“Your Majesty, do not worry. I’ll take care of everything. I know how hard this must be. You’re still a young man and—”
“What are you talking about?” Alric looked at him. “Take care of what? What are you taking care of?”
“A number of things, Your Majesty. There is the securing of the castle, the investigation as to how this happened, the apprehension of those responsible, arrangements for the funeral and, of course, the eventual coronation.”
“Coronation?”
“You are king now, Sire. We will need to arrange your crowning ceremony, but that, of course, can wait until we have everything else settled.”
“But I thought—Wylin told me the murderers have been captured.”
“He captured two of them. I’m just making certain there aren’t any more.”
“What will happen to them?” He looked back at the still form of his father. “The killers, what will happen to them?”
“That is up to you, Your Royal Majesty. Their fate is yours to decide, unless you would prefer I handle the matter for you, since it can be quite unpleasant.”
Alric turned to his uncle. “I want them to die, Uncle Percy. I want them to suffer horribly and then die.”
“Of course, Your Majesty, of course. I assure you they will.”
The dungeons of Essendon Castle lay buried two stories beneath the earth. Groundwater seeped through cracks in the walls and wet the face of the stone. Fungus grew in the mortar between stone blocks, and mold coated the wood of doors, stools, and buckets. The foul, musty smell mixed with the stench of decay, and the corridors echoed with the mournful cries of doomed men. Despite the rumors told in Medford’s taverns, the castle dungeons had a limited capacity. Needless to say, the prison staff found room for the king-killers. They moved prisoners to provide Royce and Hadrian with their own private cell.
News of the king’s death did not take long to spread, and for the first time in years, the prisoners had something exciting to talk about.
“Who woulda thought I’d outlast old Amrath,” a gravelly voice muttered. He laughed, but the laughter quickly broke into a series of coughs and sputters.
“Any chance the prince might review our sentences on account of all this?” a weaker, younger voice asked. “I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it?”
This question was met with a lengthy silence, more coughing, and a sneeze.
“The guard said they stabbed the bastard in the back right in his own chapel. What does that say about his piety?” a new, bitter voice questioned. “Seems to me he was asking for a bit too much from the man upstairs.”
“The ones that done it are in our old cell. They moved me and Danny out to make room. I saw them when they shifted us—two of them, one big, the other little.”
“Anyone know them? Maybe they was trying to break some of us out and got sidetracked, eh?”
“Gotta have some pretty big brass ones to kill a king in his own castle. They won’t get a trial, not even one for show. I’m surprised they’ve lived this long.”
“Gonna want a public torture before the execution. Things been quiet a long time. Haven’t had a good torture in years.”
“So why ya think they did it?”
“Why don’t you ask ’em?”
“Hey, over there? You conscious in that cell of yours? Or did they beat you stupid?”
“Maybe they’re dead.”
They were not dead but neither were they talking. Royce and Hadrian stood chained to the far wall of their cell, their ankles locked in stocks, and their mouths gagged with leather muzzles. They had been there only for the better part of an hour, but already the strain on Hadrian’s muscles was painful. The soldiers had removed their gear, cloaks, boots, and tunics, leaving them with nothing but their britches to fight the damp chill of the dungeon.
They hung listening to the rambling conversations of the other inmates. The conversation halted at heavy approaching footfalls. The door to the cellblock opened and banged against the interior wall.
“Right this way, Your Royal Highness—I mean, Your Royal Majesty,” the voice of the dungeon warden said rapidly.
A metal key twisted in the lock, and the door to their cell creaked open. Four royal bodyguards led the prince and his uncle, Percy Braga, inside. Hadrian recognized Braga, the Archduke and Lord Chancellor of Melengar, but he had never seen Alric before. The prince was young, perhaps no more than twenty. He was short, thin, and delicate in appearance with light brown hair that reached to his shoulders and only the ghost of a beard. His stature and features must have come from his mother, because the former king had been a bear of a man. He wore only a silk nightshirt with a massive sword strapped comically to his side by an oversized leather belt.
“These are the ones?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Braga replied.