#4 The King’s Prophecy

My tankard was getting low, which, given the quality of the beverage within made it a mixed blessing. The wench ambled past my bench and eyed my near-empty vessel, clearly hoping for more custom or for the back of me. Probably more the later than the former. I can’t say as I blamed her.

Despite the overall ripeness of my fellow customers, my own stench rose above theirs by several days of hard riding, hard running, and hiding in less-than-clean stables, pens, and one pig trough. The fact that there were no visible signs of my hardship — by which I mean that no shit nor morsel of half-eaten food clung to me was no small victory. But the smell had also hid me from the hounds. That victory was worth celebration. Even with beer worth just a fraction of the copper I paid for it.

The fact that I had made it here and this was hopefully the last part of my journey was worth — perhaps — another tankard. Tomorrow I would pass out of this kingdom and into the next where the King’s Men wouldn’t follow. Crossing the turbulent Ravdi was nearly impossible except at the well fortified bridges. Knowing this, the King’s Men would never look for me here, the nearest bridge several leagues in either direction, assuming I would run for an easier escape.

I signaled to the wench for another. She steadfastly ignored me until I showed her not one but three coppers. That much coin would probably buy her a fine meal out here in the borderlands. Even back home in the capital city it would have purchased a bread loaf of decent quality. But ale had always been my downfall, so too was it tonight. Had I left after finishing my first I would have found another awful miasma to hide in until morning when I would try the fates, crossing the Ravdi.

Instead I opened the door and walked straight into the Gavin’s band of hunters. Thinking quickly I pulled my hood over my face and hunched over. I even uttered “by yer leave yer honors,” in what I thought was a fair imitation of the local dialect. Just barely through their ranks, I thought I had scraped away again when I felt a strong hand grasp my right arm.

“Ed.”

That was Gavin. There was no question in his voice; I was made. I relaxed, my nine-days’ flight over. I straightened, let the hood fall back and met his implacable gaze. “Gavin, I could use a bath.”

He sniffed then scowled and shook his head, “I would say so. I’m sure you won’t mind having Guy and Tristan there to make sure you don’t forget anything.”

“Like the way back to my room, you mean?” I asked with a smile. Gavin’s chief assistant, Eric had made that mistake the first time I was captured…nine days ago.

Gavin smirked — as close to a smile the Royal Huntsman ever got — and said “like that exactly.”

The next day I was clean, I was wearing clean clothing as befit my station, and clean manacles as befit my tendency to run. I liked Gavin very much — he’d had a huge part in raising me — and would trust him with my life. If he had a failing it was that he took his job too seriously. “The King ordered me to bring you back. I will not fail my king.”

“The king is nearly dead, Gavin! He could be dead now for all we know. You don’t have to fail him, just be slow about it.”

“His Majesty ordered me to succeed in all haste, Ed. The King wants to see you, I will do as he commands.”

When Gavin got like this he was unmovable. I suppose this is why he was so respected among the court. His clarity and directness kept him above politics and his literal interpretation of the King’s word, along with his disinterest in anything beyond hunting, made him remarkably hard to corrupt or coerce into subterfuge. In a way I was glad to have been caught; had I made it to the lands of King Moore, I would have not seen him again.

But that was of small comfort.

My capture meant that I would have to fulfill a dark promise laid upon me before birth and that the King required I complete.

The ensuing day and a-half of travel (it’s remarkable how much faster one can travel when not dodging hounds, backtracking, climbing trees, or hiding in pigsties) was a succession of half-hearted and occasional full hearted escape attempts. The manacles and constant surveillance made it even harder. If nothing else, they passed the time. And I would apologize to Tristan when he recovered from the berries I’d snuck into his mead horn.

When we crossed into the castle, we were met by the guards, led by the King’s Seneschal, Old Gray Sir Kay. He had been “Old Gray Sir Kay” for as long as I’d known him, and I had left my twenties two years ago. Most of the courtiers said the same thing — including Sir Kay himself. For all that Gavin had seriousness, Sir Kay had joviality.

He looked at my semi-hard-worn state and said “we must get you cleaned up before your audience with the King. He is in a fragile state and I don’t want your smell to be His death blow.”

“You should have smelled me before Gavin caught me.” I retorted, which got a few snickers from Guy and the other members of Gavin’s party.

“How…charming.” He looked severely at the manacles on my wrists and cocked an eyebrow. “I think, Eddie, that given the merry chase you’ve led these last eleven days that we might just leave those in place until the last moment.” He paused, “Unless you dragon-pinky-swear to me that you will not try to escape.”

Did I mention that Sir Kay had been my tutor as a child? It was a fact that he enjoyed bringing up embarrassing details from my childhood from time-to-time just to taunt me. This particular memory, however, was not just good natured teasing. This was a calculated memory straight to the heart, a promise he’d kept for me from my eighth year when I’d forgotten to close the stable doors and the King’s prize stallion escaped. The King was incensed and tore up and down the castle interrogating all and sundry while I cowered beneath the stairs. I only confessed to him after making him “dragon-pinky-swear” that he wouldn’t tell the King.

Sir Kay was calling in his favor.

“I dragon-pinky-swear.”

