The King, page 11
part #4 of The Jester King Series
“You will make it right, won’t you?”
Ergyfel leaned back. “Of course, my love.”
Maeven produced the iron knife Dheumon had left on the chapel floor. Before he realized what it was, she had its blade very near his face.
Ergyfel snatched at her hand. “What are you doing with that?”
“It is the weapon that killed my sister.”
“We don’t know that!”
“I do.”
Ergyfel stared at her and the knife and pondered just how she had come into such certainty. How does she know? Is this more of Dheumon’s scheming? Does she know it is mine?
Maeven interrupted his thoughts. “I want you to find its owner ... and kill him.”
“I ...”
“Use whatever means you must. The blackest magic, if you have to. I will pay the cost.”
Her words echoed in his mind, bringing back the promise he had made in haste to Dheumon—the same pact that had brought about this tragedy.
“No!” Ergyfel released her hand and spun away from her.
Maeven stood and gaped at her husband. She bowed her head and walked to his side. When she was next to him, she looked up into his face. “So, you won’t do it?” Hurt dimmed her eyes.
“No. I mean … I will do it, but you will not have to pay any cost.”
“What will it cost, husband?”
“It will cost you nothing. There is no extraordinary cost for what I will do.”
Maeven gave him half a smile, then placed the knife in his hand. He took it and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Come along, husband.” Maeven held out her hand at arm’s length. “I’m sure my parents are waiting.”
Ergyfel stared at her hand for a moment, remembering that just a few moments ago, he wanted nothing more than to walk out of the tomb with her. However, that feeling had left him and had been replaced by a desire to stay or, at least, be removed from her company.
“What is it, my love?”
Ergyfel didn’t budge. Then he dipped his head and uncrossed his arms, putting the iron knife in front of his face. It wavered there, before he reached up with his other hand and took the blade between his fingers. He continued to focus on the knife and pretended to examine it.
“I, um ...” Ergyfel tapped his fingers with the flat of the blade. “I want to think about this.” He punctuated his words by showing her the knife. They made eye contact over the point of the blade, and his mind came to a sudden halt.
“Think about it?”
“Yes. I want to think about how I’m going to find ... the owner ... of this knife.”
“Are you well, husband?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I just need to be alone.”
“Very well.” She bowed her head, and then exited the cist.
With a deep sigh, Ergyfel leaned back and found the limestone ledge behind him with his seat. Now in deep contemplation, he stared at the knife in his hand. Before he had used it at the loch, it had been among his ceremonial tools for years. In fact, he remembered it was the first magical tool his mother had given him.
“No, wait!” he whispered, conjuring up old memories. “You stole it from her, didn’t you?” He chuckled. “Yes, but only after the ole hag stole it from Hengest.”
The impish smile fled from his face. He stared at the knife and tilted his head as if a different angle of light might reveal to his eye something of what his mind had glimpsed.
He tugged on the thin leather strap that wrapped the handle. It was no use. The strap was too tight. He shook his left hand and reached into his purse to pull out a small crystal. He then placed the crystal on the knife and rocked and chanted in whispered tones. Then he drew his hand back as if from boiling water and held it clenched and shaking by his cheek while he scrutinized the knife’s handle.
“Ah!” His eyes penetrated the leather bindings. A moment later, he perceived a set of crude, shallow runes forged into the iron handle. “Yes. Still there.” He released the crystal and his breath.
Ergyfel rested and allowed his muscles to relax, drained from the pain and exertion that scrying magic caused him. A comforting hand touched his shoulder and massaged its way to his neck. He allowed his head to roll to the side and relax toward his chest as the hand, though cold, pushed the tension out of his frame.
“That’s nice.”
“I told you I could do for you.”
The voice was Caenne’s. Ergyfel sprung from the niche and tripped backward over the foot of King William’s granite pedestal. He scrambled to his feet and continued to back away. Caenne was motionless and posed as her family had left her.
