Knight Fall (The Champion Chronicles Book 1) (32 page)

Conner wrinkled his face at that thought.  “Could he?”

“Take the throne or have a child?”  Brace said with a prolonged smile.  “I am not sure if he is physically able to procreate, but the laws of the land are clear.  Only the first male heir may claim the throne.  Princess Elissa’s first male child will be heir.”

“And if she doesn’t have a male child?” Conner asked.

“War.  And unless she takes a husband soon, I fear there will be war anyway.  Civil war.  Someone will claim the throne, but the kingdom will never be the same.  Neffenmark pulled in Taran soldiers to help fight us in the valley.  I would not put it past Neffenmark to march on the castle with a full complement of Taran centurions.”

“Then we must go.”  Conner stood up and took his swords.

Brace shook his head.  “I will be dead soon.  I cannot move.  I am done.”  He closed his eyes.  His breathing became very shallow.

Conner knelt back down next to the Knight Captain and asked, “Do you have any family?”

“My father lords over his land on the east coast.  He is old and senile.  The last time I visited, he did not recognize me.  Mother.  Dead.  Long time ago,” Brace’s voice trailed off to a whisper.

“No wife?”

“No time,” Brace answered.  “If I said no regrets, it would be a lie.”  He closed his eyes one last time and he said, “Her name was Ilasha.  Daughter of a merchant.  Long time ago…wish I could see her one last time.”

He let out one last long sigh, and then he was still.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Princess Elissa lay in her bed, her eyes closed, but her mind already awake.  She was comfortable under her warm blankets and did not want to get up.  She had not slept well.  In fact, it had been many days since she had a good night’s sleep.  If not for Melanie coming in with breakfast, she probably would not have gotten up today.

“I know you’re awake,” Melanie said.  She set a tray of sweet rolls on a nearby table.  “The sun has been up for hours.  You must get up.”

“I know,” Elissa said.  She sat up, hugging her blankets close to her.  “It has been days without hearing anything.”

“Percy said that it takes several days for the army to march to Thell.  He does not expect any word for a day, maybe two.”

“Percy?  As in Royal Guard Percy?”

A slight redness touched Melanie’s cheeks.  “He is not so bad.”

“If you like creepy old men!” Elissa said with a chuckle.

“He is not that old.  Only ten years older than you and me!”  Melanie took a small pillow and tossed it lightly at Elissa.

The princess continued to laugh and soon Melanie joined in.  They laughed hard for several minutes.  And then suddenly the laughter turned into tears.  And sobs.  Elissa buried her head in her hands.  “I cannot take this anymore.  I do not know if they are dead or alive.  And I fear the worst!”

Melanie sat on the bed next to her friend.  “Do not be afraid, I am sure they are all safe.”  She took Elissa into a warm hug.

After a few minutes, Elissa let Melanie go and asked, “Are the rolls still warm?”

Melanie grabbed the tray and handed it to Elissa.  With her mouth full of sweet, frosting covered rolls, she was about to ask her friend if she would go for a ride in the woods when a bell rang from a distance.  Elissa snapped her head to the window and listed.  A second bell rang.  It was clearly coming from a distance, which meant from the main gate.  A third bell rang.  Elissa’s heart began to beat fast as she waited and hoped for the last bell.  Four bells meant the arrival of the king.  Just as she was about to give up, the fourth bell rang.  Still in her white sleeping gown, she jumped from her bed and sprinted to the door.  She opened it just as Arpwin, her father’s attendant appeared.

A smile was on his face.  “It appears that your father has returned!”

She let out a squeal and raced through the castle to the stables.  She would ride to the gates and greet her father in person.  She took the first horse in the stall, a small roan mare that she didn’t bother to saddle.  The gate attendant got the castle’s portcullis up just as Elissa reached it.  Ducking under the thick metal bars as she passed through, she kicked her horse into as fast a run as she dared.  She had to maintain some control, allowing innocent bystanders the chance to jump out of the way as she darted for the main gate.

A crowd had gathered there, but she didn’t take much notice.  Only at the last minute did she pull back hard on the reins and her mount came to a skidding stop.  She slid off the horse’s back and she ran through the crowd, pushing her way through.  At first some protested until they realized who she was.  Word was passed that the princess was coming and a path opened up for her.  Her walk turned into a jog and then a run as she approached the gate.

She expected her father to be sitting atop his mount, his knights at his side.  Likely it would be his Knight Captain there, Sir Brace Hawkden.  And hopefully Conner would be there, too.  But as she passed under the gate, she realized there was no cheering or shouting.  In fact, there was barely a sound at all.  The realization was slow, but when it hit, it hit her hard.  Everyone was looking at one wagon, and everyone had tears in their eyes.  As she stepped forward, the whole crowd looked at her and she froze.

