The Knight's Secret

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  THE KNIGHT'S SECRET

  Jeffrey Bardwell

  Published by Twigboat Press

  Copyright © 2018 Jeffrey Bardwell

  ISBN-13: 978-1-943289-10-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the purchaser. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s wild imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to another person.

  Cover Art designed by Les Solot

  The Mage Conspiracy

  P. The Scion's Delight

  1. The Knight's Secret

  2. The Dragon's Mercy

  3. The Soldier's Heart

  4. The Tyrant's Peace

  5. The Mage's Armor

  Dedicated to my hard working fellow cast members

  of the Waterworks Players who performed

  Les Mis with me those many years ago.

  Every time I listen to the music,

  my happy memories of you

  help keep me sane

  through the

  long slog

  editing

  txt.

  1. KELSA, YEAR 198

  I chewed the end of my braid, papers crackling in my hand as I dared myself to approach the giant wooden stasis box in the back corner of the room. I could just see the edges of it beyond the bannister.

  My grandfather had always said that hair sucking was a filthy habit for silly girls. I could still feel Granfa squeeze my shoulder. See the warm reproach as he hooked a wrinkled finger to beckon the hair out of my mouth or make huge pulling motions with his arms, hands straining to grasp the air as though my tiny braid were a large rope. Then, he would sit me in his lap, and we would both laugh.

  I glanced at my hips and sighed. The time for laps was past. My parents sat on the crude wooden box arguing. As the whole village knew, that stasis box contained nothing more than the latest shipment of fresh parchments for Ma, choice lengths of exotic lumber for Fa, and perishable delicacies from the capital for Granfa. I got nothing . . . but fully expected a share of those candies and sweet meats as was a granddaughter's due.

  Hearing my parents argue always made me feel like a child. I stopped tip-toeing down the stairs to spy on their conversation, lips quirking as I crossed my arms beneath my breasts.

  Granfa's not here, and I'm not his silly girl anymore. I spat the braid from my mouth, set the heels of my soft leather shoes firmly against the wood, and walked down the stairs.

  “If the emperor thinks he can erase centuries of tradition with a mere decree, he's insane,” Ma said, nodding to me as I entered the room. “That horrible man would penalize an entire class of people just to punish a few rebel magic users?”

  “More than a few, Miranda.” Fa patted her shoulder. “And lock such thoughts inside your head. That's the emperor you're talking about. The man may do whatever he pleases to whomever he pleases. Who would dare question him? Besides, people are starting to whisper. We're not safe, even this far from the capital.”

  Ma shook her head. “People have always whispered, Donus. What sentiments a private citizen may or may not express in the sanctuary of their own home is no concern of mine.”

  “What if they take those sentiments into the streets?” Fa hissed, spreading his arms and then slapping the box with his right hand while he gestured towards the front door and the drawn curtains with his left. I winced. Ma glared. Fa lifted his hand as though either the wood or her gaze had burned him. “I'm just worried about you. What if those private citizens of yours venture into the public? What if they stop talking and start acting? We need a strategy, tactics to prepare for the worst.”

  “What does a woodworker know of strategy or tactics?” Ma scoffed. “We need a soldier.”

  Granfa was, according to the tales, a soldier without peer and the master of strategy and tactics. But he told most of those tales on himself and Granfa was also the master of fibbing. But whenever I caught him snared in a falsehood, my grandfather would shrug and insist that mere facts never trump a good story.

  The story of the mysterious stasis box arriving at our front door spread up and down the village like a breath of wildfire across a dry field. The entire village thought they knew what was in that box almost before the postmen finished unloading it on the porch and my father finished opening it. Ma had wanted to shoo everyone away and take the closed box inside. Fa made no argument. He just handed her a second crowbar while she stood there, arms crossed. The outer circles of rapt crowd perched their chins on the shoulders of the inner circles and stared.

  Did they expect to see arcane ingredients, bubbling vials, or some other harbinger of magic craft? My mother's spells had always been discreet, for prejudice gripped the village long before their revolutionary fervor. They always whispered about odd burning unguents, suspiciously quick healing, and miraculous cures. But the villagers found the stasis box and its contents wholly disappointing and unremarkable .

  The mare pulling the mail cart farted as the coachman tied her to the post by our door. Granfa's old gray charger, Krag, whinnied a challenge from the field nearby while Ma's palfrey, Jenna, continued munching grass. The crowd gathered on our porch dispersed, shoulders sagging, after father offered to share Granfa's delicacies, scoffing at him, telling them that the senile, old soldier was lounging behind the house, stuck on the privy. They refused and backed away. Some, especially the ones reaching towards the box, shoved their hands in their pockets. Such is the reputation of Granfa . . . was the reputation of Granfa.

  We repacked and brought the box into the house, careful not to bang it against the walls or Fa's ornate molding, more to preserve the box than the house. It was of unplaned pine construction with sloppy rabbet joints to strengthen the corners and a simple spell to preserve its contents. The thing was built to fail soon after arrival, wood and spell both. Fa could have crafted a stronger, prettier container with one hand tied behind his back and Ma could have bestowed a more permanent enchantment with her eyes closed.

