Murmurs of alarm ran through the square.
“You have our word that these traitors will be found and brought to justice. But in the meanwhile, until the rebel knights can be replaced, their defection has left the palace and, indeed, our city undefended.
“So, on the wisdom of my top advisor, Lord Eudo, I have made arrangements to install new defenders who can easily repel any attack Thaydor and the knights might try to mount against our city.”
“
Repel
being the key word,” Jonty muttered.
“Now, I don’t want any of you to be alarmed when you see the fierce countenances of our new soldiery. They are not going to hurt you,” the king said slowly, emphatically. “Some of you may doubt this, since the Urmugoth tribes were once the enemies of our kingdom. But that was centuries ago.”
The reaction of the crowd was instantaneous.
“Wait, what?”
“Did he say Urmugoths?” the people said to one other.
“A new age has dawned,” His Majesty continued. “An age of peace and hope, trust and mutual understanding, as the Silver Sage, in his wisdom, has long taught us to expect. Well, my dear people, the age of peace starts with each and every one of us.”
Jonty made a gagging sound.
“Therefore, until other arrangements can be made, these fine Urmugoth warriors are here to help with the defense of our palace.”
“Urmugoths? In the city?” a nearby woman asked in alarm.
“And we should all be grateful,” the king added. He turned to the doorway behind him. “Gentlemen? Will you please come out and let the people see you?”
A collective gasp of horror rose from the crowd as six huge Urms—probably including the ones who had beaten up Reynulf—trudged out onto the royal balcony to show themselves to the citizenry in all their gray-skinned, yellow-eyed, tusk-jawed glory.
The crowd recoiled at the sight. A few people screamed, and several children burst out crying. The expletive Jonty uttered was particularly blue, even for his foul mouth.
“Now, I charge you, citizens of Veraidel, do not be alarmed by the appearance of our new friends!” the king shouted, holding up his hands to try to calm the frightened crowd.
His voice was nearly drowned out by the exclamations of dread.
“What you do not know is that we have quietly been conducting trade negotiations with our northern neighbors for some time now! The Urmugoths have become our allies. You have my word as your king. They are only here to keep everybody safe!”
None of the courtiers on the balcony seemed bothered by the fact that the Urms towered over the king, made old Eudo look extremely frail, and caused the two human palace guards flanking the doorway to cower a bit. But much worse than the ones on the balcony with the king were the line of them marching out into the square to stand guard along the exterior wall of Lionsclaw Keep. About thirty Urms lined up on either side of the palace gates.
The beasts’ nearness to the crowd after what he had seen them do to the peasants of Mistwood tangled Thaydor’s stomach into knots.
His knights looked over at him from their posts in various degrees of shock and disgust.
Hearing from Reynulf that the king was going to allow this was one thing; seeing it firsthand was quite another.
Thaydor’s heart pounded.
He’s lost his bloody mind.
“Excellent!” Baynard congratulated his subjects from his perch on high. “Very good. You show great courage, my people. Ah, now, no tears,” he fondly scolded the few screaming tots with an oily smile from above. “At this time, Lord Eudo would like to say a few words. I want you to know that you can and should trust him just as much as I do. Heed him well.”
While the king stepped back and beckoned the old man in silver robes to the fore, Jonty shook his head at the Urms. “You killed how many of those things?”
“Twenty,” Thaydor said, his stern stare fixed forward.
“Yourself?”
“Through the might and mercy of Ilios, Jonty.” He did not take his eyes off the creatures.
“Well, hang me,” the bard said wryly. “Paladin of Ilios… You’re the real deal, mate. Imagine my surprise.”
“Shh! I want to hear this.”
Jonty leaned against the wall again, drumming his fingers idly, as he was wont to do.
The whole crowd was full of whispers while the Silver Sage looked around at everyone with a lizard-like smile.
“Your Majesty. My fellow citizens of Veraidel, Urmugoth friends,” he began. “I feel very sure that all the gods are smiling this day to see our peoples united, and I am ever mindful of the trust that has been placed in me.” His smooth tone seemed to soothe the people. “But as His Majesty has said, these are serious times,” he continued in a lulling voice. “We know you find these developments as disturbing as we all do, but we ask humbly for your trust.
