Valour and Victory (9 page)

“Crown-Prince
Paul, Prince David and Prince Ian, you will come with me.”

“Can’t you look
at me Captain?” asked Prince David.

Alan Henot did
not answer, nor did he waver in his gaze, merely indicating that
the three should precede him out of the door.

“Where are you
taking us?” asked Prince Ian, giving his young wife a hug and
planting a kiss on baby David’s forehead.

“King Xavier
wishes to see you,” Captain Henot said, realising that they were
making no move to obey and that he would have to give them some
explanation. He did not want an ugly scene.

“King Xavier?
Captain?” exploded Crown-Prince Paul, who could hardly believe his
ears. “Xavier is no King of Anywhere.”

“General,” Alan
Henot corrected him with a smirk, “General Commanding the Armies of
the Kingdom of South Murdoch.”

“That country
does not exist,” said Crown-Prince Paul. “I will not come.”

“My men will
have to take you,” Alan Henot answered. “Please don’t make me give
the order Prince Paul. I don’t want to upset the women.”

The women and
children spent what remained of the day in the little room with no
further outside contact, then at dusk, more guards arrived and
escorted them out of the room and along the dark corridor that led
to the Citadel, the oldest part of the palace. They were taken to
the very top floor where secure quarters had been prepared.

“Where are my
husband and the Princes David and Ian?” asked Crown-Princess Susan,
ushering her daughters in front of her.

The guards said
precisely nothing.

* * * * *

Isobel

“Mother is
furious with Father,” announced Isobel’s cousin Anne as she sat
down beside the other women and girls in the light-filled solar of
the Cocteau manor house.

“Why?” asked
Isobel, looking up from her embroidery.

“I didn’t know
Uncle Pierre had returned from Fort,” added Jennifer.

“He arrived
back a half-candle-mark ago,” said Anne. “I went to greet him with
Mother. He came in, but he didn’t even look in my direction.”

“That’s not
like him,” said a surprised Isobel. Duke Pierre Cocteau adored his
daughter.

“What’s
happened?” asked Isobel’s sister-in-law Katia the inquisitive.

“He said he
wanted to speak to Mother alone. He shooed me away and sent the
servants out. I went, who wouldn’t with Father looking like that
but I stopped outside the door. My slipper button came loose and I
had to stop to fix it.”

“Most
fortuitous,” said Katia with an appreciative gleam in her eye.

“And that it
should have come loose just outside the door,” marvelled Isobel,
laughing.

“Correct,” said
Anne with a frown. She had a minimal sense of humour at the best of
times. “I couldn’t help but hear. They weren’t exactly being quiet.
It’ll be all round the manor by now, you know what servants
are.”

“What
were
they talking about?” pressed Katia.

“And why is
Aunt Anne unhappy?” added Isobel.

Anne sat up
straight. “Prince-Duke Xavier has declared himself King of the
Southern Duchies!” She sat back to watch the results of this
bombshell. She was not disappointed.

Isobel went
pale. Katia and Jennifer opened their mouths in giant ‘O’s of
astonishment. Estelle, Isobel’s sister and another cousin, Tamsin,
who were visiting the manor for the summer looked at each other,
open-eyed.

Isobel was the
first to find her voice.

“But what’s to
happen to the King? To the Crown-Prince?” her voice wobbled.

Anne regarded
Isobel with, it has to be said, a certain amount of malice. She had
resented the fact that married to Elliot, Isobel would outrank her.
Daughter of a Princess of the Blood, she felt herself a far more
important person than the quiet little Isobel whose mother had been
a mere Baron’s daughter.

“Your marriage
to Elliot is off,” she pronounced. “Father has agreed a match with
Gerald Baker, he that was contracted to Elliot’s sister Susan.”

“It can’t be,”
cried a stricken Isobel. Gerald Baker was a loud-mouthed, obese
young man, a more direct opposite to Elliot would have been hard to
find. “What does Aunt Anne say?”

“Mother is
furious,” admitted her daughter. “I think Father was actually
cringing when she really got going.”

“I’d liked to
have seen that,” said Katia.

