Death of a King

by Robert Evert

  “Like what?”

  Magnus decided to be honest with him. Well, not completely honest, but honest enough.

  “Allyn,” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What?” Allyn huffed. “That you’re a self-centered ass who makes everybody worry about him? Because if that’s it, I already know.”

  “No. Listen, all right?”

  Magnus rubbed his neck anxiously.

  Allyn watched him, his anger ebbing slightly. “What is it? What happened?”

  “I walked around town and came across The Gilded Lily.”

  “You didn’t go in and talk to anybody did you?” Allyn asked, his fury returning in full force. “So help me, Magnus, if you blow this for me!”

  “I didn’t blow anything for you. Shut up for a minute, okay? I’m trying to tell you what happened. And believe me, you’ll want to know.”

  Allyn started to say something, but then closed his mouth, hands on his hips.

  Magnus kicked the dirt, wondering what to say. He let several people pass by, then muttered, “The Lily, it’s…that is, it isn’t exactly a place respectable people frequent.”

  “What do you mean? It sounds charming. And it has the best beer in town! The gatekeepers both said so.”

  “It’s, that is…I mean—”

  “What?” Allyn cried. “What are you trying to say?”

  “It’s hideous! It stinks of piss and the building is falling apart and the women there are naked, completely naked, and they’ll break your arm if you touch them!” Allyn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not making this up! Honestly, it’s the type of place no self-respecting musician would ever enter, let alone play in. People have probably died in there. Hell, they’re probably still there, rotting under loose floorboards. That’s how bad this place is!”

  “You’re exaggerating. It can’t be that bad.”

  “Allyn—if I say it’s horrid, what do you think it’s actually like?”

  Allyn’s brow furrowed. Then his lips tightened. “Show me! So help me, Mag, if you’re pulling something—!”

  “I’m not!”

  “Show me.”

  Magnus led Allyn around the hill and to the river. He pointed at The Gilded Lily. “There it is.”

  Allyn’s mouth fell open. “No! It can’t be.”

  “It is.”

  “No!”

  “You can say that all you want, Allyn, but it is. Trust me.”

  “I, I—” Allyn sputtered. “I’m not going to play there. No self-respecting musician would ever step foot in there, let alone play!”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

  Allyn turned in a circle, looking searchingly at all the other decrepit buildings as though there had been a mistake. In the end, he gaped at The Gilded Lily.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said. “How—? How could they make me come all this way? I spent all of my money—” He shook a fist at the building. “I’m going to give them what for!”

  “Who?”

  “The, the…the owners!” Allyn hollered. “The person who runs it! Everybody! Having me come all this way. Promising me two silver a week. They’re going to be sorry they ever messed with me!”

  Allyn marched toward the tavern, but Magnus stopped him. “Wait! Allyn, don’t!”

  “Why the devil not?”

  Yes, why not?

  “Because…” Magnus said slowly, “because you don’t want to get a reputation, you know, for being difficult to work with. Word will spread, and nobody would want to hire you. You know what I’m saying? You have to consider the future.”

  “You think I should play in that heaping pile of steaming dung?” He crinkled his nose. “By the gods, I can smell it from here.”

  “What? No! No! Of course not. Your lute would get smashed if you go in there.”

  “Exactly!”

  “All I’m saying is that you have to handle these things carefully. What if I go talk to the owner and demand that he give you two week’s pay?”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me.” Magnus softened his tone. “Allyn, no offense or anything, but you don’t know how to handle the seedier people of the world. The owner of that tavern isn’t going to listen to reason. He’s probably a big, beefy bully. He’d have to be to own a place like that, right? He’ll break your neck.”

  “He wouldn’t dare! I know people. I met Lord Earl once. He commented on how wonderfully I play!”

  “Allyn,” Magnus said, “that’s not going to scare anybody.”

  Allyn glowered at the building. A man came out, giving him a glimpse inside. He gasped. “You weren’t kidding! There—there are naked women in there. Actual naked women!”

