Chapter 15: Chapter 10: Weddings and Funerals - Part 3

The rising of the sun at dawn was accompanied by the shrieking cries of a daughter who had just discovered her dead father. She immediately threw herself to sob into the shoulder of her husband, who looked down at the broken body of a man who hours ago had been a king.

“Shhh, it’s fine,” Caden tried to appease Jaqueline. Armand’s body had landed strangely, and it was broken and bloody, and the dagger in his heart had caused the front of his tunic to grow dark and mottled with blood. The sight inspired no emotion in Caden, and no feeling of empathy for the man who had caused his father’s death. Part of him felt like he should empathize with his wife, but then he remembered her letter, and that she too had planned to be his enemy.

A guard had discovered the body, and Caden and Jaqueline had been woken secretly, and Caden had sent for Erleath under the pretense of opening an investigation. Erleath leaned over the body, examining his broken limbs and the wound in his chest, and checking for other details that a layman might miss. Eventually he stood and looked up to the balcony he fell from. “This was murder,” Erleath surmised, running a hand over his closely shaven head. “And it was quick and unexpected. King Armand may have been dead before he hit the ground.”

Jaqueline had been crying the entire time, but at Erleath’s words she pushed Caden away from her. “It was you, wasn’t it?” She asked, an angry tremble in her voice. “You finally had all you needed to take over my father’s kingdom, so he wasn’t needed anymore. You killed him to get rid of him. And now I am married to my father’s murderer, who by law will be his successor.”

“Jaqueline, no! I had nothing to do with thi- “ Caden tried to lie, but she was having none of it. She turned and ran, and after Caden cried after her, “why would I do this? I gain nothing from this death!”

When she had turned the corner there was silence, and Caden, Erleath and a few of the guards remained standing under the shadow of the chateau’s rear wall. “What should I do with him, sire?” Erleath asked.

“His people will want to bury him. So will my wife.”

“I understand.”

Caden turned then, and walked away to feel the first of the sun’s warmth on his back. For a moment he wondered if he had acted too rashly, if his desire for vengeance and inability to put matters of war behind him in peace would backfire so greatly as to undermine his father’s cause. Should he have let Armand live? It was too late now, but too late for what?

When he entered the chateau’s interior through one of the side doors he saw Wulfsurd walking down towards him, and a few scullery maids going about their early morning duties. Wulfsurd clapped eyes with his, and Caden gave him a nod as they approached each other.

“Hello Harik,” Caden said, his voice sounding defeated. Wulfsurd did not reply. He placed his hand firmly on Caden’s shoulder and, despite Caden’s protests and attempt to free himself, pushed him into a small lounge that was little more than a closet. “Take your hands off me, or-” Caden growled, but Wulfsurd interrupted him.

“Or what? You will have me killed like Armand?” He growled.

Caden went silent for a second. “He told you?”

“He is broken,” Wulfsurd said. “And you, who wanted nothing more to protect your little brother, have turned him into an assassin. A kingslayer. What protection does that offer him, Caden?”

Caden’s white eyes went cold, and he glared at Wulfsurd. “He was the only one who I trusted who could do it. And I thought you of all people would understand why I-”

“Your father would never have fallen so low as to kill a king on the evening of your peace with him - on the evening of your marriage to his daughter,” said Wulfsurd. “Arfeyr’s blood strike you, Caden. You are a petulant fool.”

“What?” Caden asked, his voice growing louder. “You thought I would let him live after what he had done? He killed my father. He almost killed me. He betrayed our country, and he was a scheming rat who plotted and deceived far more freely than I ever have.”

“You are not Caden,” replied Wulfsurd. “Caden, who hated war and death, would never have done this. You have put everything we have fought for at risk, and when they hear about this the people of Lavell will rise against us. We will be driven back to Sarkana and all of our victories, all of our goals, will have been for nothing! Your father’s legacy will have been destroyed, and you made Arian complicit! You are nothing more than some unholy risen corpse, your strings controlled by that foul witch and her master!”

There was silence then. Wulfsurd, full of anger, was still quite aware of what he had just said, and Caden wasn’t sure how he should take it.

“You will not tell anyone about this,” Caden told him. “And if you disagree with me so much then perhaps you should return to Sarkana.”

“Perhaps I should.”

Caden stepped away from him. There was commotion outside of the room as guards and civilians alike learned of Armand’s death, and Caden left Wulfsurd there to discover a chateau full of mourning and suspicion.

In the next two days Caden saw none of his usual companions. Arian had gone out into the woods alone, Wulfsurd remained with his men, Jaqueline slept with her ladies-in-waiting and Ethelyn and the Philosopher King never left the third floor. Arthur Ashfield and Sir Anselm, both now part of the kingsguard, had attempted to visit him on several occasions but Caden turned them away.

The only people he saw were the maids who brought food and wine to him in his quarters, and even they were suspicious of him. Caden had expected that he would be suspected - he was logically the candidate with the most reason to kill Armand, and the most to gain. He had hoped at first it would wash over, that the lack of evidence and his marriage to Jaqueline would shift those suspicions elsewhere. He had even planned to frame a disgruntled Lavellan noble for the crime, but he had been so harmed by Wulfsurd’s words that he did not do so. He hid away, exacerbating the suspicions, and wondering if he truly was a puppet corpse with Ethelyn playing his strings.

