Chapter 20: A New Face

Elizabeth Burbridge walked through castle gates and stopped. She was visiting Tyrell for the first time in her life. Her father had never permitted anyone in the family to venture outside of Burbridge once Wilhelm and his roving band of goons assumed control.

She had wished to join her family on the trek to Wellington but her mother had insisted she remain behind. Gabrielle had not offered a satisfactory reason, in Elizabeth’s opinion, but had grown angry when the young woman pressed. Gabrielle had also balked at allowing her to come to the capital to visit with Elena.

She had turned 16 while her family was gone and she had only her governess to celebrate with. She had been overjoyed to get Elena’s letter – not so much because it had come from Rina but because it gave her the excuse she needed to defy her mother. She had been summoned to the capital by the king’s steward. Even her governess couldn’t put forth much of a protest.

Now she stood in front of the largest building she had seen in her life. The bustling streets of Tyrell dwarfed the markets in Burbridge. The constant hum of humanity had the young woman stopping in the streets to stare. The only thing she found disconcerting was the smells – which also dwarfed the markets in her home region.

Her governess was married to the Burbridge steward, so Elizabeth had been accompanied by a young woman from the household and four manor guards. The young woman would stay in the capital as Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting but the guards would return to Burbridge as soon as they left their charge in Elena’s care.

“Have you ever seen so many soldiers in one place?” Elizabeth’s friend Catherine inquired.

“Heavens, no,” Elizabeth replied. She had seen dozens of soldiers in the streets of Tyrell but that was nothing compared to the hundreds that were visible behind the castle walls.

“They’re a trained lot,” one of the guards put forth. “Watch them practice. Hey, I know that one! He’s from Burbridge! Your family must have returned, Dame Elizabeth.”

Indeed, Elizabeth saw several faces that she thought she recognized. She wondered if her group had passed a messenger on the way to deliver the news of her parents’ return.

“Should I just go up and announce myself?” she wondered aloud. She decided that it would be stupid to stand at the gate and wait for someone to come for her. No one knew when she would arrive. She started to walk forward with her group only to have a large group of soldiers break off and stand in front of her.

“Apologies, young miss,” a man said. “I’m afraid only the king’s army can go past this point with weapons.”

“Has the king returned?” Elizabeth asked.

“Aye,” the man said. He turned to point at the DuBront family flag flying atop the castle. “That’s the signal that the king is in residence. The troops arrived about three weeks ago.”

“Three weeks?” Elizabeth asked. It would have taken only a week to get a message to Burbridge. “My parents are Lord and Lady Burbridge. Are they inside?”

The man’s face turned white and he turned to one of the other soldiers.

“Corporal, please go fetch Lord Burbridge,” he instructed. The man saluted and set off. “If you will instruct your guards to leave their weapons in that building over there, I will take you inside the castle to wait.”

The guards didn’t wait for Elizabeth’s instructions. They didn’t answer to her, only to Lord Burbridge or his steward. They moved off to deposit their swords in the guardhouse and the group walked into the castle.

It took the young woman a moment to recognize the face that walked up to her. Her brother had changed much during the previous year. He seemed taller and broader than she remembered. His hair was cropped as short as the men in the army and the beard he had worn since he was old enough to have one was gone.

He smiled and gave his sister a soft hug with the arm that wasn’t in a sling.

“I am glad you have arrived,” he said with a forced smile. He hadn’t sent for Elizabeth because he didn’t know how he would explain their mother’s death. He felt the urge to lie to her but had come to realize that even the hard truth was better than a falsehood. “We have much to talk about, Sister.”

“Where are Mother and Father?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Let us speak in private, please,” Jonathan said softly. Elizabeth’s face turned white.

“They’re dead!” she yelled. “They insisted upon going with the king and he got them killed. Admit it! He killed our parents.”

“No,” Jonathan said in a sharp voice that he rarely used on his sister. He had learned early in life that she responded better to kindness than threats.

“No,” he said again in a softer voice. “Let us speak privately and I will explain things to you. It is not something we wish to have overheard.”

He wished Elena were nearby but she was in a meeting with the king for the afternoon. His sister watched as the guards and her friend were escorted to chambers where they could clean up and relax. That left Jonathan to direct his sister into a private chamber he had used as his office since his return.

“Tell me what happened!” Elizabeth demanded as soon as the door was closed.

Jonathan sighed and sat heavily in a chair.