  “And if you look at them the wrong way, they’ll beat you senseless. Come on, Allyn. Let me talk to the owner, okay? If he doesn’t pay you fair compensation for your trouble, you can do whatever you like. What do you have to lose?”

  “Fine. But I want four weeks of pay!”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Magnus directed the fuming Allyn toward The Wayward Inn. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Okay? By the way, have you ever heard of Sir James of Loc Shire?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “An adventurer?” Magnus asked in disbelief.

  He and Allyn walked into one of the bedrooms they were sharing at The Wayward. Syntharin was there, massaging ointment on his bare shoulder. It smelled like lemons.

  “Where’ve you been, Mag?” Syntharin asked. “I thought you’d be the first one to want to eat, given that Allyn is paying and all.”

  Allyn threw the key to the room at the neatly made bed along the far wall. “I’m not paying!”

  “What? Why not?” Syntharin pulled on a clean shirt. “What happened?”

  “So this Sir Percy is an adventurer too?” Magnus asked Allyn.

  “I’m not paying because I’m not going to be playing at The Gilded Lily! It’s a sty.” Allyn dropped into one of the chairs. “It made my eyes water a block and a half away.”

  “You’ve played at The Hog’s Head,” Syntharin said, stomping a foot into a boot. “It can’t be worse than that.”

  “Oh, it was much worse than The Hog’s Head. Tell him, Mag.”

  “It’s much worse,” Magnus said. Turning to Allyn, he asked, “So they’re both adventurers? Sir Percy and this Sir James of Loc Shire?”

  “And you spent all your money on your new lute,” Syntharin said sympathetically. “Geez, I’m sorry, Allyn.”

  Allyn put his face in his hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Is Sir Percy an adventurer too?” Magnus asked again. Allyn was too despondent to respond. “Hey, Syn, you follow all those quests the kings issue. Who is Sir Percy? Is he an adventurer?”

  “Sir Percy?” Syntharin replied, trying to manage both conversations at once. “Yeah, he’s one of King Richard’s men. So what are you going to do, Allyn?”

  “I’m not going home. Not like this—humiliated,” Allyn said. “I’d be a laughingstock. After I went around showing people the letter…I bet everybody knew how bad The Lily is. They’re all laughing at me right now.”

  “Nobody is laughing,” Syntharin said. “Besides, maybe you could find a good tavern to play at here. After all, the owner of this crappy tavern heard of you, so the owners of the good taverns might have as well.”

  Allyn lifted his head. “That’s true.”

  “What about Lord Hendrick?” Magnus asked. “Hey, Syn, what about Lord Hendrick? Does he adventure for King Lionel?”

  “Hendrick? Yeah, he adventures from time to time. He’s never won anything. At least, not recently.” Syntharin sat next to Allyn. “Don’t worry, Allyn. Things will work out. They always do.”

  “Yeah,” Allyn said, as if thinking. “They may even work out for the better. If I could go around to the other towns in the area and—”

  “What about Brago?” Magnus said, pacing the room. “What can you tell me about him?”

/>   “Brago?” Syntharin gave Magnus his full consideration. “Why do you want to know about Brago?”

  “I just do. Now, what do you know about him?”

  “Oh, he’s the worst!”

  “Didn’t he win a quest last summer?”

  “That’s not what I mean. He wins more than most.”

  Magnus sat on the bed in front of Syntharin. “So why’s he the worst?”

  “Because he wins at all costs. He’s a lunatic. He’s literally mad. I’ve heard—”

  “I wonder if the innkeeper would introduce me to some of the owners of the better taverns in town,” Allyn said, almost to himself. “Maybe he’d be willing to let me play in the common room, maybe during dinner. That’d help pay for the rooms.”

  “Mad?” Magnus cried. “Like slash-open-a-girl’s-chest mad?”

  Syntharin shuddered. “How do you think of such things?”

  “Answer the question. Is he that kind of crazy? Or were you exaggerating?”

  Syntharin considered the question. “I suppose he’d do what you said. He’s been known to do worse.”

  “Worse!”

  Shit.

