'I was frustrated and might have considered it for a second,' said the woman, her voice trembling with fear. 'But I'd never do such a ghastly thing. I love my son and would never do anything to hurt him.'
'But yet you were seen shaking the child.'
'I was at my wit's end, I didn't know what else to do.'
'Shaking an innocent child is an evil act. If you are capable of doing that, what is to prevent you from enacting your heinous thoughts of killing the child?'
'I love my baby.'
The Kingpriest looked away, no longer listening to the woman's desperate pleas. 'You are hereby sentenced to death so that your evil thoughts can never become evil deeds. But you need not worry for your child. He will be taken into the temple and raised by members of the clergy.
When he is of age, he will be trained as a dene's apprentice.'
The child was unceremoniously torn from the woman's arms.
'No!' she screamed. 'My baby…'
The child began to scream.
The woman was grabbed by two guards and escorted out of the temple, her cries echoing off the stone walls and down the stone corridors.
The child was taken in the other direction, its cries as chillingly piercing as its mother's.
The Kingpriest looked at the mage, smiled and said, 'Well done. Mage Hailerin. Well done.'
Chapter 7
Dargaard Keep was dark.
Silent.
Soth's steps echoed off the cold, hard bloodstone, sounding like drops of water falling into a deep dark well. He climbed up the staircase toward the master bedchamber.
He'd been away for weeks, leading his loyal knights in the fight against the forces of Evil. He had returned a hero, but without warning, and therefore had arrived without fanfare, without a proper hero's reception.
But all that was unimportant. All he really wanted was to see his lady love. To embrace her and love her over and over again, to somehow make up for the long chill nights he'd left her alone while he traveled the dark and lonely plains.
He neared the bedchamber.
And heard the voices.
They were soft, whispery voices. The kind of voices lovers use to exchange secrets and fondest desires. One of the voices belonged to Lady
Korinne, the other… The other was deeper in tone and louder. It was the voice of a man. Soth suddenly inhaled.
A man's voice in his lady's bedchamber in the middle of the night. It could mean only one thing.
Soth felt anger roil within him as his muscles tensed like iron bands.
He drew his sword and pounded on the door.
There were hurried sounds coming from inside.
Bedsheets ruffling. Hushed whispers.
Again Soth pounded on the door, this time with the hilt of his sword.
'It is open,' came of the voice of Korinne. It was soft and sweet, as if she'd just awakened from a pleasant dream.
Soth turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Several candles lit the room and moonlight beamed in through the open window. Korinne was smiling. 'Loren,' she said, stretching her arms out to him.
Her smile angered him even more. How could a woman who had proclaimed her love so passionately suddenly become so treacherous and unfaithful?
He wanted nothing more than to shout his words at her, to let his anger be known, but he found he could not utter a single syllable.
He moved toward the bed, ignoring the pleading words of his wife. Then he raised his sword above his head, both hands wrapped tightly around the hilt, blade pointed downward… And brought it down with force, running the pointed tip through the shape that cowered beneath the covers next to Lady Korinne.
There was a loud grunt.
Dark stains began to bloom outward around the sword.
He reached down, pulled back the cover and saw a face familiar to him.
His own.
Korinne simply laughed.
Soth awoke abruptly, covered in sweat and shivering.
His breath came hard and fast as if he'd been running for hours. He sat up on the bed, an extra large one belonging to the Mayor of Halton, and glanced around him. The room was empty and dark. The night was still and quiet.
By the position of the moons it looked as if sunrise was several hours away. Soth lay back on the bed, thankful that no one had seen him awaken in such a state.
Such a horrible, horrible dream.
A nightmare of his own design.
He had no reason to distrust Lady Korinne, and even if he did, no one would be fool enough to covet the wife of Lord Soth of Dargaard Keep,
Knight of the Rose.
He took a deep breath and chased all thoughts of the distressing dream from his mind. One last shiver coursed through his body, then he took a final deep breath. He closed his eyes and tried to return to sleep, but fitfully tossed and turned until dawn.
'How did you sleep?' Caradoc asked.
Soth looked at him. 'Like a fallen tree,' he lied.
'As did I,' said Caradoc. 'As we all did no doubt.'
'Indeed,' replied Soth, turning away from his seneschal to hide his yawn while he busied himself in preparation to leave the village.
The villagers had made sure the knights were served a grand breakfast, and while they ate, had loaded up their horses with all manner of provisions for the journey home. The provisions were unnecessary because the knights would be meeting up with the party of squires and footmen mere hours after leaving the village, but no matter how Soth told them this, the villagers would not accept the refusal of their offerings.
And now as the sun rose higher in the morning sky, the villagers lined the main road leading north in order to give the knights a rousing final sendoff.
Unlike the knights' charge out of Dargaard Keep, this departure was slow-paced and festive; the knights almost lingered in the village, not wanting to leave.
Soth saw this as a good sign, ensuring that there would be no shortage of volunteers to relieve the three knights he was leaving behind to keep watch on the village.
When they cleared the northern edge of the village, the knights continued on at a leisurely pace. They were all enjoying the freedom of the plains and none of them were in any particular hurry to return to the cold, bloodstone walls of Dargaard Keep.
Even Lord Soth, whose mind had been filled with thoughts of Lady
Korinne, was now of a mind to spend a little more time away from the keep to clear his head of the dreams which had been haunting him.
Besides that, more time away would make their hearts grow fonder, assuring that their reunion would be a passionately amorous one.
