83
Prince True
Crittich Keep, Notting Thicket
WODELL
The roads to Crittich Keep were lined with deathly silent Dellish citizens.
And not a one of them appeared surprised that Prince True rode his steed Majesty at a breakneck pace along the cobbles, his mantle flying out behind him, his face set in stone.
Though there were a goodly number of them who were astonished at just how brightly his eyes were glowing green.
But True was of no mind to the silent masses that lined the streets.
Only one thing was on his mind.
And this was why he’d thrown his leg over Majesty’s rump to dismount before his horse even came to a full halt.
The instant he was on his feet outside the prison, he tossed his reins to a waiting guard who had to catch a still-moving Majesty and pull him back before he was yanked off his own feet.
True did not watch this.
His lieutenants Luther and Wallace—who had also dismounted on the fly—shadowing him, True stalked under the raised portcullis and through the high, double-wide, stone-arched door. A door that sat dead center in the long one-story section that separated the two tall, stark towers constructed of three-feet wide blocks of black Airenzian stone.
He was unsurprised that Aramus, Cassius and Mars awaited him just inside.
He was surprised that Frey Drakkar and Apollo Ulfr of Lunwyn were with them.
It was Aramus who approached first, his eyes moving over True’s face, and thus his lips knew only to ask, “Which one do you want first?”
“Carrington,” True gritted, prowling toward the inner hall without breaking stride, his mantle flashing behind him.
The men all formed a phalanx after him as True took a right turn in the hall.
He headed to where the prisoners of means were kept in spacious cells with cots with down mattresses, small tables with chairs, smaller irons for heating, with three square meals a day and views of the city from its thin windows.
The administration offices for the constabularies of all Wodell and their penal systems were also on the lower floors of that tower in the six-story keep.
To the left was where the commoners were sent. The cells smaller, filled with more than one man (or woman), with naught but blankets, no heating irons, chairs, mattresses or tables.
And the upper cells had views of the city’s dump, cess-swamp, and the shanty village filled with vagrants, uncommitted lunatics, hopeless addicts of ashesh and koekah and other varied disenfranchised elements.
This would change, this separation of criminals.
Soon.
But not now.
Now was the time for something else.
“Where are the others?” True asked, his mantle caressing the corner at the winding stairwell as he swept into it to ascend.
“Down,” Cassius answered.
True was unsurprised at this as well.
For it was as he’d ordered.
The Down was where the worst offenders were kept. Convicted murderers, rapists, and the abusers of the elderly, women and children were locked there in small cells with no light. Communication between prisoners or with guards was forbidden and only the barest necessities for survival were offered for as long as their sentence lasted, or their life ended, whichever came first.
If they survived, they were released into the Shanty, one class of the varied disenfranchised who existed there.
The Down was also where the ancient torture chambers were.
They’d been closed four generations ago after a public outcry became a riot that saw a goodly amount of the city burned, a larger amount looted, and Birchlire Castle had been in danger of both. This, after two young men, neither of them even twenty, were tortured to death for a crime it was eventually proved they did not commit. It was simply the fact that the lord of the manor didn’t like them. Therefore, he’d accused them of a rape that one of his own vassals had committed.
The Down, after nearly two hundred years of being locked, was now open.
True would be going there.
Very soon.
But not in the now.
He stopped walking swiftly up the steps and started jogging, hearing the boots of the men behind him striking the stone treads in a quick cadence, following him.
He ceased doing this when he made the fourth landing, where Carrington was being kept.
But he did stride purposefully down the hall.
There was one guard at the top of the steps, two guards at the end of the hall, two at the door.
One of them moved immediately, putting his hand to his belt to procure the key and open the door.
True, with his assemblage behind him, stopped at it, and he caught the other guard not at work opening the door, bowing to him.
“If you bow to me again, twenty lashes,” he spat.
The guard shot up, and the air in the hall went static.
“I-I’m sorry, Your Grace?” the guard stammered.
