Breaking fast with Queen Alayna

"Lord Duncan," you say in greeting as Duncan enters your parlor. The Sun shines in through the wide balcony window, illuminating the room with a cheerful light which does not match your mood. "Is there anything new to report?"

"Regarding our late-night visitor, I'm afraid very little," Duncan says, shaking his head. "The gauntlet, as I am sure you realized Sire, came from the suit of armor in your parlor. The dogs were able to track him for some distance, though to be sure they were hardly necessary, as a human nose served well enough. But the trail led to one of the hot springs in the forest, where the intruder had abandoned his clothing and then bathed in the water. The dogs were too confused by the stink from the sewer and the vapors from the spring; they could track him no further."

"Most of the springs in the forest are scalding; he must have burned himself."

"This pool was also fed by a stream of snowmelt. It is hot, but tolerable."

You shake your head. "It doesn't make sense. His motivations could only have been personal ones, borne of a sudden madness; and yet, everything that he did speaks of advance planning. He knew that he could access my chamber through Valerie's room, and according to Yvette he came upon her and tied her up at least an hour before I arrived, with a rope and hood he must have brought with him. He escaped through the privy shaft, which means he must have known that he could leave through the sewer instead of ending up in a cesspit with no way out. And, he knew the location of a spring where he could wash off the filth without burning his skin off as well."

"Any citizen of Elyssia might have known all these things, Sire."

"But I don't think he was of Elyssia," you say. "His demands involved my attempts to make a personal connection with Queen Alayna. The most likely reason is that he does not want a rival for her affections - but she has not been in Elyssia long enough for any man here to become so obsessed with her! It MUST be one of her people."

"We dare not make such an accusation without more solid proof, Sire."

"No, of course not. Wait - you said he left his clothing behind?"

"A simple tunic and pants, Sire, which he might have acquired anywhere. It gave us no clues, though we examined it closely." Duncan cannot help but make a sour face as he says this.

"I should like to know who performed that examination; that person's devotion to duty has just been demonstrated beyond measure." You think for a moment. "Duncan, see to it that the council is given all the information we have on this incident. They are free to talk to Yvette as well, though I insist that she be treated gently. Perhaps one of them will think of something which we have not." A bell rings far below in the city square. "That is the seven o'clock bell; Queen Alayna will be here any moment. Let us try to pretend that nothing unusual happened last night."

"Lemon cakes," Alayna says appreciatively as the delicacies are brought out and placed before her. "A rare treat, indeed."

"One of the benefits of our conservatory, my Queen," you tell her. "We have only two lemon trees, so we do not enjoy them as often as I would like, but this is a special occasion."

Around the table sit only you, Duncan, and Alayna... whose behavior has been such that the kiss which she surprised you with the night before might never have happened. Captain Navarre is absent from what would be his place at the door, as he had been awake through the night trying to find some clue as to the identity of your assailant, and you insisted that he needed some rest. In his place stands Sir Benedicht, and Sir Calloway stands next to him.

"Yes, and because of that I fear we must proceed at once to more serious matters," Alayna says. "I would not wish to make you late for your parade, after all. Let me tell you exactly why I am here, King Xavier."

"I am listening."

"Yesterday, you asked what it is that I fight for," Alayna says. "I told you at the time that my answer was short and necessarily incomplete, and so it was. In truth, I do indeed battle to reclaim my family home, the Castle Moselle and the valley which surrounds it, which were unjustly taken from my grandfather the Lord Raymond de Beaumanoir... but there is more than that."

"Forgive me for interrupting, Your Majesty," Lord Duncan says quietly. "I have done my own research regarding your family's downfall, and the loss of your home and lands. Everything I have found indicates that Lord Eduoard assumed legal title over Castle Moselle as payment of a large debt incurred by your grandfather. While the man is undeniably a scoundrel, and by all reports not to be trusted, Eduoard does seem to have a legitimate claim."

Alayna's eyes blaze for a moment. "Eduoard took advantage of my grandfather's declining mind," she says, keeping her voice low and steady. "He drew my house into foolhardy investments and then watched as our gold disappeared, encouraged my grandfather to borrow more and more from him while promising that the investments would show profit in due course. Those who might have advised him otherwise had been bought by Eduoard, and so they said nothing. I knew that something was amiss, but there was naught I could do; my grandfather saw me only as a sweet young girl of six or seven summers, even when I became a woman grown. Eduoard, loathsome snake that he is, robbed my grandfather as surely as if he had broken into the castle and taken it by ****."

"And King Olivier allowed this, obviously," you say. "May I ask why?"

"The King had no love for my grandfather," Alayna says. "The House of Beaumanoir refused to send knights on a crusade to the Holy Land when Olivier first took the throne. My great-grandfather was Lord at the time, and he said that if God wished for Christians to rule Jerusalem, then He would make it so without the need for battle and bloodshed. King Olivier has never forgiven that slight, even after my great-grandfather passed. The King does not love Eduoard either, but rumor has it that Eduoard has some hidden influence over the crown - though I have not been able to discover what that is."

"What of your own parents, Your Majesty?" Duncan asks.

"Taken by the pox, when I was only a babe," Alayna says. "I never knew them. I was raised by my grandfather, and by the castle servants."

"You said last night that you had appealed to the King for justice, and when that failed, you determined to raise an army," you say. "That would seem a daunting task - and if you will pardon me, it would be near-impossible for a young woman with little in the way of resources. How did you go about it, then?"

"The people who lived upon my grandfather's lands loved him," she says. "He treated them justly, kept his taxes low, and stood willing to defend them from outside threats whenever necessary. When I was **** from my home, I went immediately to the village and rallied as many as I could to my cause. Only a few joined me at once, but I made sure they would know where to find me later... and when Eduoard raised the taxes and instituted brutal enforcement, many more came to offer me their fealty. We were little more than a band of outlaws at first, attacking Eduoard's wagons and retreating into the woods. It was a matter of chance which allowed us to become something more, when we accosted a procession which turned out to be taxes collected for King Olivier. I took the coin with no pang of conscience; I felt it was owed to me as compensation for what he had allowed Eduoard to do to my family.

"And so, we had coin aplenty," Alayna continues. "The question remained as to how we could use it. Although a chest of gold and silver is considerable wealth, it could not be nearly enough to buy my home back from Eduoard, even if he were of a mind to sell and even if I could lower myself to make a deal with the Devil. In any event, we could not spend the coin without revealing ourselves as those who had taken it, and that would surely bring King Olivier's wrath down upon us - a thing which we had thus far avoided, as the King was pleased to let Eduoard deal with his own troubles. It was Sir Calloway who convinced me of what we must do. If we stayed in Moselle, we would never be more than outlaws in the woods; we simply did not have the strength of arms nor the influence with the King to deal with Eduoard directly. My heart rebelled against the very idea of leaving, for I had feared that once we lost sight of the valley we might never return to see it again; it felt as though we were conceding to Eduoard, abandoning our home. But if we continued to live as thieves, I knew that we would soon be as low and mean as thieves must inevitably become, until we would no longer be worthy to fly the banner of Beaumanoir from the towers of Castle Moselle."

Alayna pauses for a moment. "I have not yet answered your question, I know," she says. "What I am about to tell you now, King Xavier, is a great secret. I can proceed no further unless I have your word, and that of Lord Duncan and even Sir Benedicht, that it will not be told to another living soul. I will hold you to your word, King Xavier, whether you choose to ally yourself with me or not. If this is a promise you cannot make, then I will take my soldiers and leave this place, never to return. But if you make this promise, then by God you must keep it! What say you?"