Knight's Ransom (The First Argentines #1)(4)

Gervase looked back at the barrel and watched the hangman put the noose around the boy’s neck. Marshall shifted enough to glance at the king. He looked confused, and there was a little spark of worry in his eyes.

Lord Gilbert nodded to the hangman to kick the barrel.

“Stop,” Gervase said, marching forward suddenly, his heart sizzling with unbearable pain. “Stop, or you’ll hang next!”

The hangman backed away from the barrel, eyes wide with surprise and mouth grinning with relief.

Lord Gilbert whirled on him, eyes blazing. “If you do this, you’ll lose. We all will! Think on what we’ve already lost!” For an instant, the king thought Lord Gilbert might defy him and kick the barrel himself.

The boy, Marshall, lifted the noose away from his neck with trembling hands. Many of the men were weeping openly, and the boy was clearly frightened. Even if he did not understand precisely what was happening, he knew something was terribly wrong.

The king reached the barrel and gripped the boy by the ribs, lifting him up and setting him down on the dewy turf. He knelt beside the child and took his hand, afraid at what he’d almost done. What he’d almost allowed himself to be persuaded to do. The hollow crown sat in a chest in his tent, but he still felt the weight of it. Would King Andrew have ever stooped to murdering a child? Even the child of an enemy?

Never.

The boy gave a quizzical look to the king kneeling before him.

“Did you get a good view, Marshall?” he asked.

“It-it was . . .” His voice trailed away, and tears gathered on the young man’s lashes.

The boy’s father had rejected him. Gervase stared over the lad’s shoulder at the small castle and the men hunkering at the walls. That meant the child was forfeit.

“Let’s go home,” said the king in a kind voice. “Let’s go back to Kingfountain. I’m your father now.”





Four years now. I’ve been at Kingfountain for four years. But the king has died, and now there is no more requirement to hold a hostage for obedience, so we’re all going home. I’m finally going home to Connaught. My homeland. My true people.

It hasn’t been all bad, though, and I have to admit I’ll miss the books. I love reading the histories, even if they’re full of a bunch of nonsense about Fountain-blessed lads and lasses. I prefer the Gaultic tales of the Aos Sí and the barrow magic. The stories my mother told me before she died of the pox. The only people I’m sorry to leave are the Gaultic undercook, Siena, and Ransom.

Looking back on it now, it’s obvious that King Gervase sowed the seeds of his own downfall when he wouldn’t murder an innocent child. It caused a row with the last lords supporting him. And then his only son choked and died, poor sod. With his wife and heir both dead, what else could he do but give the kingdom to Devon Argentine, the Duke of Westmarch? He caved to the inevitable and declared Argentine his heir, and wouldn’t you be amazed? The rebellions stopped at once.

Now King Gervase is dead too, poor sod, and today is his funeral. His corpse will be plopped in a boat coffin, they’ll shove him into the river, and down he’ll go over the falls by the sanctuary of Our Lady. I thought it more than peculiar the first time I witnessed it. They think we in Legault are a superstitious people, but they throw coins into fountains hoping for favor. I nicked one once when I first came here, but the servant who caught me made me put it back and warned me if I was caught again, I’d get tossed into the river too. After that, I always made sure no one was watching.

Da is finally taking me back to Legault today. I can’t wait to be home and go hunting again with him. I won’t miss the prattling chatter of the court.

It’s a glorious day.

—Claire de Murrow

Palace at Kingfountain

(on the death rites of a king)





CHAPTER ONE

A King’s End

It was the Gaultic girl’s fault that everyone had come to call him Ransom. She’d meant it as a joke at first. She did like to tease, and for some reason, she liked teasing him the most. But the name had stuck, mostly because everyone in the palace knew the story of how he’d nearly been hung from a trebuchet in front of the walls of his father’s castle. His father had gambled with his life, shrewdly predicting that the king wouldn’t go through with his threat. And he hadn’t. For which Ransom was deeply grateful and deeply hurt.

It was a breezy day, and so the words of the deconeus were difficult to hear as he rambled on in his liturgy, the prayer over the dead. Ransom crossed his hands in front of himself, standing still, even though he had the urge to crane his neck and try to get a better view. Everyone at the palace, servants and all, had gathered to witness the occasion. King Gervase’s stiff body lay in a canoe on the edge of the royal docks. His cheeks were gray and looked nothing like the man in the flesh. Yes, the body bore a strange resemblance to the man he’d known, but he didn’t look the same without his smile, which he’d always reserved for Ransom and Claire—of the dozen or so hostages of varying ranks—or the laugh lines around his eyes. Near the end, there wasn’t much the king could smile about. But he had always taken time for his son, Ransom, and Claire—a walk through the royal gardens, a pretend duel with wooden swords, or a sweet from the kitchen. He’d seemed lighter at those times, happier.