When he smiled, as he did now, it never failed to warm a room. Sir Kay was a good man. The King — and the Kingdom — was lucky to have him. “Excellent.” He nodded to one of the guardsmen who came over and removed the chains. “Now, Eddie, why don’t we get you into clothes suitable for an Audience.”

A short while later, I was bathed, groomed, coiffed, and dressed as a man should be to meet the King, and was brought into his chambers.

For all that the King’s Apartment was grand and imposing, the King himself was not. Where there were marble pillars and a palatial window the king was stooped, his ermine trimmed robe hanging on his withered frame. I took a knee and bowed, waiting for his acknowledgement.

He did not keep me waiting as he might have done in years past. “Ah there you are, at last. Here to set me free.”

“I cannot do this thing. Please don’t make me father.”

I braced for his inevitable, infamous fury, which I had last witnessed not a month prior when we’d last had this conversation. Yet it did not come. Instead he hobbled over to me. His bony, dry hand raised my chin and his rheumy eyes met mine. “Please, help an old man to his bed so we can talk. Being on my feet is hard.” He chuckled — or at least I assumed it was a chuckle — ”hell everything is hard now.”

I rose and allowed him to lean on my arm. He weighed practically nothing. Slowly we made our way to the royal bed. “The last time we spoke I — I handled it wrong. I should have told you everything, but I couldn’t.

“You know-” and he coughed several times, “you know the rumors about me, yes? That I’m invincible? Well, the stories are true. I was already an old man when I you were born, well beyond fifty years.”

“When I was in my teens, I was hunting with my father, the King before me. I got separated from the group and found myself before an old stone cottage, with an open door. I looked in and there was a woman there. ‘Liam, come in, I’ve been expecting you.’ I was terrified but unable to turn or even resist.

“I sat at her poor, rough table and asked her ‘what is it you want, Wicca?’ She reached out and took my left hand and held it open, staring at it. Then, with a speed I have never seen she slashed my palm with her golden knife. I still bear the scar.” He showed me his hand, which did indeed have a thin scar running across it.

“I tried to withdraw my hand, but with supernatural strength she held it in one of hers and gathered my blood in her other. That palm full of blood she then rubbed on the table across the foot bones of a pig that I hadn’t noticed. Back and forth she rubbed them, around in circles, all the while chanting and holding my hand in place, allowing more blood to fall on the table.

“When at last she was done, she told my future. I will succeed my brother to the throne before my twenty-fifth year. I will be a successful king, I will expand the borders of our land and settle old feuds. I will never marry.”

His red eyes met mine. “All of these things became true. My father died the next winter though not an old man. My brother led a rash and careless attack on King Damogran and lost his life there. I was crowned just days before my twenty-fifth birthday. I immediately sued for peace with King Damogran-it was punishing but I got my revenge; his lands are now ours.”

I started to protest that this had nothing to do with me, but he stopped me. “She had one more prophesy: Though I may be injured, fall ill, and age, I will not die but by the hands of my son.” As though to prove it, he fell into coughing fit that carried on for some minutes. When at last he recovered, he resumed speaking. “This too has come true. In my youth I took unimaginable risks on the battlefield, knowing that I could not be killed. Often my daring was all it took to rally the men and scare back the enemy.

“Assassins’ darts missed their mark as I bent to fix my hose, their poisons spilled as a clumsy page knocked over my wine. Plagues and pandemics may have made me ill, but I always recovered.

“This was the fortune all Kings dream of. The small price of never having a wife seemed small and I was lonely for the touch of a woman. I thought if I found a girl far enough from the castle and if I never told her who I was, then what would I have to fear?

“Five seasons later a young woman from the outlands came to court holding a bairn — you — I remembered the prophecy. I commanded that you be brought to me, with evil in my heart. I thought to kill you. But upon seeing your visage, I remembered all of the miracles in my life, the missed arrows, the healed wounds…and I realized would be unable to kill or have you killed, and if I were to send you away I would always be watching and waiting for the day you killed me.

“Then, in a moment of clarity I realized that all men suffer, and that all men are meant to die. If this prophecy were as true at the others, I should embrace this part of it and trust that it could be a good death, one that I welcome rather than fear, and would come at the time of my choosing.

“So I decided to keep you close, to care for you. I recognized you as my son and named you heir. And I am glad I did.” Just then another coughing fit shook his frame, leaving him gasping for breath. He looked to a goblet on the side table. “Please, help me take a drink.” I held the wine to his lips and he swallowed weakly.

“Thank you. I hope I have been a good father. As such, I shall leave you with a last piece of wisdom: I recommend you dump the remaining wine into the hedge beneath my window, lest Old Gray realize you poisoned me.” With that, he closed his eyes and his breathing slowed and stopped.

I put my head on my father’s shoulder and wept.

When at last I was able, I followed my father’s suggestion, then walked out of his chambers. Waiting just beyond the door was Sir Kay and several soldiers.

“My father is dead.”

As one they fell to their knees. Sir Kay loudly proclaimed: “all hail Oedipus, first King of his name.”

Note: Thank you for reading. This story is part of my Story-a-Day challenge for the month of January. Each story is written in one day with minimal editing. All feedback and criticism is welcome. Enjoy!