  Of course, Fa would never allow Ma to enchant her own stasis box or do anything vaguely sorcerous in these tense times. The entire village was already watching us like hawks circling over a family of mice. Granfa had a small stasis box left over from his army days. He sneered at the stares from the villagers when he used to balance it on Krag's shoulders and I sat behind, hugging him as we rode bareback to market each week. It had been a different time back then and the army had never been so discriminating as our neighbors. Any individuals who were soon had the prejudice slapped out of their fat heads by the Mage Corps or by cavalrymen, Granfa would chuckle. He had friends in the corps.

  Now hours after its arrival, the box's old cargo was long since unloaded and its new cargo was something far more precious. I wanted to yell at my parents for sitting on it, for hiding it, as though the contents were somehow shameful. I wanted to scream at Fa for slapping it, but that would give everything away. My father was eager that the whole village not start gathering on our porch again. Nothing attracts attention like a bubbling, greasy scandal. This one was hot enough to burn the house down with us trapped inside it. I knew that. So I bit my tongue and listened. Granfa would have approved, I think. Hard to know what the old man was thinking sometimes.

  Fa had misled our neighbors. Granfa had been stuck on the privy, but he wasn't ever coming
out again. It helped to mask the corpse smell from humans, the locked door was strong enough to discourage scavengers with superior noses, and who notices a few extra flies buzzing around an outhouse? We left him there for five days while my parents ordered the shipment from the capital and dithered.

  We moved Granfa from the privy to the stasis box under the cover of darkness. He could be shipped out of the house now with nobody the wiser. Assuming nobody actually opened the box. Or the preservation spell didn't fail. Or the cheap wood collapse. And nobody actually came looking for Granfa. Thankfully, the welcoming committee from my grandfather's old regiment had already stopped by the house seven days ago to discuss preparations for the ceremony with the guest of honor. Granfa had joked that they mostly wanted to screen his half-written speech and delete all the expletives. Whom would they send when he failed to arrive at the capital?

  We couldn't tell anyone he was dead or get a priest to say the rites. Ma needed him alive to hold the wrath of our mage phobic neighbors at bay. Without Granfa, none of us wanted to think about what they'd do to her. From the look on his face, Fa needed him alive, too, which confused me. Fa and Granfa had made no secret of their mutual hatred for one another. I half expected Fa to do a little dance on the magic box once we locked Granfa inside. I was already amazed he had restrained himself from kicking Granfa's corpse down the privy hole when he discovered the body and just walked away.

  I mean, I know why he didn't. Magic ban or no, woman or no, Ma would have shoved him face first down that shit hole in three heartbeats and then turned the privy into a dual funeral pyre with a snap of her fingers. He didn't and she didn't. I'd like to think something approaching mutual love and respect rather than a fear of death motivated this lack of privy fires.

  I wanted Granfa alive to share affection and stories, but the old man had slapped the lesson into my head years ago about the vital difference between determining what you want versus what you need. Granfa's absence was a matter of life and death for Ma and what stake Fa had in it I could only guess. It all had something to do with the draft Granfa gave me to proofread the morning of his last, fateful trip to the privy. I know because despite my bringing it up countless times, both Ma and Fa refused to discuss it. I clutched the unfinished speech in my hands, eyes tearing as I read the familiar scrawling handwriting and walked towards my parents. Ma waved me over and I remembered advice from Granfa.

  “Conversation is like any other battle, Kelsa,” he had said, grinning. “Don't reveal your position carelessly. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut. Let the other guy yammer. Interject a bit here and there to keep the information flowing. If things slow down, quietly steer the conversation back to him. People can't resist bragging on themselves. And never forget to listen for the silences. What is left unsaid, those unspoken little gaps, are often more important than the piddly words surrounding them. You can fill in the gaps yourself, my dear.” He tapped his skull.

  “So, what are you two talking about?” I asked my parents. As if I didn't know.

  Ma curled against my father like a fragile corn husk doll. She even had frizzled, silky hair just like Granfa's. I ran a finger through my own straight, dark blonde tresses. Ma often wistfully offered to trade. Maybe with her magic, it wasn't an idle jest. I always refused, but I would have given up my hair that instant had she asked for it just to see her smile again. My mother straightened her spine as I spoke. “Is that your Granfa's acceptance speech?” she asked, quirking one pale eyebrow.

  “We don't need a speech,” Fa muttered, hugging her. “We need a eulogy. And we need the old man's pension.”

  “Of course, there's no other reason you're sniffing around my father's corpse like a vulture,” Ma said. “So what if they suspect I have mage talent? They would not dare harm the daughter of the Hero of Jerkum Pass.”

  “He's dead, Miranda. He can't protect you anymore. I've heard gossip installing the cabinets in the mayor's house. Either they didn't realize I was back there or they just didn't care. There's going to be a new pogram. A government-sanctioned pogrom. It's not a few crazies with torches and pitchforks anymore chasing a few firebrand mages. It's the law.”

  “And what are you suggesting, oh mighty carpenter? That we leave before they say the rites for my father? Grab some filthy gold and run? And he was so looking forward to seeing his old friends again. Just when the emperor finally honors him as he deserves, this happens.”

