The King's Blood (16 page)

"Where are we going?"

"To see the Chancellor. You night demons never listen, do you?" He circled around behind them, passing the lantern to his brother and, bending down, sliced a hidden string.

"Might want to duck," the other brother said just as a tensile branch whipped across where their heads would have been.

"Are there more traps like that?" Ciara asked, growing tired of this game. She'd rather they either kill them outright or let them go. The latter was preferable; though the former would make her life easier. The forest was freezing, the patient frost that crept up through toes and fingers until it froze the heart, and they seemed to be taking them deeper into the cold.

"Dunno, the Baron's a tricky illegitimate child. He don't like no poachers poking around in his potato fields."

"Wonderful," Ciara mumbled to herself, "we've been taken by the village idiots."

Lantern picked back up his prop and said, "Not much further, then you can talk to the Chancellor."

"Good thing, too," his brother said, "this cold's sending my epididymus into my thoracic cavity."

Aldrin looked at Ciara, who shrugged. She'd never heard cursing this precise, language this haltingly florid, or clothing so uniformly distinct. But everyone knew the land east of the mountain pass was full of soul ripping monsters who wanted to wrench the life away from you and then try and sell you a castle you can rent on a rotation with the five other pilgrims behind you. It was a lawless, horrid place that strangely a lot of people still seemed to live in.

Lantern snipped one more wire, which didn't send anything flying into their faces. "Dud," he shrugged and then pointed his light up, "go on through there, we got your backs."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Ciara muttered, but took the lead and walked headfirst into the cleared forest glen. A sputtering bonfire illuminated the four caravan wagons flanking the clearing. They were in different stages of repair. One looked fresh and crisp, its golden paint shining in the light of the torches dotting the grounds. Another was so ancient only small shades of red could be glimpsed peeling off the rough wood grain, still trying to desperately assure whoever was watching that "The Show Would Start Soon." Symmetrical holes that were once windows ringed the front doors but most were boarded over or black with soot. Only the doors themselves, each in the near center of the wagons, showed any signs of constant use with a name hand painted upon the wood, a series of random letters followed each one.

Each wagon could easily hold a young family starting a new life across the land, or less easily hold two or three slightly older families who just wanted to find somewhere where people didn't spit on them and tell them to go back to someplace they'd never been. Ciara heard a few tales of the travelers, their homes drawn by wild horses, cresting through the forests like ships of the earth, and occasionally catching a steep hill and becoming a wagon of the water.

A pair of other men dressed in red robes disentangled from the warmth of the bonfire. These were far older than the twins who found them, a blanket shared across their shivering shoulders. They called out in an unknown tongue to the first wagon, then to the older peeling caravan, a familiar one, "Hey, we got company! Put your damn pants on!"

Out of the fresh caravans emerged a set of three robed men, all somewhere in their mid to late thirties, peering cautiously towards the interruption. Their faces were worn around the edges, like a fraying hemline, but they kept their facial hair neatly trimmed in the off chance a sexy mermaid came flopping through the forest looking for directions to the nearest sea.

In contrast, the group that apparently spoke proper Ostero wandered blindingly into the light of the bonfire. Most were in their signature red robes, through a few were still tying them up. The last was in a long nightshirt dotted with embroidered chipmunks and seemed in no mood to change no matter what any little idjit by the fire shouted at him. Their whiskers were a choppy sea of whites and greys, frazzled and cracking in the growing winter winds. Faces that should have been tossed into the rag pile ages ago belied their only fifty or so years on Arda. Ciara would have placed them in the great great grandfather range.

And they all, from young twin to grizzled grandfather, wore what was essentially the same crimson robe with golden hem and sleeve lines (except for pajamas man, who was trying to find a rock to rub some bunions off his feet). But as they walked into the light of the fire it became apparent there were obvious differences, subtle enough to show just how damn important they were to the few people who could read them.

A few of the patches were simpler, what looked like a book embroidered with symbols on the edge. Others had almost tapestry level scenes, picturing the wearer in question yanking a scroll away from a dragon, or retrieving a tome from a burning witch. Even pajamas had one on his nightshirt's breast pocket, oddly depicting a scene of two dogs sniffing each others hindquarters. It seemed with age their golden hems grew more elaborate and greater, moving across the entire sleeve until some men looked as if they were giant red sausages flanked by a golden bun.
 

One of the thirty year olds, his blonde beard trimmed into a mustache and wad of fuzz on his chin called out, "Who goes there?"

"Oh, not this again," Ciara said.

Chance and Chase wandered in, seeming to have happily finished their jobs of back watching. "We din't get any names off 'em. Figured it best to let the Chancellor figure it out."

The men by the fire, falling somewhere in the middle of the youngs and olds glanced at each other. The older group grumbled about it being too damn cold and late to be woken like this. It was only the younger ones who reacted.

"Are you two rubbing together what passes for a brain between the two of you?" face fuzz demanded, making very little sense in his sleep-deprived state.

"What?" Chance said, feeling hurt at the lopsided accusation.

"They was skulking around near the campsite. We knows to keep it safe," his brother backed him up, fingers gripping tightly around the slingshot.

"And you keep it safe, BY NOT SHOWING TRESPASSERS WHERE IT IS!" face fuzz launched into a rage, his skin turning red and patchy as a bit of spittle flew from his mouth.

"We need to know their names first, in case they's with the Baron," Chase argued back while Chance stared sheepishly at his feet. He was supposed to be the smart one.
 

"Hey, Bartrone," Pajamas shouted at Face Fuzz, "why'n't ya stuff it. We all know it's yer job to fail at keeping the Bothers in line." A few of the older men tittered at the, oh let's call it a pun, as if it were one they were rather proud of, while Bartrone grew even more mottled as the stink of failure transferred to him.
 

