Chapter Eight Part One

Charlotte dried her hands once more. Her skin, usually fair and supple, had begun to harden and crack under the stress of so many repeated washings. She used some of her mother’s special balm to soothe it, and inhaled deeply of the scent of roses the balm contained. The smell of a sick room, that which her bedroom had become, was hardly a pleasant thing, and she longed to throw open the shutters on the window and let the afternoon breeze inside.

She feared now, worried she ought not. Her guest’s presence in her home would be difficult enough to explain to any nosy neighbors passing by should they see him through the window. Still, it was stuffy, and couldn’t be healthy to keep him cooped up in such conditions, either.

She decided that hopefully the curtains would provide enough cover for a brief time if she just let a little bit of fresh air in.

The summer day was fine, but she had little time to enjoy it. She looked at the clock and saw it was already time to wake the poor man—rather, the Prince—for his next dose of medication.

She was terrified to try, lest he jump in fright and disturb the splint on his arm. She was relieved when she saw there would be no need; the breeze coming in the window was enough to rouse him without her assistance.

“Mmm,” he mumbled, stirring slowly. He opened his one bloodshot eye and looked over at her. “Flowers.”

“The window, sir,” she replied, “there is a box of flowers just outside it. I thought the fresh air would do you good.”

“Would be to your benefit as well.” He was speaking for the first time in truly coherent sentences, and Charlotte did not risk pointing it out, for fear she’d break the spell over the moment and he’d stop. “It cannot be good for one so young to be burdened by such gruesome duties, as you are burdened by me.”

“You are no burden, sir.” She hoped at least if she couldn’t call him Your Highness that calling him sir would show a proper measure of respect.

“Julien,” he said, restating the name he’d given her before. “Just Julien.”

“But you are not just a man,” she objected softly.

“Correct, I am a man greatly in your debt. Also to the older man, the physician.”

“He is my father and he is, I fear, not truly a physician, but the closest our village has to one.”

“And the other? There is another who comes and goes.” He considered for a moment. “Your brother?”

“No, oh no.” She laughed a little, and then lowered her voice again, remembering she should not draw attention of any who may be passing by and who would wonder with whom she was laughing. “That’s Thomas, a friend since childhood. Apprentice to the local blacksmith. You owe him your life above all, sir, for if he had not seen you in the water, you’d surely have drowned.”

“I nearly did, more than once,” Julien recalled, closing his eye and instinctively reaching up to touch the scarring skin of the left side of his face. “I fought to live. I am not even certain why.”

“No, don’t!” Charlotte jumped and grabbed his hand, a little more forcefully than she’d intended. “Apologies, but you must not disturb the stitches. They are just beginning to heal, and the wounds are deep.”

“My leg.”

Charlotte bit her lip. She wondered if, due to the pain sometimes remaining after amputations, he may believe it was still there. “Yes?”

“It appears to be missing.”

At least he already knows, she thought. “Below the knee, yes. I am so very sorry.”

He sighed. “I take it I’ve lost an eye as well,” he observed, slowly removing his hand from her grasp and allowing it to fall over his stomach. “I cannot open the lid no matter how I try.”

“Again, I am sorry.”

“I am only grateful my arm was spared,” he replied. “Will it be of any use?”

“Father said it was a bad break, but one that should heal.”

“I understand,” he glanced down briefly, then back up at her. “My face?”

She hesitated. “Sir…”

“Julien!” he insisted, and sighed. “It is enough, your reaction tells me all I need to know. I am a monster. Disfigured. Never to be what I was once.”

“You are certainly no monster, sir, please, be still now. Calm…” she spoke in as soothing a tone as she could manage and poured him a dose of medication. She mixed it with wine, then held the cup to his lips. “Take this, it will help.”

“Not send me back into sleeping, I hope. I have questions and my mind yearns for answers.”

“You are still too weak to ask much, sir… Julien,” she corrected herself so as not to upset him again. “You must rest.”

