~ The Future King ~

by

JoEllen Conger

Queen Gwyndalin smothered the cherubic infant with kisses, the beloved issue of her dead husband, King Anthony I, and set him down to watch him play on the elk hide laid before the open hearth. In spite of the heavy shutters the cold, late spring storm shrieked through the cracks. She pulled her mantle more securely about herself.

“Keep him warm. I love him too much to have anything happen to him,” she proclaimed to the child’s mother, Lady Elaine. She watched the child a moment longer before she turned away. “I must go down and officiate before the King’s Counsel. I’m beginning to understand why Anthony always looked so...oh, so haggard, when he’d return to our chambers. It’s absolutely astounding what men will quarrel about.”

But before she departed, she again took up the infant and chanted his name softly. “Anthony, my little Anthony. When ye get to be king, ye can go to court and make the decisions. Of course, ye’ll have to learn to talk first.” She kissed the late king’s son on the end of his nose and set him down again. The baby cooed and gurgled.

“I really must go, but I’d rather be here with ye.” She laughed, and brushed an affectionate hand across Lady Elaine’s arm, the late king’s consort.

“Aye, yer Majesty.” The girl curtsied low, ducking her head.

As Queen Gwyndalin gazed back at the cooing infant a fleeting shadow stole across her face. This slip of a girl had finally done the one thing she hadn’t been able to do in all the years she and the king had been together. This Council selected consort had given King Anthony I the heir he needed, the future King Anthony Darkdragon II of all Brightland... while she had remained barren to him. The life of the only child she had managed to nearly carry to full term had been snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Memories of being trampled during the tournament filled her mind. She had been attacked in the royal box by a Royalman’s crazed charger, a massive beast ridden by Prince Laurance’s own brother. The man had somehow known the secret that the babe she carried in her belly had not been sired by her Lord, the King of the Realm. Her war-trained guard dog, had viciously ripped the man apart, thus by his death had silenced his proclaimed reason for attacking the queen. That she had ‘cuckold’ her own king. Fortunately, the Christian monks in attendance had never understood his wild accusations.

She shuddered in memory of the slashing hooves striking again and again and the unbelievable pain, as though the cold wind chilled her very soul. Only it had been her Royal Companion, Prince Laurance’s Beltane’s babe she had miscarried. A child sanctioned by the Master Merlin on a Beltane Eve. A child begot upon her by order of her king by his distant cousin, Prince Laurance. A child, who her Lady Chamberlain had spirited out of her bed chamber because the Lady had said, ‘his dark curly hair testified he had not been bred by the king’. A child the woman had proclaimed on her death bed... still lived... somewhere...but where? Under what name? Who had been given the swaddled babe to suckle? Who had succored and cared for her infant child? What would her six year old son look like today? Would she even recognize him were she to find him?

The queen suddenly jerked back to the present, the infant’s mother still bowing before her.

“When ye get used to me, I hope ye won’t do that any more, my dear. Our dear King saw both of us as worthy sisters of the realm. Ye be not in servitude to me.” She tweaked the girl’s cheek and hastened for the door. Prince Laurance, her Royal Companion, stood waiting in the doorway to escort her to the counsel hall.

What a handsome devil he is. Oh, how I’d love to toss him into my bed and mess up that beautiful head of curls. Oh what a fanciful dream, Gwyndalin. It will never happen. He is too loyal to the throne and too much a gentleman to ever allow it to happen...again.

Bran, the queen’s faithful Irish wolfhound stood momentarily undecided whether to guard the child, or the queen. However, just as Laurance began to close the door, the dog leaped to join them. Gwyndalin ran her fingers through the dog’s course tan and white coat as he passed her in the doorway. His sharp nails clacked on the stone floor in the quiet corridor. The dog smiled back at her, and then took the lead.

Gwyndalin heaved a great sigh. “I’m getting tired of muddy roads and rain. I hope we have something more exciting to deal with today,” the queen lamented. “We can’t mend the roads until the weather turns better, but to listen to these fool men ye would think I have nothing better to concern myself about. How is the work going on the broken cistern pipe?” She turned slightly to better hear Prince Laurance’s response.

“With this storm we nearly drowned a worker this morning. I think they plan to get a ladder into the cistern and a boat, in order to shore up the roof support.”

“My goodness, Laurs, that sounds dangerous...but we are losing barrels and barrels of fresh water if we don’t catch it now. Carry my word to the workers that they are not to put themselves at risk just for the sake of collecting the water. They have their families to think about. If the rain doesn’t ease, have the swine brought up to the stables. Nay, not a single word, my love. I know how precious yer stables be to ye,” she chastised him before he could utter a protest. “If the poor beasts drown down by the river, that’s less food for everyone. Or an excuse to have a feast before the meat goes putrid.”

She chuckled at her own side thought. “Mayhap that’s just what we need to brighten everybody’s mood. I should celebrate another natal day celebration. Aye...that may be the ticket. I’ll speak to the chamberlain about making preparations for my twenty-fifth Natal Day celebration.”

“Perhaps a diversion,” agreed Prince Laurance, “would improve morale. Games always seem to improve the troops. Mayhaps some thought can be given to games we can all play indoors...besides chasing pretty maidens up and down the corridors.” He grinned ruefully.

“Ahhhh, ye would never lower yerself to such trollops. Ye’re too much a gentleman for such sport, but I will take yer suggestion under consideration. It has merit.”

