What The King Knows

Three days after the Renard night Aldric was summoned to the King.

The summons came through official channels. A page at the door. A sealed envelope. The crown's seal. Aldric took it and opened it and read the short message inside. Ser Aldric Vane is requested to attend His Majesty King Aldous the Fourth in the royal study at the eighth bell on the morrow. Dress appropriately. Bring no weapons.

No weapons. That was unusual. A knight attending the King armed was a sign of his station. A knight attending the King unarmed was a sign of something else. Trust or vulnerability or submission. Aldric read the instruction again and the cold started in his stomach the way it always did when something was wrong.

He went to Elara. She was in her sitting room reading correspondence. He told her about the summons. Her face went still.

"Unarmed," she said.

"Yes."

"He wants you vulnerable. He wants to see you without your armor. Not just the steel. All of it."

"What should I do."

"Go. Refusing a royal summons is not an option. Go and be what you are. Simple. Loyal. Dull. Give him nothing."

"He may already have something."

She looked at him. "What do you mean."

"Renard. Renard reports to the King. Renard was in your room three nights ago. If Renard has told him about the arrangement between us."

"Renard does not know about the arrangement. He knows you are my knight. He knows you stand outside doors. He does not know about the room."

"He knows I stand outside doors. That is enough for the King to ask questions."

She stood. She came to him and she put her hand on his chest. Over the scars. The gesture had become a reflex. A way of checking that what was between them was still real.

"If he asks you about us tell him there is nothing to tell. If he asks about Renard tell him you do not know Lord Renard's business. If he asks about me tell him I am a good mistress who gives clear orders and expects them followed. Be the simple man I called you at the dinner."

"Simple."

"Simple. Invisible. Forgettable. That is your armor tomorrow. Not steel. Dullness."

She removed her hand. "Go. Sleep. Tomorrow will be a performance and you need to be ready for it."

He did not sleep. He lay in his closet and stared at the ceiling and thought about the King and what the King might know and what the King might want and the ceiling offered no answers.

At the eighth bell he presented himself at the royal study. He wore a clean tunic and breeches and no armor and no sword and he felt naked. The page led him through corridors he had mapped but never entered. The deeper parts of the palace. The parts where the King lived rather than ruled.

The study was small. Intimate. A room for work not display. Books on shelves. A desk. A fire. Two chairs. Aldous sat behind the desk and he wore the same casual clothes he had worn at the private dinner and he looked up when Aldric entered and he smiled.

"Ser Aldric. Thank you for coming. Please sit."

Aldric sat in the chair across from the desk. The chair was lower than the King's chair. Deliberately. The geometry of the room put the King above. A small manipulation. The kind Aldric had been trained to notice.

"I wanted to speak with you privately," Aldous said. "Away from the court. Away from my sister. Man to man."

"Your majesty."

"You have been in my sister's service for how long."

"Four months your majesty."

"And before that."

"The household. Border service. Standard postings."

"And in those four months you have served her faithfully."

"I have done my duty your majesty."

"Your duty." Aldous leaned back in his chair. He studied Aldric the way a man studies a document. Looking for the fine print. "Tell me something Ser Aldric. In your experience of my sister. How do you find her."

"She is a good mistress. Her orders are clear. Her expectations are reasonable."

"That is a very careful answer."

"I am a careful man your majesty."

"Are you. Or are you simply a man who has been told what to say." Aldous smiled. The warm smile. The one that did not reach his eyes. "I ask because my sister has a history. With the men who serve her. The previous knight. Ser Colven. Did she mention him."

"She mentioned that he departed her service."

"He departed. That is one way to describe it. Another way is that he fled. He came to me. Did you know that. He came to the palace and he asked for reassignment and when I asked him why he told me things about my sister that I found disturbing."

Aldric did not move. He did not react. He sat in the chair and he kept his face blank and his hands still and he waited.

"Ser Colven told me that my sister has certain proclivities," Aldous continued. His voice was calm. Conversational. As though discussing weather. "He told me that she requires things of the men who serve her that go beyond the normal scope of duty. He told me that she is controlling. Manipulative. That she uses her position to take things from men who are not in a position to refuse."

"Your majesty I have not experienced anything of that nature."

Aldous looked at him. The smile faded. What replaced it was not anger. It was something colder. Interest.

"Stand up," he said.

Aldric stood.

"Remove your tunic."

The cold in Aldric's stomach became ice. He stood very still. The King looked at him and the cold in the King's eyes said this was not a request.

"Your majesty."

"Remove your tunic Ser Aldric. I want to see what my sister has done to you."

Aldric's hands moved. Slowly. He pulled the tunic over his head and stood bare chested before the King of the realm and the scars were there. Five lines across his chest. The bite mark on his neck. The old burn scar on his shoulder. The thin white lines on his back from her nails. All of it visible. All of it permanent. All of it hers.

Aldous looked at the scars and his face changed. The cold interest became something else. Something Aldric had not expected. The King's jaw tightened. His hands clenched on the desk. A flush rose in his cheeks that was not embarrassment. It was anger. Real anger. The first real emotion Aldric had seen on the King's face.

"Sit down," Aldous said. His voice had changed. No longer warm. No longer conversational. Low and tight.