“You are a citizen of this realm and in service to it. You may salute me as your superior officer. You may salute me as a citizen of this land, and I am in a position of authority. But you do not bow to me. Ever,” True replied.
The guard’s eyes slid to his compatriot but then he looked back to his prince, nodded sharply, lifted his hand to his forehead and gave a smart salute.
True dipped his chin, turned his gaze impatiently to the other man who seemed frozen in his duties of opening the door.
When he caught True’s attention, he swiftly went about finishing his task.
He threw open the heavy, studded door.
True strode in, and Carrington, writing something at the table, his iron lit, the room cozy warm, his clothing his own—well-tailored trousers and waistcoat made of worsted wool, shirt of fine linen, what looked to be a cashmere rug thrown about his shoulders (also likely from his own home)—stood from his chair, his lips quirking in a triumphant smile.
True wasted no time wiping it from his face.
His knuckles were split and two of Carrington’s teeth were embedded in them before Aramus pulled him off and tugged him away, Apollo Ulfr needing to assist him with this effort.
Cassius stayed close to his struggling brothers while Mars took position before a prone Carrington on the floor and Frey Drakkar approached the traitor, staring down at him with distaste.
“This is not you, my brother,” Aramus said in his ear, grappling to keep control of True at the same time Cassius and Mars were positioning to stop Wallace and Luther from assisting their prince in getting free. “Do not allow him to take away who you are. Keep hold, man.” His grip under True’s arms tightened. “Keep hold.”
It was the last that got through to True.
He stopped fighting against his friend and drew in a deep breath.
When Aramus sensed he had control, he let him go and he and Ulfr stepped away.
True took another deep breath and jerked his head side to side in an ineffectual effort to ease some of the tension there.
“Aramus speaks true, it’s not you,” Mars stated offhandedly. “But also, he cannot talk if he’s unconscious, and we cannot torture him to any kind of success, again, if he’s unconscious.”
“Get him up in the chair,” True bit out.
Wallace and Luther moved.
Carrington groaned as they did as ordered.
His face was a mangled mess. His jaw might even be broken.
True did not call for a physician.
He moved toward him and stopped.
True then bent his head to look down at his hand, dug out one, then the other, of Carrington’s teeth and tossed them to the stone floor under the man’s lax feet.
They made a quiet clatter as they skittered toward his boot.
Carrington’s head was lolling on his shoulders to such an extent, he did not notice this.
“Do you know what they do to traitors in the necropolis of Firenze?” he asked.
Carrington’s swelling eyelids fluttered.
But his split, bloody lips said, “Long live The Rising.”
He said this with a lisp.
True was far from amused or even gratified by the sound.
Sensing this, Mars got close.
Cassius did too.
But Aramus stayed where he was and simply said, “My friend.”
True drew in another deep breath.
“You’ll be moved to the Down,” he shared with his prisoner.
“Long live The Rising,” Carrington replied.
True crossed his arms on his chest.
“I see,” he whispered.
Carrington’s head twitched at this in surprise.
True moved closer to him.
Carrington winced as his body braced.
Cassius and Mars stayed close.
But True only crouched beside the odious man.
“My mother told me you urged my father to tax the Go’Doan. With this show of loyalty to them, was that subterfuge?”
“There are many followers of Go’Doan in Wodell, Your Grace.”
“And a tax against their religion would not be well regarded.”
Carrington said nothing.
But if it could be credited, he smirked.
In other words, another plan to create dissension and reduce the popularity of the monarch.
True did not resort to his earlier method to wipe that smirk off his face.
“I’m claiming regent,” he said softly.
Carrington’s mangled face managed to show some shock before he blanked it.
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.
“You did not wish that, but I see it doesn’t alarm you,” True remarked. “What will alarm you is that I will claim regent for only a very short time. That time being as long as it takes for the papers to be drawn up and my father to sign his abdication.”