As they approached the double doors to the counsel room, Bran nudged the prince’s hand with his massive nose before stepping away to escort the queen.

“After the years he spent with me at Joyous Keep, his devotion to ye causes me great jealousy, Yer Majesty.” Laurance made a wry face. Although he had put himself at great risk to rescue the queen’s dog, after he had spirited the poisoned queen through the castle’s hidden passageways, out of danger at the hands of the Christ monks within her very own walls, the animal’s trained loyalty to the queen had never faltered. Laurance had ridden pell-mell through the night to hide the queen away at a local nunnery, and before dawn had returned to Candelore to rescue the queen’s loyal guard dog. He had escaped the retribution the Church’s officials had declared necessary for his acts of treason, carrying the beaten and nearly dying shell of a war dog across his saddle to his own faraway lands by the sea. Years had passed before the crippled queen had been miraculously healed. It had been he himself, using Bran’s love of the queen to convince her to return to Candelore as Regent.

~ * ~

“I’m sure he isn’t bright enough to make a choice in loyalties, Laurance,” the queen assured him. “He’s merely following his training to protect me. After all, that’s his task in life.”

She stepped up to the Counsel doors, and signaled the guardsmen to trumpet her arrival. She looked over her shoulder at the prince. “I’ll see ye at dinner.”

He nodded and bowed as the doorman opened the massive wooden portals to the Counsel Chamber. The huge dog moved to accompany the queen as she swept into the room and up the three marble steps to take her position on King Anthony’s throne. She prepared herself for another day of litigations. The animal situated himself beside her chair and took up a regal pose.

Just look at all those somber faces. These nobles take themselves so seriously it makes me want to laugh. It reminds me of Wallace Draper’s pretending his day at court. Ah, but my brother played the noble king so well. Surely he’d get a giggle if he could see me sitting in this old carved throne of Anthony’s. I wonder how the family fares? I ought to dispatch a letter, just to let Mamah and Da know that I’m well.

The queen eyed the docket below her and felt obligated to pass judgments on all the petty matters brought before her. After her initial return to Candelore, she had imposed a schedule to handle common judgments first thing in the morning, and royal and kingdom matters during the afternoon.

She tried to keep her mind from wandering, but plans kept drifting into her mind of three-legged races, turnip carving contests, and mead brewing. True archery might become too dangerous with barbed shafts flying down the hallways. She grinned, thinking about a baby crawling race, wood carvers crafting cups, or furniture makers building chairs the fastest they could that would remain in one piece when three men sat down on them.

She was having so much fun daydreaming she nearly missed the report about the missing cows. “Cows?” she repeated, looking down at the man kneeling before her.

“Aye,” stated the herdsman. “I have three cows turned up missing, and I just know that my neighbor took um.” The man snarled, his eyes going piggy-squint as he accused his neighbor.

The queen pushed the merry thoughts of her party from her mind. “How do ye base yer accusation, good sire?” She leaned down from her perch to study the man’s tormented face.

“I knowed he took um!” the man insisted. He leered at the accused offender, placing a threatening hand upon his broadsword’s hilt. Bran rose and growled in warning. Slowly the man removed his fingers from his sword, dropping his hand with caution. The hound quietly lay back down. The man’s eyes watched the dog with a tinge of fear, knowing full well what could result from the dog’s attack.

“So...why not strayed, or lost?” questioned the queen as though no interruption had occurred. “Be it possible? Do ye have enough feed to keep them from wandering in this despicable weather? Enough shelter? What leads ye to tell they be taken?” Gwyndalin awaited his answer. “Mayhap they all went traipsing off through the rain to find better shelter?”

“Nay, Yer Majesty. These cows couldn’t have taken all the hay with them when they left. There was aplenty of it in the lean-to. And there be horse tracks in the mire.”

“And does yer neighbor own horses?” The queen persisted.

“I have but one,” argued the accused, “and he’s an old plow stallion. No good for nothing.”

Queen Gwyndalin’s attention sharpened. Her back straightened. Her mind sensed an unclassified danger. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. “And where do ye live, my good sire?”

“Down near the coast, Yer Majesty.”

“I fear ye may have been taken advantage of by a horde of raiders.” She turned to her sergeant-at-arms. “Take yer men and determine whether this man has been robbed by strangers coming onto our shores, or whether some desperate farmer did not plan well enough ahead to have supplies to last throughout this long wet winter. If it be one of our own, I want him brought before me for punishment. I will not tolerate our own people satisfying their needs at their neighbor’s expense.

“And should it be an invasion, send a messenger immediately for reinforcements...but, I cannot conceive of a full scale invasion during this poor weather. It be most likely a small band of ruffians. And if that be so, do as ye must.” The Sergeant-at-arms bowed and prepared to summon a squad to accompany him.

Gwyndalin turned to the farmer. “And ye, dear sire. If thou hast accused yer neighbor without just cause, I decree that ye shall make yer apology to him at high noon in the center of yer nearest village square.”

“But...”

The queen held up a reprimanding finger. “Next time, before ye accuse yer neighbor, make sure ye know with whom ye deal. I cannot have my people running around fighting amongst themselves without due cause.” She motioned him away, ready for the next issue. The disgruntled farmer bowed low and backed from the chamber.

Next came a man with a beautiful pink pig. He jerked it behind him on a lead rope. “And what be yer story, my dear fellow?”