They finally stopped before a tall doorway, and the prince put a finger to his lips. Everyone quieted. Erad pushed the door open with a small creak and stepped inside. Karlene came behind him, followed by Nikolis.
Inside was a dimly lit hallway. Everything appeared the same as the rest of the keep, except that the only visible window had a drape over it, blocking out the sun. All the furnishings and ornamentation bore a thick coat of dust and even the air seemed a bit thicker. Erad crept down the hall in an exaggerated manner, with Karlene mimicking after him. Nikolis saw little point in that, so he simply stepped as lightly as he could, following behind them.
They came to a large set of doors, each tall and banded in iron. Erad put his ear to one and listened, then pushed his shoulder against it. The door didn’t budge. Erad looked up. At the top of the left-hand door was an iron bolt that pushed up into the arched frame. The right-hand door fit into the left, so it too wouldn’t move either.
“Where are we, Erad?” Karlene asked in a whisper. The smile was gone from her face.
“You’ll see,” said Erad. “We’re going to have to boost someone up to reach that lock. Karlene, you help me get on Niky’s shoulders.”
Nikolis wasn’t sure if he should be doing this. It seemed to him that if the room was locked, it was locked for a reason. Then again…he was with the Prince…
“Alright,” said Karlene. She put her hands together and lowered them. “Nik, you get over here against the door. I’ll boost him up onto your shoulders from there. Then you’ll stand, and he can undo the bolt.”
Nikolis scratched the back of his neck but did as he was instructed. He found it odd to see someone standing on a girl’s hands, but she didn’t seem to mind. She actually must have been quite used to this, because as he crouched, she easily pushed her cousin right up onto his back.
Erad climbed on, as if he had done this before as well, and grabbed Nikolis’ head to steady himself. “Alright,” the prince whispered, “now stand. Slowly. Slowly, now.”
Nikolis stood as slowly as he could manage. He couldn’t have gone very fast anyway, for the prince was heavy and his shoulders ached. He stood up as much as he could manage. Above, Erad was fumbling with the bolt. After managing to miss it several times, he finally got a hold on it and pulled it downward.
With the bolt out of the way, the doors went inward and Erad and Nikolis fell into the room ahead. They landed with a crash, stirring up all manner of dust, which went swirling into the air. Karlene scurried in after them.
After Erad climbed off of him, Nikolis stood and looked about. The room they were now in was even more dimly lit than the hallway they had come from. For a few seconds it was quite hard to make anything out. When his eyes finally did adjust, he saw a long, high-ceilinged hall. It was not even half the size of the Hall of Houses, but it was impressive none the less. A scarlet carpet from one end of the room to the other and on the walls hung tapestries of various design. There were old wooden benches and tables in the center of the room, worn and used. They were covered in a thick layer of dust now, as was all of the ornamentation in hall.
Karlene ran off into a corner, and started looking at some artifact or another, while the prince stood and stared at Nikolis, a grin on his face. “How do you like it, Niky?” he asked.
“It’s interesting,” Nikolis responded, as he continued to scan the room. Why is the Prince smiling at him like that? It was unnerving.
“It’s the Hall of the Kingsmen, you know. This is where my father’s most faithful servants used to meet…”
A feeling of wonder overtook Nikolis as he looked at all the statuettes and tapestries about the room. There were those depicting epic battles, with valiant heroes conquering unimaginable foes; there were quite a few in which men in armor were kneeling before beautiful women in long gowns. All of them fascinated Nikolis. All of them set his imagination soaring. That is, until he noticed the hearth.