On the day of Armand’s funeral he left his room, and with an honour guard he mounted horses in mourning attire and rode down the grand cathedral where the funeral was held. Jaqueline was there, as were many from Lavellan society, but as Caden approached a series of Chaverne nobles blocked the road.

“I’ve come to pay my respects,” Caden told them. “Open the way.”

“No,” said the ringleader. “You murdered our king, and you shall not have passage. Go back to the comfort of our king’s chateau, Sarkanian, or we will have blood.”

One of Caden’s honour guards held out his halberd threateningly at the provocation. “Do not insult us, sir. My lord would not stoop to something so dishonourable as murder. I should kill you for suggesting it.”

Caden held out his arm. “No. There will be no violence. We will turn back.”

Caden and his guard turned their horses around, and rode back up towards the chateau. Wulfsurd watched him from the chateau walls as they returned, but when Caden looked back he merely turned in disappointment and left.

They never saw Armand’s funeral, but the mourning music they played that night reached even Caden’s room. Armand was a divisive figure - feared and respected, hated and loved - but if there was one thing that united his subjects it was that he was an effective king, whose bouts of tyranny were superseded by his victories for his people. Meanwhile Caden lay on his bed and sobbed at what he had done, and what he could do to fix it.

“Do you remember when you were a boy?” Asked his father. “When you almost died?”

“Yes,” answered Caden.

“You had been sleeping for so long that when you woke, you were worried that you had lost the ability to walk,” said the older man.

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Caden sighed. “I remember.”

“I said you hadn’t, and you asked me how I knew. I answered that neither of us would know until you got up and tried. Because our worries in this world are nothing more than the shadows trying to keep us in the darkness, and the only way to find the light is to ignore them and keep going until they can no longer keep up.”

“What are you even trying to say?”

“That you can’t fix anything by lying there like a child.”

Caden looked up then, and the room was empty. It was morning, just after dawn from the way the sun came in through his north-facing window, and despite the words that were now stuck in his head he had no plan of action. He had to do something though, and Arian was the person he needed to find to do it.

“Caden.”

He jumped at the voice, which came from a woman standing on the inside of his partially open door that he had not even noticed open, so deep was he in his thoughts. “What is it?” He asked her.

“The Philosopher King is leaving,” Ethelyn replied, in her plain, maroon dress and mahogany hair. “He wants to speak to you before he goes.”

Caden looked at her, and suddenly remembered his wedding night. She had been there with him during it, her physical body elsewhere but her mind and soul right there alongside him. “So you’re leaving then?” He asked her.“No,” said Ethelyn. “I will remain here. I am your advisor now, after all.”

“Really?” Caden asked with a slight scoff. “Well I haven’t seen much of you, and I could surely have used your advice.”

“Nothing I could have said would have talked you out of it.”

“But I would have appreciated you trying.”

“You don’t need my help to make your messes, sire. But I will help you clean them once you have.”

“Then what should I do now?”

“Meet with the Philosopher King. He has already done something for you.”

Caden seemed confused for a moment but Ethelyn had already turned and left the room, and he had no choice but to follow her before he lost where she was. “What do you mean?” He asked when he caught her again. “How did he know?”

She glanced at him for a second, though did not stop walking. “Because he’s him.”

The two went downstairs, then down the hallways to the courtyard by the portcullis where the Philosopher King’s 100 strong guard was suited in their unusual wolf-like armour and standing in marching formation, ready to move. When Caden saw the Philosopher King and his herald, both mounted near one another in their identical silver masks, Caden approached them.

“You’re leaving?” He asked, confusion clearly in his voice.

“It’s the right time for it,” said one of the men in the silver masks.

“But I am not ready!” Caden complained. “There are still things I must do here.”

“We’re going on ahead, for a while at least. We will meet you in the spring, when your business is done.”

“But I could also use your help with it,” he replied, looking again at Ethelyn as though unsure why she had asked them to meet.

“You have it,” the masked man replied, and suddenly Caden became unsure as to whether it was the Herald who spoke, or the Philosopher King himself, or if they had somehow switched places in the time he had taken his eyes from them. “Ethelyn knows.”

Caden had wanted to ask another question, but a hand was raised, and a horn blown, and before he could stop them the column left through the portcullis two-by-two until the final man of the column, standing unusually without a partner, disappeared down the hill and into the city. “What did he mean?” Caden asked, and Ethelyn placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Come with me. In secret,” she said, and offered her hand to him. He took it, and the two walked back into the chateau with the strangest feeling of shadow hanging over them. It wasn’t something Caden noticed at first, nor something he could explain, but as more and more men and servants walked past them without acknowledgement Caden suddenly realized that they could not be seen.

“What is happening?” Caden asked her. “How can they not see us?”

She smiled. “It is not that they cannot see us, it is that their minds are unable to form the memory of us ever being there.”

