by Nathan Roden
“Yes, the King looks simply marvelous,” Sterling said. “And I see that the Queen’s belly is still flat. Not the result we had foreseen when we planned for the future of Morgenwraithe—and its throne.”
Helena rushed off to assist one of the seamstresses.
Jaclyn blushed at Lord Sterling’s remarks. She offered her help to the seamstresses, but they were terrified by the thought of engaging the Queen in such a menial task.
Sterling cleared his throat and pushed himself away from the wall. He stumbled slightly, spilling wine from a priceless chalice that bore the shield and banners of the Kingdom of Morgenwraithe.
“Perhaps these times call for the Queen to spend less time walking the gardens with her handmaid,” Sterling said. He pointed at Lucien with his cup.
“And as for His Majesty, perhaps less time off hunting with the King’s Guard. And less time shooting arrows into straw men—and straw dragons!”
“Ow!” one of the seamstresses cried out. She had stuck her finger with a needle.
The castle’s servants were terrified in Sterling’s presence. He held every one of them in contempt, and seemed to feed off of their fears. Sterling doled out punishment for the slightest mistakes. The seamstress had just made one.
“Come here,” Sterling scowled. The girl stood before him, whimpering.
“Did you not hear me speaking?” Sterling asked.
“Yes, My Lord.”
The girl’s blood dripped on the floor.
“I’m so sorry, My Lord.”
“Dear Uncle,” Lucien said. “I should very much like to be finished with this ordeal. Please, allow the girl to continue her duties.”
“So, you’re in a hurry, eh, Your Grace?” Sterling slurred. “Can’t wait to get back to your bow and your scary dragons—”
“How else shall I prepare to face the real dragon?” Lucien asked. “He dared to show himself in the village—he killed two of my Guards!”
Sterling turned up his chalice and emptied it.
“I will add fifty to the Guard! We should have had that beast’s head long ago! Perhaps, putting a few Royal Knight’s heads on the wall will convince the others that their failures are unacceptable!”
“I want to slay the dragon, myself,” Lucien said.
Sterling waved his hand in the air.
“Of course, you do! A childish dream for a childish King!”
The servants were afraid to breathe. Or to move. They stared at the floor.
Sterling placed his hand under the chin of the seamstress. He raised her head.
“See to the King’s dress—so that he may hurry back to his playthings!”
“Yes, My L—”
Sterling slapped the girl with his open hand, knocking her to the floor.
He glared at Lucien, spun around, and left the room.
Nineteen
The young man sat in the chair, rocking slowly as he held his baby daughter. She was a delightful child who almost never cried. She had never been fussy at all, until lately. Her little tummy did not care for goat’s milk.
The man’s wife lay on a bed in the corner. His mother-in-law sniffed as she held the barely conscience young lady’s hand and wiped sweat from her forehead with a cool cloth.
The man looked up at the open door. His father-in-law stood there, facing the open field.
The baby tottered against her father’s chest and went to sleep. The man laid the baby down on blankets piled in the corner of the hut and stepped outside.
“Without medicine, she will die,” the man said.
His father-in-law stared blankly—at nothing.
“She is not the first, Benjamin. And not likely the last.”
“And we are to accept this?” Benjamin said. “We should have medicine! We made a treaty with Morgenwraithe to receive goods from the merchant ships, and we receive nothing! Why do we tolerate—?”
“The treaty has known five generations. Do you think to represent all of the Southland?”
“If no one else will, then why not?” Benjamin said. “We keep our end of the treaty. We stay south of the Kingdom’s borders. We do not interfere with the King’s business. We receive nothing for most of a year, and our people grow sick and die!”
“Lord Sterling has explained—”
“He lies!” Benjamin said. “There has been little honor in Morgenwraithe for years. And under Sterling, it has none at all.”
“What would you have us do? Gather the men to war? March on the border and meet the King’s Guard and army in combat? We would die like dogs, and leave our women and children to be—”
“There is support for a rebellion in the north,” Benjamin said. “Surely you have not forgotten those men—”
“Forgotten? Ha! I wager that you have forgotten what became of those men! Their heads line the top of the castle wall!”
Benjamin’s mother-in-law ran through the door. She fell into her husband’s arms, weeping.
Benjamin and the older man stared at one another as the woman wailed.
Her energy spent, the woman pushed herself away from her husband. She put her arms around Benjamin and buried her face in his chest.
“No, no, no, no!” came her muffled sobs.
The baby began to cry.
The woman patted Benjamin’s chest and dried her eyes.
“I will see to her, Ben.”
Ben nodded.
“I am going to speak to the men,” Ben said to his father-in-law. “Something must be done.”
The older man scowled.