It was comprised of large, granite slabs, above which portraits were hung from one end of the room to the other. What caught his attention were the two that hung directly over the fireplace. Something was familiar about the men – both of them. As Nikolis moved forward, he heard Erad snicker behind him. The first painting depicted a man of large girth. His brown hair was thinning on top, though it went nearly to his shoulders on the sides. A thick beard clung to heavy cheeks, making his neck almost indistinguishable. He wore a coat of grey, upon the breast of which was a triangular shield. However, unlike the other examples of this he had seen in the castle, this shield also had a small axe depicted across it. Nikolis wasn’t sure why the man looked familiar, for plate under the portrait bore the name “Grames Bair,” which meant nothing to him as far as he could recall.
However, there was no mystery about the second portrait, and this one made his legs go numb. The three tears that ran from one end of the canvas to the other did little to obscure the image. It depicted a young man, perhaps thirty years old, with dark hair and a thin beard and mustache. He was thin, lithe, and yet broad in chest and shoulder. He smiled in the painting and had a noble air about him. He also wore the grey coat, although his shield bore the image of a sword across it, and in his left hand was clutched a slender sword, with a hilt of sweeping steel. There was no need to look at the plate underneath this one. It only confirmed what he already knew. It read, “Edward Ledervane.” The painting was of his father.
Erad came up behind him and let out a loud laugh. Karlene came over and looked at the two paintings. “Who are they, Erad? Were they guards or something?”
“Something like that–” the prince began, but he was cut off as a figure crashed through the doors behind them.
It was one of the grey-coated guardsmen – a stocky man with dark hair and a thick mustache that ran from ear to ear. “Hey, what’re you doing in here?” the guard bellowed. “You know this wing’s restricted. Erad, what’s going on?”
“Just having a bit of fun,” the prince replied.
“The King’s not going to like this,” the guard said. “Sealed this room off for good, he did.”
“What does he ever like nowadays?” was the prince’s only response.
“Hey,” said the guard. “Who’s that boy there? Hey, boy, turn about.”
Nikolis heard him but he couldn’t react. He couldn’t turn around. He simply stood, staring up at the tattered portrait of his father. The slashes across the painting, conjuring the image of the claws of his nightmares, horrified him. He saw it all over again, and he was afraid. The dark claws, the large arms, swinging, raking, the massive form falling on him, the screams of his mother, the blood, the weight, pressing down, suffocating him…
“I’m talking to you, boy,” the guard continued behind him. “Turn about now. You want to get in more trouble than you’re already in?”
The guard finally gave up trying to get through to Nikolis, and instead marched forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. He spun the boy around and started yelling into his face. Nikolis heard none of it.
The next thing he knew, the gruff man was carrying him, and Erad and Karlene were following behind. They were marching up a set of stairs and then heading down a long hallway. Then they were rounding a corner and heading down another hallway before finally stopping before a set of doors Nikolis recognized all too well.
The doors opened and there he was, standing before the hard glare of the king, sitting on his golden throne in the audience chamber where Nikolis had found himself on his first day at Highkeep.
“Pardon the intrusion, Your Grace,” the guard said. “But we got a troublemaker on our hands here.” Then as an afterthought he added, with a nod to Erad and Karlene, “Those two might have been involved too, somehow.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Arthur Drennen was staring down at him, his hands clenched behind his back. “I worked hard to get him to let you stay here, Nikolis. I worked even harder to get him to let you learn the sword. You have no idea the lengths I have gone to for you
…now you go and do something like this. Why? Why?”
“The Prince told me to–”
“I told you to avoid the nobles, and that certainly includes Erad,” Drennen cut in. “You should have kept your eyes down. You should have found some means to get away from him. Erad is precious to the King. He waited a long time for a son to secure the Ryland descent. His first wife, Mildred, gave him only daughters. She died giving birth to the third, and he had to remove them to the country, renounce Mildred and her descendants, to make the path clear for his second wife and just the hope that she would bear him a son.”
“I didn’t realize–”
“What you need to realize is that matters are more complicated than you can possibly know. You must listen to me. What have I been teaching you, Nikolis?”
