The Forgotten King

you, but I forgot after my vision of Nicholas.”

“Lionel, in Atilta?” cried Lyndon. “Then he is among the rebels.” He lowered his face, frowning, but then laughed silently. “Weakness is punished, even in the son of a king. Yet how would I have it? For his weakness would be my only inheritance and he would rule what I conquered with his foolish notions. It is well that he had abandoned me, as I did not have the strength to abandon him.”

“You need not fear for that,” de Casanova said, not realizing the potency of his prophecy. “For your kingdom will be ruled by a mighty hand, whose strength will not be forgotten. Do not fear for that!”

“There is much to conquer,” Lyndon replied, “And each man must begin anew.”

“Such is the way of men,” added Gylain, “To act is to satisfy pride, but pride is not grown by the acts of another.” He paused, then, looking into the distance, “Look, Lyndon, why is your fleet in such chaos?”

As Gylain spoke, the well-ordered columns of Hibernia’s fleet were degrading into a mess of disorganized ships. One vessel, in particular, was sailing in a strange, offbeat manner; and the others seemed to chase, though any real maneuvers were impossible in the crowded waters. The renegade ship suddenly broke free from the surrounding vessels, and once clear sped toward The Barber and the mouth of the harbor.

“I ordered no such actions, but we will see soon enough; for they approach us. Perhaps they have urgent news.”

“Those are the actions of a desperate man,” de Casanova said as he looked on, “And my heart chills to warn me that something ill is coming.”

“You have become a Romantic in your love, de Casanova,” Gylain laughed. “And now you view your emotions as the end of truth and reality. We will see, as your sovereign says.”

The ship was gaining speed as it came, dodging the other ships easily with its momentum. As it came up to The Barber , a voice rang out from the rigging:

“For king and country! We have them both, as good as gospel!” The man was in his mid-twenties, with long brown hair that flapped in the breeze and a splot of beard beneath his lower lip. But what made him unusual were his eyes: one blue, the other hazel.

“A thousand deaths!” cried Lyndon, the King of Hibernia, “A thousand deaths to me and mine. It is Lionel, my son, who yells such blasphemy!”

“Did you expect another, father?” for Lyndon and his ship were now close enough to overhear them. “Yet now it is not your tyranny I defile, but that of another,” and he held up his arm. There – shining in the sun – was the crown of Atilta, left securely in Gylain’s own flagship while he himself was out among his equals.

“The crown!” Gylain cried, “Admiral, follow that ship!” He dashed forward to the command deck and watched the fleeing ship – an Hibernian cruiser commandeered by Lionel – pass them like a dream. “Fools!” and he grabbed the Admiral’s bullhorn, held it to his mouth, and lava erupted from his lips, “Make sail! Make sail!”

“They give chase,” Lionel called down to his comrades, who were manning the sails and pushing the ship beyond its greatest speed. Any less would bring them death. He dropped the crown into the hands of another man who stood on the deck, then followed it himself. “The plan is working,” when he had regained his footing on the deck, “They follow in anger, de Garmia.”

“So I see,” laughed the latter. He was a dark-haired man with a Spanish crook in his nose; yet it was a dignified Spanish crook, and one which drew heavily on his Roman lips and chin. “So I see, but are we soon enough to make it work? Either way, if the wind fails, so will we.”

“But it will only grow stronger, friend, for we have need of it.”

“I feel the same, today, with the warmth of the wind and the sting of the sea to give me courage. I do not regret having followed my brother to defiance of the tyrant. If I find him, we will be reunited in this cause as we once were in its antagonist!”

Lionel kept his eyes on the pursuing ships. The Barber , first in the center of the fleet, was now in its rear; for the smaller ships were quicker in gaining their top speed.

“The cutters approach rapidly, but we can make the open seas before they overtake us. Once there our speed will double theirs. It is the others we have to fear. If The Barber reaches full speed, we will have little chance of escape.”

“But we will have reached Thunder Bay by then, and they will have been drawn into a battle for which they are not fully prepared. No, a ship of that size can only function on the high seas and we must only pass the Atiltian stretch.”

“There is little choice on our part,” Lionel said. “If their fleet reaches the Western March without provisions for a siege, they cannot make one. Their ships are all with them: if they break off to receive supplies we can take them. If not, the French will blockade them and they will starve.”

“But will the French come?”

“We cannot but hope.”

“Hope, hope, the immortal pope,” de Garmia laughed. “But who else will be our priest?”

They were interrupted by the cry of a sailor, coming from the stern, “They make headway, sirs.”

At that moment, an arrow struck the deck.

Chapter 81

Far ahead, and barely visible through the bright sun and sea, was a ship: its storm-cloud sails throwing it forward. The sea about the ship was empty and quiet, filled only with bird cries from the trees that hung nearby. But two hundred yards behind them was a line of pursuing ships, stretching backwards a mile until it ended with the lofty rails of The Barber . Gylain was its figurehead, his arms dragons and his eyes the sea. But his eyes were also closed: though he saw he did not look.

Several yards behind him a table was prepared upon the deck with a feast upon it, albeit untouched. Lyndon, Montague, and de Casanova still sat around it, the circle of power. Yet they had power only to have it; they commanded luxuries only to know they could. Sometimes they sat, and sometimes they stood, and sometimes they inspected the soldiers or studied charts of Thunder Bay. Only Gylain played the hermit, dueling the ocean with his stare; and he did not need his eyes to see, for he knew what was there. De Garmia and Lionel were only symbols of his fears: to lose the crown, the power, the strength; to have it clearly shown that, far from being God’s equal, he was not even the best of men. God was his enemy, weakness his foe.

“We will punish the rashness of youth, my friend,” Lyndon said, and in the silence their thoughts still lingered on the same subject. “We will punish him, and bring his mind to sanity. Then, when all is done, we will remake the crown a hundred times nobler, or a thousand. Money is of no account, for there is always more to take.”

“Nothing falls from a head without a purpose; and if every hair is numbered, how much more every crown? This is an omen, Lyndon: an omen that has been replayed a thousand different ways. Yet I see them. I know what is coming. Oh God, my enemy!” and his hands flew to the air like fate to the luckless. “Will you stab your own earth with the trident of the seas? Will you overturn the Pillars of Heracles and sink them to Hades? May it never be!” Gylain clenched his fists and fell silent, staring deeper into the sea as if he unwove its fabric with his piercing gaze and saw into the dimensions beyond.

“Has not my brother’s death not appeased your thoughts of predestination, Gylain?” Montague asked. “If Nicholas cannot retrieve this Holy Graal, can the rebel king meet another fate? Your rival is vanquished, your life secured.”

“Fool!” Gylain said lowly, his feeling not anger but resignation. “Fool, if you think I sent your brother for the Holy Graal, you are mistaken; if you think I sent him to the Cervennes peak for an ancient goblet, or even the blood of God, than you are gravely mistaken.”

Montague stood, “Then why was he sent?” and his voice betrayed his doubting heart.

“He was sent, on a mission of intelligence and divination, to the Titans. He went to see of the prophecies of the poets, of the Greeks, and he has not returned but in dream. What can this be, other than an ill omen and a mark of predestination? What has gone before will come again, and what has happened once will repeat a thousand times! Woe to us who live and woe to those who die. Above all, woe to the White Eagle!”

Montague stood and Gylain, hearing his surprise, broke his connection with the sea. “You are distraught? Then you see as I do.”

“No, though I have seen as you say. There was more when my brother appeared to me, but I did not understand, and so did not think it important.”

“Your hesitation breeds my impatience with this life, man!”