“This is sorcery.”

“Of a fashion. It is weak here, in this place. South of the mountains such power is… Faint.”

Caden remembered what the Philosopher King had told him, but made no mention of it to her. Instead he followed her up towards the third floor, that empty place that had been occupied by her master, and led Caden to a back room where a single, foreign man stood seated with his eyes closed.

“Kien,” Ethelyn said as Caden became aware that they could be seen again.

The foreign man opened his brown-gold eyes, and with slightly tanned skin looked up at Caden through strands of shoulder-length dark hair. “Lord Caden, Sorceress,” he said to them in a foreign accent, acknowledging who they were.

“Prince Caden wishes to know what the Philosopher King is doing for him,” she told the man.

The man have the slightest hint of a smile, and stood from where he sat. He was unarmoured, wearing only dark brown rags, and a belt in which he held a dagger with a faint curve. “He gives my life for you,” Kien said.

Caden looked confused. “Your life? What do you mean?”

The man, Kien, began to explain his mission. “I have already succeeded in killing the King known as Armand. Tonight, while you lay sleeping, I shall silently enter your room with this dagger. Before I can kill you, your court sorceress and advisor Ethelyn will warn you, and you will kill me in self defence. On my body you will find a letter, signed unknown, detailing the contract I have accepted to kill the kings of Lavell and Sarkana. This proof will absolve you of all suspicion.”

Caden was silent. “You would do this?”

“For the Philosopher King, and for you, I would. My reward will be eternal.”

“For me? I do not understand.”

“You do not need to.”

“Ethelyn?” Caden asked, looking at her for some sort of confirmation.

“Like I said,” replied Ethelyn. “He has already done something for you.”

The rest of that day was a blur for him. He barely ate, barely drank, and though he spent much time speaking with Ethelyn, when the time came for him to sleep he could barely recall what they had said. At the thought of directly taking a life Caden was unnerved, but he knew that if he did not do it everything would fall apart.

He found himself lying there in his bed alone, the darkness overwhelming, and the knife he was to use under his pillow. It was nearly midnight when he heard the door creak open, and the warning of Ethelyn entered his mind. He had thought that her warning would be physical, that she would somehow be in the room with him when it happened, but he soon realized people would question it. Why was his court sorceress in his room so late at night, such a short time after his marriage?

The figure crept over to his bed. Caden listened and watched, though he kept his eyes nearly entirely shut, and slowly reached for the knife beneath his pillow. Despite his would-be assassin’s compliance in the scheme he still felt the need for secrecy, as though the man might go back on his plan and leave Caden needing to defend himself for real.

The figure was over his bed now, and raised a knife, but before he could do anything else Caden surprised him. He leaped up at the man, knocking him down to the floor and thrusting his knife repeatedly into soft flesh until his initial struggle died with him. Suddenly Caden was kneeling over a man clutching a curved blade, and who had fear in his open eyes as blood seeped into the carpet beneath him.

“The letter,” Ethelyn reminded him, though from where he could not tell.

He reached into the man’s rags, pulled the parchment that had been partially spoiled and darkened by red, and then fell back against the side of his bed with his dagger shaking in his hands. It was dark now, and despite knowing what would happen, Caden could not shake that sheer adrenaline and feeling of terror.

He finally opened his mouth and screamed for the guards.

“The Philosopher King owns you now, Caden,” said Ethelyn, before her voice drifted away into nothing.

It wasn’t just the guards who came to the scene, but Sir Anselm, and Lord Gray, and Wulfsurd too. They asked him what had occurred, and whether he was hurt, and though Wulfsurd was suspicious even he said nothing against him. They passed around and read the letter, and spat on the assassin’s corpse, and even Jaqueline, when she heard, came rushing in her night-gown and embraced Caden as though her life had been a void without him.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried into him as he held her. “I am sorry that I ever blamed you.”

Caden winced as she tightened her hold and realized that he had been injured after all. Everything had occurred so fast that he had not noticed the man Kien cut his arm. An accident, most likely, but it was a scratch deep enough to bleed, and soon Jaqueline had removed his shirt and was tending to it herself. She cleaned it with wet cloth and dressed it with a white strip of dry linen, and as the word spread of the attempted assassination and men from around the chateau came to see the body with their own eyes, Jaqueline led Caden to the maid’s wing where she had been sleeping.

She brought him into her room, and locked the door behind them, and pulled him into her bed. The problem that he had made for himself had been fixed so quickly, so effortlessly, that it was hard to believe it was real. Hard to believe that a man was willing to go to his death on nothing more than the demand of that mysterious man, who Caden knew now owned both his allegiance and his favour.

Jaqueline kissed him, and they undressed, and he began to ask himself if he truly had his victory. If his father’s legacy was really secure, and if he truly would get away with what he had Arian do. So many loose ends had yet to be tied, and so many men now looked at Caden as a white-eyed stranger who was nothing like the prince they had once known. But more than that, as he and Jaqueline entered the throes of passion, he wondered what was to come next for him.

What service would he have to perform in that part of the world so far away from home?