Elissa had always seen her father as a physically powerful man.  He was big and strong.  In his younger years, he trained with the Knights and was as strong as any of them.  Even though he trained less and less as he aged, he still had a powerful presence.  But what she now looked upon frightened her.  It looked like her father.  The same hair.  The same beard.  But his face was an ashen white, frozen in a grim look of pain.  It looked like him, but it couldn’t be him.  Whoever it was, they stretched out on the back of the wagon, the king’s surcoat stretched across his lower body.

She could not believe that someone would use her father’s surcoat to cover a dead man.  An anger began to burn inside of her.  She looked for someone to yell at.  A bloodied knight, using his sword as a crutch to help him walk ambled over to her.  His eyes were full of tears.

“I am sorry, my Princess.”  He dropped to a knee.

She looked past him, looking for her father.  He had to be around someplace.  She spun around, looking for him and then she realized that the entire crowd had dropped to knee.  Even the wounded, barely able to walk, fell to a knee.  She remaining standing, still looking for her father.  He would never kneel.  He was the king.  He could not kneel.  He could not fall.  He could not die.

Blackness surrounded her as her knees gave out and she fell to the ground.

***

Lord Martin was not the imposing man that King Thorndale had been.  He was short, shorter than most men.  He liked to keep himself clean shaven because when he let his beard grow, it only grew out in patches.  Even his voice was high pitched, almost squeaky.  His hands were soft as a woman’s, having never lifted a sword in battle.  At first glance, he was hardly the kind of man that other men would follow.  But he was well liked and respected as a man of integrity.  He was one of the late king’s most trusted advisors.  They had grown up together when King Thorndale’s father had ruled.  That friendship had lasted through the years. It was a friendship that everyone respected and honored.  Even the knights, who had little respect for anyone who didn’t know how to swing a sword or shoot a bow, respected Lord Martin because of his relationship with the king.

Now he sat on the throne.  Not because he wanted to, but because there wasn’t anyone else.  The late King Thorndale had put him in charge while he was gone and in those few days, there was little to do but to decide on the evening meal.  But now, the weight of a kingdom was suddenly on his shoulders.  He sat on the throne, trying to hold back tears.  They weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of despair.  The king was gone.  The beloved king.  There were few in the kingdom that did not love the king, and that made his dilemma worse.

Under typical circumstances, the eldest male child of the king, regardless of age, would be called to the throne room where the lords of the realm would declare their fealty to him and the prince would take the crown and he would be king.  But there was no eldest male.  The queen had passed away before she could bear another child.  And the king, adamant in his love to his wife, refused to take another as his queen.  There was some hope, with the king still being relatively young, that he would have survived to see his grandchildren live.  And then the eldest male grandchild would take the throne.

There was also the option of someone claiming the throne as his own.  Lord Martin, as the current caretaker of the throne, would be the most likely to make that claim, but he knew he was not king material.  And he loved his king too much to do that.  If that option was taken, and there was not unanimous support from the lords, civil war would likely ensue.  To Lord Martin, it seemed like all paths led to war.

The double doors at the far end of the room opened and Arpwin, the king’s personal attendant entered.  For a brief moment, the loud commotion outside the throne room overshadowed the quite peace that Lord Martin was trying to maintain.  Lord Martin was relieved at the site of the elder servant.  He knew the castle, knew how it was run, and was helping him to keep it running the way it should.  With a slight smile, Lord Martin had a sudden thought that the one person most suited for the job was Arpwin.

The old servant approached and nodded his head in greeting.  “It is becoming boisterous, my lord.  Lords are clamoring to hear news and find out who will take the throne.”

“I fear the worst,” Lord Martin said.

“Oh?” Arpwin replied with a raised eyebrow.

“The king has no heir and I fear that there will be a fight over who will be given the throne,” Lord Martin replied.

“Be given the throne?” Arpwin asked.

“Yes,” Lord Martin explained.  “With no male heir the throne must be given to someone.”

“The bloodline of the king goes back many hundreds of years,” Arpwin replied incredulously.  “The gods who created the earth bestowed upon King Thorndale’s ancestors the throne of the Karmon!  That cannot be broken.”

“There is no choice,” Lord Martin said.  “With no male heir…”

“Again, you bring up the male heir,” Arpwin interrupted.  “Where is it written…?”