“You see, it is not always possible for us to tell you what choices we must make on your behalf behind closed doors. Some secrets must be kept for a time. But believe us, everything we do is for your own good, and for the safety and security of you and your families.”
“Who could ever doubt it?” Jonty drawled.
“Of course, there are some secrets that not even His Majesty knows,” the Silver Sage quipped, turning to their ruler.
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd as some tried to accept what was going on, needing to believe their leaders knew what they were doing.
But from where he stood, Thaydor saw that something in the Lord Eudo’s brief glance had left even the king looking puzzled.
As he turned back to the people, Baynard’s bushy eyebrows knitted into a line across his brow. Uneasy. Still, his mouth tried to hold on to a public sort of smile, as though he were half expecting to be given a statue in his honor.
Nausea turned Thaydor’s stomach. He could smell treachery in the air. Arms folded across his chest, he braced for whatever came next.
The Silver Sage paused for a moment. “All secrets must be revealed in time, however. And today, it gives me great pain to reveal the one I’ve kept, even from His Majesty.”
Baynard arched a brow, but Thaydor knew his king well enough to recognize the glint of terror growing behind his thinning smile.
Lord Eudo gazed out over the crowd, his bony, gnarled, harmless-looking hands resting on the rail. “My dear people…it breaks my heart to share this awful news with you. But I am sorry to inform you that Queen Engelise is dead. Her husband had her
murdered
on the road to Aisedor,” he boomed, pointing an accusing finger at King Baynard.
“What?” Jonty cried.
The thunderous announcement rocked the square down to its very flagstones. The instantaneous reaction from both the king and the crowd was gigantic. Even Thaydor was shaken, standing up, away from the wall at once while a wave of shock and horrified grief surged through the people.
“
Sanctus solis
,” he whispered, narrowing his eyes, while screams and cries erupted here and there. Which was strange, since Queen Engelise wasn’t even that well liked. The general view of her was that of a mousy, stiff, unsociable woman.
Still, a royal death caused enough of a stir when it came by natural causes.
Murder
in the royal family was all but unthinkable.
It struck the kingdom like an earthquake.
And everyone was too shocked to question it.
The whole kingdom had heard or seen His Majesty, after all, doting on his beautiful, young, mostly naked mistress.
Baynard’s face was beet red with fury. He still didn’t seem to have quite absorbed that he had walked into a trap. “This is outrageous! I’ll have your head!”
Lord Eudo ignored him. “King Baynard, by the laws provided under the Right Noble Charter of Veraidel, you are under arrest for the murder of Her Majesty, our rightful queen.”
“This is absurd! You treacherous— My wife isn’t dead! She went to visit her father!”
“No, sire. She never made it there, as you know full well.” Lord Eudo shook his head with a look of outrage. “Her Majesty is slain, along with every member of her traveling party, save one. One soldier from her royal escort survived, escaping the onslaught to bring us the terrible news. But he is only one of several witnesses against you, sire.
“He told us under oath of perjury that the attackers of the traveling party were dressed as brigands, but this was only a disguise. He saw the leader’s face and the tattoos on his arm, marking him none other than Your Majesty’s current champion, the Bloodletter of Xoltheus, Sir Reynulf.”
“Damn,” Jonty said. “Good thing you left him back at Eldenhold.”
“Oh, he is not going to be happy about this.” Thaydor shook his head, stunned at the depth of this perfidy.
The king looked frazzled as he yelled, trying to convince anyone who’d listen. “This is impossible! I would never do such a thing. Reynulf would never do such a thing, and I am sure my wife is alive and well at her father’s castle!”
“No, Your Majesty,” Lord Eudo said sadly. “She is right here. Look upon your handiwork with your own eyes!”
Two Urms carried out something that looked like a long, narrow table covered by a tablecloth, but when Lord Eudo yanked the white fabric away, they beheld a glass-topped coffin.
And there was Queen Engelise, lying preserved under the lid.
Dead on display.