Carrington jolted in his chair.
He hadn’t expected that.
True felt no pleasure at his surprise.
None at all.
“These papers will be ready on the morn. They’ll also be signed on the morn. And then I will have all clear rights, claims and powers over this land,” True told him.
“That doesn’t matter either,” Carrington returned.
“You are so sure?” True asked.
“I am very sure, Your Grace,” Carrington replied, a definite smirk now lifting his bloodied lips.
“Well then,” True said on a sigh as he straightened from his crouch, “we shall see. But on the matter of you, there have been a number of changes.”
Carrington lifted his chin. “I do not fear the Down.”
“You won’t be there long,” True shared. “And I imagine you suspect that. Thus, I can understand why you would not fear it. However, with all clear rights, claims and powers over this land, I can make any number of decisions. Indeed, all of them. Including the one I make in the now. You are found guilty of high treason against the Kingdom of Wodell.”
“I’ll have my tribunal,” Carrington stated calmly.
“You…will…not,” True bit.
Carrington stilled completely.
Brilliant.
Now he had the man’s complete attention.
“You studied extensively in Go’Doan. Do you remember what happened in olden times when a man was found guilty of high treason in Wodell?” True asked.
Carrington began to squirm in his chair.
He knew.
“Drawn and quartered,” True told him regardless. “Hanged, almost until dead. Publicly. Then I’ll have your cock severed from your body. Publicly. I will then have your bowels spilled from your gut. Publicly. And as you are there before all, spread open, spilling out, emasculated, I’ll have your head. That’s the last you’ll experience. But now you’ll know your dead body will be quartered, the parts taken to the four corners of this city, set out, and what is not torn away as naught but carrion will be left to rot. Your head, however, will be on a pike affixed outside the window to my mother’s bedchamber.”
“You cannot do that. That practice was outlawed—” Carrington began.
“We have not had an incidence of high treason since then, or at least not one instigated by someone not of royal blood. Now, we have. And as I will soon be the law of the land, I’m making it not outlawed any longer.”
“I did not bear the bow that killed your mother.”
Rage burned in him at the reminder of just some of the massive amount he’d lost that day, and True couldn’t hold it in check.
He backhanded Carrington so hard, the man nearly toppled to the floor.
He then got it in check and shared, “As supreme ruler of this land, I’ve decided I don’t fucking care.”
True turned on his boot and moved to the door but stopped as both the guards there saluted him.
“Take him to the Down,” he commanded. “Relieve him of his clothes. He wears commoners’ prison garb. Broth and bread once a day. No butter. No meat. No coffee. No milk. Half carafe of water a day. Half a candle a day for light. No books. No papers. No exercise. No visitors. No talking. If a guard responds to him, relieve that guard of his duties, that being his employment with the Royal Penal Guard, and assign another who will not break this order. He does not leave his cell and put him in the smallest one we have. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And see to this immediately,” True went on.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Then send a guard to his home,” True continued. “Strip it of all his possessions. Claim them for the crown. At the exact hour my mother lost her life this day, tomorrow, I want everything burned that can be burned. Anything of worth can be liquidated, the proceeds divided between the Royal Service Infirmary and Our Lady the Queen’s Orphanage, after ten percent is deducted to be donated to the Temple to Wohden.”
“At once, Your Grace.”
“And last, you do not have to handle him gently,” True finished.
The guard he was addressing smiled.
He was either loyal to True, loyal to Mercy, or what being one or the other actually meant.
Loyal to Wodell.
“You cannot do this!” Carrington called agitatedly as True began to leave the room.
He turned back. “This was your mistake, Carrington. For you put me right where I am. And I can.”
With that, True moved out of the room, his group coming with him as Carrington shouted, “I will have a tribunal! You cannot prove a thing! I demand to speak to the king! You cannot prove—”
He was silenced abruptly. Clearly, True’s final order had been carried out with due haste.
There was silence until they reached the ground floor.