“It does not need to be written!” Lord Martin shouted back in his high pitched voice.  Instantly regretting the tone, he let out a sigh and continued.  They already had this argument.  Many times.  He was tiring of it, even though in his heart, he knew Arpwin’s argument did have some merit.  “What you imply cannot happen.  The lords will not accept the rule of a woman.”

“And why not?” Arpwin asked.

“There would be civil war,” Lord Martin replied.

“There will be civil war anyway,” Arpwin countered.  “If any lord lays stake to throne, the other lords will rebel.  They don’t mind giving our undying fealty to the crown, but they will surely not give it to one of their peers.”

“She is but a girl!” Lord Martin cried out, trying in vain to find any argument against what he knew was really the right choice.

“She is a young woman,” Arpwin replied calmly.  “Older than many kings when they took the throne.  King Thorndale was only two years older than Princess Elissa when he took the throne.  He had help.  He didn’t make all his decisions himself.  The lords helped him when he needed it.  I know because I was there.  From the moment he put the crown on his head, I was there.  He was an impetuous child.  Prone to temper tantrums and he drank too much sweet wine.  But we survived.  The kingdom survived.”

“But will she accept it?” Lord Martin asked with a heavy sigh.

“If she were the eldest boy, she wouldn’t have a choice,” Arpwin said.  “It should be hers.”  And then he added after a moment, "Whether she likes it or not."

Lord Martin slowly shook his head.  “I cannot see us surviving.  We will be weak with a young girl – woman – on the throne.  Thell will see it as a sign of weakness and they might just march on us.  We lost so many men and boys up north.  I cannot see us surviving a long campaign with them."

Lord Martin buried his hands in his face.  "We are beaten and bloodied.  We must regroup and heal our wounds.  And we must begin preparations for defending our kingdom.”

A crashing of the doors behind him caused Lord Martin to jump up off the throne.

Three chainmail clad soldiers, each holding long hauberks, escorted the very large form of Lord Neffenmark into the chamber.  A number of similarly clad soldiers followed the lord into the chamber, pushing aside the Royal Guard who were trying to keep them out. 

“What is this?!" Lord Martin shouted in as strong of a voice as he could muster.  "This is a private meeting and you are not welcome, Lord Neffenmark.”

Neffenmark continued to march forward, his jowls jiggling with each step.  Three paces from the throne, the lead three soldiers stopped and struck the floor with the base of their weapons.  Neffenmark smiled and said, “I have come to pay our fallen king my respects.”

“You insult the king by marching in here with your mercenaries,” Lord Martin said.

“My guardsmen are ceremonial, I assure you,” Neffenmark said.  His face twitched as if he wanted to smile.

“You need twenty guardsmen?” Lord Martin asked.

“There are eighteen of them,” Neffenmark corrected.  “But like I said, they are ceremonial.”

The room started to fill up.  Curious onlookers filtered into the room to see what was about to happen.  A low, excited buzz permeated the room.  A number of Royal Guard inched into the room as well, their hands resting near their swords.

“What are your intentions, Lord Neffenmark?” Lord Martin asked sharply.

Spreading his hands wide, Neffenmark replied, “Why, like I said, I am here to pay my respects.”  This time he let his face twist into a toothy smile.

Lord Martin sat back down on the soft, cushioned throne and said, “Neffenmark, your actions are as transparent as you are fat!”

A light laughter circled through the room.  Neffenmark’s smile faded while he glanced around him.  “Very well, then.  As there is no proper male heir to the throne and with the king having left the defenses of the realm in shambles, it is only proper that someone with the resources to restore Karmon to its greatness take the throne.”

“And who would that be?” Lord Martin asked.

“Tyre is beset by political infighting,” Neffenmark said.  "There is no one strong lord who commands a large enough presence to lead the kingdom.  We must look elsewhere.  For someone who has the power and resources to lead this kingdom back to greatness.  Is there such a man in the kingdom?  Do you know of one?"

Lord Martin kept silent, is mind churning.  He had never liked Neffenmark.  The man was a pompous and arrogant bully.  His army of mercenaries was drawn not only from the dredges of Karmon, but Taran as well.  There were even rumors of Thellian men serving in arms for the fat lord.  But he was also one of the largest landowners.  His castle and village were virtually self-sustaining.  If he grew his army large enough, he could probably be his own kingdom.  But Lord Martin knew he wanted more.  The prize of the throne of Karmon was too great of a prize.  He also knew how he ruled.  He ruled with an iron fist.  Punishments were severe and rarely just.  His peasants were kept in line through fear and intimidation.  He could not let that kind of leader ascend to the throne.