Drennen was right. He should have avoided him; he barely tried. He had been so entranced by the prospect of meeting the prince that all of his sense had fled. Afterward, his audience before the king had been brief. Those harsh eyes scored over him, as the grey-coated guardsman retold how he had found the boy. The mention of the Hall of the Kingsmen seemed to rekindle an old fire in the king’s soul.
Erad and Karlene had barely been brought up. They had been kept off to the side, on a bench. Many men had arrived, while he was being stared down by the king, tall, imposing forms surrounding him on all sides. That was until Drennen arrived and took him away again.
“I’m sorry,” was all Nikolis could finally manage.
“That’s well and good,” said Drennen, “but you’ll find it’s rarely enough.”
“What did I do?” Nikolis dared to ask. “Why is the King so angry? What room was it that I went in? Why was there a picture of my father, and who was that other man?”
The master of arms sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “This one time I will answer your questions, and then we will speak no more of this. If you agree to that I will tell you. Well? Do you agree?”
Nikolis nodded. “Yes.”
Arthur Drennen smoothed his mustache and took a seat on Nikolis’ pallet. “From the earliest days of the Ryland Reign,” he began, “the ruling king appointed ten personal guardsmen, called the King’s Shield. This practice is continued today. Valiant men of great courage and conviction that would swear the oaths to protect both the King and all members of the Royal line, donning the grey coat of their order.”
“However,” he went on, “it was also formerly custom for him also to appoint two principal guards, from among the ten, his chief servants. They were to be his most trusted men and would perform for him the most important of tasks.”
Nikolis gulped. Drennen sounded so serious; he looked down as he spoke, not making eye contact. Halting often as he went on and starting up again after many moments of silence had passed.
“The first of these positions was called the King’s Axe. This was the king’s executioner, the king’s justice. He protected the king’s honor and took the head of his enemies. If the need arose, he also hunted down the king’s most vile of foes. Grames Bair held this position under King Alginor; he was the man in the other portrait you saw.
“The second position was called the King’s Sword. This was the king’s chief bodyguard and protector, the man who would fight for him to the end, defend the honor of House Ryland, and if the situation arose, give his life to save the king’s. Your father held this position under King Alginor.”
Nikolis held his breath. Not only was my father a guardsman, but a member of the King’s Shield and the King’s own bodyguard? The King’s Sword…He did not speak, fearing that if he interrupted the master of arms, he would not continue.
“Your father and Grames were two of the most talented men in the keep when they were young. Both were good with the sword and loved the king and House Ryland very much. They contended to be the King’s Sword, but in the end your father won out.”
Nikolis felt a swell of pride as he heard this. He smiled. “I can’t believe–”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Nikolis,” Drennen said, cutting him off. “Your father held the position for a long time and served the king faithfully. But in the end, he betrayed him.” Master Drennen stood, he walked over to Nikolis and stared down at him. “That is why he left the keep, that is why he went off and became a farmer. He betrayed his king, his kingdom, and the realm.”
Nikolis gulped. He couldn’t believe it. Not my father. Never. He felt as if his chest was going to collapse. He couldn’t breathe; his heart was thumping in his ears. He could barely hear, could barely breathe, could barely think. “But…but…” He tried to think of something, to say something that would explain it all away, but nothing would come.
“That is all I will say, Nikolis. That is all there is to say. Best you remember that. This time I hope you take my advice. Now I must go back to the keep and answer for you as best as I can. Stay here and think long and hard about the direction you wish your life to take.”
Master Drennen stood, turned about, and left the room. Nikolis sat on the edge of his bed for what seemed like an eternity. His mind played over the events of the day, looking for where he had failed to act as he should have. How to disobey the Prince? How to get himself out of such a complicated situation? He wondered now what punishment Erad and Karlene faced. Were they too sitting alone in their rooms pondering their actions?
After some time, when the sky had grown dark, he heard the door downstairs creak open. Footsteps sounded on the stairs and he could only imagine what was going to happen next. Yet as the steps grew closer, something odd occurred to him. They weren’t the soft, quiet steps of his master. They were loud, careless, and sloppy.
