Instead, however, he turned to Baron Blackrock, who stood near him. “Have the Baroness of Middlecrescent brought to me,” he said softly. Baron Blackrock, trembling, hastened to obey, only to be caught by Middlecrescent’s restraining hand. “In chains,” Middlecrescent added, more softly still.
“Yes, my liege,” Blackrock gasped, though Middlecrescent was not yet his sovereign by law. He hastened away, summoning his men to follow.
The baron turned to Lionheart and Felix, surveying them with his cold eyes. Then he said, “Where is the girl? My wife’s lady who aided in this little venture?”
“Here, my lord!” cried Dovetree, hastening forward and curtsying deeply before the baron. She smiled most winningly and was very pretty in that place of execution. “At your service.”
“My service?” echoed the baron, eyeing her. His thin lids closed partially over the dark bulbs of his eyes but could not hide the light reflected there. “I do not keep traitors in my service.”
“What?” Dovetree gasped but had no time to say more before guards, at a motion from the baron, fell upon her and bound her, screaming, alongside Lionheart and Felix. “But, my lord! I saw to your rescue! If not for me, you’d still be—”
“Traitors will be granted no voice,” said the baron, adjusting the cloak he wore over his naked torso, fastening the buckles at the shoulder. “Gag her.”
Felix felt sick as he watched rough-handed men stuff rags into the girl’s mouth and tie a gag in place, muting Dovetree’s continued screams. Her eyes kept rolling toward the scaffold, and suddenly her knees buckled and she lay all but fainted upon the courtyard stones. Felix wished he could comfort her and had to remind himself that she had tricked them, had certainly brought about Lionheart’s death and, quite possibly, his own (given the look in the baron’s eye).
Lionheart stood with his head down, staring at the stones beneath his feet. Looking at him, Felix thought how strange it was to be here in this faraway foreign court beside the jester-prince, waiting to be hanged. It was perhaps stranger than their meeting in the Village of Dragons.
“Leonard,” Felix whispered, and Lionheart glanced at him through the thick tangle of hair falling over his forehead. “Leonard, forgive me. I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t, Prince Felix,” said Lionheart. But he couldn’t find more words to say, so he stared again at his feet.
Where was the Path? He had been promised a Path! But he saw only shadows and torchlight and the ominous scaffold, so near. Was this it, then? Was this the one and only quest that he, Childe Lionheart of Farthestshore, would face? Make peace with your father and . . . die.
But if so, what then? Had he a right to complain? He, who had plunged into the darkness of the Final Water and stared down the flaming throat of the Dragon . . . he who had been renewed, restored, forgiven.
“Very well,” he whispered to the one he hoped was listening, though he saw no sign of his presence. “Very well, my Lord. If this is what you would have of me, let me die with honor.”
Let me die for the sake of the cousin I have hated. And in my death, let me show love.
And that was the moment—with the pound of his blood in his temples and the rush of terror he could not suppress roiling in his gut—the moment he knew the impossible had happened. He loved Foxbrush. He loved his cousin, and he would die for him. Foolish Foxbrush. Weak Foxbrush. Chosen heir of the Eldest, baffled fool.
But none of that mattered, not now. Lionheart would die for him, and it would be a good death.
So Childe Lionheart stood straighter, throwing his head back and unbowing his shoulders. The guards restraining him shifted their grips and watched him uneasily, but he took no notice of them. He looked at Felix, and his eye was bright and his voice did not tremble when he said, “All will be well. Wait. Just wait . . .”
At that moment, the voice of the baroness was heard ringing across the courtyard. “I do not see why you should handle me so roughly! I can walk quite well on my own— Darling! ”
The baroness wafted across the courtyard in a flutter of butterfly frills. She flew to her husband, her face full of smiles, exclaiming, “Darling, how glad I am to see you well and whole! Have you quite changed your mind, then?”
Her guards caught her; otherwise she might have thrown her arms around the baron’s neck. He looked as though he had swallowed snake spit, his eyes bugging out from his face. But he spoke as quietly as ever, more quietly perhaps.
“How dare you speak to me thusly, woman?”
“But, darling,” said the baroness, as yet unaware of her peril, looking perplexed at the shackles on her wrists and the hands clamped like more shackles on her arms, “what do you mean?”
“You betrayed me,” said he. The gray of dawn streaking the sky fell upon the baron’s face and made him look so very old. Beneath the shielding cloak, he was a withered, wrinkled, gray man. And his voice was so low that only the baroness and those two who held her heard what he said (and those two turned their faces away and hoped to forget, as they valued their lives!).