“I grieve with you, Ben. She was my daughter. But do not allow grief to make you foolish. You are not the only one to lose a wife, or a child. The Counsel will—”
“The Counsel does noth—” Ben remembered that his mother-in-law and his daughter could hear him.
“The Counsel has done nothing. They have not even crossed the border to make an inquiry.”
“I trust the Kingdom no more than you, Ben. But you must be careful what you say. If you had been born here, perhaps the Counsel would hear you. You gained a measure of trust when you wed my daughter, but that trust is not absolute. You must think of what is best for the baby.”
“I am thinking about her. I am thinking that I cannot bear to watch her become ill and die.”
“Ben…,”
The older man watched his son-in-law’s back as he stormed off toward the village square. He shook his head.
“May the gods be with us.”
Ben found a group of men gathered in the village square in front of the row of shops. He told them of the death of his wife. More people gathered to listen.
“I know that I am not one of you. You have accepted me, and for that I am grateful. But our people are ill. Sickness is among us, and this is not a new thing. But we know that there are medicines that reach the Kingdom at the ports of Islemar.
“We have a valid treaty with Morgenwraithe—which they choose to ignore.
“Our people are dying. They are dying, and we are doing nothing to stop it. Is this not the purpose of your Counsel?”
The people were silent. Some of them turned and walked away.
“Does no one care?” Ben shouted at their backs.
“What would you have us do?” one old man asked. “March on Morgenwraithe?”
“March to war?” Ben said. “No. But to at least march into the village and question the crown and its decision to ignore the treaty made by its own King!”
“We would be slaughtered at the border!” cried one man.
“Will this be your answer when death comes to your door?” Ben asked. “Will this be your answer when it is your wife or your child—?”
The man balled his hands into fists.
“You shut your mouth, and you shut it now, boy! We took you in as one of our own, and you propose to stand in our midst and tell us what to do?”
The man turned and looked at the others.
“I propose that the Counsel banishes this man fro
m our village—before he brings the wrath of Morgenwraithe down upon our heads!”
The people murmured.
“And I tell you,” Ben said, “that I will stand on this very spot at noon tomorrow. I will march to the border, and into Morgenwraithe. I will march with those who also seek what is just and fair—or I will go alone. As for the remainder of this day—”
Ben glared at the man and focused his anger.
“I must return home and bury my wife.”
Twenty
Ben walked into the village at just before noon. He had passed no one by the time he reached the market. He rounded a corner, and saw a woman with two young children. The woman gathered her children and they rushed inside the door of a shop.
The door slammed shut.
The weather was pleasant, yet all of the shops’ doors and windows were closed.
Two more doors slammed shut along the main street of the market.
Ben’s spirits fell when he saw that there were only two boys in the square. He looked up at the sun. It was directly overhead.
“Is it time for us to go?” one of the boys asked.
“All of two brave souls,” Ben said.
“There are more of us—but not many,” one of the boys said. “They told us to fetch them if you showed up.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ben asked. “Is our cause not just? Are we wrong to expect the terms of our treaty to be met?”
“Aye, the cause is just,” the other boy said. “There are eleven of us. But only two as old as you. We’ve all lost family to illness.”
Ben looked around.
“Where are these others? In hiding?”
“We thought it best to wait for you. Some of the merchants had unkind words for us. Some of them made threats against us.”
“Threats?” Ben said. “For daring to stand up for the lives of our people?”
“You heard them yesterday. They are afraid that the Kingdom will sense a threat and send their armies across the border.”
“That would be madness,” Ben said. “Attempting to cross the canyon would cost them many lives.”
“How many do they have to spare?” one boy asked. “And who can know what weapons they may have gathered from across the seas? If our people continue to fall to sickness and disease, Morgenwraithe will learn of it. This may even be their cruel intent! We should wait no longer.”
“Shall we fetch the others?” the other boy asked.
“No,” Ben said. “We will go to them. Our enemies lie to the north. Not in this village.”
They met up with the others at the northern end of the village.
Their group numbered twelve.
“We will travel until sundown,” Ben said.” A full day’s march tomorrow will bring us to the border in time to rest prior to nightfall. We will cross the border under cover of darkness.
The afternoon of the second day, they crossed a rushing river and entered the mouth of the canyon that led to the border of the Kingdom of Morgenwraithe.
One hour later, Ben stopped them.
“There is a spring ahead, near the mouth of the canyon. It brings forth the purest water. We will drink our fill and replenish our skins. And we will wait there for nightfall.”
When the spring was in sight, Ben went directly to it and drank. The other men followed him.
“What is this?” one of the young boys said. “Abandoned treasure?”
A large trunk stood against the wall of the canyon on the opposite side from the spring. Four of the boys ran toward the chest.
The boy in the lead stumbled when his ankle hit a vine.