He closed his eyes. “It’s in your mind, Ergyfel. It’s all in your mind. Now focus!”
When he opened his eyes, he saw that Caenne was stock-still. He then noticed the iron knife and crystal on the floor and retrieved them. With one last glance at Caenne, he turned and walked to the exit.
“Ergyfel.”
The king spun and faced the niche where Caenne’s body rested. The corpse was reclining on one elbow and grinning at him.
“See you tonight, lover.” Caenne winked.
Ergyfel ran up the passage and through the grand chamber, pushing his way past anyone in his path. He did not stop until he was breathing the outside air, which he inhaled in great gasps as if he’d escaped from ten fathoms of water.
***
Ergyfel’s wife and in-laws waited for him at the bottom of the hill. Maeven stood by her father, looking up the road towards Orgulous. As Ergyfel came down the last few steps, Lady Barane walked towards him.
Ergyfel nodded and began to address her. “Lady Barane. Shall we—”
Before he could finish, the Lady of Feolaghe Tor grabbed a rock from the road and chucked it at the king. Ergyfel broke from his shock just in time to duck. While he was still recovering on the slippery slate steps, the lady scooped up mud with both hands and rushed him.
“Murderer!”
She hurled the muck with all her might and fell face-first into a rut. Daubs of mud and pea gravel peppered Ergyfel.
“Are you crazy?” He bounded from the steps to the hillside.
Lady Barane pushed up from the sticky road and renewed her verbal assault of the king. “Liar, murderer, thief, brigand.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Now up on one hand and one knee, she continued to fling mud and insults at the king. “Animal, butcher, devil!”
“Stop it, Mother!”
“Barane!” Feolaghe shouted.
“Stop her!” Ergyfel hopped away from her sloppy projectiles.
The king’s guards sprung somewhat clumsily into action. They banged heads and shoulders as they scrambled to gather their spears and shields. Three lost their helmets, and two went down in the mud before they comprehended the nature of the danger.
Lady Barane flailed in the filthy road, flinging whatever she could at Ergyfel and yelling curses.
“God strike you, filth! Murderer! Fish guts!”
Her daughter and husband attempted to take her by the arms, but she would have none of it. She slipped away from them and rolled in the sticky mess of the road. As they tried to catch her, Sir Feolaghe fell to his knees, and Maeven had to catch herself on his shoulder to remain standing.
Ergyfel was confounded. What could he do? If he responded with violence or magic, he could lose Maeven. If he didn’t shut the woman up, she would continue to proclaim to the world that he was a murderer.
“Dung!” Barane slung another handful of mud at him.
“Barane, stop it!” her husband cried. “Stop it!”
“Mother, please!”
The lady’s family was now down on the road with her. Her husband held her around the waist while Maeven gripped one arm and attempted to gather the other. Lady Barane smeared them, wherever she could reach, with gritty muck.
“Liar! Toad! Spittle! Whittle! Vomit! Eye!”
“Hush now, Barane.”
“Mother. Mother. Mother! Look at me, mother.”
Ergyfel finished moving across the road and stopped to stare in awe at the berserk woman. She put mud in her mouth and spat it out at him.
“Kittle! Pluck! Cabbage!”
“Mother!”
Feolaghe took one hand and forced his wife’s face towards his chest.
Still staring out the corner of her wide eye at Ergyfel, Barane continued to rant and kick her legs. “House! Maggot! Rain. Salt. Rabbit. Boot. Flour. Chalk.”
At that moment, the king’s guards arrived and jumped in to help. As the queen and her family disappeared behind the thicket of men’s legs, Ergyfel could hear Sir Feolaghe ordering the guards to “be easy.” Lady Barane continued muttering a string of unconnected words that deteriorated into unintelligible gibberish and blubbering.
Ergyfel turned and walked away.
Up the road, what was left of the fractured band of mourners had reformed ranks, unifying to gossip and gawk at the spectacle. It looked to Ergyfel as if their number had swollen beyond its original size.
