by Eric Smith
The King was absolutely furious. Furious in a way that few of the servants had seen him since he was a child. In fact, was he not the King, Bayard Soloman would have told him to stop whining and be a man. The two men were in the King’s chambers, all alone now that the last serving maid had been chased out by a flying water pitcher.
The King stopped pacing and with both hands on the table in front of him stared at Soloman from under his heavy eyebrows. “Bayard I swear to God I’ll kill him this time! I’m tired of it. He’s gone too far.”
“Of that we are in agreement Sire. I’m not sure what can be done about it at this time though. The incident happened weeks ago. An open struggle between church and state is to be avoided, we have long since agreed on that. You cannot be seen to act in a petty, retaliatory manner by the nobles. Having the leader of the country’s most populous religion killed would not be a good thing in my opinion, Sire.”
Bayard watched the King. He was forty years old now with grey in his long black hair. He had lost much of the temper of his youth, the temper that seemed to run in the family as far as Bayard could see. The King’s late father, now referred to by most people as “the old King”, had never managed to get control of his temper. In that regard, the son was far ahead of the father.
The King seemed to relax a little bit; he seemed to be thinking about what Bayard had said. “It may not be a good thing for the Crown to openly oppose the Church, but is it any better for the Crown to be seen as the Church’s whipping boy? Should I just forgive his transgressions against the Crown, against the Nobles? The noble houses can’t see the damn forest for the trees. If I wait for them to act it will too late.”
Bayard thought about the situation for a few minutes. He was perhaps the only person in the Kingdom who could choose to take his time answering the King, other than the Queen of course.
Reports were still coming in from outlying areas of Salecia so the severity and the entirety of the situation remained unclear. What they knew at this time was that the Church had made its move. Both Bayard and the King had known for some time that the Church, meaning Father Murdacus, was likely to make some sort of a move but they had both expected it to be in the spring at least. This was early, neither of them had expected Murdacus to move in the dead of winter, but he had and it had taken them off guard.
Apparently eight days ago after dark Church soldier’s had begun rounding up people who had been marked as dissidents from the outlying areas of Salecia. Some reports said that they were taken away; others said that they were killed. There were even reports from one village called Terrydown of a man who had managed to kill four of the Hand of God before they chased him into the woods where he managed to kill two more and escape. Soloman had an idea who that was from his own sources, but he didn’t even trust the King with all of his eyes and ears throughout Salecia. Hearing the name Booth had made him smile even if he was sorry to hear what had happened. The Hand of God had bitten off more than they could chew in that village. Whatever came of that whole situation, he had done what he could to help Booth so there was no point in worrying over that now.
The problem now was that if the King did nothing it was the same as sanctioning the atrocities committed by the Church. But a reaction too strong handed could cause an outright split between the Church and the State and too many times in history had something of that nature resulted in a state of civil war. There was no telling which way the Noble Houses would align themselves in that situation.
Some of them would go with the Church simply because it was the Church and they were God fearing people. Others would follow the Church because it offered a chance at the throne no matter how small that was. Some would side with the King because they agreed with him, and yet others would side with the King because they thought it would raise their house in his eyes. That whole situation was to be avoided if at all possible.
The Winter Solstice was only a few days from now and the whole Kingdom would be expecting celebration in normal times, now, who knows? But one thing was sure; every Noble within ten days ride would be in the capital for the expected celebration and services at the Cathedral and perhaps that was the key . . .
Booth huddled closer to the fire in the cave. It wasn’t much of a fire but he dared not make it any larger for fear of being seen. There was no telling if the men chasing him had given up or gotten lost or were still only a few hours behind.
This far north though the nights were freezing cold in December and Booth hadn’t had a chance to provision his self as he would have liked. The first night he was on the run from them he had been forced to stay moving all through the night and that had helped to fight off the cold. The second night had been miserable huddled against a tree with nothing to eat and too afraid to build a fire that could potentially be seen through the trees. The last few days he had been lucky in that with moving up into higher country his chance of finding caves and hollows to keep the wind out and the light from fires in increased.
He wondered what he was going to do now, or where he was supposed to go. It wasn’t likely that anyone would help him, even if they agreed with his actions. Helping a fugitive accused of murder wasn’t something that most people jumped at after all. Booth knew he was lucky to have found this cave on the third night. He was starting to get hungry enough that he was worried. There hadn’t been time to hunt or forage for anything over the last few days either. The last of his jerky was now long gone.
To top it off he was out of arrows. Booth wasn’t about to give up the bow yet though. A good bow like this was hard to replace. He’d ditch it if he had to, if it was holding him back, but until then he would carry it and pray that he found more arrows.
An owl called outside the cave, Booth stopped and listened with his hand resting on his hunting knife, staring at the pine boughs he had used to cover the entrance. After a few moments he was confident that it was nothing but the owl that it sounded like and just as he began to relax there was movement at the cave mouth.
Booth sprang to his feet and moved to put the fire between him and the entrance as he drew his knife. A woman entered the cave then, not much more than a girl. She had long red hair and a beautiful face, but she didn’t look happy.
“Are they sending girls after me now then?” Booth asked her.
“That depends on who they are I suppose,” she said with an almost smile. She eyed his knife and then rubbing her hands together stepped over to the fire. “I take it you’re Booth?”
“Maybe I am and maybe I’m not.”
Now she did smile, ear to ear. “I’ll take that as a yes. You’re a hard man to find, you know. Why don’t you come sit down, I’m not going to kill you and I’d rather you not be standing there all awkward and threatening when my friend comes in, huh?”
“How about you tell me who you are first and then I’ll decide if I want to put this knife down or not?”
“My name is Hollee. A friend sent us, supposedly you know him; his name is Bayard.”
Note from the Author – Some minor changes may occur between what is written now and the final draft before release. However, this is the beginning of the working draft. Constructive criticism is always welcome.