The Queen's Tower

  The Queen's Tower

  Of Duty and Silver, Volume 1

  J.S. Mawdsley

  Published by J.S. Mawdsley, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE QUEEN'S TOWER

  First edition. January 22, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 J.S. Mawdsley.

  ISBN: 978-1393975953

  Written by J.S. Mawdsley.

  Contents

  Map of Myrcia and the Northern Trahernian Lands

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Map of Myrcia and the Northern Trahernian Lands

  Prologue

  315 M.E.

  Cathedral Square had never held so many souls at one time, though soon there would be three fewer. Merewyn, Queen of Myrcia, sat on a raised dais next to her husband, King Ethelred, as they watched the three ringleaders of the recent riots being escorted to the gallows. The two men and a woman looked like solid respectable citizens, not criminals. They might be dressed in stained rags, rather than the fine clothes they arrived wearing to the capital, but they still held themselves as if they were attending a royal salon.

  “It is not too late,” whispered Fransis, the captain general. “You could still grant them a pardon. Exile them if you don’t want them to return to Leornian, but you don’t have to kill them.”

  “You will forgive me if I pay as little heed to your words as you did mine,” Ethelred answered.

  Caedmon Aldred, one of the court hillichmagnars, now stepped in front of the prisoners to offer a final prayer for their souls. Ethelred had at first balked at this part of the ceremony, believing that having an angel of Earstien bless the prisoners would make it look as if they were being honored, rather than disgraced, but it could be difficult to argue with an angel, and Caedmon got what he wanted.

  Caedmon said his final words and stepped aside so that the hangman might come forward. The condemned men and woman stood atop trapdoors, all connected to a single lever the hangman would push, and they would fall as one, hopefully snapping their necks in an instant.

  The queen shifted in her chair, uncomfortable in the baleful gaze of thousands of people. They stood on wagons and statues and climbed the scaffolding of the unfinished cathedral in order to gain a better vantage point. Many had been in this square before for this same purpose. Executions were common enough, and typically the mood was raucous and festive, with vendors wandering through the crowd selling sausages, meat pies, and cider, as if it were a holiday.

  Today, however, was as different as a funeral from a wedding, the atmosphere solemn and reverent. No one seemed to think that what they witnessed was a cause for celebration. The subjects assembled here in the presence of their king saw and understood. If they were starving, their king would just as likely kill them as feed them.

  In the beginning, the trouble in Leornian had barely seemed worth the king’s notice. A few market stalls were overturned, and there were petitions to the duke about the price of food. Ethelred could have stepped in, but he had declared it “a local problem.” Soon the whole market square was in flames and shops were being vandalized as the people starved. The Duke of Leornian sent a plea for help through his son, Brandon Dryhten, who had been Ethelred’s best friend since childhood, but Ethelred had still hesitated. Finally, when one of the duke’s squires was murdered in the street, Ethelred had not merely acted, but overreacted.

  He called on the head of his army, Captain General Fransis Sigor, who also happened to be his cousin and another of his old schoolfriends, to take the army to Leornian and quell the riots. And not simply quell, but annihilate. “Kill them all,” Ethelred had ordered Fransis. “Any person who disrupts the peace, put him to the sword. Bring their leaders to Formacaster, and I will string them up by their thumbs in the square!”

  Brandon had tried to protest. He had told Ethelred that a violent military campaign against his own people would make things worse, not better. But Fransis and Merewyn had exchanged a brief but meaningful look, and Merewyn knew Fransis—the best man in Myrcia—had no intention of starting a massacre.

  When he arrived in Leornian, Fransis had assessed the situation and promptly opened the army’s own grain reserves to feed the people. The riots ended immediately once bellies were full, and the three people at the forefront of the disturbance agreed to return to Formacaster with Fransis to explain their plight to the king and beg his mercy, because Fransis encouraged them to believe that Ethelred would be merciful.

  Fransis had known the king all his life, but Merewyn could have told him this would be a mistake. When the army marched into Formacaster, the crowds cheered Fransis like a great war hero of old. Ethelred’s jealousy of his handsome, charming cousin blossomed under the adulation, so that when Fransis finally appeared before the king at Wealdan Castle, Ethelred felt obligated to stand firm and execute the leaders of the riots.

  All the court had been shocked to find that one of these leaders was a respectable woman of business, a high-ranking member of the Brewers’ Guild, in fact. When Ethelred pronounced sentence, a ripple of discontentment had spread around the throne room and the great Palm Court. Fransis had tried again to make his cousin see reason, but that had only inflamed the king’s envy further. Ethelred stammered out that no matter what promises Fransis might have made them, the leaders would hang. The time for mercy, he had said, was now past.

