Within the Hollow Crown (11 page)

Chapter 20: A Match Made In A Match Factory

Timothy Brimford and his wife, Emily, traveled south for the funeral of the Royal Family. For Timothy, it was a formality. People died, so you have to bury them. But for Emily, this was a devastating trip. The Royal Family was also her family. As far as she knew, she was the last surviving member of that same Royal Family.

Timothy was the second son of Duke Brimford. This had given him many reasons to pout as a child. While is brother Eric was destined to earn the title Duke, Timothy would forever remain a Lord. In other words, he wouldn’t get to rule over a lot of people and carry a nifty scepter.

But his father, being the political strategist that he was, didn’t like to let a child go to waste. If Timothy couldn’t rule something, the least he could do was enhance the Brimford influence through marriage. So, Duke Brimford arranged for Timothy to marry Princess Emily Rone, the third child of the recently deceased King Vincent.

The arrangement was a bit unorthodox. Timothy had just turned twenty when Emily Rone was born. But as long as the couple was biologically capable of having children, it was considered a smart match. The happiness of the couple, at this level of politics, wasn’t really a factor.

So, it was a strained relationship from the beginning. Timothy continued to live in Brimford, in the north, while Emily Rone grew up in Anuen, on the southern shore. It was kind of bizarre, meeting her for the first time as an infant. And as he wiled his twenties away, she was still only ten. They didn’t have a lot to talk about.

It was even weirder from Emily’s perspective. When she was a toddler, Timothy was just this awkward guy who would show up once in a while in her life. Whenever the Brimfords were in town, there he was. And he always talked to her as though he cared what a five, six, or seven year-old had to say. Why couldn’t he be like the other adults? Why couldn’t he just say hello and then go off and talk to adults about adult things?

When she turned eight, her sister Helena broke the news to her. And so ended all her dreams of meeting a Prince and living happily ever after. She loved her father, and wanted to please him, so she held her tongue. She didn’t complain, not once, about the arrangement. But she dreaded becoming this man’s wife. The best that could be said of Timothy was that he was well dressed. Other than that, he was a Dork, as far as she was concerned. A social misfit, powerless, passionless, and probably, she mused, impotent.

Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t. And while the official story was he was saving himself for his wife, he was a man, after all. And he had money. He became a regular fixture at the local brothels. At least the working girls acted happy to see him, though they were really just happy to see his coin purse. If he didn’t look too closely, he could pretend it was the same thing.

When Emily turned fifteen, she was wed to the thirty-five year old Timothy. She had kept her matrimonial promise, and was a virgin entering the marriage. She lost her virginity the same night she gained half a dozen sexually transmitted diseases.

For a short while, Timothy enjoyed the novelty of a woman living in the bedroom, where she couldn’t really do anything but obey him. He was older, he had home-court advantage, and he was certainly more practiced in what they were doing. But never had sex been less impassioned. Never had it involved less emotion, less love. Timothy was sure he had experienced more meaningful encounters at the houses of sin.

Eventually, Timothy tired of the convenience of his live-in lover. Emily was relieved when he started spending nights out. She didn’t care that he came home smelling of other women. She didn’t even mind when he started having an affair with his brother’s wife. The only thing worse than not having sex was having sex with her husband.

When news of the assassinations reached Brimford, Timothy was little comfort. He had no idea how to deal with Emily. They had been living as husband and wife for almost a year, but they still had no common ground. She was sixteen, he was thirty-six. He wasn’t a comrade or a peer, and he was only a lover in the technical sense.

It was a long carriage ride from Cliffhaven to Anuen. Over the six days it would take, Timothy and Emily would say very little to one another. Perfunctory comments about whether they should stop for the night or keep going until the next town. Timothy offered to switch seats with her, a couple of times, so that the sun wouldn’t be in her eyes.

The only time he actively said anything was when he thought ahead to the coming days.

