Champion of the Heart (2 page)

“I don’t understand, Father.” Fox Mercer looked at his father with confused eyes. He was thirteen, but today he had enough pain in his heart and enough torment in his soul for a man five times his age. “Just tell the king who did it.”

“I can’t, Fox,” Frederick Mercer said, bending to slip his booted foot into a spur. He was quiet for a moment, staring at his boot. “I can’t.” He reached for his other boot and slid it on.

Fox paced the drafty room, desperately searching for a way out of the terrifying predicament his father was in. For a brief, horrifying moment the shadows of the waning fire took on the shape of an executioner, his face masked in a dark hood, his thick arms clutching an enormous axe. Fox quickly looked away from the black silhouette on the wall. No one was worth this sort of protection, not with such disastrous consequences. Fox’s gaze fell on his younger brother. Michael sat on his father’s bed, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed. His brother’s blond hair hung forward to obscure his face. Michael had been quiet for days now, unnaturally silent.

The chink of chainmail made Fox turn back to his father. As he looked at the man who raised him, who gave him a home, who always gave him hope for the future, he clenched his teeth, making his jaw ache with the effort. His small fingers clenched into fists so hard it made his arms shake. Why would his father give up everything to keep the identity of a murderer secret? Fox began to pace again. He moved back and forth, back and forth, fighting to keep his emotions in check, fighting to remain calm just as his father had taught him.

But today this was a battle Fox would not win. He stopped and whirled to face his father. “Don’t you care about what happens to us?” he asked in agony.

Lord Mercer straightened in his chair. “Of course I do. I care...” He took a deep breath. “I would do anything to protect you and Michael. Anything.” He shook his head and resumed his preparations, standing and reaching for his belt. “I only wish I had killed the baron myself.” He lifted haunted eyes to stare at Fox. “He was a horrible man, Fox.” He turned to Michael on the bed beside him and tenderly stroked his hair. “A horrible man.”

Fox scowled. “But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. We will not speak of it again.” His father picked up his sword and gazed at it for a very long moment.

Fox couldn’t stop the anger that burned in his chest. What kind of man was the murderer to remain silent while his father took the punishment for him? Had he no honor? Fox’s jaw clenched. Whoever had murdered the baron would pay. It was a vow he was determined to keep, no matter how long it took him.

His father slid his sword into his sheath and then headed for the door.

Fox looked at Michael. His brother stared at him with large eyes. They were the saddest eyes Fox had ever seen. He took his little brother’s hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. Together they left the room, shadowing their father as he moved down the corridors and through the stone tunnels that made up Castle Mercer’s hallways. They descended a dark spiral stairway that led to the Great Hall.

The noise coming from the Hall was a jumble of tones and timbres, some somber weeping and sad words of mourning, some dark laughter and sinister words of support. His family’s doom waited in the room. Some of the gathered throng dreaded what was to come, while others approved and eagerly waited for the king’s response.

Fox’s heart started pounding faster in his chest. His hand tightened around Michael’s, his palm slick with nervous sweat.

His father did not hesitate at the room’s threshold. He moved into the Great Hall with his customary strong stride, his head held high. Fox and Michael followed. Fox was careful to keep his eyes on his father’s back; he didn’t want to see the satisfied look in some of the gathered nobility’s eyes. He didn’t want to look at their disgust and their disapproval of the great man who walked proudly before him. They were all wrong in their merciless feelings for his father. All wrong.

Fox shifted his gaze to the front of the room. Normally, the raised platform situated there would hold the table for him and his family. But on this dark day, the table was gone. In its place was a row of seated people dressed in finery and velvets. One man drew his attention: King Edward of England. He was seated in an ornately decorated chair in the center of the row of nobles. He sat stiffly in the high-backed chair, surveying Fox’s father with obvious disapproval, and absently rubbed his chin with long, slender fingers.

Fox’s father stopped before the rise, bending one knee to the floor and bowing his head. Fox did the same, having to pull Michael down before the King.

A disgruntled snort came from the King, and Fox lifted his head slightly to see his reaction. The King studied his nails, announcing, “Rise, Mercer.”

A murmur ran through the room. The King had not used lord Mercer’s rightful title.

Fox rose after his father, the insult and degradation not lost on him. Fox clenched his fist, careful not to hurt Michael.

The King waved a hand. Two men in chainmail came forward and took Fox’s father’s arm, leading him onto the rise. They turned him to face the crowd of nobles assembled in the room. A herald stepped down from the platform, clutching a rolled parchment. He was a thin man with a graying, manicured beard. The herald waited a moment for the room to become silent. Then he unrolled the parchment, cleared his throat, and read the king’s decree.

“Frederick Mercer has been found guilty of official corruption,” the herald proclaimed, his voice echoing from one side of the Great Hall to the other.

Behind Mercer, the two knights lifted large metal hammers and brought them smashing down at the back of his heels. His father’s spurs cracked under the blows.

Fox stood immobile. Beside him, Michael sobbed and Fox felt the same anguish twisting his stomach and churning his throat. It took all his willpower to stand still and not rush to his father’s aid.

Kchang! The grating, harsh sound of metal striking metal immediately filled the large room. The abrasive noise echoed from wall to wall, as if chasing the herald’s ricocheting words. Kchang! The new blast of noise overtook the ghost of the previous metallic clang before it completely faded away.

With every strike, Fox willed his father’s humiliation to stop, but it continued.

The herald looked back down at the unrolled parchment he held in his hands. “Frederick Mercer is stripped of his lands,” he announced.

Murmurings spread like wildfire through the Great Hall.

Fox shifted his glance to King Edward, who lounged in his chair, calmly sipping a golden goblet full of ale, impervious to the destruction he was causing. He was an imposing man, large in presence, but slim in girth. He radiated power and authority with a mere glance and a gesture. Today, his eyes were dark, his expression calmly hiding his fierce anger, except for the grim set of his lips. The King scanned the mass of people in the Great Hall, as if searching for someone.