As they made their way down the long hall to the opposite tower, Mars fell in step beside him.
“Farah,” was all he said.
True felt his mouth tighten before he forced it to relax in order to reply, “You saw yourself it was a flesh wound. The arrow went through, easily broken at the head, the shaft removed without further damage. When I left, it had been cleansed, stitched, and her arm has been put in a sling. She was given a sleeping draught. The women are with her.”
Cassius fell in step on his other side.
“Sir Alfie.”
At that, pain raging along his spine, through his gut, in his heart, so intense in all places, it drove up his throat, True stopped dead and looked into Cassius’s eyes.
Cassius read what he saw in True’s and whispered, “Fuck, True.”
“He will never walk again. I suppose, as the arrow struck the spine low, and he still has use of his arms, he has some hope of some semblance of a life, perhaps siring a child, getting himself around. But he’s in agony. And when his pain fades, I am in no doubt he will ask for the Soldier’s Poison. And I must make the decision if I’ll grant it to him.”
All the men got close.
But Cassius repeated, “Fuck, True.”
True looked to Mars. “I was told my father dove under the pew.”
“Do not think of these things in the now, my brother,” Mars said quietly.
“Mars, did…my father…dive under…the gods-damned pew?” True gritted.
“Yes,” Mars answered.
“He did this while Alfie rushed to protect her and any life he would accept was taken from him, but not in that moment. He does not die knowing he served his realm. He makes the decision to die, thinking he failed his queen.”
“Do not think of these things in the now, my brother,” Mars bit. “You will have vengeance. Your man will have vengeance. You will see to it. And if you don’t, I will.”
“As will I,” Cassius said.
“As will I,” Aramus added.
“You’ll have my dragons,” Frey declared.
“And you’ll have my wolves,” Apollo finished.
He looked amongst them.
Then he looked to Wallace and Luther.
Wallace looked grave.
Luther looked murderous.
True again turned and moved to the door that would lead them down.
They were at the bottom level, three floors under the earth. True knew this because he’d ordered them there. But even if he didn’t know, the amount of guards at that landing and along the hall would have proclaimed it.
Nearly every one of the archers in the temple had been subdued after they’d let fly their arrows, either by wedding attendees, or by the palace guard that had been set to protect their king, queen, prince and his new princess.
One, however, had broken his neck after falling down a stone stairwell while attempting to flee.
Nineteen men were held down in that reopened torture chamber, the largest room of the lot.
And True made his way there.
The door was opened for him and the others quite a bit faster than the one they’d been through to visit Carrington.
What he saw when he entered the large, musty room was not the dust and cobwebs.
It was further not Gal and Brix, his gnome spies, who he had not seen since he and Farah had visited the Doors some weeks before.
It was also not Princess Serena of the Nadirii wearing her Nadirii tunic, leg casings and moccasins with the band proclaiming her royalty wrapped around her forehead. A broadsword was at her back, one dagger in her belt, her arse planted on top of a rickety table, legs crossed in front of her, currently engaged in daintily cleaning her fingernails with the tip of her other dagger.
He also did not see Mars’s Trusted, Chu, standing near her wearing his Firenz leathers with the Trusted’s black mantle edged in green and red at his back.
Nor did he see the dozen guards patrolling between the men who were stripped of anything but their underpants, on their knees spread wide on the cold stone floor, their arms tied at the back of their heads with a rough rope that also was tied around their necks.
He saw that there weren’t nineteen of them.
There were twenty-one.
Mars didn’t miss this either, thus he asked his man, “And who are our added guests?”
“They’re the Go’Doan priests we caught with the missives I sent the message to you about. Sadly,” Chu resolutely did not glance at True, “we deciphered their message too late.”
Mars let his breath out his nose and the sound reminded True vaguely of an angry bull.
“You tried to warn us,” True said to Serena.
She was watching Chu talk, but when he spoke, her gaze came to him.