“If things go according to plan,” Timothy said, “I’m going to need an heir. Won’t that be nice? You can have a little baby.”

Emily didn’t even respond. The thought of bearing a child to Timothy was repugnant, and it wasn’t what she wanted to think about on the way to burying her entire family.

But all Timothy was thinking about was what would happen after the funeral. Once the King and his male heirs were buried, there would have to be a coronation. The Chief Magistrate would be charged with crowning someone. And Timothy was certain he would be the next King.

It wasn’t a clear-cut law. The King James Standard had numerous pages detailing the line of succession. But it had never anticipated this kind of catastrophe.
King James never would have imagined that, in one day, the King AND his two male heirs would
all die
.
The convoluted language in the Standard talked about sons of sons, brothers of fathers of sons, and eventually uncles and nephews and cousins.

But Timothy figured he would cut through all the garble. He was married to the only living descendent of King Vincent. If Emily had been a boy, she would get the crown. Since she couldn’t, clearly it would go to him. Who was going to argue with that logic?

Castor Rone. That’s who.

Castor was King Vincent’s younger brother. He had been serving as the Minister of the Treasury under his brother’s reign, so he was already in Anuen, and he was already familiar with the ins and outs of Rone politics. He was mourning his brother’s death, but of course it crossed his mind: If Vincent AND his male heirs are all dead, surely the crown would default to him. He was already practicing his coronation speech.

And the King James Standard was silent on the matter.

Chapter
21: The World Crumbles

A knock on the door startled Landos from his nap. He had fallen asleep at his desk, writing orders for troops and supplies. He tried to recall the last time he had slept in a bed. But he was too sleep-deprived to remember.

There was the knock again. It wasn’t insistent. It was quiet. An apology of a knock. He expected it to be Vye, asking to question the prisoner again. Or perhaps Gabriel, with news of Flopson. He even imagined it could have been Calvin, there to explain that they needed more supplies, incase of a siege. He imagined they would be under siege at any moment, ever since Vye’s warning.

What he wasn’t expecting when he opened the door was the Countess Sarah Deliem.

“Oh dear!” Landos said.

“What? What’s wrong,” she said.

“Nothing,” he said. “We just… We have to go somewhere, right now.”

He tried to go around her, but Sarah blocked his way.

“Landos, what’s wrong?”

“You must go.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Landos said, “Because I made a promise.”

Sarah lifted her left hand, which sported a jade ring, a smaller version of Michael’s signet ring. “So did I.”

“Sarah…”

“Landos, do you remember standing on the catwalk?”

“Of course I do.”

“And do you remember what you felt then?”

Landos would remember those feelings until he died, and possibly longer.

“Yes.”

“Do you feel differently now?”

“No.”

“My husband-- The Man I was married to for...minutes-- Michael is dead. I know you hold onto hope, but Lady Vye told me about the fight. About his wounds. He’s dead. You’re being loyal to a man who isn’t there anymore.”

“He is there,” Landos said, “Not necessarily alive, but-- I can’t. I made a promise.”

Sarah stepped right up to Landos, their faces inches away.

“We both did.”

She kissed him. If someone had been there
timing them
,
they only kissed for a few seconds. But Landos would later describe it as the longest, sweetest kiss he had ever known.

In part it was because it was an emotional release that he had not allowed himself in the week since the wedding. He had been walking in a trance; always tense, trying to hold an entire County together while dealing with the loss of a close friend and the fact that the Prince had died on their turf.

But mostly because it was Sarah, and he wanted to kiss her so badly, and he had been afraid that if he did, the walls would collapse and the world would be thrown into chaos. Once he started kissing her, though, he realized that the world had already been thrown into chaos, and that perhaps this was a small way to make it right again.

---

When Landos woke again, it was to a booming knock. Not apologetic at all. Perhaps now they were really under siege. Landos stumbled out of his bed, grabbing his robe and jogging to the door.