"Fighting is getting us nowhere. This isn't a department meeting," one of the bonfire robes said. "What do we do with the trespassers?"

"Kill them," Bartrone said, hoping that would pass the buck.

Ciara raised her dagger at Face Fuzz, daring him to try. He looked for a moment into her eyes, then grew even redder and looked away. Pajamas laughed harder at Bartrone and mad mumblings broke out as everyone tried to figure out who had the epididymus to do the job.

Through it all Aldrin remained silent, watching the robes and trying to place where he'd heard this all before. Something about the travelers in the red wagons, wandering the hills of time. "Of course, I know who you are." The mumbling stopped immediately as all eyes, hungry to watch someone else spill blood, turned on the boy unaware of the danger, "You're traveling historians aren't you?"

"That would be the Ancient Order of Herodus, but close enough," a new voice called out of the darkness. The other red robes turned and groveled as a man descended slowly out of the middle caravan. He was dressed in black robes, or what would have been black a good twenty years ago. Now they were mostly a faded dark grey with some brown undertones.

He stepped slowly down off the trio of steps, a cautious hand grazing the door of the caravan car as he descended. "So, my young one, tell me what you know of us?"
 

Aldrin looked at Ciara who still had her eyes on the one who called for her death. She was flying blind at this point; he couldn't make it any worse. "You go from village to village telling old stories and taking new ones. But..."

The newcomer in black stopped at the edge of the circle of executioners, his hand coming to rest on one of his companion's red shoulder. Flames illuminated the left side of his gentrified face, lighting up deep scars from the eyebrow to his chin. He continued to stare forward into the fire, as his willowy shadow danced in the firelight. "We seek to bring knowledge to those who fear it, light to the darkness. But we were outlawed, banished, threatened to be booked to death upon sight, by old King Olaf Ostero the fifth in the second age."

"As cruelly executed by his chief advisor, Erlick the Bloody," one of the robes cut in.

"Yes, yes, of course" the man in black responded. Spending your years with a bunch of history buffs insistent upon always having the final word was the surest way to go mad. "And soon the decree was picked up by other kings across all of Arda as the written word became a prison of ideas instead of a doorway."

"So you hystericals must really hate the Osteros then," Ciara said, cautiously hoping Aldrin would get the hint.

But the scarred man shook his head, "Of course not; to hate every line would be ignorance on our own part. We are, however, cautious. As many of the Barons that turn a blind eye to our caravans can also make sport out of hunting the bookish men in red," black robe said resignedly, as if it were as certain a fate as the birds flying east for spring break.

"I promise you, we're no one. Just travelers who got lost on the path, that's all," Ciara said, holding up her hands as if she didn't still have a weapon in it.

"Nonsense, of course you're someone. You're speaking, existing. The question remains to be what kind of effect that someone can be. What is your name, gel?"

"Ciara," she mumbled, forgetting to drop Marna's name instead.

"No family name?" he asked inquisitively, folding his hands in front of himself.

"None my father would speak of." She was loath to say it, but the Dark Knight's daughter had served her well enough in the past.

"I see, and what of you boy? Do you have a given name or are you even less burdened?"

Aldrin swallowed hard. Staring into those eyes, almost milky white in the strange dance of the fire and shadowed stars, seemed to clutch at his tongue, holding any attempt at "Corwan? Corwad? Cirthin? Cartright?"

"I'm Aldrin," he mumbled, hoping his confession would be misheard by elderly ears.

And while most of the other robes heard something approaching Aaron, Allie, or Drink, unfortunately it was tightly honed ears asking the question. "Aldrin..." his voice trailed off as his steady face curled in thought, "But not your first given name, yes?"

The boy shook his head no, as Ciara turned to look at him. "What are you doing?" she mouthed, but he didn't catch the message. At this point, the best he could hope for was to remain silent.

But the black robe needed no more from the boy, "Bonaventure your mother christened you on the fifth of Sepulcar, Bonaventure Aldrin."

The boy nodded, still trying to fight off whatever spell this man-witch put him under.

"I am sorry she only survived another two days before she passed and was later entombed in the famous Ostero crypt," the man in black sounded like he was reading an entry out of the "Who's Who" of highly ineffective kings.
 

Aldrin finally broke free of the milky gaze and looked into Ciara's brown eyes. While hers could not guide his tongue out of this sinking quagmire, they still held murder of her own.

Black robe turned his head around towards the others, over ten in all, "Bonaventure Aldrin, a Prince of the Ostero line."

"What?"

Ciara cupped her fingers over the steaming mug despite the burning pain washing over her reviving limbs. She'd been glaring at Aldrin ever since he took both their lives in his fat mouth and confessed to the Chancellor. It hadn't quite gone as she expected after the old man drew together the threads of the prince's royal life.

She waved her dagger at the men in robes, but they all turned to Aldrin like hungry dogs that spied a virginal steak combing its marbling by an open window. The daughter of no one became invisible while the historians chattered about the boy prince.

"You have come to us, of course. It fits with the prophecy of the tenth dynasty of the rather short lived Llamos family."

"It was the ninth, you idiot. The tenth was about where to find the sock the Duchess buried."

"He seems a bit scrawny to be a king, though."

"Tha's why you fatten 'em up, build up all them ruling muscles with good, wholesome butter," pajamas said.

Only Bartone fell unhappy with this chain of events. Not because he suspected any evil machinations of the boy confusedly twisting his neck about like an over stimulated owl watching the spectacle of ten grown men fighting over him, but because it had to be the him to suggest they all kill the prince. He wasn't going to live that peer review down for decades.