The King's Blood (24 page)

"To the Empire!" rang out across the room full of men in very black, very familiar armor.
 

The Historians all crowded around the servants' door, cracked open an inch, trying to get a sense for their coming audience. Some admired the lavish trappings draped around the Ladies necks, others the age of the marble statuary that had been cracked and tossed to the side. Aldrin caught one glimpse of the armor, three rings stamped upon the chest plate and fell back from the crowd, crashing into a prep table piled high with half licked dishes. He tried to crawl under it, but his ears kept catching on the edge.

Terror replaced what stage fright Aldrin cultivated. At least when people talked about dying on stage they weren't literal. Usually. Now he had to walk in front of his sworn enemies and pretend to be some evil elf who something something and then another thing...his lines drained from a panicking mind.

Visions of what all the Emperor's men would do to him wouldn't even take hold. All that burned a vast swath across his mind was that scream as he tumbled down the stairs after the Dark Knight saved and shoved his life. In his mind it was one of the Ladies crowded around the head table, screaming at her gown drenched in blood as his father's head rolled into her lap.

He paled, appearing more like a soulless unblinker contrasted against the painted hair, as his oatmeal tried to join the world. Ciara looked out at the men, who didn't seem to be in a state to rush their position and slaughter everyone gawping upon them, and stepped away. Turning back, she looked for Aldrin but couldn't find the evil elf amongst the sea of red robes. She spotted the single elegant shoe poking out from under the table and, keeping one hand on the edge, squatted down.

"What are you doing?" she asked the specter trembling below.

"Dying?" he asked her in all honesty.

"You're not dying," she flopped down onto her butt, trying to look him in the eye. "There's no one dying tonight. 'Cept maybe the mime that won't shut up."

Aldrin hated this panic swelling inside him. He was supposed to be royalty; proud, noble, and dumb enough to face insurmountable odds while half naked and painted blue because that's what you do when you're in charge of a kingdom. Spectacular deaths are part of it. But all he'd ever been raised to do was get out of the way. His brother was supposed to be the one facing down an entire room of troops. Crown Prince Henrik, reciting an ode that would cause all the girls to blush and the women to fan themselves, would then rip off his mask and duel every Empire man to the death.

Bonaventure Aldrin was doing his best to not soil his costume.

Ciara reached over and took his hand, the same one that held him through that entire night of fire. His shaking stopped.

"We're not here to slaughter the lot of them. We're not here to begin the war. We're gonna go out there, say some pointless words, take a bow, and head out before anyone's sober enough to realize they even saw a play."

He clung tightly to her hand, the terror diluted enough his mind could now refill it with every single way the soldiers mere inches from his face would recognize the prince and come stampeding across the tables to end his life. One involved a donkey bursting through the castle windows carrying a wanted poster with Aldrin's picture on it.

Ciara watched his face closely, then leaned in and whispered, "I'll tell you a secret. I'm scared as hell, too."

As she sat back he stared into her deep eyes, masked by that cheap paint, which was running a bit from the slow stream of tears flowing from her eyes. Her confession strangely calmed him. Terror loves company.

Shaking her hand he said, "We do it together."

"Well, and with Bartrone and Pajamas."

Aldrin smiled, unaware she'd called the professor Pajamas as well. He lost almost two days trying to figure out the man's name, to no avail. His face grew deadly serious, "I won't leave you."

"Um, all right. Thanks," and leaning back, she hauled him to his feet just as their patron's voice boomed out across the hall calling for Bards.

"That's our cue. Scowls people," Ciara said, dusting off her own fears of being the single black bean in a porridge of white.

"I am Casamir! Casamir is my name. And you can call me Casamir." Ciara nudged Bartrone in the ribs, hoping it'd restart his brain. The man swallowed hard and glanced to his hand, upon which he'd written an acronym for every one of this lines. He was really afraid of the TBPHINRITMTKMTYVM speech.
 

"And I am traveling to the ma..me..mystical land of the elves with my trusty companion!"

