Delusions of Loyalty (The Braykith Series Book 2)

by Jennifer R. Kenny

  Evangeline looked over to see Glais studying them both, and her face betrayed her thoughts faster than Evangeline wanted them known. Glais went back to watching the breakfast bowls, and Evangeline hoped she would not need to protect Sable from more scrutiny. The rumours would be enough without it coming from those who Sable interreacted with regularly.

  “Did you get the servings yourself?” Glais asked after a moment of silence, his voice carefully neutral.

  “Yes.” Sable shivered in Evangeline’s embrace, looking up from her shoulder to address Glais as best as she could without having to meet his eyes directly. Quintus had a strange way of knowing if someone was speaking the truth, but Sable was not sure if his son followed in his footsteps. Sable would not be taking her chances, and had no problem in using Evangeline as a shield to hide behind. “There was a large pot of it ready for when the soldiers came in to eat.” Glais frowned at her words slightly, and Sable panicked at what the change in his features could mean. “That was what the chef said because he was mad at me when I took two servings. I told him the men wouldn’t even notice.”

  Glais was suspicious of Sable but if what she claimed was true, and she did not poison the bowls herself but instead had taken tainted food from the food hall than their own troops would be ingesting it themselves. Evangeline and Glais both stared at each other, communication passing between them which did not need words since Evangeline seemed to suspect the same fears.

  Glais took off down the hall and towards the kitchens. The great mess hall was busy, and the boisterous shouts of men could be heard as they sat about eating and relaxing in what might be their final days. The threat of war was looming, and the best soldiers of Braykith would march with their King towards Crimah within a few days. While spirits were high, no one assumed the unit would return home completely whole. Some men would lose their lives.

  Bashing the door open with his shoulder, Glais made his presence known and instantly the soldiers all stopped what they were doing to honour him. It would have been eerie to observe, but for Glais the reaction was expected and demanded for his position. Just as he had been expecting it to happen, the men were well trained and instantly the room was silent as they awaited his orders. “How many of you were served porridge this morning?” He asked. “Quickly now, answer me. Stand if you were served porridge.” More than half of the men stood. Licking his lips and not liking those odds, Glais tried to remain calm. “How many of you ate the porridge?” Four men sat down, but most remained standing. Glais nodded, the gesture more to calm himself than for any other reason.

  “Come with me,” Glais said. Never to disobey the command of their Prince, the men followed out the doors and through the castle without questioning why. The men left behind were not as polite, and as soon as Glais left, a flurry of life erupted in his wake as men discussed the possible reasoning for this apparently arbitrary division between them. Most of the men had gone with him, leaving only a handful of strays who had taken bread for their morning meal.

  Glais had only a single plan, and while it might not be medically sound, it was all he could hope to do to change their current course. It did not make him feel better about Sable to see that none of the men, who had been eating long before Sable had gone to collect their own bowls, were sick as Wick was. The obvious answer was Wick’s weakened state made her more susceptible to the poison, but Glais would not forget these details once he had time to examine them at his leisure.

  Standing in the gardens, he turned to the men before him. Without being told, they had quickly fallen into ranks. Glais sighed, not believing what he was about to tell these men what he was thinking. “It is believed that the porridge has been tampered with. I am going to ask you do to something that might seem a little odd, but may save your lives.” The men looked uneasy from one another, but no objected. “You need to vomit,” Glais said.

  “Excuse me?” A voice emerged from the mutterings of confusion.

  “I know it sounds strange, but it is a trick my brother taught me when drinking wine. If you feel like you have drunk too much, you should induce vomiting before falling to sleep. Come morning you will feel far better than if you had not.” No one moved. “There is poison in your stomachs right now, dark magic working into your veins and stealing your life. Rejecting it is all I can think of to save you.” Glais sounded desperate, and the men felt that desperation.

  Not one to argue, one turned away from Glais and stuck his finger down his throat. The sound was enough to encourage, and force, those closest to him to follow the same. Soon the exercise was too much for Glais to watch, and he needed to step away from the men in hopes of getting some fresh air. He knew that it might be too late to keep them safe from the full effects, but Glais could not sit by and let his men die. He had tried something, and that had to be better than nothing at all.

  When the time came when he would be forced to explain his actions to his father, then Glais would need to put words to what was happening just behind him. For now, though, he stood just a little away from the large gathering and clasped his hands behind his back. He could not witness the purging however it seemed cowardly to leave them altogether. Just as Glais felt he might lose the contents of his own stomach he heard the rushed footsteps and a swish of heavy fabrics.

  He looked to the main entrance to see Evangeline fleeing down the stone steps with more power than he ever believed her to possess. “Evangeline.” He shouted her name, jogging to meet her once she turned to the sound of her name. “How is Wick?” he asked.

  “She said the name of a woman in town. And something Belltower vines.” Evangeline shook her head. “I don’t know what it means, but I hope the woman does.” She tried to leave by Glais stopped her.