  I put my hands on my hips before glancing at my mother's red, puffy eyes and dropping them. I wanted my grandfather back as much as anyone in this family, but Granfa would be the first to harangue the lot of us for making such a fuss over something like this. He said the specter of death always rode on your shoulder, especially on campaigns. Grandfather would snort and tell me that life was just one long campaign. Everyone dies. Then he'd sigh and go quiet for awhile, staring into the distance, likely remembering all his fallen comrades.

  Ma looked at me. “Maybe you can accept the award in his place, dear.”

  I imagined myself trying to squeeze into my grandfather's ceremonial armor. Worse than a corset. I could already feel my breasts squashing together and the metal digging into my ribs as I struggled to breathe. I described the image with broad gestures like Granfa used to do. Ma laughed weakly.

  “What about all the gold?” Fa asked, snorting at my crude pantomime. “They would never entrust the next pension installment to a child.”

  “Stop fixating on money,” Ma said, pursing her lips. “Hmmm, what if she didn't look or sound like a child? I could perform a small charm . . . ”

  “Are you insane?” Fa hugged me. “It's too dangerous. Why not send one of us disguised as the old man?” He stood. “I shall go. Prepare your magic, woman.”

  “I suppose I should cast the spell here, now?” Ma waved her arms. “While the whole village salivates outside our windows, mage detectors and knives held ready? Such a cunning strategy, husband mine. They would descend upon this house like wolves.” The light, trembling rap of a cane sounded on our front door. “They are descending already,” she muttered.

  The knock sounded again, stronger this time, and my father rose to answer the summons. Only one person in the village had a cane like that, a knock like that. The Village Elder comes sniffing after rumors of . . . what, precisely? The stasis box? The capital foodstuffs? My mother?

  After several hushed murmurs, a crooked little man with a shaggy beard followed Fa into the living room. The old man hunched over his cane, his hands grasping it like a raptor grasps a tree branch. His head swiveled around the room before his eyes settled on my mother. Ma remained seated on the stasis box and bowed her head to the elder while I curtseyed.

  My mother made as though to push her way off the box. “You seek more medicines for your hand, sir?” she asked. “Something more astringent perhaps to aid the healing?”

  I clapped one hand over my lips to muffle a snort as the crooked old man shuddered, his cane wavering. His wife had to drag him into our house for his last healing session. Ma had closed the office door behind them, but such fits of screaming and shrieking I had never heard before. Granfa said the sounds reminded him of the soldiers wounded on the fields of Kalis. When I pressed him for details, my grandfather shook his head and led me away from the horrible screeching.

  All that caterwauling for such a small wound , I had thought, watching the elder emerge from the office later with his hand swathed in bandages. I remember giggling to myself. But there was nothing comical about the man now.

  I was certain the elder would sooner step inside the Black Tower than darken Ma's office again. I glanced at Ma's pursed lips. As she well knew.

  “Are you in pain, sir?” my mother cried, reaching out even as she remained firmly planted on the box.

  The village elder braced himself over his cane. He still had a small bandage on his left hand, which he plucked with his right. “It still tingles, madam. An odd feeling. An unnatural feeling. But no, I feel no pain. I
am not here for more of your brews or strange poultices. I must consult with Sir Corbin on urgent matters.” He grinned and waggled his beard with conspiratorial flair. “Urgent army matters, if you must know. Why is he not here? Why does his chair sit empty? Why has nobody seen the man for days?”

  Ma startled, taken aback by the ferocity of the elder's questions. “He is in the woods . . . foraging for nuts . . . and berries . . . I can deliver any message you wish . . . when he returns.”

  The elder quirked one eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder at our fresh restocked larders. He gesturing with his cane over the array of unwrapped papers and broken twine. “Foraging for nuts and berries, is he? While surrounded by such a bounty of delectable foodstuffs and sweetmeats? And I hear you've had these decadent frivolities delivered clear from the capital. Absurd!” He slammed his cane into the floorboards and Pa winced.

  Ma braced herself against the stasis box. “My father is . . . eccentric.”

  Old campaigner , I thought as my mother stumbled over her words. Old rogue. Of course!

  The elder glared. “Nobody is that eccentric, madam. Surely an old campaigner like the Hero of Jerkum Pass would not waste his time on such nonsense? Foraging indeed!” The elder tugged his beard. “The old rogue. Where is he . . . really?”

  “My mother speaks the simple truth, sir.” I smiled at the wizened little man and gently scuffed some dirt into the dent he'd made in Fa's floor. “Surely a seasoned, experienced military figure such as yourself recognizes the forage value of stout woodland victuals gathered in the prime of the autumn season matched against weak, greasy capital fare?” I bestowed a withering glare upon our cabinets. “Why, the foul stuff would spoil as soon as you looked at it.”

  “Spoil?” The old man pounced on the word. “I've heard you have come into recent ownership of a stasis box, have you not? Why, I may even wish to store some of my own fresh game in there. Surely, the thing will keep even the stalest, most putrid meat raw and juicy?”