The Charlatan

Chapter Two

| Chapter Two |

As we rode, carrying behind us the body of my father, wrapped in cloth and lillys of the valley, a tiny voice in the back of my mind warned me that soon I would be in chains and shackles, and not atop a horse baring my father to the sea. The King had begrudgingly allowed me leave from his war to bury my father, knowing that although I was his strongest warrior and most courageous knight, my willingness to obey him would wither weaker if I could not return home. That he had sent a message after me and bid me come home like a master does his dog annoyed me. What did the King expect me to do but refuse?

Soon my father would be buried and I would be riding home alone along the dusty rode, back to the castle at Alden, back to the king and his court, back to my home, to my friends, to the war.

The war.

Fighting against the North for power, land and pride had been a brutal series of battles, many lost and few won. The bravest of the King's knights had fallen amongst the slaughters, and still the King's stubbornness threatened more. It made me angry to think of the soldiers I had lost to the North, the boys who were now forced to fight in their father's places, the wives and children without their men.

But it was not my place as the King's champion to question his motives and orders, and in that respect I was always completely compliant, until now. Besides, he had advisers and courtiers and beautiful women to give him advice. And I had none but myself, no advisers, and certainly no women.

Except of course for my maiden, Tandy of Kiernan, my closest friend. She was beautiful, strong, but fiercely heterosexual, always rebuffing my attempts at her womanhood, however kind. I grimaced, thinking of the days when she was first given to me by the king, the days when my father had great influence over the tyrant and his kingdom.

My father and the king were friends until the very end of my father's life. Technically, my father was the king's youngest brother, half brother as the king so often reminded me. This was the root of the kings current hatred of me, as I was not only a disgrace to the Ainsley name, but also to the kingdom, especially when I refused to be married off to a foreign prince in return for power and land for the king.

When I forced my father and his half brother to accept me as a knight I was awarded a maiden as all knights were awarded a servant. The house of Keirnan was close to my family, and although I'd grown up on the country side of Alden and Tandy here in the castle, we became fast friends.

But while training to become a knight and discovering in numerous ways that I was anything but attracted to the men I trained ate and lived with, it would have been nice for Tandy to feel the same way about me that I had about her. But what started as a crush soon became a game between us, and my feelings for her turned from attraction to feirce friendship.

My train of thought was interrupted by my brother, who cleared his throat as if to catch my attention.

"What thoughts are making you smile, sister?" he asked me curiously and I shrugged.

"Just thinking of old times," I told him, which was sort of true. He seemed alright with that answer and we continued on in silence.

Our ancestors rested in the cliffs beyond the cove, where the forests and the highlands met the ocean. My mother lay there already, wrapped in the same cloth and burgamot, her eyes closed peacefully, or so my father told me as a child. I never knew my mother, she died while bearing me, but my father told me I had her eyes and hair, his favorite things about her.

Barclay cleared his throat again beside me and I looked at him, seeing his eyes glistening. He seemed pensive as well, but distraught, and I realized how worried he must have been with an entire estate suddenly in his hands. His wife Delia would not let him waste away, however, and our younger half brother Leighton would stay as well, his knowledge of the fields and farms invaluable.