“Father kept
telling her that her brother the King and her nephew the
Crown-Prince are safe. The King is still King although he’s only
king over the other five duchies now, North Murdoch Father was
calling it.”

“So why can’t I
still marry Elliot?” asked the confused Isobel.

Anne shrugged,
“don’t ask me. I suppose Father and King Xavier are using the
marriage between you and Gerald to tie them closer, makes sense
from a political point of view. That’s what marriages are for.”

“What else did
you hear?” asked Katia, reasserting herself.

“Father kept
assuring her that the royal family are all safe, the northerly
royal family is safe I should say and she kept asking him to return
to Fort to make sure they are. He’s refusing and she’s
insisting.”

“She’ll not win
that one,” Katia said with an air of ‘one who knows’.

“So what
happens now?” asked the worried Tamsin, wishing that she, her
husband and her children had remained on their own estate for the
summer.

“Nothing that
need concern us,” Anne answered. “We’re women, it’s the men who
decide important things.” She picked up her embroidery. “Mother
will be here soon and she’ll tell us what we need to know. I
suppose we’ll all stay here until things settle down at Fort. I
love the manor this time of the year, don’t you? Perhaps we can go
boating in the lake tomorrow. The children love it on the water.
What do you say Isobel?”

Isobel didn’t
answer. She caught Estelle’s eye.

“I think my
sister and I will go to the chapel for a while,” Estelle announced.
She placed her embroidery to one side and the two left the
room.

“These convent
educated girls are all the same,” complained Anne. “They’re always
praying. As soon as anything not to their liking happens they pop
along to the chapel and spend a candle-mark on their knees.”

“Isobel’s not
happy about Uncle’s change of marriage plans,” opined Katia.

“She’ll get
used to the idea,” replied Anne, bending over her workbasket in
search of some yellow thread, “and it’s not as if she knew Prince
Elliot all that well anyway. Elliot or Gerald, it shouldn’t really
matter.”

* * * * *

“I will not
marry Gerald Baker,” Isobel said to Estelle as they walked arm in
arm towards the chapel, “I’d rather enter religion same as
Jessica.”

“They’ll be at
Vespers now,” said Estelle, looking at the candle-mark dial on the
wall. I used to like Vespers.”

“So did I,”
agreed Isobel. “Do you remember when Annette put that desert rudtka
in the lectern? I thought Sister Earcongota was going to explode
when she opened it up and out it popped.”

Estelle
giggled. “That was really funny. Wonder if Annette’s changed now
that she’s a nun?”

“She hadn’t
when I saw her. I wrote to you about it, the time when Katia and I
took her little sister Jill to join the schoolroom.” Isobel sighed,
“I wonder how they all are. I was going to invite her to my wedding
but that won’t happen now. Oh Estelle, what am I going to do?”

* * * * *

The
Crown-Prince

It was two days
since Xavier’s coup d’état.

The Princes
Paul, David and Ian had spent most of that time sitting on the
straw covered floor in one of the citadel dungeons. Despite what
Alan Henot had said, they had not been taken to see Xavier.

“What of the
King?” asked Ian, shivering uncomfortably. The Citadel was old, its
foundations damp with age. It had been built by King Elliot the
Second back in the first century and its foundations were embedded
into the rock. There was no light in the dungeon but their eyes had
grown accustomed to it.

“I asked one of
the guards,” said Paul, “he said he was comfortable. At least
Xavier seems to have the decency to leave a dying man in
peace.”

“Decency has
nothing to do with it,” said his uncle. “He’s on his death bed,
there’s no need to bring him down here. Have they allowed Queen
Mary to stay with him?”

“I believe they
have,” answered Paul.

“What do you
think is going to happen to us?” asked Ian.

“Your guess is
as good as mine. He appears to have seceded the southerly duchies
and claimed their Kingship. I don’t think he wants the whole
Kingdom, just these five.”

He’d have to
murder both us and our families before he could claim throne-right
to the entire kingdom,” said David. “He’ll not do that. I think the
children are safe. The northerly dukes would tear him apart if they
came to any harm. Unfortunately, due to the crisis with the Larg
they can do nothing to help us. ”

“They might
even say secede and good riddance,” said Ian.

