All The King's-Men (The Yellow Hoods, #3) (2 page)

Richy raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Doesn’t your dad say that the enemy of my enemy is my next enemy?”

Egelina-Marie chuckled. “He does. He’s never wrong on that either.” She paused as she drafted a plan. “Okay, when I shoot, I want you to get as close to their position as possible. That wounded guy’s arm just slumped, so I’m guessing we won’t have a lot of time to get to him.”

“Ready,” said Richy.

Taking a well-practiced, calming breath, Eg thought back to her earliest days, when she would borrow one of her father’s rifles without permission and slink off into the forest to shoot targets. Every type of rifle had its own personality, and not having fired this type before, she knew she had at most one chance to learn how to use it before needing to fire its last shot perfectly.

Richy jumped as Eg fired. The shot just missed one of the riflemen’s legs. 

“Okay, so it fires low and to the left,” she said, cranking the side of the rifle to prepare it for its next shot. She glanced in Richy’s direction and saw the canopy bridge over the action expanding out.

The two riflemen started to argue, and one pulled a pistol on the other. “Woo,” said Eg to herself. “These guys are some really nasty pargos.” Steadying her hand, she pulled the trigger and nothing happened. “Jammed!” 

Eg caught the glint of something falling from the trees, and smiled as both riflemen flailed about while the shock-sticks made their presence known.

She scrambled over to Richy’s position, and they descended together.

“Who are you?” asked the wounded soldier as they approached him. His face was pasty white and his uniform jacket was soaked in blood.

Egelina-Marie kneeled down beside him and studied his jacket. “We’re the guys who just saved you. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What?” said Richy, trying to make sense of why the soldier was giving up. “You’re going to be all good soon, right, Eg?”

Egelina-Marie and the soldier stared at him, letting him in on the reality of the situation.

Knowing they didn’t have much time, Eg turned back to the soldier and said, “We’re from Minette. We saw some soldiers like you earlier today. Why were you running?”

“Mineau?” said the soldier, blinking, his eyes going wide with each painful breath.

“Close enough,” said Eg, opening his jacket and wrinkling her face as she saw the extent of his wounds.

“I’m sorry,” he said, gulping for air.

“Eg, do something!” said Richy, his eyes welling up.

A moment later, the soldier’s face went slack.

Egelina-Marie bowed her head and closed his eyes with her hand. After whispering a few words on the wind, Eg saw the expression on Richy’s face. She knew that expression all too well.

“Richy? Are you okay?” she asked, walking over to him and rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said, retrieving his dropped shock-sticks.

“What do we do now?” he asked, still half-dazed.

“We get back to my horse and your sail-cart.”

“We’re going after Bakon, right?” he asked hopefully.

“I… I need to think,” replied Egelina-Marie, a sadness creeping across her face.

“Egelina-Marie, you are not going out with those friends of yours without this backpack!” thundered Lieutenant Gabriel Archambault to his fifteen-year-old daughter. His huge right hand pointed at the leather backpack he’d prepared for her. He looked like an average father in his brown pantaloons, beige knee-high socks, jerkin, and white shirt.

The ponytailed Egelina-Marie glared at him, arms crossed, her brown eyes narrowed. She was the spitting image of her father, just smaller and female. She had his eyes and was similarly dressed. “Papa, it’s heavy! You can’t expect me to carry that much!”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “That’s because it has two days of food and water, and proper supplies! You can’t expect it to weigh nothing.”

Egelina-Marie leaned forward. “I don’t need that! I’m just going into the forest for a couple of hours with some friends! We aren’t going to sleep in the forest overnight or anything. I’ll be home before the sun goes down. Anyway, none of the other parents are making their kids take anything like that. I’ll look like an idiot.”

Gabriel leaned in and put his meaty hands on his hips. “If I wanted you to look like an idiot, I’d use more imagination than giving you a backpack!”

Victoria slipped into the room. “He wanted you to wear a winter coat. I told him it’s only September!” she said as she vanished again.

Egelina-Marie scowled at the bedroom door as it closed.

“No!” said Egelina-Marie, turning back to her father.

Gabriel rubbed his famously huge, black-and-gray moustache and paced about, his eyes locked on his daughter. 

He could see Egelina-Marie was ready for a fight. He also knew that was the last thing the two of them needed. Gabriel had promised Victoria that he’d handle this in a way that she’d approve of.

He walked around the table, and pulled out a chair. “Sit,” he commanded, pointing. Egelina-Marie intensified her glare and folded her arms more tightly.

Gabriel took a deep breath and stared at the well-worn wooden floor. He tapped the back of the chair as he thought. “Sit. Please,” he asked nicely.

After some hesitation, Egelina-Marie slowly made her way to the old wooden chair. Gabriel noticed a slight wobble in the chair as she sat, and had half a mind to go get some tools and have Egelina-Marie help him repair it, as she usually did, but he stopped himself. He wasn’t going to allow himself to escape from the situation. He needed to bridge the gap that had been growing between them lately.

Gabriel sat down and tried not to glare at his daughter over the backpack. “There are a couple of rules…”

Egelina-Marie scoffed and started to get up.

“No, listen,” said Gabriel firmly, but without raising his voice. His daughter sat back down, folded her arms, and leaned back.