He was furious. What would this scene with his mother-in-law cost him? What would it cost Maeven? Sure, the rumormongers whispered, nodded, and nudged courteously now, but that would not be the way of it later—when a belly full of free ale coaxed the fifth or sixth retelling. The gossiping rabble would dole out the story all the way home, if they bothered to go home, and their disloyalty would spread like a disease. Before morning, the entire city would be able to recite the tale as if they’d been present.
The leather of Ergyfel’s gloves creaked when he made fists of both hands. Tighter and tighter he made his fists and arms until the pain in his left hand was squeezed out. Thus trembling with pent-up rage, he spat on the road and gave voice to a terrible curse.
“What you’ve seen you should not tell,
for if you do, your tongue will swell;
your gossip only leads to trouble,
when your tongue begins to bubble;
blisters in-between the boils
are payment for your tattling toils;
the pain and blood will just increase,
until your wagging tongue you cease;
if you persist in loathsome quips,
you’ll find it’s spread onto your lips;
your throat the burning sores make tight,
your fingers rot if you should write;
so here your story I will quell,
this curse will spread to all you tell.”
There was a brief moment of quiet as the magical energy left Ergyfel’s body. An instant later, the pain exploded in his left arm, all the way to his shoulder. His hand flew away from his side and flung him into the wheel of the funeral cart beside him. As he slid to the road, he plunged his hand into the mud, attempting to douse the fire-like pain. He forced his eyes open to examine the extremity, sure that flames engulfed it.
Ergyfel, though angry, had not chosen to use “rhymer’s magic” without thought; it used less energy than casting other kinds of magic and required no materials. By Ergyfel’s reckoning, it was the consummate way to weave a curse. He had even used this same curse before, although not on such a large number of targets.
There’s so many. Shouldn’t have tried to curse so many at once!
At that moment, a scream arose from the road. Then someone in the crowd of mourners was coughing and another moaning in pain. The sounds of distress increased and grew into a clamor.
Ergyfel eyed the mob. Many bent over, holding their mouths or throats, some spat, while others vomited on the road. The pain in his arm receded as the flow of energy subsided, and his sadistic pleasure grew.
The king pulled himself up by the wheel and sat on the end of the cart with his feet dangling off the back. He called for the groom leading the horse and ordered him to take him home. The young man turned the cart around and led the horse towards Orgulous.
Ergyfel held his arm and watched the ground pass under his feet. He felt exhausted, so he laid back on the cart and closed his eyes.
“Your Majesty!”
Ergyfel sat up and looked back to see his new champion, muddied from head to toe, trudging after the cart. He watched him, wondering how many steps before the old man gave up.
“Your Majesty!” The weary knight huffed. “I must apologize.”
“Stop the cart.”
Sir Feolaghe finished his quick-march and knelt before his king, who sat enthroned on the burial cart of his daughter. He bowed his head, panting.
“Speak.”
“I must apologize for my wife, Your Majesty. She is not herself! Caenne’s death has completely undone her. She’s very confused. She didn’t know what she was saying. She ... didn’t know what she was doing. I don’t think she knows where she is. I—I don’t think she even knows who I am or who she is. Please, forgive her, Your Majesty. I’m sure, in her right mind, she would never have attacked her king.”
Ergyfel studied the man before him. Having just lost a cherished daughter and faced with the real possibility of losing his wife, he was hanging by a thread. One little push and he could be made to do almost anything. Ergyfel wondered to what ends he himself might go to save his love, Maeven.
The king put his hand on his noble servant’s head. “All is well, Feolaghe. Have my bodyguards carry Lady Barane to Orgulous. When she is safely in your chambers, call for my physician. Everything will be done, that can be, to make her comfortable.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. You are most gracious, Your Majesty.”
“Now, go without consideration for anything, save your wife’s well-being.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Sir Feolaghe rose and turned to walk away.