  What if Natalie was working for an adventurer, an adventurer for another king, and they were using Magnus to sabotage the competition? Nobody would think a cute shop owner would hire a street kid to do such things. It was a perfect plan. The problem was—if Magnus got caught, the other adventurers would kill him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Magnus left Natalie’s shop. He’d spent the better part of the morning there, recounting his weeklong trip to and from Green Hill. She’d seemed particularly interested in the owners of the boots he’d stolen. She kept asking what they looked like, and what kind of accent so-and-so had, and whether he saw an ornately carved box made of white wood and a fancy silver clasp in their camp. He told her everything—everything except about Sir James and the tavern with naked women, and his suspicion of what she was up to.

  After strolling casually out of view from the shop’s front window, Magnus sped around to the alley. It was early afternoon, and there wasn’t a shadow in which to hide. Still, he had to risk being seen. He was tired of not knowing what was going on.

  As he approached the rear door of her store, he could hear people talking inside.

  He knew there were people in there with her! He knew it! He thought he’d heard movement upstairs, like somebody shifting their weight on a loose floorboard. When he’d asked Natalie about it, she’d said they were alone. The liar.

  Magnus crouched by the keyhole and tried to peer in, but all he could see were vague shapes and movement. However, he was confident that there were at least two people with Natalie—two men. Most likely the same men he’d seen going into her shop before.

  “Both of them?” a male voice said. Magnus recognized it immediately. It was the same unbelievably big man from the last time he’d been eavesdropping. “Are you sure?”

  The sound of chairs scooching across the wooden floor blotted out Natalie’s response.

  “Percy and James,” he said thoughtfully. “Who’d have thought that they would’ve teamed up?”

  “Don’t they hate each other,” came another voice. Magnus recalled the younger, smaller man named Reg.

  “Eh, we all go through periods of hating each other,” the big fella replied. “Somebody wins a quest, and we all refuse to speak to him until somebody else wins.”

  “Men!” Natalie scoffed. “You’re all such children.”

  “Yes, we are,” the big man agreed. “Which is why I want to beat the bastards. I haven’t won in ages.”

  “You won the Quest for Arindil’s Sword,” she said.

  Somebody made a dismissive sound.

  There was a longer-than-usual pause. For a moment, Magnus thought they might have heard him. He stepped away from the door, but then Natalie spoke again.

  “Is everything okay?”

  The big man dithered. “Yes, yes! I’m—that is…” He sighed. “I’m getting old.”

  “Old!” She laughed. “Sir Edris, you’re in your prime.”

  Sir Edris? The Sir Edris? Great gods! She really was working for a foreign adventurer.

  “You’re very kind, Nat. But you never saw me in my prime.” Sir Edris got up and walked about the cramped room. Peering through the keyhole, Magnus could see him clench and unclench his fists. “Did you know I once won nine quests in a row? Nine! Nobody has done that. Nobody. Not even Sir Drake.” He sighed again. “Alas, that was twenty years ago.”

  “But you’ve won dozens of quests since then,” Reg protested. Magnus couldn’t see him, but it sounded as though he were sitting at the table with Natalie.

  “Reg, I haven’t won anything meaningful in three years. I’m getting old.”

  “But,” Natalie began, trying to find the right thing to say. “You told me only yesterday, there are some adventurers who never win. Clooney, for example.”

  “Clowny!” Sir Edris ranted. “He’s an overrated hack. He shouldn’t even be participating in the quests. It sullies the profession!” The knight’s wrath ebbed. “But he’s young. And he will continue to improve. I, on the other hand—” He passed out of Magnus’s view. It sounded as though he sat with a heavy thud.

  “I have something that might cheer you two children up,” Natalie said.

  “What?” Sir Edris grumbled.

  “Well, it seems that when Magnus stole their boots—”

  “Boots?” Sir Edris shouted indignantly. “Why in the name of the gods did he steal their boots? He could’ve gotten a dozen boots for what you paid him.”

  “They didn’t have any horses to take,” Natalie replied patiently.