“Landos!” Gabriel’s voice echoed from the hall.

“Sorry,” Landos said, swinging the door open. “Door was stuck.”

“I have news about Flopson. I know where he is.”

Landos was still waking up. It took him a second to process what this meant.

“Great. Great. I’ll... umm... Go prepare the horses. I’ll be down in five minutes.”

“Very well,” Gabriel grumbled. “I’ll inform the Countess.”

“Don’t bother!” Landos snapped, a little too quickly, he realized, “That is, I need you to get the horses ready. I’ll collect the Countess on my way down.”

“Have it your way,” Gabriel shrugged, making for the stairs.

Landos slammed the door and locked it. He ran back to the bed. Sarah was sitting up, the blankets wrapped around her naked body.

“Who was that?” she asked.

Chapter 22: The Gathering Tide

The Leaking Tub sailed for four days before it rounded the southwest corner of the continent. Because they were trying to fly under the radar, Corthos had not docked since their departure. So it was that Jareld and Thor were still unaware of the all the news of the Kingdom. As far as they knew, Michael and Sarah were on their honeymoon.

Jareld had been dreading the ocean voyage, but now that he had gotten used to
the sense of motion, he was enjoying it. He had been on boats before, but never for more than a couple of hours. Life at sea was a whole new experience. It was... liberating.

He spent the first couple of days shadowing Corthos, learning the names of the ropes, the nautical terms, the sterns and starboards. At night, he would record star charts. The charts already existed, many times over. But Jareld found it serene, to
lie on the deck at night, far from anyone or anything, and map the heavens.

Even the rodents didn’t bother him. Every morning, Herbert would rouse Jareld from his slumber. Herbert was one of the mice on the Leaking Tub, but for whatever reason, he had a pleasant disposition, so Jareld had adopted him as a pet. Jareld would share a cracker with the personable pest before climbing up to the deck.

Corthos would always be there, scanning the horizon. That morning, he was peering through his spyglass.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to you,” Corthos said, his usual greeting.

“Good morning,” Jareld said.

“Yer little island be close by,” Corthos reported, “Methinks it will appear o’er there.”

Corthos waved his arm off to the northwest. Jareld borrowed the spyglass and took a peek. Just flat water as far as he could tell.

He turned right, sweeping his gaze along the shore of the continent.

“Lot of ships over there,” Jareld said.

“That be the Port at Anuen,” Corthos said.

“I’ve never seen it from this side.” His eye lingered on the Port, “Still, looks like a lot of ships. And all of them are Royal Navy. No merchant vessels.”

“Lemme take a glance,” Corthos said, stepping up and taking the spyglass. “They be flying the yellow banners on the dock.”

“What does that mean?” Jareld asked.

“Civy ships are to steer clear,” Corthos said.

“Civilian ships?”

“Aye. ‘Cept for emergencies.”

What Corthos did not notice was that all the vessels were flying two banners. Of course they flew the Royal Banner, the red silhouette of a lion over black. But they also flew the Banner of Avonshire. Avonshire was the largest territory in the Kingdom. The Avonshires were the most powerful family in the Kingdom. And most importantly, the oldest daughter of Duke Avonshire was married to Castor Rone. So, the Avonshires had decided to back his claim to the throne. And the second most powerful family, the Brimfords, were naturally backing Timothy Brimford.

To say that the Avonshires and the Brimfords had enjoyed a troubled history would be an exercise in understatement. To say that there had never been blood spilt would be an exercise in flagrant lying. In the six centuries of the Kingdom’s existence, these two families found a way to get at each other’s throats at least once a generation.

This was going to be this generation’s fight. A fight for the crown.

If Corthos had been paying close enough attention, maybe he would have noticed that the Avonshires were fortifying the capital. And maybe Jareld and Thor could have pieced together that something major was going on in the Kingdom.

But Corthos had already turned his spyglass back to the north. So instead, all he shouted was, “Land Ho!”