Why couldn‘t you tell him what he wants to know? Fox silently asked his father. Fox’s jaw clenched with agony and anger. Just tell him! his mind screamed.

Kchang! The spurs finally broke away from the heel.

“His lands will be forfeit to Lord Vaughn,” the herald droned.

Lord Vaughn! Evan’s father. Fox’s jaw clenched tighter. Evan. My friend, he thought bitterly.

On the platform, the two knights finally ceased their attack and stepped away from Lord Mercer. Each grabbed a fallen spur, one knight tossing a spur left and the other tossing a spur to the right.

Another knight clad in chainmail stepped forward with a sharp dagger.

Fox straightened instantly as the room became quiet, the murmuring dwindling into a prolonged stretch of complete silence.

The herald cleared his throat and repositioned the parchment in his hands. Finally, he read the last, chilling sentence written on the scroll. “Lord Frederick Mercer is no more.”

Terror washed over Fox. Would the King allow his father to be killed? he wondered as the knight with the dagger ominously approached Frederick Mercer. The knight seized Mercer’s leather belt, the belt that held his sword and scabbard about his waist, and raised the dagger. With a sharp, violent swipe, the knight cut the belt clean through. Frederick’s sword fell to the floor with a loud, hollow clang. The knight picked up the sword, pulled it from its sheath, and lifted it high above his head.

Fox lunged forward.

But he was too late. The knight brought the weapon down, smashing the blunt part of the blade over his father’s head with such force the weapon broke in two. Frederick swayed under the brutal strike, dropping hard and fast to his knees. He swayed for a moment, his eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head, but he did not topple to the floor.

Fox reached out a hand to his father’s elbow to steady him, but his father pulled angrily away from the offer of aid. He forced himself to stand erect as best he could, obviously struggling with the tremendous pain he was experiencing, his legs buckling under him as he stood. Blows of such force had killed lesser men. Blood trickled down his father’s head, dripping over his left eye and splashing across his cheek. He steadied himself, bowed stiffly to the King, and turned to walk back down the aisle toward the large double doors that would free him from this public display of disgrace.

Fox watched him with a mixture of awe and humiliation. He recovered quickly and took Michael’s hand, hurrying after his father.

The crowd gaped at Frederick Mercer as he moved down the aisle, most staring at him in disbelief, some even staring at him in awe for having the courage and strength to stand and walk from the room of his own accord. He had been a well-respected lord, a friend of many who were in the Great Hall. A brave, strong, honorable man. Now, he was a broken man -- titleless, landless. A commoner. Lord Frederick Mercer was indeed no more.

Quiet descended over the room as he moved through it. Frederick kept his head high, his chin raised in defiance of their stares. Blood continued to drip down from his head and stain his face.

Fox moved solemnly behind his father. The room seemed to be in a haze from the embarrassment and utter devastation swirling through Fox. Suddenly, something seized his hand. He glanced down to see small, feminine fingers clutching at his. He lifted his gaze to see a small angel. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks streaked with tears.

His look softened for a moment as he gazed at her.

Jordan Ruvane, one of the two best friends he had in the whole world. And the other was Evan Vaughn, he thought bitterly. He squeezed her hand once before moving after his father. Their hands slowly separated, their fingers sliding across each other until finally there was nothing but distance between them.

“...The Baron of Dalton was murdered. Stabbed.”

“I hear Mercer knows who did it. But he won’t say.”

“...Baron Magnus was one of the King’s favorites.”

Fox hurried past the gossiping nobles, hurried through the corridor toward the great double doors of the castle. He had to get out. He had to escape the superior looks, the haughty stares and whispers behind his back. I don’t give a damn what they think, Fox told himself. But he couldn’t stand the way they looked at him.

Just a day before, just hours before, the same people were his friends, his equals. Now they saw him as inferior. Fox clenched his teeth. He reached the doors only to find a downpour of rain slamming into the ground.

Fox halted. He couldn’t go out. He took a step back and turned. Four nobles, two he recognized as Lord Hagen and Lord Lynch, were staring at him, whispering. Fox whirled and stormed out into the sheets of rain. He raced through the downpour, sloshing through large puddles and thick mud clutching at his ankles, dashing through the inner and then the outer courtyard as the rainfall splattered his young body. The wards were mercifully empty. He continued across the lowered drawbridge and turned sharply to his right to run across the field bordering Castle Mercer. The tall wet grass blew in the strong wind, slapping at his thighs. He could not see more than a few feet in front of him because of the torrents of rain, but he raced on. It was lucky he knew the way by heart. It was the only place he could go.

The last few days’ events replayed in his thoughts as he ran. Lord Vaughn had magnanimously given his family two weeks to find somewhere else to stay and vacate the castle. But they had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay. His life was over. He could not be a squire or a knight. He would never be a lord. His future had been destroyed.

The roar of the river greeted him first. It was not the gentle caress it had been when he had visited it last, but a powerful rush of churning, white capped water. Its width had swelled to the very edges of the willow trees dotting its banks, the fast-moving water pushing at the drooping branches that had sunk beneath its surface, making the trees appear alive.

Fox ran to two trees that grew very close to each other and pushed the heavy branches aside, stepping into the makeshift cave their branches had created. It was very dark in the cave today. So very dark and cold.

He sank down on the soft, wet moss, the chill from the ground quickly seeping through his already wet clothing, seeping into his very bones. He felt defeated. Alone.

Darkness settled over the land and over Fox’s heart. And like the intense emotions and confusion raging inside Fox, the storm continued to vent its fury outside the makeshift branch walls of Fox’s secret hideaway.