A sharpened stake swung from behind the trunk and impaled the boy’s face.
“No!” Ben jumped up and yelled at the other boys, but they could not move fast enough.
Three more concealed triggers launched sharpened stakes from behind the trunk in powerful arcs.
One boy was hit in the neck, another in the chest. They died instantly.
The last boy was hit in the stomach.
Ben ran toward the boy who was still alive, but he stopped when he saw that the way was strewn with more vines.
The boy’s eyes met Ben’s. His jaw worked, while blood spilled from the corners of his mouth.
“Tell my mother—”
Those were his last words.
Three arrows flew past Ben’s head. He whipped around and looked toward the mouth of the canyon. The entire opening was filled with shields, helmets, and bows. Ben dropped to the ground as another flurry of arrows flew past.
“Get down!” he screamed.
Three more of their number fell to arrows.
“Retreat! Retreat!” Ben screamed. “Stay low and run!”
Ben ran, not knowing if any were left alive to follow him. He looked over his shoulder when he reached the river.
He saw one boy, running for his life.
“This way!” Ben yelled.
He turned to the west and ran along the river’s edge. He looked once to see if the boy was still following him. He was.
Ben found what he had been waiting for—deep water.
He plunged in and began swimming downstream.
I pray that you can swim, he thought.
When his shoulder began to ache so badly that he could hardly stand it, Ben swam to the river’s edge and climbed onto dry land.
The boy followed him.
They huddled behind a fallen tree and stared upstream for an hour. The shadows grew long. No one came.
Ben stood and stretched. He stepped away and relieved himself. When he returned, the boy sat with his elbows on his knees. His hands covered his face as he wept.
Ben put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The boy jumped. He wiped his eyes.
“They haven’t followed us,” Ben said. “It will be nightfall soon.”
The boy nodded.
“I am sorry. I will try to behave like a man, my Lord.”
“I am no Lord,” Ben said. “And even if I was, we have seen war together. What are you called?”
“Liam.”
“I believe we will be safe here tonight, Liam. We will get an early start and make it back to the village by nightfall tomorrow.”
“Yes, my Lord,”
Ben started to object, but thought better of it. He rolled his left shoulder several times and then dug his fingers in to massage the muscle. The shoulder had pained him for thirteen years—after his arm had been wrenched out of its socket. It had never healed to where it did not ache.
“How old are you?” Ben asked.
“Sixteen, my Lord.”
“You knew the other boys, didn’t you?”
Liam nodded.
“One of them was my brother. He wants us to…he wanted me to tell our mother that he loved her.”
“We have cheated death today, Liam. I can say that about only one other man on this earth—and he is my flesh and blood. I would never have him refer to me as a superior. And I will not ask more of you. My name is Benjamin.”
Liam shook his head.
“I…I do not think that I can. I would forever see my father’s face, and he would feel shame.”
“I will explain it to him—”
“He died,” Liam said, “seven months ago—of the same fever. If he knew that I failed to show respect to a man of authority, he would feel that I showed him disrespect, as well.”
“Very well,” Ben said. “I will not ask you to go against your father’s wishes.”
“Thank you, Lord Blankenship.”
Twenty-One
The Captain of the Border Guard ordered his officers to remain with him in the mouth of the canyon.
The air was thick with the smell of blood and vomit. The border guard was staffed by young men who had never seen conflict, let alone the kind of damage that their spear traps were capable of.
“Remove these men from the traps,” the Captain ordered.
“Men?” the first officer said. “These are boys!”
<
br /> “I do not care if they were nursemaids!” the Captain roared. “We are charged with the defense of the border, and the border came under assault!”
“They carried no weapons,” another officer said.
The Captain stepped in front of that man and grabbed him by the collar.
“Is that what you wish to tell Raynard? Or Lord Sterling? That their Border Guard murdered an invading force of unarmed children?”
”No, Captain.”
“What do we tell them?” the first officer asked.
The Captain paced and stroked his chin.
“When is the celebration—for the King’s name day?” he asked.
“In two days, Captain,” the first officer answered.
“Ah!” the Captain winced. “Sterling will be in a particularly foul mood. This will not bode well for us.”
The Captain stepped next to a dead man with an arrow through his heart. He raised his boot and kicked the man in the side.
“They will not send us more men,” he said. “But they will demand even more of us. More patrols. More men on night watch. And more reports sent to the castle.”
The Captain stared each of his officers in the eye.
“Take these boys down. We will reset the traps when the blood is dry and the stench is gone.
“This day—did not happen. Make this clear to your men. If I learn that a single word of these events has passed beyond our ranks, I will find the loose tongue and cut it out. And then I will have that man’s head! Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Captain!” the officers said in unison.
“What do we do with them?” the first officer asked.