Pajamas stood to his full height, rubbed his glistening stomach and belched. The room erupted into applause. Even the soldiers seemed aware of the fabled Humphrey and his predilections, slapping their knees in encouragement. Pajamas waved his arms around as if he just scored the winning stab during a war. "Casamir" coughed and "Humphrey" fell back in line.
 

"Boy, it sure is nice to be off that rickety boat and here in the land of the elves!" Bartrone wasn't so much projecting his lines as hollering them to an invisible giant towering over the top of the Baron's head. This kept his line of sight always above everyone's faces and his exuberant, quivering words ringing through the hallways.

Pajamas smiled wide, "Tha's true thur, but why are we e'en here?"

"I am glad you asked that Humphrey...my trusty companion." Repetition was a tool of the bards to keep the audience from forgetting midway through a poem why someone named Grendal had an affinity for eating Danes. They're not even candy coated. But it gave Ciara a headache, as she stood skittishly in the back shadows, grateful that all eyes were upon the man trying to shout down the castle walls.

"For you see," Casamir continued, "we were caught on what we thought was a terrible storm but was in reality a whirlpool caused by the sea serpent's mighty tail. While you stood upon deck and proceeded to refer to its mother as a very promiscuous rope, I was jumping down its throat and slicing its head off from inside."

"Right," Humphrey said, and adlibbed, "wonder how I forgot about that."

Casamir glared at his friend for the interruption and continued, "Now we are trapped here, amongst the land of the elves. The pointy-eared devils who work magic to steal men's essence and weave rugs. Weaving them with or without men's essence is up for debate, one popular theory is..." A clump of moldy cheese bounced into the back of Casamir's head and he ceased the recitation of his thesis, citations vanishing from his mind.
 

"But how do you know it's the Elves?" Humphrey asked, poking at his belly button.

"Because there's one right now," Casamir said, stepping out of the main circle and trying to cue Aldrin.
 

But the boy refused to let go of Ciara's hand. He shook his head, shifting his false ears around on his face.

"Yep," Casamir put a hand up over his eyes, "I can see one, far in the distance. I'm sure it'll come to us any minute now."

Humphrey stood beside him and made the same move, "Are you sure it's not just a rock? Seem to be a lot of those on this island."
 

"Bashta nahroot!" Ciara cursed silently in her father's tongue and ran into the spotlight dragging Aldrin with her, "Help! Help! I have been kidnapped by this terrible elven lord!"

Casamir blinked back at her as the script turned in on itself. Humphrey reached out, swiped a handful of stuffing off someone's plate, and jammed it in his maw. Ciara placed her head next to Aldrin's frozen jaw, "He says he's going to kill me and use my blood to summon a terrible demon to destroy all of mankind. Also that he has a terrible cold and can't talk very loudly."

The boy's eyes looked around at the multitude of enemies staring inquisitively upon him and, instead of a flush of embarrassment at being caught giving the worst performance of his life, or fear from the knowledge a single one of them could drain his veins with a swipe of the blade, he felt a rage creep across his brow hotter than any he'd ever known before.

"AARGH! I am Lord Galdwin, high keeper of the Elves and I have come to destroy all of humanity!" he shouted to the parapets and the pigeons roosting within. The Baron slid forward in his seat, enraptured with this story. Even the man in black beside him seemed to perk up from stirring around the untouched food on his plate.

"He seems much better now," Humphrey mumbled through a mouth of breadcrumbs.

The Lord elf waved his finger upon the assembled audience, daring each of them to try to attack, "And not a single one of you can stop me!" Aldrin cackled, and, still grabbing Ciara's hand, pulled her back into the shadows standing in for the "Mighty Elven Castle."

"Oh help, help, won't someone save me," she called out, a small tremble in her voice from the emotion pouring across the boy's iron grip upon her.

Casamir stood tall and tried to remove his wooden sword from his scabbard, but it stuck hard. Instead, he wrenched the entire thing off his belt and pointed towards the "Mighty Elven Castle." "Come, Humphrey. We must rescue the maiden and save the world."

