Chapter Twenty-Five

Duke Frederick held the branding iron, heated at the point of a torch, toward the man’s face.

“Perhaps you will reconsider your ill-advised loyalty to the Prince and tell me exactly which village it is where he is hiding.”

“Never!” the man cried, bracing for the burn he was sure would come. Instead, he found himself run through with the blade of Frederick’s sword.

He fell to the ground, and those around him stepped back.

“Perhaps YOU would be wiser, and will learn from your friend’s mistake?” Frederick shouted, nodding his head toward another. One of his guards wrestled the man over toward Frederick, who sat atop his horse with the branding iron in one hand and his sword in the other. “Perhaps you will reveal the Prince’s location and perhaps save your life… or your eyes.”

“They’re in St. Fleur!” the man blurted, desperately afraid. “Just across the river.”

“Thank you,” Frederick said, and then he ran the man through with his sword as well. “Let that be a lesson to any of the rest of you who nurse a deadly devotion to the Prince. Unless you wish to join your friends in Hell, I suggest you reevaluate where your loyalties lie as we travel to St. Fleur.” He gestured in the air for his men to follow him and spurred his borrowed horse on. Oh, how he would make those traitors suffer for having dared to steal his beloved steed.

“They’re in St. Fleur!” Frederick shouted. “And soon, so shall we be!”

* * *

Renee sat on the front porch of the house, feeling out of place as Julien prepared for the upcoming confrontation with the help of Charlotte’s family.

Thomas, too, felt out of place here now. “May I join you, Lady Renee?” he asked. She gestured for him to sit, and he did.

“So… I’m free,” she said, waving her hands in the air in a gesture she seemed to think better of a moment later. “I’m a free woman for the first time, and I don’t know, for the life of me, what to do.”

“I thought I knew where my life was going,” Thomas muttered. “Now I see where it’s headed and it’s nowhere I imagined.”

“Your knighthood is assured. Does that not please you, Sir Thomas?”

Hearing her call him that, something that had once only been a precious nickname from Charlotte and one she had ceased using only recently, made Thomas’s heart ache. He wondered if he could, or would, ever get used to being called that by everyone, instead of just the one person he wanted to hear it from.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to live at Court, so we will have to see what arrangements can be made, if, in time, they are to be made,” Thomas replied. “I have lived in St. Fleur my whole life; I do not think that I can leave it. Especially since…”

“Since she likely will be leaving it?” Renee replied, and she believed she realized now in an instant why her charms had been lost on Thomas. He was in love with someone else.

Thomas stared at his boots.

“Knowing more of you than I do of him, even if that be a little,” Renee said softly, turning toward him, “I envy her, and think her foolish if she makes the choice to leave.”

“My Lady,” Thomas rose, clearly uncomfortable. “Please, excuse me.”

“I’m sorry, Thomas!” she called, but it was too late. He had headed to the barn, to begin preparing the horses for what was to come.

Renee turned and looked in through the curtains as the wind blew them gently aside; and she saw Julien emerge from the bedroom, resplendent in his grand clothing.

Viewing him from this angle, aside from the beard and the fact his hair had grown long and curled at his neck, she would not have known he had been so badly injured…

She sighed when she thought for a moment of the life that once could have been hers, but then realized it was all for the best. She didn’t love the Prince, nor the idea of being queen. If she could live a life of comfort in a small country home, then who knew what joys the future held?

Maybe she’d even settle in St. Fleur…

* * *

“We must try you on the horse, Your Highness,” Etienne urged. “Time is ticking away.”

“One moment, first, alone with Charlotte. Please.”

The group joined Renee out on the porch and left Julien and Charlotte.

He approached her with his familiar step. Then he set his crutch against the wall and extended his good arm out to her, urging her toward him.

She could restrain herself no longer.

“Julien!” she cried, and embraced him desperately, holding him close. He kissed her deeply, drawing upon her for strength he knew he would need in the confrontation to come.

“It is finished, Charlotte,” he whispered into her ear. “The betrothal is over. Renee and I have spoken. It is done.”

“But… I don’t… how… ”

He silenced her with another kiss. “I have but one more thing to see to, and then I shall seek you out, for there is something important I must ask of you, once all of this is over.”

How she prayed he’d still be able to ask her that question once ‘all of this’ was over.

“For now, I must ride.” He looked at her sideways and for the first time admitted to trepidation. “If I can.”

“Wait,” she whispered, her eyes flashing. “I have an idea.”

* * *

“Certainly not!” Thomas insisted, “I will not hear of this! Using Charlotte as prey in this to sweeten the hunt for the Duke? Absolutely not!”

“He needs my help to steady him on the horse, Thomas,” Charlotte insisted. “I do this of my own free will, and against Julien’s objections as well. We began this journey together and we shall end it the same way.”

“I am uncertain, Charlotte,” Etienne frowned. “It would be better if I rode behind the Prince. I could steady him with but one arm, ride the horse and still carry a sword.”

“We will be relying upon your sword to a greater degree than ever before, Sir Etienne, as Julien cannot possibly hold the reins and a sword as well. I will carry his sword and draw the Duke’s attention with it, leaving you and Thomas free to fight with the rest. We have a plan worked out, if only all of you will listen.”

“If anything happened to you, Charlotte, I don’t know how I would bear it,” Charlotte’s mother wept as she listened, leaning upon her husband for support.

“And I could not stand to see anything happen to Julien, if I can be of any aid to him at all. Thomas,” Charlotte turned pleading eyes upon her oldest, dearest friend. The man she wished she could love, for how much she knew he loved her. “Trust me, this once, and ride at our side, as our protector. Just as you have always been mine.”

Thomas looked away, then reluctantly nodded.

A sound echoed in the distance, a blow upon a horn that indicated a warning blast; something that made Etienne’s heart race.

“Time is up,” he said. “They are here.”

“To the meadow!” Julien commanded, as Charlotte placed one hand around him to try to steady him and struggled with her other to hold onto the new sword Thomas had made for him.

“Godspeed!” Walter called, holding his wife gently in his arms.

“The meadow where I was reborn when you saved my life, Thomas,” Julien rode closer to Thomas and bowed his head with respect. “It is where our fortunes shall be decided today.”

“Godspeed, Your Highness,” Thomas replied. Then he looked at Charlotte with unfamiliar eyes. “Charlotte…“

“I know, Thomas,” she whispered. “Me too.”

“We ride!” Etienne cried, leading the group as they fell into place, surrounding the Prince and Charlotte.

Etienne’s horse was a fine, calm animal, and Charlotte was grateful that she had talked Julien into abandoning the idea of riding Frederick’s horse, who was bucking and giving Etienne fits already.

It took Julien a little while to grow accustomed to riding without the aid of his left leg to steady him in the saddle, and Charlotte knew the motion must be causing him considerable pain. Yet he sat tall, head held high. This was his moment to honor the life his father had lived, and Charlotte knew that the King, and what he would have done in this instance, was first and foremost in Julien’s mind.