“They might at
that but Xavier will want a minor or a woman on the throne of what
he is calling the Kingdom of North Murdoch. I would say that it
bodes ill for us.”

* * * * *

The three
prisoners, hands tied behind their backs were led up the stairs and
out into the inner courtyard. They emerged, blinking in the
sunlight to see Father Romauld, the royal chaplain, standing
white-faced in front of them.

As he
recognised the white garbed prelate Crown-Prince Paul knew why they
were here. Father Romauld’s hands were trembling as he began to
intone a prayer.

Paul recognised
the words. It was the prayer for the dying. Xavier had decided that
the three men would be better out of the way.

He glanced over
to his left. Yes, there was the scaffold, the scarred headsman’s
block in the middle. The headsman was standing beside it. He was
clad in black leather.

Paul fell to
his knees in front of Father Romauld who placed a shaking hand on
top of his head. He abandoned the prayer and began to murmur the
words of absolution and comfort. Paul sensed his uncle and cousin
falling to their knees by his side.

“Your family is
safe,” said Father Romauld in a quiet voice, so low the guards
would not be able to hear. “I’ll watch over them.”

“For how
long?”

“The Dukes of
Cocteau and van Buren are refusing to let Xavier take them to one
of his own manors. He won’t dare harm them.”

“Elliot?”

“I don’t know
where he is. I did manage to get a message out to Duchesne to warn
Elliot not to come here. I’ll do what I can Paul, never fear.”

The guards were
approaching.

“I absolve you
of all sin, Paul of Murdoch,” Romauld said in his customary clear
voice. “God bless you and keep you by his side until the end of
days.”

Paul rose from
his knees and looked down at David and Ian. “Goodbye,” he said and
shrugging off the arms that tried to grab hold of him he walked
with dignity towards the scaffold. As he went he heard Father
Romauld’s voice begin the prayer again. He stopped at the foot of
the rough wooden steps and began to climb. Reaching the platform he
looked around one last time at the grassy courtyard. Was it only
three days ago that he had played with his daughters on this very
spot? The courtyard was empty of onlookers but he felt sure
everyone who could find a vantage point was watching the executions
from behind dark windows.

He looked over
at David and Ian. Father Romauld looked up and signed a
blessing.

His uncle was
watching as Paul took a deep breath, knelt down in front of the
block and began his final prayers, not for absolution but prayers
for his wife, children and his countrymen and women in their time
of need. He laid his head down on the block and closed his
eyes.

The headsman
took off Crown-Prince Paul’s head with one stroke.

Prince Ian was
next, only twenty-two years old, then Ian’s father Prince
David.

Like Paul, Ian
and David went to their deaths with calmness and courage, as
befitted their rank.

Later that day,
King Elliot the Eleventh joined his son, brother and nephew in
death and his widow, Queen Dowager Mary was transferred to the
Citadel and incarcerated with the other royal prisoners on the
upper floor.

It was she that
informed them of the deaths of their husbands and fathers.

Her grandson
Elliot was now King of Murdoch.

Father Romauld
escaped from Fort that same night. By dawn he was hidden in the
Thibaltine convent some miles away, praying for the souls of the
royal departed, for the safety of their families and for Prince,
now King, Elliot.

* * * * *

Robain

“How are you
going to contact Susyc Julia to tell her that her army is welcome?”
asked Duke William of Duchesne. The Duke was pale - as well he
might be after being informed about the true nature of the war
ahead. “I don’t keep any Lind on tap with that instantaneous
message-sending ability of theirs.”

“You sure about
that?” asked Robain in an amused and interested voice.

Duke William
laughed although it came out as more of a bark, “now, let me guess,
you’re going to tell me that there have been Lind living within my
Duchy for years.”

“Not living
here,” answered Robain, “let us say that they have been passing
through. I am informed that this has been so for centuries.”

“Indeed,” said
Duke William with unconcealed irony, “how else would they know what
their enemies are up to?”