  “No horses?” Sir Edris mused. “How exceedingly odd.”

  “That must mean the box is somewhere horses can’t go,” Reg said. “The mountains perhaps?”

  “Or swamps.”

  Magnus could hear the dread in the big knight’s voice.

  He was afraid of swamps? Him? He was as big as an ogre! He shouldn’t be afraid of anything.

  “So why did he steal their boots?” Sir Edris asked.

  “It was the only way to delay them,” Natalie said. “That’s what we told him to do, remember?”

  “What kind of moron steals boots? He didn’t slow them down five minutes. Honestly, you shouldn’t have paid the cripple a copper penny.”

  Magnus grabbed the doorknob, about to storm in.

  “Don’t call him that,” Natalie said calmly. “You promised.”

  Maybe she wasn’t that bad after all.

  Somebody slammed something that might have been a tankard. Magnus had seen two silver ones with fake glass rubies sitting by the table when he’d been talking with Natalie.

  “Fine,” Sir Edris replied angrily. “But don’t trust the little guy so much. Remember Roland?” There was an awkward pause. “Oh, I’m sorry, Nat. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Who was Roland? Had she mentioned him before? Was he an adventurer as well? Magnus couldn’t recall. Crap. All of the names were starting to blur together. He’d never remember them long enough to ask Syntharin who they were.

  Reg spoke. “So what is it about stolen boots that should cheer us up? We’re still no nearer to finding the Chest of Queen Cassandra than we were a month ago.”

  The Chest of Queen Cassandra? That had been missing for—what? Five hundred years? If they found it, they’d be rich!

  Magnus inspected the alley again. He was still alone, but that wasn’t going to last. Sooner or later somebody would see him—probably some drunk who needed to take a piss. Damn it. He wished they’d hurry and say something important.

  Natalie giggled. “While our very resourceful Mister Magnus was hiding in the darkness, waiting to steal their boots…”

  “Boots,” Sir Edris muttered. “Who under heaven steals boots?”

  There was silence.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Carry on. What happened?”

  “A
nyway,” Natalie continued, “Sir Percy came out of his tent to relieve himself.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s say, Sir Percy isn’t exactly armed with a longsword, if you get me?”

  They didn’t get her.

  “His pecker,” she clarified. “Magnus said Percy only needed a finger to lift it, and even that seemed to get in the way.”

  “What?” There was a roar of laughter. “You’re kidding me!”

  The big guy was laughing so hard he was having trouble breathing. Somebody slapped the table.

  In the alley, Magnus giggled.

  He wasn’t armed with a longsword.

  Oh, that was a good one! He’d have to tell that to Allyn and Syntharin when they returned from the towns around Green Hill. The poor, tiny bastard! Women probably tormented him. Perhaps having a twisted and misshapen hand wasn’t all that bad!

  From inside the shop, there was a rush of movement as chairs toppled over. The door to the alley popped open, knocking Magnus on his ass. Then the long arm of Sir Edris snatched him by the collar. He lifted Magnus off the ground.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Natalie shouted.

  “Hurt him?” Sir Edris bellowed as he hauled Magnus inside. “I should snap his bloody neck! What did you hear, you little runt?”

  “Hey!” Magnus squealed. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”

  Sir Edris slammed Magnus against the wall. The big man pressed a dagger to Magnus’s throat. “What did you hear?”

  Natalie grabbed the knight’s arm. “Don’t hurt him!”

  “Nat”—Reg drew his sword—“you better step outside for a moment.”

  “No!” Natalie said. “You’re not going to hurt him. Sir Edris, put him down.”

  Sir Edris tightened his grip. Magnus couldn’t breathe. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, runt. What did you hear?”

  Magnus tried to twist his way free. “Let me go, you stinking ape!”

  “Stop this! Stop this right now!” Natalie yelled. Something fell clattering to the floor. “Everybody calm down. Okay? Calm down!”

  Sir Edris relaxed slightly, but he kept his dagger to Magnus’s throat.

  “Magnus,” Natalie said evenly. “You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”