Knight's End (The Knight Trilogy) (5 page)

After one last appraisal of his son, t
he king abruptly left
the room. Talbot smiled, knowing what would happen. Aston would be charged with treason and hanged. The knowledge that it had been his fault the Duke was killed would die with the knight.

*
*

Aston stood from his bed when King Donn charged in, his face livid.

“You, Si
r, are a disgrace to the title k
night! Leaving a criminal loose in the palace to save a woman! Duke Aeron was a kind man and one of my closest friends. Your mission was to save
Duke Aeron
, not to gallivant around with the castle’s women. I will see you hanged for this, Aston Smith, I guarantee it,” the king said, pointing an accusing finger at the knight.

Aston stood with his mouth open, gaping at the king for a moment before speaking.
“With all due respect, your Majesty, what are you talking about?”

Donn’s
anger flared, his face
turning an even deeper shade of scarlet
. “Don’t play daft with me, Sir! Talbot told me everything!”

That explains it
, Aston thought. “Sire, I can explain,” he began, but King Donn cut him off.

“I don’t want to hear a word from you, Aston Smith! I want you arrested and thrown in the dungeon!”

“But Sire--”

“I should have listened to Talbot when he told me to send another knight. I was foolish, thinking you could handle this. I…”

“Your Majesty!” This time Aston yelled, causing the king to stop his babbling and look at his knight. King Donn’s eyes were wide with shock
.

“Your Majesty,” Aston said, quieter now, “
Prince Talbot lied to you. He
is the one who gave away our position, as well as the one who went for the woman instead of checking on Duke Aeron. I understand he was a friend of yours, and I apologize, but you should be yelling at your son,
not
me.” Aston had hoped his words would calm the king’s fury enough to make him listen to reason, but he only made the king angrier.

“Talbot? You accuse my
son
? Do you really think your lies will save your life? Talbot loved Duke Aeron like a second father! He would never throw away duty for a woman!”

Aston grimaced. It seemed King Donn was one more person that Talbot had fooled. It hadn’t hurt to try. Either way, his sentence would be the same. There was no dishonor in try
ing to make the king see reason, even though his rights allowed him a trial.

“Guards! Guards! Come now and arrest this traitor!” At King Donn’s beckoning, four soldiers rushed into the room, swords drawn.

Aston slowly backed away, nearing his window.
He didn’t have time to think.
In one swift movement, he grabbed his still-packed bag from the floor, pulled his grappling hook from his belt, and leapt from the window, praying the hook would catch.

He
almost took a relieved breath when the metal claw caught on the window and he was safely on the ground, his knees
taking the blunt of the blow. But h
e was still in danger; he couldn’t stop yet. He dropped his rope and ran, cringing as the palace bells sounded behind him. He ran as fast
as he could toward
the stable
, reaching them just as Vernon was about to remove Sterling’s bridle. The old man looked up in surprise when Aston came charging in, but didn’t stop him from jumping on Sterling’s back, grabbin
g a halter from the wall, and riding
out of the stable at top speed.

Aston
raced into the night, reaching the drawbridge just as it was being closed and jumping his horse across the river. The sound of hooves pounding the hard earth behind him had Aston driving Sterling faster, digging his heels into the animal’s side as his own heart raced with adrenaline. An arrow embedded itself in a tree to his right and he ducked out of instinct. Looking behind him, he saw a man with a bow guiding his horse with his knees, notching another arrow.

Aston cursed, leaning low in
Sterling’s
saddle and running the horse in a zigzag along the forest’s edge. With a curse, he made Sterling take a fast right, plunging the horse into the thick brush and crashing through low hanging tree branches. He heard men hollering from behind him, upset that they’d lost him in the forest. A couple of brave soldiers followed, but Aston wasn’t too worried about them. These woods took up almost half of Fridel, and he’d grown up in them. They wouldn’t be able to find him now.

Regardless, he kept their current pace until he could no longer hear the angry voices of knights calling for him. Sterling’s withers were slick with foam and sweat before he finally slowed the laboring creature. His own heart had settled once he’d realized he wasn’t being followed, and now he allowed his horse to rest,
taking up a slower pace.
He dropped down from the saddle and walked, allowing Sterling to cool off from his run.

“A traitor, Sterling. He called me a traitor,” he said, patting his horse on the neck. His mind couldn’t wrap around the idea. He had been King Donn’s best knight, had never failed a mission. Now he was a traitor? Because of a lie Talbot had told?

He found a place where the trees were thin
and stopped,
petting
Sterling
and whispering soothing words to him as he tied the horse to a thick branch by his halter, allowing him room to bend and graze if he wished. A small stream nearby offered water for a cool bath and drinking, which Aston gladly partook of.
The gently flowing water made light, tinkling sounds as it wound around small boulders. Different colored fish jumped every few feet, gleaming in the slim beams of moonlight drifting through the forest’s roof.

Once undressed, Aston stepped into the cool, waist-deep, water. He sighed as the dirt decorating his skin was
erased
, leaving him feeling fresh and unhindered. His worri
es washed away with the current
and he lay back, floating softly on top of the water for a moment before setting his feet on the stream’s floor again.