“Wait.”
Ergyfel waited until the knight had returned to his former kneeling position. “There is one more thing.”
“How may I serve my lord?”
Ergyfel held out the iron knife before Feolaghe’s eyes. All the king’s champion could do was stare at the hateful weapon in his master’s hand.
“Take it.”
His dutiful servant picked up the knife and held it.
“Now put it away.”
Feolaghe slipped the knife into his belt.
Ergyfel leaned forward and whispered, “My powers have revealed to me that the owner of that knife is near.”
Feolaghe stiffened. “Who is he, my liege?”
Ergyfel shook his head. “I do not know his name, but he lives among us in Orgulous. I don’t know how to explain, but if you burn the leather off the handle, it will reveal the man’s name. Do you know how to read the old runes, Feolaghe?”
“My grandfather taught me.”
“Good. You will have need of them. When you have read the murderer’s name, I trust you will know what to do.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“But be warned, my trusted servant. My powers also revealed that this man is crafty. He lives by trickery, and fools all those around him. You must be careful. He is also a skilled warrior. You must approach him with stealth and deal swiftly with him before he can trick you, and before he can kill again.”
“Again?”
“Even now, he seeks his next victim.”
“It shall be done, my lord.”
“Home,” Ergyfel ordered over his shoulder, and the cart started up the road to Orgulous.
The king watched with great interest as he passed through the quiet mob of mourners. They had begun to break up again. The groups were smaller, less chatty, and more introspective. Thus satisfied, the King of Lyonesse smiled and reclined on the funeral cart for a nap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Flight
“Hugh, stop!”
Hugh slowed his mount. “What is it?”
The giant rode the two horses up to Hugh at a trot. “We slow you down.”
Hugh examined the winded giant. The lathered horses beneath him were lashed together with a beam and rope. He then fixed his eyes onto the smaller half of “we,” and noticing Aeth’s pained face, came to a complete stop. The others turned their horses and circled around the giant and ex-cutpurse.
“Sorry, Hugh. It’s my leg. Can’t take it no more.”
Camion grinned. “His leg, my bum.”
Sylvys dismounted and clomped, in his boots, over to the two horses under the giant. One of them neighed and nosed his shoulder.
“They’ve tried, Sir Hugh. They can give no more. Not at this pace.”
Hugh surveyed the road. It was a portion of the King’s Road scarcely traveled by merchant or noble. Any movement was certain to attract the attention of the invading army.
Hugh caught Billy’s eye and nodded at Shaldra. Billy turned to the elf and tipped his head in the direction they had been traveling. The elf nudged his mount and charged up the road to have a scout.
The party of nine had been on the run for three days now. Each day had seen Camion and Aeth further behind than the day before. There was no argument from the rest of the party. All knew what a fix they were in and that they could have covered much more ground without their two stragglers.
Billy came closer. “We’ve got to keep moving. We’re not even past the enemy lines.”
“We know,” the stragglers said.
“We probably shouldn’t even be on this road.”
“Hugh’s right.”
Malcolm rubbed his chin. “Agreed, milady.”
Hugh sighed. “What do you intend?”
Camion tilted his head back. “Dyven is back there.”
“Camion and me been talkin’, and we both miss our sweethearts back in Dyven.”
Malcolm leaned forward to see around the giant. “Sweethearts is it?”
“Aye.” Camion grinned. “And warm food.”
Hugh and Billy exchanged some quick glances. They knew very well that Aeth didn’t have a girl back in Dyven, but neither of them cared to call him out. He was leaving them for their sake as well as his own.
“Well …” Myrredith shifted in the uncomfortable Gwythian war saddle. “I can’t thank you enough for rescuing me. Perhaps, when this is all behind us ...”
“Yes.” Camion grinned. “Behind us.”
“Perhaps, next time, we’ll ‘member to rescue some of your clothes, milady.” Aeth laughed at his own joke, and the others joined him.
