The Treacherous Secret Page 6

  King Willis turns black eyes to his son, his brows drawn tight over them. “How old is your friend, son?”

  Prince Virgil swallows. “Eleven,” he says, sure he knows where his father is going.

  “Eleven,” King Willis says. His eyes grow ever darker. “Eleven years they have hidden a boy with magic. An entire village has done it. An entire village will pay.”

  “No,” Prince Virgil says. “No. Please, Father.”

  “Silence!” King Willis says. “I will not have a boy arguing with a king!” He looks at Queen Clarion. She takes Prince Virgil’s hand and pulls him toward the doors again. He shakes against her, but this time her grip is sure and strong. She gets him all the way out the door and into the great hall before he collapses in her arms.

  She holds him as long as she dares.

  SIR Greyson did not ask to be here. Not really. Captain of the King’s Guard is a position he inherited from his father, when the brave man was killed by the red rain of an exploding mountain during a routine trip to the kingdom of Ashvale, a mostly peaceful land. The King’s Guard is put in place to ensure the safety of the royal family, but part of that safety is assured through routine trips to distant lands, where kings and queens are given not gifts of gold or silver but flower seeds, for the beauty of Fairendale is revered throughout all the lands. Many a kingdom aspires to be as colorful as this one.

  Sir Greyson’s father was killed when a Fire Mountain in Ashvale erupted and set the whole town smoking. He went back to save its people, of course. He died instead. When his men brought the tragic news, they knelt at Sir Greyson’s feet and said they would follow him anywhere, though he was merely a boy of seventeen.

  He did not want to be a soldier for a king like King Willis. He would gladly have turned it down, but his mother, dear reader, was stricken by the sugar sickness. She was near dead. And the only way to acquire her medicine, you see, was to work for the king. This is the way of Fairendale, under the hand of King Willis, though it all began with his father, King Sebastien. It is not always fair. But justified, according to King Willis. And that is all that matters to him.

  But this. This attacking a village full of people he loves is not something Sir Greyson can do.

  “Are you sure it is wise to attack the entire village, sire?” Sir Greyson says. King Willis turns angry eyes to his captain. Sir Greyson shrinks a bit, glad he is wearing armor, though it is silly to think the armor will protect a heart from the vicious words of men. Nothing protects a heart but a wall. And Sir Greyson has never been one for building walls, only opening doors. He is known throughout the village as an honorable man. The widows call him an enviable son.

  “Of course I want to do it,” King Willis says, as if Sir Greyson’s question is the silliest question he has ever heard. Who is Sir Greyson to argue with a king? “The people of Fairendale must know that their king will not tolerate secrets. They must be taught honesty.” The king puffs himself up, sticking his great belly out further, if it is possible. “They must be taught integrity. They must be taught honor.”

  Sir Greyson does not ask any more questions, though he wonders what the village people might have to say about honesty and integrity and honor if they knew the secrets King Willis whispered in this room where he thought there were no ears. There are always ears in a palace.

  Oh, yes. Sir Greyson knows why the king is terrified of a magical boy. He has heard more than he should.

  But his mother. He cannot refuse the king. He cannot tell the people what is coming. He cannot let his mother die, which she will surely do without the medicine the king’s page hands him every evening.

  In fact, Sir Greyson is waiting on that medicine as we speak. He is wondering, while the king is laying out his elaborate plans, if his mother is feeling well or if she has taken to her bed. Will he find her sleeping when he shows himself home? Will he find her cooking a late supper? Will he find her reading that storybook she used to read aloud when he was just a boy, the only storybook she has ever had?

  The king’s voice stops. Sir Greyson looks up. The king is watching him. “This night,” King Willis says. “You will take them tonight.”

  “Them, sire?” Sir Greyson says.

  “Yes,” King Willis says. His voice bounces off the walls and back at Sir Greyson, like a hard ball. “Round up all the children in the village. Bring them here.”

  “But is there not only one who has magic, sire?” Sir Greyson says. “A boy?” What would he want with all the young ladies? Sir Greyson has seen them doing magic in the streets, of course, but young ladies have no power in Fairendale. They are no danger.