  “Wick is now conscious?” he asked, his hand catching her forearm sharply so she could not flee before he was done questioning her.

  Evangeline looked down at the contact but forgave him given the extremes of their circumstances. “No. She barely managed to speak at all.” Evangeline sighed, looking past Glais but glad she could not see what was happening just beyond her vision. The sound was more than enough. “I am half sure that the names I heard were my own wishful thoughts for a cure rather than her direction.” She admitted shyly. It did not make Evangeline any less determined to follow them through.

  “You cannot go alone.” He said.

  “Glais, someone in the castle is poisoning our men. They hurt Wick.” She begged him to reconsider.

  “I know, but to leave the castle grounds right now would be suicide.” Glais paused but finally forced himself to speak. “Take Thomas with you. He should be stationed at the front gates.”

  “Thomas?” she questioned, confused about his motivations. Glais would use every excuse he could find to ensure other soldiers would be given her protection duties. She realised just how this situation was affecting him but seemed at a loss on how to make it right again. “Are you sure?”

  “I know what you are thinking, but right now there are two things I care about. Keeping our men alive, and ensuring your safety. I know he is not our traitor and he will protect you with the same stamina and valour I would.” Glais hated giving any excuse for Thomas to be alone with his wife but he was stretched for ideas and availability was very limited.

  Evangeline nodded. “How many are affected?” she asked.

  “We will soon find out,” Glais answered just as he heard the panicked call of his name. He looked behind him, but he did not leave right away. “Go, find this woman and the Belltower vines.” He rushed Evangeline away before coming back to his men. A small circle had formed around five of them who had all fallen where they stood, the same delirious look on their faces that had covered Wick when he had seen her.

  Five was not so bad. “Collect the suffering and bring them to the infirmary. Roberts, get to the kitchens and have the chef destroy everything that has touched the porridge. Franklin, find my father and report this to him. Tell him I am in the infirmary with the sickly.�
�� Both men broke away from the formation.

  “Anyone else who feels lightheaded, find a brother to lean on,” He commanded, and slowly the troops made their way to the infirmary beds. By the time they arrived, more than twenty men were ill, and three more were unresponsive.

  ***

  Glais closed the infirmary door behind him and nodded to Quintus who was waiting in the hall. They regarded each other for a moment before Glais sighed and had to give the terrible news. “Over a hundred men will not be ready for battle, and at least twenty may not live until the end of the night. Many more have been suspected to have ingested some of the poison, and they are being watched for signs of fatigue.” He licked his lips, feeling anxious on his father’s response to the crisis. “How did it happen?” Glais asked.

  “I have interrogated the chef, but he seems to know nothing about it. There have been no new faces within the kitchens, and those who were in charge did not appear to be acting oddly enough for someone to notice.” Quintus could not believe that someone had been able to poison his own men within their own walls and yet the proof was piling up around him. “There was nothing suspicious at all that the chef could relay back to me, and I have no reason to believe he is lying.” Quintus kicked the wall, but it did nothing to help his mood.

  “Wick said something about Belltown vines and named a woman in the village,” Glais told his father in the hopes that the plant’s label might cause a reaction from him in recognition. Quintus looked up sharply at this new information, but there was nothing more for Glais to tell him and Quintus had nothing to add. “Thomas has gone to see what becomes of it.” Glais did not tell his father that Evangeline had also left the castle. He would not give Quintus more reason to feel the need to replace her. This was just another example of her narrow focus and impulsive drive.

  “Let us hope it is something. We are lucky that Wick showed symptoms early enough that we were able to stop what could have been a true disaster.” Quintus leant on the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and hiding his mouth behind his hand as he thought about all that he knew. “I believe we can no longer call our castle safe son.”

  Glais agreed. “We will claim it back.” He said without hesitation, and Quintus was glad to see that Glais would not be quick to give up on Braykith. Everyone would need his strength when the time came. “I believe that one’s ones responsible for this will not stay silent long. Given time and the right circumstances, I am quite confident that they will boast to listening ears about their triumph over us. They will be caught,” Glais promised.

  Quintus uncrossed his arms and righted himself from his leaning posture. “Yes, but how many lives can we keep until that happens?” Quintus asked the rhetorical question that Glais had been asking himself for some time. “According to Grant, Crimah appeared deserted before Baxter arrived. The people had fled into the world, believing their chances of survival was better out in the wilderness than with their leader.”

  “The same thing will not happen to Braykith,” Glais said.

  “We will not allow it.” Quintus agreed. “But some of those people are sure to come here. There are not many other places for the refugees to go since the war has depleted our closest neighbours into ruined buildings.”

  Glais had not considered that. “We have people coming and go with such fluidity, we would never notice a few stragglers. But the numbers of refugees from Crimah would be close to thousands.”

  Quintus nodded to encourage Glais’ line of thinking. “It may be even less should the rebellion find those who had fled. They have not made any effort to conceal how they kill without care for human life but they are not efficient enough to kill them all, or we would have noticed the trails of dead bodies.” Quintus sighed. “If they are not coming here Glais, then where at they all going?”