Aldric put his tunic back on and sat.

"Who did this to you."

Aldric said nothing.

"Ser Aldric. I am your King. I am asking you a direct question. Who put these marks on your body."

Aldric looked at the King and he saw something he had not expected to see. Disgust. The King was not disgusted by Aldric. He was disgusted by what had been done to him. The warm mask had fallen and what was underneath was not the calculating predator Aldric had imagined. It was a man who had just discovered that his sister had been cutting someone.

"My sister did this," Aldous said. It was not a question.

Aldric said nothing.

"She did this and you let her. And you came here and you stood outside her door and you guarded her and you did not tell anyone."

Silence.

"Did she threaten you."

"No your majesty."

"Did she force you."

"No your majesty."

"Then why."

Aldric looked at the King and he thought about the question and he thought about the answer and the answer was not simple but the King had asked and the King deserved something.

"I swore an oath your majesty."

"To serve."

"To serve."

"And this is serving."

"It is what she required."

Aldous stood. He walked to the window. He stood with his back to Aldric and his hands were behind his back and his fingers were interlocked and he was squeezing them. The knuckles were white.

"My sister has been in my palace for three weeks," he said. "Three weeks. And in that time she has continued to do this. To a man who serves her. A man who bled for her. A man who carries her marks on his skin like a brand."

He turned.

"I brought her here because I wanted to watch her. I wanted to know what she was planning. I thought she was a threat to my throne. And she may be. But what I see now is that she is a threat to everything decent. She is sick. What she has done to you is not politics. It is not strategy. It is cruelty. Pure cruelty. And you have let her because you took an oath and you are too simple to understand that an oath to a monster is not an oath worth keeping."

Aldric felt the words land. Each one. Simple. Monster. He did not flinch. He did not respond. He sat in the chair and he let the King say what the King needed to say.

"I am sending you to the front," Aldous said. "The southern border. The Darrow skirmishes. You will leave in two days. You will serve there until I decide otherwise."

"Your majesty my place is with the lady Elara."

"Your place is where I put you. And I am putting you as far from my sister as this kingdom allows." He leaned forward. "I am not doing this to punish you Ser Aldric. I am doing this to save you. Whether you want to be saved or not."

Aldric looked at the King and he saw something in the man's face that he had not expected. sincerity. The King meant it. He was disgusted. He was angry. And he was doing what he believed was right. He was removing Aldric from Elara not as a political move but as a moral one.

That made it worse. A political move could be countered. A moral conviction could not.

"Your majesty," Aldric said. "If I may."

"You may not. The audience is over. You will return to your quarters. You will tell my sister that you have been reassigned by royal order. You will not tell her what we discussed. You will not tell her what I saw. You will leave in two days."

He looked at Aldric and the sincerity was still there and the anger was still there and they sat together on his face like two colors that should not mix.

"Go," he said.

Aldric went. He walked through the corridors of the palace and he felt the absence of his sword like a missing limb and the absence of his armor like missing skin and he was exposed. Not just physically. Everything had been exposed. The scars. The marks. The thing between him and Elara had been seen by the one person who could use it and the one person who could destroy it.

He went to her room. He knocked. She opened the door and she looked at his face and she knew.

"What happened."

He told her. All of it. The summons. The study. The tunic. The scars. The King's face. The reassignment. The front.

She listened and her face went through every wall he had ever seen her build. The mask. The calculation. The fear. The rage. And finally something he had never seen. Helplessness. She stood in the doorway and she was helpless and she did not know what to do with it and it sat on her like a weight she could not lift.

"He saw the scars," she said.

"He saw all of them."

"And he was disgusted."

"He called you sick."

Her face tightened. "He would."

"He called me simple."

Something shifted. The helplessness receded. Something harder took its place.

"He is sending you away."

"Two days. The southern border."

"The Darrow front." She was quiet for a moment. "Men die on that front."

"Men die everywhere."

"Not like that. Not at that rate." She looked at him. "He is sending you there to die. He is dressing it as rescue but he is sending you there because you are mine and he wants to take you from me."

"He said it was to save me."

"He said. My brother says many things. What he does is different." She stepped back from the door. "Come in."

He went in. She closed the door.

"Two days," she said. She stood by the fire and she looked at him and her face was working. Shifting. Calculating. "Two days and then you are gone and I am alone in this palace with him."

"You have Thorne. You have the network."

"Thorne is outside the palace. The network is slow. You are here. You are the only thing between me and whatever he decides to do."

"He has not moved against you."

"He moved against you. That is the same thing."

She was quiet for a long time. The fire crackled. The palace was silent around them.

"Go," she said. "Go to the front. Do what he says. Survive. Come back."

"My lady."

"When you come back. If you come back. I will be here. And whatever my brother has done to me in your absence you will find me and I will be here."

"Elara."

She looked at him and the love was on her face again. Not for three seconds. Not hidden. It was there and she was not fighting it and she was not hiding it and she let him see it and she let herself feel it and it was the bravest thing he had ever seen her do.

"Go," she said. "And come back."

He went to his closet and he packed his armor and his sword and he did not sleep and the two days passed like hours and like years and when the time came he rode south and he did not look back because looking back would have killed him faster than any Darrow blade.