Aston
didn’t know how much time he spent in the water. When he stepped from the cool, refreshing stream, his finger tips were pruned, soft and wrinkled, but he felt better. He felt like he could think aga
in. He dressed
, shaking his clothes to rid them of some of the dirt they were covered in, before going back to his horse. The knight
untied Sterling and brought him to the stream, allowing him to
drink while his master thought
.

As Sterling pawed at the cool water and took big, gulping drinks, Aston tried to think of a place to go. He needed somewhere to rest until he knew what to do. He never should have run from the palace, but he wasn’t ready to die. Something had taken him
over, made him run when his future started to disappear. Suddenly,
he knew where he needed to go, at least until he figured everything out.
Aston
mounted
and turned
Sterling
south, heading towards the one place he knew he would always feel safe.

“A friend is some
one who understands your past,
believes in your future, and accepts
you just the way you are.”
- Abraham Lincoln -

Aston sighed in relief as the little wood cabin slowly materialized from behind the trees. It had taken him all night and half the morning to reach it, and now, with it so close, he just wanted to be there already. He sped Sterli
ng into a gallop, racing toward
a place where he knew there would be a
soft, warm
bed and
a hot meal waiting for him.

As he
got closer and the trees thinned, he could make out the sound of an axe meeting wood. His nose picked up sweet aromas coming from the chimney, a mixture of cinnamon, apple, and
the sweet, thic
k smell of smoke coming from a
brick oven
. Once he was within shouting distanc
e, Aston let Sterling slow
and took in all that surrounded him.

The cabin sat in an almost perfect circle of trees, some of them no more than stumps sticking up from the hard ground. The trees cast the cabin mostly in shadow, though there were some places the sun was still able to reach. It had two windows on the front and one on the back; this he knew by heart. The door had a half moon cut out of it, filled in with glass and the roof was covered in pine needles, giving it an orange look to accent the brown logs of its sides. Aston grinned as he got closer and saw his
friend, Delgrab, outside. The man took one last swing at the tree he was demolishing and looked up, his sweaty brow crinkling as he grinned at Aston.“Well, hello, old friend. It’s been a long time.”

Aston dismounted Sterling and strode to Delgrab, meeting
the tall, burly man i
n a firm hug. He nodded at Delgrab’s words and felt suddenly at peace. It had been too long since he’d been away from the palace and his duties as a knight. Even though he wasn’t truly away now, he still felt like he could relax. This place always did that to him.

“Aye, it has been. I apologize for that. Something smells amazing.” Aston was never shy here. He was welcome anytime. Delgrab’s wife, Alys, always made sure of that.

Aston wasn’t sure how someone as rough around the edges as Delgrab had managed to attract Alys. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he spent most of his time around royalty, the primped and perfect. She was a woman who did not fit the norm for beauty; Alys was plump and short, with blonde hair that cascaded in waves down her back and striking hazel eyes with just a hint of gold. She was a motherly woman; she took care of anyone and anything that walked through her door.
Just thinking about Alys made Aston want to go into the house and see her; he’d missed her warm smile and her amazing cooking.

“Well, of course it does! My Alys is the greatest cook in the country! Go on in! I’m going to finish up here and then head inside. Don’t start without me.” Delgrab turned back to his work as
Aston took Sterling around to the stables behind the cabin.

He’d spent most of his youth out here with Delgrab. It had been Delgrab’s father’s cabin back then. They’d used to run and play and pretend to be knights, hunting dragons in the surrounding forest and rescuing damsels daily. Aston had always bragged about how he would be a real knight one day.

“Look at me n
ow. Some knight,” Aston muttered
. He sighed again, suddenly not feeling as
relaxed, and headed back toward
the house once Sterling was settled.

As soon as he entered the cabin, his shoulder muscles loosened and his mind felt suddenly at ease. Though it was not quite fall and still a bit warm outside, Alys had a fire going. It kept the room warm
,
but not stuffy. Another fire was lit in a brick oven in the kitchen area. That’s where Aston found Alys. She was bent over the sto
ve, stirring something in a big
black cauldron, when Aston walked into the room.

“I hope you washed your hands before you came in here,” Alys stated. She turned around
, likely to scold Delgrab
. Her eyes widened and her face broke out in a beautiful white toothed smile when she saw Aston. “Oh, Aston! Delgrab didn’
t tell me you were coming!” she
exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron and rushing to give him a hug. He picked her up in his arms and swung her around once before depositing her back on the floor.

“He didn’t know, if that helps him any. I wasn’t planning on visiting. I just sort of
…
arrived,” he said, hoping his being there wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience. He needn’t have worried. Alys was one of those women who were always prepared, no matter what life threw at her. She reassured Aston that she had a room he could stay in and plenty of clean sheets. She told him not to worry about a thing and to go and wash up for dinner. With another smile, Aston nodded at the woman before heading into the back. When he turned around to look back at her, Alys was already setting another place at the table.

Shaking his head, Aston closed himself in the small bath area. A tub sat at the far end of the room, logs set up underneath to warm the water. There was a small wooden table with a basin on it in front of a tall mirror hanging on the wall. A pitcher full of water
sat beside the basin and Aston poured some of the water into the bowl. Less than two days on the road and already he felt dirtier than he had in his life.