The crowd contracted with a unified gasp of horror at the sight of their late queen, and then swayed as a wave of shocked agony moved through them. Only the Urmugoths stood stoic.
“Engelise!” Baynard fell upon his wife’s coffin with a disbelieving sob. Then he turned viciously to Eudo. “What have you done? I’ll kill you!”
He lunged at his supposed advisor.
“Arrest him!” Eudo howled.
Two of the Urmugoths grabbed the king by the arms.
Despite the fact that he was too far away to be of help, Thaydor tensed and reached for his weapon, remembering when the monsters had taken hold of his young squire in the same manner.
But they did not tear Baynard apart. At least not physically. They merely looked to Eudo for their orders.
“Well, old Eudo’s certainly got a flair for the drama,” Jonty murmured, but Thaydor ignored him, for the panic he had feared would come was slowly taking over the crowd.
He could feel it building all around him. The people were losing control of their emotions, hysteria prevailing.
Unfortunately, his former worry about the threat of a stampede was nothing compared to what would happen if the sixty Urmugoths lining the palace wall took it upon themselves to cow the crowd into obedience.
Then there would truly be bloodshed.
People around him were crying and shaking and cursing in confusion. “How can this be happening? The queen’s dead, and Urmugoths in Pleiburg? Has the world gone mad?” they asked one another. But nobody had answers. “War with Aisedor? They’re to be our enemies now, and the Urms are our friends?”
“What will become of us? The king will hang! He’s got no heir!”
“It’s all right!” Thaydor could not help himself from saying to the wild-eyed people around him. He stepped away from the corner, trying to calm them and stave off the panic, looking around at them. “Take courage! Everything will be well. Trust in Ilios.”
They weren’t listening.
“Father Ilios has abandoned Veraidel on account of King Baynard’s idolatry!” the old woman cried, the same one who had defended him before. “The king’s cursed! The paladin tried to warn him! But he wouldn’t listen. And now we’ll all pay the price!”
“People, be calm! You mustn’t lose hope,” he was saying, when Jonty suddenly grabbed his arm.
“Would you stop it before someone recognizes you?” he whispered fiercely.
“We have to keep order!” Thaydor replied. “You’re the bigmouth—talk to them!”
“You’re my chief concern right now. Your wife made me promise to look after you. Let’s go!”
“Jonty, you don’t know what these Urms will do to these people if things get out of hand.”
“I can guess,” he retorted. “
You
forget what they’ll do to
you
if you’re captured, Villain of Veraidel.”
“Wait,” Thaydor said. “Eudo’s not finished.”
The Silver Sage was holding his arms up, waiting for the crowd to settle down. “Now, I realize how terrible we all feel right now,” he soothed while the two Urms held the dazed, listless king in their grips.
Baynard was clearly in shock. He just kept staring at the body of his wife, as though he’d lost the will to fight.
“The public funeral for the queen will be held tomorrow here in Concourse Square. Her Majesty will lie in state for two days, and you all may come back and queue up in an orderly fashion to pay your last respects. In the meanwhile, we shall hold the trial for His Majesty tonight. There is no need to drag out this painful process.”
“You devil!” Baynard suddenly wrenched out, then he broke down, bawling without even trying to hide his unmanly tears. “I loved her!”
“Be that as it may, we believe that when your wife added leaving you on top of her failure to produce an heir, you took matters into your own hands to be rid of her, sire. Freeing you to marry again—this time to a fertile woman. In fact, we have witnesses to prove as much.”
“No, you don’t! How can you? It’s a lie!” he wailed, tears streaming down his face.
No one could blame him, but it was embarrassing to see it all the same.
“Who bears this false witness against me?” he cried.
Eudo turned to the doorway and beckoned to someone in the shadows.
Out stepped Sana, dressed as demurely as Wrynne, all draped in pilgrim’s gray.
You bitch
, thought Thaydor, shaking his head. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was evil masquerading as good. But that seemed to be the theme of the day.
The former temple prostitute proved quite the actress. She came out with a long white handkerchief trailing from her hand, dabbing away false tears.
“The king’s own mistress was the one who exposed his treacherous plot,” Eudo said. “Speak, woman.”