“Your guard is good, True,” she replied, shocking him by speaking complimentary words, the first he’d ever heard from her lips. “They wouldn’t let me anywhere near, and I was in disguise, so they had no idea who I was.”
“They were not good enough,” True returned shortly.
“Do not do that,” she said softly, shocking him again with her tone before she jerked her head toward the men on their knees on the floor. “These arseholes are sneaky as hell. It’s going to take breaking one to know what we face. And further, it’s important you understand you will not be the only one who lives the rest of your life with their failure. They will too.”
They will too.
Was he talking to Prince Serena of the Nadirii?
He had no time to process what appeared to be a colossal change in her.
He simply lifted his chin and said, “Thank you. You tried to save my mother. And for that, I will forever be grateful to you.”
She blinked, now experiencing her own shock.
She then looked to Chu, as if he could translate a foreign tongue she’d never heard.
Chu shook his head once, an indication they’d speak later.
She accepted that readily, sheathed her dagger, hopped off the table and crossed her arms on her chest, ready for True to get on with it.
True turned to do just that only for Gal to speak.
“We have failed you too.”
He looked down at the gnome. “And how did you do that?”
“We did not discover the plot,” Gal replied.
“Neither did I, or any of my men, or my mother, all of whom were aware there possibly was one, even if we couldn’t imagine she’d be the target,” True pointed out.
“We’re better than all of you,” Brix returned, and he was not bragging.
This was true.
“And although I’d like to see what happens next to these bastards,” Brix jerked his head to the side, “I want more to get back to it. So you have our apologies for our failure. They are heartfelt. And now, we will help you seek vengeance.”
True dipped his chin.
Brix glowered at him.
Gal sighed.
Both gnomes then strode out.
True watched until they disappeared, then he turned back to the traitors, ready to see to this grim business, when he heard Serena make a noise in the back of her throat.
His gaze went her way to see she was quickly drawing her broadsword.
“What is it?” Chu asked her, drawing his.
True pulled his sword from his belt and turned to the door as a commotion sounded from there, nearly drowning out Serena’s answer of, “Magic.”
“Do not stand in our way!” Elena could be heard shouting.
“Oh fuck,” Cassius muttered, sounding harassed.
It then happened.
A great gust of wind swept from the hall, into and through the room.
Oh fuck was correct, for True had a feeling what was about to happen.
As it got stronger, True scabbarded his sword and braced his legs, and the indication he was correct came as Elena announced, “Do not forget, she is now Princess Royal!”
And then his very new wife came in.
And with her came the wind.
No.
A storm.
His hair whipped around his head, his mantle about his body, just as her hair, skirts and cloak whipped around hers.
She didn’t even look at him.
Her one arm strapped to her chest from the opposite side, so the shoulder that had been pierced by an arrow did not have pressure, she brought the gale and her eyes shone like twin golden blazes.
He moved with difficulty against the tempest to try to get to her, starting to call her name, when she swung her free arm up in front of her and then to the side.
True’s head turned when she did this, and he watched twenty-one men lifted right off the ground and tossed like they were wisps of parchment across the room, slamming against the wall and each other.
Her emotion was getting the better of her.
And as such, she had no control of her magic.
“Farah!” he barked, now moving swiftly to her.
She swung her arm the other way and only the prisoners, crying out in shock and fear, sailed across the room and slammed into the opposite wall.
“Farah!” he roared, making it to her and catching her by her upper arms, carefully on one side, but definitely with the aim to get her attention.
Her eyes shifted up to him and he fancied he felt their burn.
“Darling, calm,” he whispered.
“We will have vengeance,” she whispered back, her voice one he’d never heard before, not even when her own mother perished not long ago.
“My love, we will,” he said. “But now you’re injured, and you need to calm.”
She pulled from his arms and turned to Mars.
“You will learn everything they have to tell,” she demanded.
Mars looked stuck between amused and reciprocating her wrath when he replied, “Yes, I will.”