“I have done and shall do,” he replied, trying to hide his displeasure at the bitter taste of his medicine. “But there are things I must know, and you surely have questions as well.”

“I have many, Julien, but perhaps we should wait, save your strength. Speak when my father and Thomas return, so they may also hear.”

“I prefer talking now, before sleep takes me again. While I can so clearly recall what has occurred, power of mind not yet dulled by your heavy remedies.”

“I understand. I had best close the window first, though.” She did so, and her legs ached as she stood beside him. She was dying to sit down, but it was improper to sit in his presence without his consent, and she felt she should not ask for it.

“Please, take your seat, there.” He seemed to read her mind, and with a grateful nod, Charlotte sat. “Bring the chair closer, so I might speak softly and still be heard.” He lowered his voice again to a whisper, and Charlotte slid the chair until her knees touched the edge of the bed.

She had an urge to caress his good hand, to hold it in order to offer some comfort as he appeared plagued by the darkness of memory. Her fingers brushed over his wrist and she patted his arm before sitting with her hands primly folded.

“I am listening, Julien,” she encouraged gently. “What is it you want me to know?”

“First, I have questions you must answer, please.” He was the one who reached out now and grasped hold of her hand, clamping on so tightly her fingers tingled and began to go numb.

“Of course.”

“The King’s death. The reports of my death. What is the story you’ve been told?”

“That robbers attacked the private royal hunting party, when you were on the way to claim a prize for your bride.” Her tongue tripped slightly over the last word, then she continued. “That your father was murdered, and you were missing and presumed dead.”

“Then they’d be looking for my body.”

“No, days later they claimed to have found it, and to have buried it beside that of the good King, rest his soul.”

“Rest his soul,” Julien added, his voice nearly breaking. He cleared his throat and Charlotte took her hand away to offer him a drink of water. He swallowed it gratefully, but as soon as she was back in her previous position he reached for the solace of her hand once more. She felt too much compassion for his pain to refuse it.

“So if the body they found was not mine, then whose might it have been? Ah, perhaps poor Francois, he was the only one still at my side before the darkness took me after we fell… but I am getting ahead of myself.” He paused and took several long, labored breaths, trying to catch up. Talking this way was taking more out of him than Charlotte wanted, but she could not seem to convince him of the need to be still and silent.

“You should sleep awhile, Julien. There is time to continue your story later.”

“I am not out of danger’s grasp yet, and should infection set in and take my life at any point from this, I want someone to know the truth, so they may bear witness to it for history.” He looked at Charlotte with desperation. “Will you hear me?”

“I will, sir,” Charlotte’s promise was solemn and sincere. “I would be history’s witness, but there will be no need. You are going to be well.” She didn’t sound as confident as she hoped she might. He was a very intelligent man, and fully aware of the risks that still threatened his life.

“Then hear this clearly and make no mistake,” he stared at her intently. “Did Duke Frederick survive this so-called ‘ambush by robbers’?”

“He did.”

“Anyone else?”

“Only two guards, whose names were not given. They were hanged for their inability to protect you, and the King.”

Julien’s hand tightened into a fist around hers, nearly crushing her fingers. She gasped in pain and he quickly released her. “I’m sorry, I… didn’t… ” He looked down and shook his head. He could not look up at her now.

Gently she placed her hand beneath his chin, and felt the heavy stubble that had grown upon his face poke her fingertips. She leaned down to try to catch his eye, and noticed again it was rimmed with the redness of unshed tears.

“Julien…”

“Those guards deserved death, but not for dereliction of duty; they deserved to hang for treason.” Julien muttered, before grasping hold of her arm. “Don’t you see? They were the only living witnesses to the fact that the Duke ordered the murder of the King and watched the execution take place with satisfaction in his eyes.”

“His own cousin?”

“The man is blood to me no longer,” Julien swore. “I intend to see him hang, just as the accomplices he so conveniently silenced. I assume he is poised to take the throne, now that mourning has ended?”