  So, here they were, surrounded by all Formacaster on a warm early autumn morning watching the hangman tighten the nooses around the necks of the three leaders. Merewyn sat in silence next to “That Man,” as she preferred to think of her husband. Two guards stood lazily at the back corners of the dais. Brandon stood just off Ethelred’s left shoulder, while Fransis took up station off Merewyn’s right.

  “Please, Ethelred,” Fransis repeated. “Don’t do this.”

  “The king has already given you his answer,” said Prince Edgar, Ethelred’s younger brother. He stood between the two thrones, his hands resting on the backs of them. He had long been the fourth member of their tightly-knit little fraternity. Merewyn wondered if their friendships would ever be the same after this. Personally, she wanted to slap Edgar, or at least tell him to stop hovering over her like an overfed vulture.

  “For Leornian!” the condemned woman cried. This caused the first real disturbance in the crowd, and the call was swiftly taken up by others. The guards on the dais and the soldiers off to the sides peered this way and that, trying to determine where the cries were coming from, which surely explained why none of them saw the young nobleman standing to the left of the dais unsheathe his sword and jump toward That Man.

  Merewyn recoiled, not wanting t
o be stabbed by mistake. Ethelred, unsurprisingly, froze solid. Fransis, however, saw the threat to his king and pulled his own sword. He parried the young assassin’s blade to the side and then drove a short dagger deep into the attacker’s chest. The young man collapsed in a fountain of blood as Ethelred continued to cower in his chair. Merewyn sat mesmerized, staring at the dark stain seeping across the rough boards of the dais, until a flash of red sparks caught her eye.

  At first she thought someone had started a fire, but then she saw another young man floating in the air a few feet off the ground, his body parallel with the cobblestones beneath. The flames and sparks surrounded his rigid figure as faint, strangled noises squeaked from his throat.

  Caedmon appeared before the dais, having traveled the forty feet from the gallows in less than a second. “We need ropes or shackles,” he said. “My spells will not hold him the entire trip to the castle.”

  One of Ethelred’s guards, who really ought to have been stationed decidedly closer to the royal family, hurried forward with a length of rope taken from his sword belt, the sword still uselessly tucked in its sheath. Once Caedmon lowered the body to the ground and the sparks faded, the guard bound the man, as Caedmon scanned the crowd for other threats. Merewyn, however, returned her gaze to the dead man before Ethelred. Fransis had rolled him over, Brandon now at his side, and they inspected the assassin’s weapons.

  “I know him,” Brandon said, and then looked at the other man, who lay twitching under the guard’s harsh treatment. “I know him, too. They are my father’s squires.”

  “Leornian’s squires?” Ethelred asked. “But why would they want to kill me? I am executing those responsible for the crimes committed against their duke and his city.”

  “There used to be three of us,” the bound squire hissed through gritted teeth. He was blond and acne marred his flushed face. “But you refused to help until one of us died at the hands of the rioters. You should pay for his death as surely as those three should hang.”

  Ethelred gawped, and Brandon appeared genuinely heartsick and shaken, so Fransis finally stood and took charge of the situation. “Gag the prisoner and take him to the castle dungeon. You!” he snapped at the other guard. “Find a litter and take this body away. I will make an announcement that the execution shall not be carried out today, and we will take the prisoners back—”

  “No.”

  Everyone turned to look at Ethelred, who scowled up at Fransis from under his lowered brows. “Do it!” Ethelred shouted to the hangman, who pushed the lever, and the three bodies dropped.

  MEREWYN LAY LIMPLY on her stomach, still shaking, while Fransis rolled away to grab a towel. She had missed him these past two months, missed his beautiful body as entirely as she had missed his clever conversation, neither of which she could hope for from her husband. Not that she wished to think about That Man while Fransis gently cleaned her naked body.

  Her husband and her lover. That Man had come inches away from death today, and only Fransis’s quick action had saved him. But what if Fransis had done nothing? What if the King of Myrcia lay dead awaiting burial, instead of sitting by a fire downstairs, drinking mead? Everything would be different.

  “You saved him today,” Merewyn said.

  Fransis, lovely Fransis, kept his head lowered, his deep brown eyes averted as his hand traced down her back. “He is my king. I acted on instinct.”

  “Maxen would be king now,” she whispered, envisioning her 3-year-old son being crowned. “Do you think he would make better decisions than his father?”

  Fransis stretched out along her side, pressing his body to hers and kissing her cheek. “He would be more likely to listen to you, which would mark an excellent change.”

  “You were amazing,” she said against his lips before she started kissing him.

  “We should get back to the feast.”

  “There’s no rush. That Man was well on his way to complete drunkenness when we left and will not miss us. Besides, the Howards are in the room below having their own reunion.”

  Merewyn’s lady-in-waiting, Tegan Howard, was the wife of Fransis’s best general, Sir Swithin Howard, and they, too, had been apart for two months and wished to be alone. The Howards were very loyal to Merewyn and Fransis, and would never allow anyone past them, so this room atop the northwest tower of the castle was as safe a place as any to meet.

