upsetting his balance, and he stumbled just enough for her to reach the door. She slipped out silently, racing up the lane. She could see people gathered in the streets, their torches blazing. She could not let them reach Arthur first. She headed the back way to his rooms, but the people spotted her. They set chase.

  She was sure they would catch her, but fear makes feet fast, and when she reached the doors of the inn, Arthur came bursting out. They fell into each other’s arms, but he moved aside, too quickly, roughly grasping her hand. He drew her into the shadows and held her close for a moment more.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I will have to leave.”

  “Take me with you,” she said against his chest. “Please.”

  He pulled away so he could look into her eyes. He shook his head, and she could not bear it. She looked away. “No,” he said. “No, I cannot. The wandering life I live is not fit for a woman as fine as you.”

  “A woman as fine as me,” she said. “Look at me! I am no fine woman.” And it was true that her skirts were torn in the escape from her drunken father, and her face held smudges of dirt from the fall to the floor. Her hair was sticky with what she supposed was blood.

  “I must go,” Arthur said. “If I want to live.”

  “They will kill me as well,” Maude said. “When you are gone. You must take me with you.”

  “You will be safe,” he said. “They would not dare hurt a woman.”

  “I would not live anyway,” Maude said, but she said nothing more, for she did not want to tell him what was truly in her heart. But Arthur knew. He drew back and looked in her eyes so tenderly her nose burned with tears.

  “My dear Maude,” he said. “I must go.”

  “Please,” she said. “Please. I will not be a burden.”

  His eyes softened again. “You would never be a burden,” he said. “It is your safety I am concerned for.”

  “Then let me go!” she said. “My father is not well. The people...” She let the words hang between them. He pulled her to him again. She felt his gasp of a breath, the tightening of his arms.

  “As you wish,” he said, so softly she could hardly hear. “We will go together. But you must do everything I say.”

  He released her then, and she could see his face as he looked behind her. It flickered as if there were a light. She knew what she would find before she even turned around. The townspeople stood before them with torches turning their faces into grotesque masks, as if the night had brought out the worst monsters of all. And perhaps it had, for there is no more disturbing sight than man killing man. These men were out for blood.

  Maude closed her eyes. They were too late. She had killed this man she loved. And perhaps they would let her live but she would not, in fact, live. Not without Arthur. When she opened her eyes, the people were still there, though she had, in truth, hoped they would not be. There were so many of them. So few of her and Arthur. They would not be able to explain.

  “Magic man,” one of the men said. He jabbed a torch in Arthur’s direction. “This is why you have come.”

  Arthur did not say anything. He merely squeezed Maude’s hand. “Magic,” he said, and then the whole world shimmered before her. Flames leapt in the air and at their feet and all around them, dancing to a song they could not hear, touching no one. The people turned to one another, confused, unsure how the flames they had held moments ago now danced upon the air or before them on the ground and not one of them, nothing, in fact, burned, though the answer, of course, could be found in the very word Arthur said. The village men stared and turned and tried to catch their lights, bring them back where they belonged so the world made sense again, but no one could figure out how. They turned to Arthur, but there was no Arthur.

  In all the confusion, Maude and Arthur had slipped away.

  They waited to laugh until they had reached the deepest center of the forest, where no one dared venture in the dead of night. That was the very place Arthur turned Maude toward him and kissed her for the first time.

  Trapped

  INSIDE the underground house, there is the sound of an entire world breaking, shattering, falling down around them, though the house remains as it was. It startles the children, so a few of them scream and are hushed by their peers.

  Hazel looks at her father, but her father only has eyes for her mother. They are large eyes, concerned eyes, terrified eyes. “What does it mean, Father?” Hazel has never considered that anything might go wrong with their plan, that this one, which appeared so safe at first glance, might very well have held danger. Every decision in life, you see, holds a little danger. We all risk at all times. Hazel has not yet learned this, but she is learning now.

  “The portal,” Arthur says. He stares at Maude, still. She stares at him, still. “The way out has been broken.”

  The children gasp and pitch their questions, “But how?” “What will we do?” “Will we die?” but Maude and Arthur are in no state to answer any of them.

  “We are buried alive,” Maude says, so softly the children almost do not hear over their own questions cracking the quiet. She falls into Arthur’s arms with a silent weeping so loud it is deafening.

  The children dare not say a word.

  The End

  The Established Order of the King's Guard

  The Kingdom of Fairendale

  Purpose

  TO PROTECT THE KING and the royal family to the utmost of their ability, and, when that duty has been fulfilled, to protect the people of the land.

  Eligibility

  Any able-bodied man in the land can serve on the king’s guard, even if he is a family man. If
he is a family man, he must understand that the king’s decrees come first, even if they negatively affect his family.

  Hierarchy

  The king’s guard is comprised of any number of men. The current king of Fairendale has 210 men, including an honorable captain and a second-in-command. The king appoints both of these positions, on recommendation from officers or simply on his own whim.

  Sir Greyson is the current captain of the king’s guard in Fairendale. Sir Merrick is his second-in-command.

  Benefits

  A member of the king’s guard will be given all the food, drink, clothes, housing, medicine, and other necessary living supplies that his family might require, for as long as he serves the king.

  If a member of the king’s guard is discharged honorably (which can happen if he has grown too old for service, as deemed by the king), he will continue to glean those benefits until he dies. If he is discharged dishonorably (which is subject to the king’s interpretation) or dies in an inappropriate way (which is also subject to the king’s interpretation), his family will no longer receive the benefits of service.

  The kingdom will pay for all travel costs and food and shelter requirements during the travel of a member of the king’s guard, while in the service to the king.

  If a member of the king’s guard defies the king by disobeying, betraying, or dishonoring his king, he will be dishonorably discharged from the king’s guard and slain in whatever fashion the king requires. The king is also given leave to slay the member’s entire family, including grandmothers, grandfathers, mother, father, sisters, brothers, spouse, children, and even aunts, uncles, and cousins, if he so desires.

  Requirements

  A member of the king’s guard must conduct his business in an honorable way at all times, knowing that he is carrying both the reputation and the fate of the kingdom of his shoulders.