  He does not mean to question his king, this captain of the guard. It is just that he loves the village and its people, and he does not want to frighten or hurt anyone unnecessarily.

  But the king cares nothing for caution such as this. His eyes narrow. He points them at Sir Greyson. “There are many ways to hide magic,” he says. “A boy could become a girl. A young man could become a child. There are many ways.” He takes a deep breath, as if this line of speech has winded him. “Bring them all.” His belly shakes into a laugh. “Bring them all. We will find the one.”

  “And you would have us to take them this night?” Sir Greyson says.

  “This night,” King Willis says. “You shall round them up this night.”

  “But it is late, sire,” Sir Greyson says. “My men have already retired to bed.” It is a lie, of course. The king’s men are always ready for action. But Sir Greyson needs some proper time to think. Some time to process what is being asked of him. Some time to decide that his mother’s life is worth more than this treachery.

  The king is watching him. There is no bottom to the blackness in his eyes. Sir Greyson knows the king well enough to know that his eyes tell the story of his emotions. The darker they grow, the angrier the king. He represses the urge to take a step back, away from those holes. “Then we will round them up at dusk tomorrow,” the king says. “What is a few hours? You will take them when they are all watching the day’s end. When the only thing on their minds is turning in for the night.”

  When they least expect it. The people will least expect something like a roundup when they are sitting comfortably in their chairs, hoping to see a mermaid’s tail.

  He would warn his mother, but what would she say? Would she forbid him to do such a thing? Would he have to watch her die because of it?

  He will tell no one.

  He has sworn his allegiance.

  He is a man of honor.

  What does honor mean in a circumstance such as this one?

  Sir Greyson simply nods his head. He tries not to think about the boy with magic in a kingdom as peaceful as Fairendale, a boy who has hidden all these years and never raised a bit of a threat. Is he foolish to believe his king is mad? Is he foolish to think that a boy with magic would keep a pure heart free of invasion dreams in a kingdom as wondrous as this one? Is he foolish to wonder, for just a moment, whether the boy might be the relief the kingdom needs after the reign of King Willis and his father before him?

  “Make sure they do not hear you coming,” King Willis says, as if he knows more about these things than Sir Greyson does. Sir Greyson knows about stealing into the dead of night. He knows about surprise and attack. He knows about war and peace and all the lines in between, for his father taught him when he was but a boy, though he has never seen anything but ease in his duty thus far.

  Yet the words give Sir Greyson pause. His men, after all, wear armor that clanks as if they are wearing costumes of broken bells. Perhaps they would have to enter the village without their armor. Suppose they did. Perhaps it would make the people less likely to fight. Perhaps they would simply hand over their children, if Sir Greyson promised they would get them back.

  Would they get them back? Is this a promise he can make at all? He does not know what the king plans to do with the children, and Sir Greyson is not a man to make promises he cannot keep.

  “A
nd kill the ones who resist.” King Willis looks at Sir Greyson. His face breaks into a slow grin, flickering by candlelight so it appears twisted and evil, the face of his father before him. Sir Greyson shudders in his armor.

  He does not know if he can do this. He has never killed anyone. He could never kill the people he loves.

  He will find another way.

  “Page!” the king bellows. The thin boy who is the king’s manservant scuttles into the room. “Get the captain his medicine.” The king gestures a grand farewell and turns his back to Sir Greyson.

  “Yes, sire,” Garth says and scuttles back out the door. Sir Greyson waits one minute, two, five, and then Garth returns, with a bottle in his hands. Only then does King Willis turn back around.

  “This one,” King Willis says. He points to the old woman, standing in shadows beside the throne. “Take this one to the dungeons. With all the rest.”

  Sir Greyson stares for a moment at this woman ancient and bent, this woman who reminds him of his mother, only older. She looks at him with the blackest eyes he has ever seen, blacker even than those of King Willis, only they are kind where the king’s are hard. She gives the slightest nod of her head, sending her braids roving.