  “Besides,” Merewyn added, “I require more time with the great hero.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m no hero. I merely happened to be standing close enough to help.”

  “I’m not talking about today. You were a hero before that.”

  Fransis sighed and shook his head. “All I did was give some hungry people a little food.”

  “Which is something their king failed to do.” She shifted onto her side to provide a better angle for her kiss, not hurrying it, but instead cataloging every individual sensation of their mouths caressing, the softness of his lips and warmth of his tongue. “You’re infinitely more popular than he is now.”

  “Are you speaking for yourself?” He rolled her over onto her back and leaned against her side, kissing her neck and stroking her stomach, his hardness once again growing apparent against her thigh. She moaned. “Yes, that’s certainly just your opinion.”

  The conversation ceased while they explored one another’s bodies as if checking that they hadn’t missed something earlier. Her breath quickened when Fransis’s hand slipped over her stomach and found its way between her welcoming thighs. With a rumbling groan that threatened to grow into something decidedly louder, she sank her teeth into his shoulder to keep from alerting the entire castle.

  Later, once she caught her breath, could focus her mind beyond wordless sensation, she said, “We do need to get back to the feast soon, so let us be serious for a moment.”

  “I promise you I have been utterly in earnest this entire time.”

  She sighed deep in her throat as his lips brushed her ear, but she forced herself to squirm away and look him in the eye. “Ethelred sent you to kill starving people because he can’t manage the grain reserves. But instead you opened the army’s stores and fed people who would be dead now, either by the sword or for want of food, without you. Do you not see what this means to the people in this kingdom?”

  Fransis propped himself up on his elbow. “Ethelred has always put aside more reserves than the army needs. It would simply have rotted. Giving it to those people was the only decent and intelligent thing to do.”

  “Ethelred didn’t make you captain general so you could be reasonable. He did it so you would follow his orders. He’s not happy, not that he will be able to show that publicly without making the people hate him all the more.”

  “He made me captain general because you asked him to. Edgar’s never forgiven me. As the king’s brother, he had some right to expect the job.”

  “It’s his own fault for completely lacking talent.”

  But Fransis shook his head. “This situation cannot continue indefinitely. No amount of life-long friendship and familial ties will sustain us in our current positions. Ethelred and Edgar will not be able to sit quietly by forever as my popularity with the people and the court expands. People are already taking sides and approaching me.” He sighed. “Only Brandon loves us all equally.”

  “So what will you do?” she asked, running her fingertips over his hip.

  “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  “Have you spoken to Robertson yet?”

  “The dean of the cathedral? Why would I talk to him?”

  “Trust me,” she said. “You really should.”

  He frowned, but for only a moment. “Right now, I don’t care about Robertson, or anyone else. Remind me tomorrow.” Then he rolled gently on top of her and pushed inside once more.

  Chapter 1

  SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER

  For the one-hundred-and-thirty-second time that morning, Queen Merewyn circumnavigated her tower room. Every creaki
ng floorboard was familiar to her, every long shadow across the dark, time-worn furniture. The dust hung in the sunbeams, and the logs in the fire crackled and crumbled, exactly as they always had. She sometimes had the feeling that she had been in these chambers for no time at all—that she was living the same day over and over again.

  But no. Today would be different. She stopped at the leaded-glass windows, drumming her fingers on the frame and trying to see beyond a narrow strip of weather-stained gatehouse and white gravel drive. The carriage had arrived twenty minutes ago. No, more like thirty now. Where was he?

  She forced herself to stand up straight and step back from the window. After checking yet again that her hair was properly in place, she started pacing again, circumnavigating.

  Was that even the right word? The most apt? No, it came from the Immani, meaning “to sail around.” The proper term would be...circumambulating? What a ghastly word. No, it would never serve. Circling, perhaps? Rounding? Lapping? Fringing?

  For half a second, she thought she heard the door unlocking, and she spun around. In the sudden motion, she rammed her hip into the corner of a little side table. She bit her lip to stifle her moan and rubbed the injury. There would be a terrible bruise there tomorrow, but she forced herself to straighten up, take a deep breath, and keep moving, walking the pain away. It would never do to let her boy see her limping. He would think she was getting old.

  She blinked back a few tiny tears. That would never do, either, to let him think she had been crying. He would imagine that was all she did up here—weep for the past and for everything that might have been.

  “No, no, no,” she said to herself. “Maxen is coming to see you, and you will be happy for him.”

  Earstien, where had the boy gotten to? He’d been at the castle half an hour or more now. Obviously he had to speak to Brandon. It was only common courtesy to greet one’s host. But how long did that take? Did he not understand that his mother was waiting for him?