AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Remind me of your names,” Rowan said, calm but firm as steel.
“Mercy, sir.”
“Mercy?” Rowan echoed. “That’s quite an unusual name. Can’t say I’ve heard it before,” he said in a dry tone that lacked humor. “You slaughtered the prince of Norland like a lamb. After the city had surrendered. A quick death is a mercy. If God were good, you’d suffer the same as the prince, cut for cut.”
Silence held.
They offered no names to him. Very well. Rowan closed his eyes and muttered a prayer. After he was done, he whispered to the first soldier, who was now moments away from his death. “If you have any last words, I ask that you speak them now.”
Naked panic appeared in his eyes. He squeezed his hands together again as if in prayer. That stoked Rowan’s anger.
“Quit your pleas. I am no god. I’m just a soldier and now the lord of this castle.”
“Indeed, sir… and as such, you can let me live. I’ve fought for you and would have gladly died in your name. You can choose to answer injustice with mercy.”
Rowan inhaled, taking in a lungful of the castle’s drafty air. Idly, he looked past the cowering man to Edrick, who had a flat expression on his face and ire in his eyes. “I thank you for your loyalty. But I didn’t take this castle on a whim or tyrant’s errand. I mean to bleed out the corruption, and I will. Starting now.”
And so it began.
The silence that followed was complete. Rowan dug the point of his longsword into the rushes and said the old words with solemn duty, words he’d heard a hundred times before and would likely recite a hundred times more.
“Through this holy anointing, may the Lord, in his love and mercy, help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you. I, Rowan of the House Dietrich, by the will of the Lord and all that is righteous, do sentence you to die.”
The longsword hammered down with a fist of justice, and the watcher cried out.
Three, Rowan Dietrich dejectedly affirmed. Three guards had stood outside the door.
* * *
It was a first breath.
But what had she been born into?
Blanchette woke with violent coughs as water spewed from her mouth. Gentle hands flipped her over and patted her back like one might a babe. Her fingertips dug into the moist earth. Blanchette felt as her stomach muscles contracted and voided her gut of more water. It spilled from her body in a painful torrent. Dawn’s first light glinted through the trees and illuminated the muddy floor.
“There we are. Get it all out, milady. Purge yourself despite the pain,” a man’s voice urged, his tone gentler than his hands.
Then another voice cut through the haze—a child’s voice. It was light. Airy. Almost angelic. “Is she going to live, Pa?”
“I believe so, if God wills it to be. And with our help, of course.” Blanchette felt herself being lifted from the muddy ground. The man groaned from the exertion.
“What if they come back? I’m frightened.”
“I’m certain they will. But we won’t be here when they return.”
Pain spread through Blanchette. Her body felt like a rag doll. She remembered her mother’s limp body and expelled a drawn-out sob. The man groaned again, then spoke to the boy. “Help me, Petyr. Your old pa’s back isn’t as strong as it once was. There we are now. Careful, but quickly…”
Three
Sunlight shone across the river. Princess Blanchette Winslowe, little more than a girl, ran at a breakneck speed and stripped off her wimple and habit. She rejoiced at the feeling of the sun on her skin, the wind in her curls, and the dirt under her heels.
It was her kingdom’s soil. A very part of herself.
“Oh, Princess! Princess, no! No, no, no, oh Lord, be good!” Governess Agnes called after her, carrying her heavy black skirts and fighting to keep pace. The sharp angles of her face pinched together in horror and dismay. It was rather endearing. “Princess, that is most unseemly! You mustn’t—oh, you naughty girl! No, no, no! Get back here, you bad thing, or the king shall have my head!”
Blanchette’s boots and socks came off next. She glanced over her shoulder at her governess, who was huffing and puffing like some beached walrus.
“Lord, have mercy!” she lamented whilst Blanchette donned nothing more than her smallclothes and strangers looked on.