  Just before he hands her over to Calvin, the boy who feeds the prisoners, he hears the prophetess murmur, “It has begun.”

  The words send chills down his back.

  Promises

  SEBASTIEN had an army of twenty thousand men when he reached the bounds of Fairendale. There were many who would work for the promise of grandeur and honor and wealth in a kingdom as rich and beautiful as Fairendale. It was not so very difficult to build his army of young, strapping men.

  King Brendon had ruled for many years, but all in the kingdom knew that he had no gift of magic, that he had only a daughter as heir to the throne. They knew, also, that they loved him dearly. He was a good king, kind and true and so very generous that no man, were he born with magic in the very kingdom he could steal, would ever want to challenge one such as him. He was not particularly skilled in sword fighting or combat strategy, but he was particularly skilled in loving his people and caring for them well. A kingdom can flourish more beneath a king who cares than beneath a king who does not.

  But Sebastien was only a boy. He did not know the stakes.

  He only knew that he was powerful and there was a kingdom ready to be stolen from the hands of the king with no magic to match his own. He knew, also, that he had another magic more powerful than most: charm. How does one build a twenty-thousand-man army without charm? How does one win the hearts of mothers and wives in foreign kingdoms so they willingly permit their men fight, without charm? How does one convince men to leave their wives and children and follow him into danger without charm?

  Sebastien had traveled to the lands of White Wind in the north and Eastermoor in the East and Ashvale in the West and Rosehaven in the northwest. The only land left untouched was Guardia, to the far, far north, simply because he knew its people would be immune to all his charms. He did not need a trip to foreign lands as harsh as that when it would only prove pointless. Sebastien, you see, also had the gift of combat strategy.

  When he had finished gathering men from distant lands, Sebastien returned to Lincastle, to all his friends, and he invited them to fight for his cause. The kingdom of Fairendale never saw him coming out of Lincastle, though his numbers were great. Fairendale was peaceful, and sometimes years of peacefulness can make a king let down his guard.

  And Sebastien had mastered the concealment spell. Though it weakened him considerably, he risked his own life to ensure that the people of Fairendale and their dragons of Morad did not see or hear his men coming. He grew tired toward the end. A dragon spotted them when the spell left a hole in their fog. But it was already too late. Sebastien and his men had already invaded the land.

  Sebastien marched his men through a burning forest. Men screamed around him, writhing, falling, dying, but he did not stop. He was untouchable. The talisman his father had given him for his sixteenth birthday served him well that day. Archers brought down dragons all around him. He watched them fall, and he marveled at this army he had built. He was a king. That much was certain.

  Sebastien was the first to step into the clearing, where he found a wall of people surrounding the king’s castle. But they were untrained men, not so very difficult to cut down.

  He did offer them the opportunity to surrender peaceably. He would never have let them all go, of course, but they did not take the chance to test his word. They attacked, so his men, what was left of them, attacked as well.

  King Brendon headed straight for Sebastien. The king’s scream filled the whole world. “I am the one you desire,” he said. “Please take me. Let my people go.” But it was war, and one could not simply let people go, not when swords clashed all around and scarlet stained the once-green grass and Sebastien’s staff did its work. The castle grounds and all around it grew quiet, eventually. There were heavy losses on both sides. Only a handful of villagers remained. They gathered together in a tight circle on the lawn of castle, bleeding from wounds that would heal. His men gave a shout of victory, though it was not a loud one, for their side had lost many as well. Sebastien suspected some of them had deserted in the heat of battle.

  Sebastien smiled, a dashing kind of smile that made some of the village ladies swoon, he could tell.

  “If you swear your fealty to me,” he said, “I will let you go.” This time he meant it. He needed ladies and gentleman in the kingdom, for he needed to rule over someone. These who remained were the bravest and smartest of all the kingdom’s people, he supposed. They did not say a word, but he knew they were simply too afraid to speak, or, perhaps, too awed. Sebastien ordered what remained of his men to let them go, and then he broke through the heavy oak doors and the spacious halls and walked the royal carpet to the golden throne.