Gabriel fumbled with his fingers and glanced around the kitchen. “When I was your age, I had an uncle go missing in the Red Forest. He was—”

“I know, he got lost and died,” said Egelina-Marie rudely. She stared at her dad, and recognized for the first time that he was making a serious effort. “Sorry, Papa.”

Gabriel nodded and continued. “My uncle Jacques was a strong and very capable man, but arrogant. He’d been a Procession Scout for the Frelish royals for years. Always out there, hundreds of yards ahead of wherever the royal family was traveling to, checking for enemies and whatnot. There’d never been a single incident when he’d been on duty. A year after he’d retired because of his eyesight, one of the young Frelish princes was kidnapped and taken into the Red Forest.”

Egelina-Marie unfolded her arms and straightened up. She sighed. She’d heard this before, but could tell her father wasn’t saying it simply to wear her down.

Gabriel smiled sadly. “Now, as it happened, Jacques had been traveling along the road with his younger brother—my father—and a few neighbors that day. Jacques was in his late forties, the oldest of the group by a few years.

“They came upon a royal carriage that had been attacked. The two guards had been shot and the little prince had been kidnapped. The new procession scout had missed signs that my uncle felt were obvious. Jacques took the kidnapping personally. He yelled at the incompetent entourage to the point where they were ready to shoot him, and they would have, if it weren’t for the royal family asking him to help.

“The prince was only two years old. Jacques had been there at the boy’s naming ceremony, and thought of him as the child he’d never had. He missed that job terribly, as it had done more than pay him handsomely—it had filled him with purpose.”

Gabriel smiled a little as his daughter leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table.

“Jacques took a pistol and sword, and ran off into the forest. He figured that the kidnapper couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes ahead of him. Plus, given they were carrying a child, I assume Jacques figured he would catch up to them in no time. 

“The last time my father told me this story, he mentioned how oddly insistent Jacques had been about the route they took and the time of day they left.”

Egelina-Marie scratched her head. This was notably different than the version she remembered.

Gabriel leaned in a bit more. “After bandaging the guards and making sure the royal family was okay, my father and a friend went into the Red Forest after Jacques. 

“They made sure to be careful, marking trees as they went. At the first hint of the sun going down, they followed the trail they’d marked back. The King had left riders waiting to take them back to the kingdom for commendations. They weren’t able to return to the forest until two days later.”

“Why didn’t the King care more about the baby?” asked Egelina-Marie.

Gabriel stopped and smiled proudly. She was a sharp one. “I… I don’t know. It is odd, isn’t it? It troubled my father too. The whole story never sat well with him,” said Gabriel, rubbing his chin and thinking like the investigator that he was. “Did you know it was a king’s advisor who recommended to my father that we move here a few years later? He said that the people here were special, and needed people like my father to protect them. That’s why, I suppose, I followed in my father’s footsteps. There’s something about this place,” Gabriel glanced about, “something special. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it.”

“What happened when they went back for Uncle Jacques?” asked Egelina-Marie, intrigued.

Gabriel’s face darkened. “When they finally found Jacques, he’d died of thirst. He’d fallen off a blind cliff into a dried riverbed, and broken both of his legs. He’d dug a hole in the dirt, about two feet deep, searching for water.

“My father said the lesson was always think first, and never go anywhere unprepared. It’s served me well, and I want you to understand that nature seems wonderful and kind, but it isn’t. There are also dire lynx and other predators out there.”

Egelina-Marie rolled her eyes. “Dire lynx? Why not just say dragons?” Seeing the response her dad was preparing play out on his face as his eyes furrowed and his jaw tensed, she quickly added, “But I get your point.” She slouched in her chair and poked at the backpack. 

Standing up, Egelina-Marie slung the backpack over her shoulder and paused. Then she walked around the table and gave her father a hug. He was an enormous man whose moustache occupied almost half his face at times. 

“I love you, Egelina-Marie,” said Gabriel, his eyes misting up.

“I love you, too, Papa. Thanks for the story. I’ll always remember to think before I do something like Uncle Jacques, okay?”

Gabriel gave his daughter a kiss and watched her walk to the door and pause.

“Did they ever find the baby?” she asked, her face bracing for the answer.

With a heavy sigh, he replied, “No. The King, from what I heard, pretended like he’d never had the boy. He removed all paintings of him, took his name off the official ledgers, and so on. For all intents and purposes, the boy never existed.”

Egelina-Marie wondered if there was some poor soul out there, unaware of who he really was, wondering why he felt like a third wheel in whatever world surrounded him. 

Smiling at her father, she walked out the door. 

Gabriel stood there, thinking, after the door closed. A few minutes later, Victoria came out from the bedroom and cuddled right up to him. “Now that makes me proud enough to make you some pudding.” She poked him in the belly.

“You know, I don’t think I need any right now.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my husband? Because I’ll help you hide the body,” whispered Victoria, laughing.

A flash of light caught Egelina-Marie’s attention. She turned to notice Richy practicing with his shock-sticks.

“What are you doing?” she asked, curious.

Richy stopped and pulled back his hood. “Oh, you’re back,” he said, smiling. “You were quiet for a long time, and so I thought I’d practice a bit. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Egelina-Marie frowned. “Was I really thinking that long?” She remembered them getting back to the Ginger Lady’s house, but it seemed like it was only a moment ago.