“You’re the first one I’ve ever spoken to,” Myron replied as if he were boasting a great achievement.
“Really?” Ella said with a smile and feigned bashfulness. “I’m so honored. I haven’t been a man’s first in years.” She laughed but Myron only looked at her, puzzled.
“You’ve a lovely home,” Myron told her. “It looks very … sturdy.”
She laughed again. “It’s not mine, ducky, I just work here. It belongs to the nobles, like all the nice places do. Us normal folk, we lives in sheds and shacks and fights over what they throw away. We’re sorta like dogs that way, aren’t we? Course, I ain’t complaining. The Pickerings aren’t a bad lot. Not as snooty as some of the other nobles, who think the sun rises and falls because it pleases them. The count won’t even have a chambermaid. He doesn’t let no one help him dress neither. I’ve even seen him fetch water for himself more than once. He’s downright daft, that one. His boys take after him too. You can see it in the way they saddle their own horses. That Fanen, why, just the other day I seen him swinging a smith’s hammer. He was having Vern show him how to mend a blade. Now I asks you, how many nobles you see trying to learn the blacksmith trade? Can I get anyone another cup of cider?”
They all shook their heads and took turns yawning.
“Lenare, now she takes after her mother. They’re a pair, they are. Both are pretty as a rose and smell just as sweet, but they do has their thorns. The temper those two have is frightful. The daughter is worse than the mother. She used to train with her brothers and was beating the stuffing out of Fanen until she discovered she was a lady and they don’t do such things.”
Myron’s eyes closed and his head drooped, and suddenly the chair toppled as the monk fell over. He woke with a start and struggled to his knees. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Ella was so busy laughing she couldn’t answer and simply waved her hand at him. “You’ve had a long night, dear,” she finally managed to say. “Let me set you up in the back before that chair bucks you off again.”
Myron hung his head and said quietly, “I have the same problem with horses.”
Alric told his story to the Pickerings over breakfast. As soon as he finished, the count shooed his sons out and called for his staff to begin arranging for a full-scale mobilization of Galilin. While Pickering dispatched orders, Alric left the great hall and began wandering through the corridors of the castle. This was the first time he had been alone since his father’s death. He felt as though he was caught up in the current of a river, whisked along by the events unfolding around him. Now it was time to take control of his destiny.
Alric saw few people in the corridors. Aside from the occasional suit of armor or painting on the wall, there was little to distract his thoughts. Drondil Fields, though smaller than Essendon, felt larger due to its horizontal layout, which sprawled across the better part of the hilltop. Where Essendon Castle had several towers and lofty chambers that rose many stories high, Drondil Fields was only four stories at its tallest point. Because it was a fortress, fireproofing was essential, so the roof was made of stone rather than wood, requiring thick walls to support its weight. Because the windows were small and deep, they let in little light, which made the interior cave-like.
He remembered running through these corridors as a child, chasing Mauvin and Fanen. They had held mock battles, which the Pickerings had always won. He had always trumped them by bringing up that he would be king someday. At the age of twelve, it had been wonderful to be able to taunt a friend who had bested him with “Sure, but I’ll be king. You’ll have to bow to me and do as I say.” The thought that in order for him to become king his father would have to die had never really occurred to him. He had no idea what being the king really meant.