Though, even in the circumstances, True did not fail to note Mar’s expression was also partly exasperated, for his attention was partly taken by his wife standing behind Farah.
As were her friends, not only Elena, but Aramus’s queen, Ha-Lah.
Mars focused on Farah. “I need you to take my wife back to the castle, little sister.”
“I think not,” Farah retorted. “She was the one who suggested we come. And she was adamant about it. She might be small, but when she’s got something in her head, she makes it happen.”
Mars’s chin jerked into his neck as his brows rose and he looked to his queen.
He studied Silence. True studied Silence. Both men took in her determined expression and the mercurial shift of her silver eyes as the winds in the room died down.
True then looked to Mars only to watch him smile at his wife very slowly and very scarily.
“We will watch,” Farah declared, and True’s attention went back to his own wife.
“You will not.”
“We will watch,” Silence declared. “And if we have any ideas you can try, we will share.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Cassius said to the ceiling.
“I couldn’t stop them, my prince,” Elena told him.
“Did you try?” he asked her.
She looked guilty and gave only a shrug in response.
“Do you want to watch, my queen?” Aramus asked his Ha-Lah.
Ha-Lah, however, wasn’t looking at her husband.
She was looking at Serena.
And doing so, she answered, “I want to chat.”
“I think this is a good idea,” Cassius decreed.
“I don’t,” Serena put in. “I was hoping my job would be putting some balls in vises. Then squeezing.”
“I think we have personnel covered,” Cassius pointed out, gesturing to all the men standing in the room.
True did not have time for this shite.
Thus, he looked to Elena.
“Take them away,” he ordered.
Her attention came to him and her face gentled.
“True,” she said softly.
“Take them.” He turned to Serena. “And you. Take them safe to the castle. And I’m trusting the both of you.”
Serena looked to Chu.
Chu nodded.
Serena nodded back and moved toward the door.
True stared for a moment at her easy compliance before he turned to Elena to see her gaping at her sister.
He then gave his attention to his wife.
“Go,” he said gently. “Go home. Please.”
She gazed up at him for a long, heavy moment before lifting her hand and resting it on his cheek, any residual fury dying from her eyes as she studied his features.
“I will await you in our chambers,” she whispered.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, brought her palm to his lips and kissed her there before he held that hand to his chest and urged, “Try to rest as you do.”
She continued to study him as if hoping his expression would change and he would share this was all a hoax, all was well, and they could enjoy the rest of their wedding day—and night—as they had planned.
He could not do that.
All he could do was hold on to his own fury long enough to be sure his wife and her friends were away.
And only then would he unleash it.
Again.
“Go,” he prompted.
Her eyes dropped to his hand. He noted when she saw his bleeding knuckles, but her gaze merely danced with gold fire before she gave him what he desired.
She pressed her hand into his chest, leaned in and touched a kiss to the underside of his jaw.
She then pulled away, looking deep into his eyes before she nodded and turned.
The women moved with her.
True looked to Wallace and Luther.
“They are safe to the castle, then you both come back,” he commanded.
He got nods and his men followed the women.
When they were gone, True looked to Mars.
“Do you need your men?” he asked.
“They’d be useful.”
“Are they here?”
“Outside.”
True turned to a guard. “Get the Trusted.”
That guard moved instantly.
“Chu,” Mars called.
But Chu was already striding to the men that the guards were again arranging on their knees on the floor.
Chu did not look thrilled with his task, he did not look like he dreaded it.
He looked nothing.
Expressionless.
Emotionless.
As if what he was about to do meant naught to him.
True had noted this of Mars and his men when they’d been at work in the necropolis in Fire City after the last attack.
And then, as now, he thought if he was in the opposite position, that impassiveness would be the most terrifying of all.
Cassius coming to stand on his one side, Aramus on the other, Drakkar and Ulfr flanking either side, they crossed their arms on their chests.
Settled in.
And watched.