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Perhaps we would never know.
“Will you hold him?” Alexandra said as she held our son out to me.
I took him from her as she bent down to remove a bit of rubble stuck in her shoe. She held her hands out to take him back, but I turned away, holding him against my cheek and inhaling slowly. The scent of him was calming, and I found having him in our rooms helped me sleep these past few days. Alexandra looked at me sideways and smashed her lips together to keep from laughing at me. I feigned anger and walked a little ways toward the castle wall and the debris that was once the tower.
“Between you, his aunt, and his grandmother,” I told her, “I have barely touched him since yesterday.”
Alexandra could not argue but stood at my side and looked over the piles of broken furniture, stone, and wood strewn across the ground. I was about to relinquish little Branford when I saw Alexandra’s eyes narrow just before she took several quick steps forward and bent down.
When she stood again, her hand held an intricately carved bowl.
“Look at this!” she called out as she turned it around in her hands. “Is it familiar to you?”
“It does look like the one you brought with you when you came to Silverhelm,” I said. “The way all the wood pieces fit together is amazing.”
“I wonder if this one is like the one I have,” she said softly as she turned the bowl upside down. Pushing with her thumb, she slid one of the short rectangular pieces on the bottom of the bowl to one side, revealing a hole.
“What is this?” I asked.
“I found it by accident,” she said. “I dropped my bowl, and a piece fell out. I thought it was broken, but when I put the piece back, I realized it had been made that way purposely.”
She tilted the bowl to the side, and we both heard and saw the movement of something inside the hole at the bottom.
“Oh!” Alexandra suddenly exclaimed. “There is something inside of this one!”
She reached her slender fingers inside the small cavity and pulled out a piece of parchment. It was old and crumpled, but the red seal in wax was still obviously the seal of Hadebrand. I held out my hand and Alexandra gave the item to me.
VR-
Duke Branford has refused the betrothal. It is time to move against them. Once you have disposed of them both, his heir can be raised here. The forests around the castle will fall into my hands; it will just take a little longer to get the reward you four have earned.
-KE
Despite the cryptic qualities of the brief note, it was still clear to me. The note was to Yagmur, one of the men who had mentored and raised me, and it had come from King Edgar. Even with the broken seal, this was enough evidence to have been brought before a council of royals. This would have been enough to have even a king tried for his actions.
And that is when I knew for what Edgar had searched.
Chapter 5—Peacefully Exist
The next few days flew by in comparison to the last few. My family was safe, and those who had threatened us were practically eliminated. I would deal with the two remaining perpetrators in this plot against me and my family—a plot that had apparently gone on for decades—when that time came to pass. Though the treachery was still on my mind, it did not consume me as it once had. Between my wife and my child, I was at peace for the first time since my own childhood.
The way Alexandra took to motherhood astonished me. It was as if she was simply born for the role. Whereas I felt awkward those first few days with my newborn son, she held him, cooed at him, and calmed him almost instantly. I strived to soothe him as well as she did, but I lacked one primary advantage when it came to ceasing Prince Branford’s cries—milk.
I was actually beginning to get a little jealous of the amount of contact between the lad and my wife’s full breasts, especially since Sunniva informed me I was not to touch Alexandra or attempt to lie with her again for many weeks.
Weeks!
I felt as though I had been sent to the stocks. Actually, that option might have been more comfortable. If I had not been so bone-weary from having the child wake us both in the middle of every night, I would have been more distressed over it. As it was, Alexandra and I were both equally exhausted after caring for our little one throughout the nights, not that either of us would have had it any other way. We insisted on keeping him with us each night though Sunniva often suggested letting another care for him so we could sleep. I would not have it. Dealing with the interruptions was a small price to pay to keep him close and safe.
Besides, I still slept better than I ever had in my entire adult life.
Alexandra was near me, warm and invitingly close to me, even if we were mandated to nothing more than holding each other and sleeping. My son was in the room with us; my people were increasingly content, and their security was established. My most trusted soldiers made sure of it.
A handful of guards, organized by Dunstan, began to make regular patrols between Silverhelm, Sterling, and the lands formerly known as Hadebrand, which the people now simply referred to as South Silverhelm. Very few skirmishes occurred after the fall of Edgar and his family, but there were still a few supporters who attempted to hide out in the forests and ambush my guards as they traveled. I wanted to be sure the new citizens of Silverhelm felt safe to travels the roads.
And travel they did.
Every day, dozens of serfs showed up at the castle gates to pay tribute either to their new king or to the infant prince. The child seemed to have collected enough clothing by the second week of life to allow him to never wear the same thing twice as long as he did not outgrow it first.