Nikolis stood up just in time to see the door to his chamber fly open and bang against the wall. In the doorway stood a large, gruff many with grey hair, and an unshaved face. He wore a dirty, stained tabard of red so soiled that the crown sewn on the chest was hard to make out. The man grinned, exposing yellowed, rotting teeth, and a putrid smell roiled into the air. One hand was held behind his back, and his grin widened when he saw the look of fear on Nikolis’ face. Yellow eyes looked him up and down, as fingers rapped on something that was held behind his back. “Are we ready for us, little one?” the man finally asked.
“Who are you?” Nikolis replied. He tried to remain strong, to stand his ground, but he slowly felt himself moving backward, away from the man. “What do you want?”
“Such a large tongue, in such a little mouth. Mayhaps we’ll cut it out? Hmm?” The man continued to grin at him, moving ever closer, sizing him up with large, hungry eyes. His hand came from behind his back and he unfurled a short, dark whip. The man started to slap it into the palm of his hand as he approached. Nikolis gulped; he looked about for a means of escape. The door was all the way across the room, between him and the large, dirty man. The window was behind him, but it was a long way down.
Gathering courage, he tried to fill his voice with bravado. “Stay away or I swear I’ll…I’ll holler.”
“Holler all you like, boy, that’s the idea.”
“What do you want?”
“Me, I wants nothing. It’s not me.” The man’s grin grew even wider. He started to slap the whip harder against his palm. He paused long enough to send one hand fishing about in a shirt pocket to withdraw a crumpled piece of parchment, which he held up and let fall to the ground. “The King commands it, me boy. Who am I to disobey?” The slap of leather on flesh continued.
“Commands what?”
The man laughed, never taking his gaze off the boy. “Why your punishments, of course.”
Nikolis shook his head as if to deny it. No, he had done nothing wrong. Nothing. The man raised the whip in his hand, and Nikolis braced, ready to attempt to push past him, force his way past him if he had to.
“What is the meaning of this?” The voice cut through the intensity of the moment like a thunderclap. Arthur Drennen stood framed in the doorway, fists balled at his sides.
“Stay out of t
his,” the man said, spinning about and pointing the whip in his direction. In an instant Drennen was across the room, and the man was on the ground holding his arm. The whip was in Drennen’s hand and he had raised it into the air.
“Who are you and what do you want?” the master of arms demanded. Nikolis let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and moved away from the wall.
“Trinny,” the man whined, between moans, as he rubbed at his wrist. “Come on the King’s business, I have.” The dirty man nodded toward the crumpled note on the ground.
Drennen bent down and retrieved the letter. He read it quickly. “Get out of here,” he said.
“But the King commands,” Trinny whined.
The master shook his head and crumpled the note in his hand. He tossed it to Trinny who caught it on his chest. “The document is not specific as to how the issue must be handled. The boy is my charge, I shall take care of it.”
“Yes, sir, but…”
“Get out of here. Unless you’d prefer I put you out myself/”
The dirty man shook his head and stood, still nursing his arm. He hurried out of the room and Master Drennen closed the door behind him.
“Why, that awful louse,” Nikolis said. “I told you I didn’t do anything. I told you.”
Drennen turned quietly, the whip still tight in his grasp. Nikolis gulped, felt his heart beating fast again. He looked at Nikolis and shook his head. “Turn about.”
Nikolis couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t understand what he had done so wrong. “Why?”
Arthur Drennen closed his eyes and sighed. “Because the King commands it.”
Nikolis set his jaw and met the master of arm’s gaze. He turned about and held the wall. He told himself he wouldn’t cry out, wouldn’t make a sound. He had felt pain before, worse pain than this could possibly promise. He had watched his father die…his mother…had taken Master Drennen’s blows…faced utter desolation…
The Last Swordsman Page 8
