Page 40 of Always
Chapter
16
King Ethelwulf
I sat onthe throne.Mythrone. Right where I belonged. I fingered the cool gold overlay and imagined my great-grandfather, King Alfred the Peacemaker, smiling down on me from heaven. He would be satisfied a rightful heir had taken the throne after decades of usurpers.
The great hall of Delsworth, the old capital city of the once united kingdom of Bryttania, was not anything special. The tall walls were washed in dull white lime, and the tapestries that hung throughout the hall were too plain. The rushes on the floor were old. The hounds too skinny. And the food bland.
Soon a ship bringing my wife and infant sons would arrive. And the new and rightful queen would decorate the royal residence befitting my status as ruler of Mercia and Warwick.
I’d call myself King Ethelwulf the Great since I had been the one to reunite the country and would return it to the world leader and power it had once been, especially after I located the ancient Solomon’s treasure. Not only would I be the strongest leader, but with the treasure, I would become the wisest, wealthiest, and healthiest in the world.
The problem was I couldn’t find the keys to the treasure anywhere. I’d had every royal residence meticulously searched, and I still couldn’t locate the keys. I’d begun to fear the usurper king had destroyed them when he’d realized he was conquered.
The line of Mercia’s nobility waiting to pay me homage stretched down the length of the hall and out the doors. They were a quiet lot and feared me, as they rightly should. As with any new ruler, I had to command order and loyalty from the highest in the land down to the lowliest. If my measures were strict and at times deadly, it was only to ensure my great-grandfather’s kingdom would thrive and grow even more powerful.
I nodded, the indication my guard should usher the next nobleman up the dais into my presence. My scribe would read me the information he’d collected about the noble family and I’d listen to the nobleman defend himself as well as share how he planned to contribute to the newly united kingdom. Then I’d make my decision on whether to allow the nobleman and his family to live.
My executioners had been busy over the past weeks. Though I’d heard whispers the streets of Delsworth ran red with the blood of the people I’d condemned, such pruning was necessary for the stability of the kingdom. Besides, most of the convicted had been captured soldiers and the king’s elite guard. There was no question such warriors had to be eliminated. I couldn’t chance keeping a single one alive. Nor could I allow anyone who defended or sheltered a soldier to go unpunished.
The only way to ensure I would be able to pass on the united kingdom to my heirs was to eradicate any loyalty to the old ruler whose name I would no longer allow to be uttered in any corner of the realm.
And of course, I needed to eradicate the princesses. All three of them. Which was proving more difficult than I’d anticipated.
The nobleman at the front of the line stepped forward and bowed to the ground at the base of the dais. Before he could rise, the captain of my guard, Theobald, entered from a side door and approached the throne. Several guards followed behind him dragging a prisoner between them.
“Your Majesty.” The captain bowed, his black chain mail clinking. His shoulder-length hair was braided into three strands beneath his hood. When he lifted his head, he didn’t meet my gaze but instead stared straight ahead, his face impassive. With the scar running the length of his cheek and disappearing into his sharply pointed black beard, the captain had the bearings of a fierce, brutal man. Just the kind of leader I needed in charge of my army.
“What news, captain?” I peered beyond him to the soldiers. “I hope you finally have word of the whereabouts of the usurper’s heirs.” My best guards had tracked the princesses to a hidden mountain abbey, but by the time they’d arrived, the princesses were gone. Apparently, without a trace. The special tracking hounds and even the Highland wolves hadn’t been able to pick up a new trail.
I’d punished the guards for failing to find the princesses. I’d needed to make an example of what would happen to those who disappointed me. Now without a trail to pursue, we’d been left to speculate, which had proved futile as well.
“Your Majesty,” the captain responded. “We believe we’ve found someone who can provide information as to the location of the princesses.”
“Hopefully not another fool attempting to ingratiate themselves to me.” My soldiers had brought in everyone who claimed to have seen a king’s guard and a noblewoman. So far, every testimony had been useless, contradictory, and even far-fetched.
Theobald allowed himself a tight but mirthless smile. “I think you will be happy with this witness, Your Majesty.”
He motioned to the guards to bring forward their prisoner. They prodded the captive with the tips of their swords until the prisoner collapsed to the floor near the dais. Wearing a gray robe with a hood, I couldn’t see his face. Still, I could tell this was no ordinary citizen but rather a monk or priest belonging to one of the holy orders.
“A nun, Your Majesty,” the captain explained. “I’ve been interviewing all the nuns left in Mercia.”
I smiled at the cleverness of his plan. If any nuns knew what had happened at St. Cuthbert’s, the captain’s interviewing techniques would surely wrest that information from them. “Are they cooperating?”
“Quite well,” Theobald said. “So much so that I have finally been led to this nun who was at St. Cuthbert’s and has seen the princesses.” The captain gave the woman a push with the tip of his boot.
The nun didn’t react.
The captain’s face tightened with barely restrained anger. He yanked off the nun’s hood, heedless of the hair he tore from her head. She’d apparently lost her veil and wimple. Her shorn hair was matted to her head by blood and dirt. Her face was bruised and her body broken.
Clearly, the captain had already attempted to gain information from this woman.
I stepped down toward her. “Tell me, captain. What secrets has this nun exposed?”
“She’s a stubborn one,” Theobald said almost bitterly. “And she has insisted in speaking only to you.”
I peered down at the bloody mass of what was left of the nun. I didn’t condone violence against women, particularly women of the cloth who’d devoted their lives to serving God. However, I could not rebuke the captain for his use of torture in such a case as this. Not when the stakes were so high.