"And stop for lunch along the way?" It didn't much matter what Humphrey adlibbed, as long as he remembered one simple rule.

As Casamir turned to glare at his companion, the scabbard fell with a clunk onto the stone floor just as Humphrey let loose a torrential cadence of flatulence.

The audience went wild.

While inebriated soldiers, blitzed lords, and tipsy ladies (who'd gone drink for drink with their husbands) hooted and hollered, the traveling players took them on a wild ride as Casamir the Dragon Slayer fought off giant man-eating cats, a pair of knights who'd turned into trees, and a horde of lawyers (blood sucking insects didn't translate well). Occasionally the elven princess would cry out from her tower (a stack of chairs). The evil Lord Galdwin would cackle and steeple his fingers while talking about all the people he'd be sure to kill, pointing at a few soldiers who laughed at the small boy threatening them.

And all the while, Humphrey would provide the light hearted comic relief every harrowing tale of heroism needed. He hopped up on the tables, ran across the plates chasing a micro-manticore, slipped, and slid clear across the floor into the wall a bearded man previously occupied. But Casamir was on a
role
, and turned that into some terrifying invisible giant that was tossing them about like rag dolls. He then proceeded to punch and stab at thin air with his sword while Humphrey slowly rose to his feet and tried to determine if he'd severed his spine.

"Pst. Hey, mighty hero, you maybe want to think about saving me?" Ciara interrupted as Bartrone wove about his stage, soaking in the attention like flour whisked into water. He paused, and decided it was time to unleash the gravy of the third act upon his fans.

"Humphrey, arise! We have bested the invisible giants!"

"Uhh," the old man groaned, carefully walking back into the performer's circle, "How can you bloody tell? Ya can't see them?"

"Now we have come to the mighty Dark Lord's Castle!" Casamir thumped his chest, rattling some of his armor 'til poorly adhered metal chunks fell to the floor.

"So we can rescue the Dark Princess," Humphrey muttered. Ciara glared at him, not wanting more attention drawn to her.

"And sell her back to her Sultans for an exorbitant reward," Casamir continued, so far off script she didn't know why they even bothered rehearsing.

"Maybe one o' them harlem girls too."

"I still need rescuing, by a big," Ciara's voice gargled at that, "strong," she choked back a laugh as she gazed upon Humphrey, and sputtered out "man," before shoving a fist into her mouth to stifle the giggles.
 

Aldrin jumped out in front of Bartrone, and waved his walking stick as if it were a mighty wizard's stave. "You may have bested my, uh invisible giant but you shall not best me!"

Casamir unsheathed his sword out of his belt and waved it high, "For Analia!" The audience murmured in confusion, no one had mentioned this Analia before. Was it some land of the great hero? One of his wives? Maybe one he didn't slaughter when Bards needed him to be single again. A favorite horse?

Bartrone realized his mistake in going so far off script no one thought to name the woman they were supposed to rescuing. "Which is what I now name the woman we're rescuing!"

Ciara slapped her forehead with her palm, but the audience seemed to buy it. Of course, a man like that would go around randomly changing a woman's name because he couldn't be bothered to ask her what it really was. Why not?

Aldrin's rage kept him trapped so far in character he barely noticed the delay and waved his staff high in the air, "I call upon fire to obey me. Burn this fool until there is nothing but ash left," and he cast his hands forward as if fire would actually leap from it.

Casamir shouted, "I call upon my sword to stick in your guts," and poked Aldrin hard in the side where the assassin's blade bit. The kid crumpled into a ball, the stave slipping from his fingers and clattering to the ground.

They spent hours practicing a long, complicated fight sequence where Casamir was supposed to steal Galdwin's staff, break it, and destroy his magic. Medwin suspected that would play best with the Argur crowd. Instead, the boy prince curled up on the floor in blinding pain while Casamir lapped around the stage, slapping the hands of every soldier sitting near.