“Coronation proceedings will take place in a fortnight,” Charlotte answered. “At least, that was the plan by last report. He declared there were to be some changes made in the kingdom and he wanted to put those in place before he officially took his throne.”

“Seems his own period of mourning his family ends with the stroke of the clock,” Julien replied bitterly. “I was a fool, why did I not see? When he suggested we go as such a small party, with so few guards. A family tradition, he called it. I could be sick from my disgust.” For a moment he looked as if he really might be ill, and Charlotte leapt up to retrieve another kind of medicine to try to calm his stomach. Greedily he gulped it from the spoon, and a moment later, he seemed to settle back into the pillow with a greater degree of comfort.

“Thank you.”

“It is nothing, Julien. You really must rest.” Charlotte adjusted the blanket gently around him. “You can tell me the rest later.”

“There is little more to tell,” he said. “Just that we were slaughtered like animals. We were riding, reached the forest. The Duke called for all to stop. I thought perhaps he saw signs of the animal we were tracking, but he spoke only one word after all the horses had settled into a sort of a circle around the King.”

“Julien, don’t,” she took his hand again, and grasped it as he squeezed back.

“He just said, fire.” Tears welled in his eye again but did not spill. He fought them mightily. “He said the word, and all of the guards turned on Father and I, save one. Arrows began to fall as rain upon us. My closest companion, my personal guard and friend, Francois, shielded me with his body as best he could. Arrows pounded his armor with a sound I shall never forget.

“Then he fell. The arrows meant for me were deflected. They hit me, but missed their deadly marks, and for that I suppose I am lucky. I imagine it is Francois they found and buried in my stead.” His voice broke, and he stopped.

“That explains a lot,” Charlotte said under her breath. “You must rest now. Here, take this.”

“No, no more medicine.”

“I must insist, Julien. Drink!” She tilted the glass to his lips again and within seconds, his speech slurred.

“Chased me. To the edge of the forest and back… hunted like a dog hunts the fox.” He closed his eye and sighed. “I fell and the horse trampled me in its haste to run. Then I found myself in the river.”

“They left you for dead,” Charlotte whispered, horrified.

“They must have… believed I… already was.”

Another deep sigh rattled through him as his hand began to go limp in hers. “What is… your name?”

“It is of no consequence.”

“Your name. Please.”

It was the ‘please’ that tugged at her heart. “Charlotte.”

“Charlotte… ” he repeated, and then drifted into sleep.

Charlotte slumped back into the chair and exhaled sharply. Her hand still rested atop his, and her mind raced through events as he’d relayed them to her. If all was as he said, and she had no reason to doubt him, then the man about to take the title of King and ruler was, in fact, guilty of mass murder. What would such a man do to the people under the guise of ‘rule’?

This could not stand.

“Charlotte?” Thomas stood in the doorway and stared down at her hand, which was still holding the Prince’s. “What has taken place here?”

“He told me everything,” Charlotte whispered. Determination held back the tears in her eyes. “Our land is in a great deal of trouble, Thomas.” She saw he was still staring at her hand and Julien’s, entwined, and she gently released it.

“It is not only the kingdom as a whole that is in a great deal of trouble…” Thomas said, holding up a scroll of paper and waving it in the air. “Our village appears to be where the suffering under the rule of the future King shall begin.”

Charlotte rose with new energy and snatched the scroll from his hands.

“Let it be known that any subject living upon land which bears a lien, or has any debt incurred at all owed to The Crown… that such debt is to be repaid within a fortnight, or all lands shall revert to the possession of The Crown!” She read aloud, her voice rising in panic. Everything her family ‘owned’ bore the burden of debt to The Crown. They could never come up with the needed funds in time. All would be lost.

“We certainly cannot pay what Rowan owes on the blacksmith’s shop,” Thomas said sadly. “Even if we sold everything we hold in storage, every weapon, every tool and scrap of metal, it would not be enough.”

“We will definitely lose our home… what remains of the farm… everything,” Charlotte said, “If this is allowed to occur. Thomas, we cannot let this happen!”