  Glais had no answer for that, but he did wonder if perhaps the lands of Crimah were not as empty as people said they were. It could very well be that people remained, living close to their enemies for whatever reason they justified it with.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Darius stood in the small room he had been assigned as a living space within the barracks. It was nothing more than a bed in the corner, barely any better than the dungeons except the door could be opened easily. The freedoms he had earned did not feel right, and looking down at himself Darius was not sure if the black uniform of the Braykith men suited him. He had never worn something so well made or so dark before. It made everything about him seem paler in comparison.

  His hair also appeared more of the light strawberry blonde his mother had always claimed he had, but he had dismissed easily as foolish parent sentiment. He found a section of his hair and pulled it forward, but it did not quite reach into his vision. Looking in the mirror, the pale red colourings were obvious against the black collar. Now he was required to grow it long, Darius was sure that faint natural dyes would only become more undeniable.

  Putting the thoughts aside, he ran his hand back through the tuft of curls but never could get them to behave. Darius abandoned it and once again tugged on the bottom of his jacket sleeves in frustration. He had no reason to complain, but Darius wondered if he could ever grow accustomed to such an intimidating look. He missed the more flattering, and familiar, shade of the Crimah red.

  Darius supposed it would be a long time before he would ever witness that colour again. He was sure the people here wore colour beyond their house assigned pigment, but the red of Crimah was such a shade that it would be dishonourable for anyone else to replicate it. Perhaps Evangeline might wear the shade on occasion, but Darius would not be the one to stake his life on the educated guess. He looked at his cuffs, took a final breath and left his small space for his assignment.

  Although Evangeline had bargained for his life and got him the position as Glais’ squire, it would appear that he would not be taking those duties immediately. Due to the current situation with the poison in the food, he had been called for surveillance duty in the halls. He had at first supposed that Glais would take him for a walk around the grounds and introduce him to Braykith a little. It seemed that Darius was foolish in believing that Glais would at least introduce him to the horse he would be forced to ready for Glais whenever he so demanded it.

  He understood where his sister’s heart had been, but Darius was struggling with his new lease on life. There was nothing to be done to save him now, and Darius needed to find solace in the fact that he still had a life to mourn. Many others did not, and it seemed there were people within the castle who still may not live to see the next rising of the sun. Pushing away the bitter thoughts, Darius turned left and quickly realised he was lost. Most of the hallways seemed exactly the same as the last in his opinion. Darius would not admit that he had been too busy feeling bitter about his situation and Darius had not been paying attention.

  He sighed, looking one way and then the other in hopes of seeing someone who might be helpful, and instead saw the corridors were bare. Picking a direction, he hoped it was the correct one. Noticing a vase that he was sure he had seen before he continued and finally came to the large main doors. Although his body was needed to enhance the look of security within the castle, Darius understood why he was being placed in such a well-travelled area. Evangeline had vouched in his favour, but it would take time before others started to trust him as well.

  He saw a man raise his hand to beckon him over, and Darius copied the gesture in returned and crossed the floor quickly. “You must be Markus,” Darius said.

  “Are you sure you can handle this?” Markus asked, not believing that they should be trusting guard duty to someone so new, but even he had admitted that they needed help right now. A panic had swept up everyone within the mess hall. No-one was convinced that the poison had only been in the porridge and the men who had been on duty needed to be relieved. It was a slow progress. At this stage, Markus would take his chances with any food the kitchen presented him with.

  “It seems simple enough.” Dari
us had been raised in a manor and watching men guard the corridors as he played was simply a part of his life. Even if he had never been trained for the position, Darius was sure that he was capable. “I am to stand here and keep out anyone who appears suspicious,” Darius said, repeating the instructions he had been told earlier.

  Markus nodded. “That is about it.” He sighed and handed over his watch to the young Darius because as much as he did not like the idea, Markus needed food and rest. Turning, but still walking backwards, he offered his final words. “Someone will come by and relieve you. Do not wander until it happens.”

  Darius nodded, and feeling awkward, he realised a moment too late that he had waved at the retreating Markus. Darius knew that he had no right to complain, and if Glais told him to remain guard for the next few days with no rest, he would need to do his best to handle that pressure. Guarding a hall just off the main entrance was boring, though. Darius yawned, and caught himself halfway through the gesture. He doubted anyone wanted to see a guard yawning, especially during a crisis. Darius stood a little straighter and tried his best to appear more awake than he felt.

  Standing alone in a hallway with nothing more to do, Darius could only reflect on his own past and how he came to be in this position. He supposed that people only thought that it had been the previous few days that had been traumatic for him, but as Darius considered the events of his recent past, he came to realise the pressure had been playing on his mind since the day Evangeline left. That seemed to be the moment his father had lost what little normalcy he had. Darius did not understand it then, and even now it was a mystery to him. Evangeline had said there were secrets to be shared, but Darius was sure that some secrets would be taken to the grave and never be voiced.