  And when he had settled into the cushioned chair rimmed with gold and jewels, he smiled another dashing smile, though no one was in the room to see it, and gently set his staff on the ground, to do its deepest work yet.

  If one had been standing in the ring of villagers still living, one would have seen every man who had followed Sebastien across rivers and mountains and grasslands fall down around them, to never rise again. A king did not have to fulfill his promises after all.

  Friends

  IT is still dark when Hazel slips out to tend the sheep.

  She tends them every morning, this gentle girl of twelve, for though the sheep do not belong to her, they love her and trust her and know that her pockets are perpetually full of treats that she is always generous enough to share, though food is precious in the household of Arthur and Maude. Sheep are not dull creatures, contrary to popular belief, and they sense her sacrifice. They love Hazel for it, watching from the fields, bleating out their call that will gather the flock and welcome her to them, a call that sounds a bit like “Bo Peep.” They watch for her every morning, awaiting her hand’s tender touch, awaiting the click of her tongue, awaiting the soft voice that invites them to eat before they nuzzle up to her and take what she has to give them.

  They know the sound and smell of their shepherdess, and they trust her completely.

  Most of the village people have not yet risen. Only a few houses, where mothers take to the kitchens, kneading the bread they will put in the oven for the mid-day meal, if they have enough flour to bake (many do not), light the still-dark world. The kingdom has been ailing for a time, where food is concerned. The villagers share what they have, but some families, of course, need more than others. Sadly, they do not always get it.

  The village, though, has a gardener, and at least there are fresh vegetables for every family every day. Sometimes Maude slices them all into a hearty vegetable stew. Sometimes she steams them in a pot, and Hazel and Theo have carrots and cauliflower and broccoli for dinner. Sometimes, on occasion, there is a roast leg of lamb, when Hazel can bear to part with one of the vill
age sheep. She prefers not to choose or to know which one it will be, begging the butcher to do this work himself, though she always knows which is the missing one. A shepherdess would always know a thing like that.

  Mostly the sheep are used for their wool coats, harvested so that Maude and the other village women can spin their fur into yarn and knit the children warm caps and gloves and sweaters for the cooler mornings that come around once every year, for only a month or two.

  Hazel stares up at the moon, low in the sky, as if it is setting at the same moment the sun is rising. She loves this still quiet, when the whole world holds its breath before the start of a new day.

  “Come, my sweets,” Hazel whispers to her sheep. “Let us find water.”

  The sheep roam close to the Weeping Woods, where no villager has been brave enough to go since the days King Sebastien stormed the throne with twenty-thousand men, many of whom died in those woods and are said to haunt them still. Fairendale parents urge their children to keep their distance from the dangers of the wood, sprites and wood nymphs and goblins and fairies among them. Years ago a child disappeared into the woods and never returned. When her father went to find her, he never returned either.

  Hazel tries not to look at the woods as she moves the sheep toward the cove of fresh water just off the road that leads to the castle. She does not wish to see its dark trees, for they look like people standing guard, as King Sebastien’s men must have looked all those years ago. She does not wish to see those branches that look so much like arms, reaching toward her.

  But her flock gives her courage.

  They reach the cove, quiet and tranquil in the morning’s chill. Only the first hints of day have begun to peer from the east, where the sky turns a bit less black. Hazel does not approach the water, for she does not want to see whether the mermaids are here or not. Hazel does not like it when they are. Though they seem to enjoy the village boys, mermaids are not often kind to the girls, jeering and poking fun or hiding beneath the cover of water and showing their animal-like teeth to those brave enough to look at them shimmering below the surface. She has had quite a fright other mornings. She does not wish to see the mermaids again, not when she is alone, not even for a glimpse of the tail, the most coveted of luck charms in the village of Fairendale. Hazel cares nothing for luck charms this morning—though one might remember that Hazel looked for the mermaid’s tail in the evening past, as every other villager did. Mermaids are easier to enjoy when one is not alone—or very near them.