“I suppose I must ask you how much you know of our family’s history before we begin,” he said.

“Tell me what happened,” Elizabeth repeated in terse tones.

“It seems our mother was in league with Lord Wellington,” Jonathan stated tiredly. “She kept him advised of our progress and attempted to use a messenger to relay our strategy to him when we approached the manor.”

“Ridiculous!” Elizabeth hissed.

“Perhaps,” Jonathan agreed. “But it is true, nonetheless. Our forces intercepted the messenger. He was carrying a note in Mother’s handwriting. I even recognized her perfume on the parchment. The king confronted her and she fled rather than face justice.”

“He probably just killed her and told you she ran off,” Elizabeth said.

“No,” Jonathan said again. “We had several scouts in our army. They followed her footprints in the soft ground through the trees. She was attempting to make her way toward the Wellington manor in the darkness and fell down a ravine. She broke her neck in the fall.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms, a mutinous look on her face.

“I’m telling you the facts, Elizabeth,” Jonathan said sadly. “I didn’t believe it either until I saw the proof with my own eyes.”

“You saw a letter that she might have written!” Elizabeth shouted.

Jonathan shook his head and then glanced at the desk before looking back toward his sister.

“No,” he said. “I saw my father. Alexander Burbridge is not my blood. I am – I was – the son of an affair between our mother and Lord Wellington. I suspect that you are, too. I’m sorry. I have considered how to tell you for several months now and I could come up with no better way than the blunt truth. Our mother committed adultery against the man she married and we are – or at least I am – the result. I saw Lord Wellington the day he was executed. I looked at the man and saw my face in 30 years. His daughters will be in the castle soon. You will recognize them immediately. You share the same age; the same build; the same hair color. They are twins and you could be the third if you cut your hair shorter.”

Tears formed in Elizabeth’s eyes as she looked at her brother.

“What of Father?” she asked. “I mean, Lord Burbridge.”

“He is still our father,” Jonathan said firmly. “If you attempt to say otherwise, I will turn you over my knee regardless of your age or my infirmity.”

“Has he disowned us?” Elizabeth asked. “Are we disavowed?”

“No,” Jonathan told her.

“So he doesn’t know?” she pressed.

“He knows but he hasn’t said anything,” Jonathan answered. “He would be a fool not to see things for what they are. He is not a fool.”

“He apparently was a fool for any number of years,” Elizabeth said. “So he is just planning to ignore us? I mean, he sent you instead of greeting me himself.”

“He is not at the castle,” Jonathan said as he held out the lord’s signet ring. “He turned the Burbridge lands over to me and stayed behind. He is the king’s emissary to the lands south of here. He sent a letter for you. Elizabeth, he didn’t treat me any differently after he found out than before. When I left, he gave me this letter for you, hugged me and told me he loved me and that he would see me at the wedding this fall. I believe he has decided to ignore the situation and treat us as he always has. Perhaps you will understand better after you read his letter.”

“What does it say?” Elizabeth inquired as she accepted the folded parchment.

“I don’t know,” Jonathan told her. “He wrote it to you and I have not read it. I will give you privacy or sit with you as you read it. Whatever you prefer.”

“I would prefer we go back to the life we led before the blasted king showed up on our doorstep!” Elizabeth said as she turned and fled out into the castle hallway.

Jonathan tilted his head backward and studied the ceiling. He knew she would eventually return to the office. After all, she had no other place to go.

Victoria and Julia had enjoyed the trip to see where their mother had grown up. Under the guidance of the steward Genrico had appointed, the area had regain much of its luster in the two years since Joseph’s return. The farms were bustling with activity and the markets were filled with goods from nearby regions.

The most noticeable differences between Larchman and Wellington, the young women noted, were that the people seemed happy and that fear seemed negligible. The markets were humming right up until dusk and people weren’t scared to be out of their homes after the ale started to flow.

Amelia was heartened to see the region prosper but had been saddened to learn that the people her family once cared for had suffered greatly under Wilhelm’s oppression. The Trimble region was no more. Joseph had not named the new lands after the families that held them during his father’s time. Instead he had gone back hundreds of years to find family names that had died out generations earlier. A part of Amelia wished she could reclaim the lands in her family’s name but she lacked the skills to be a capable administrator and she knew that fact as well as anyone.

In fact, she had determined that she lacked any creditable skills – except perhaps that as a mother. She knew her daughters had raised themselves as soon as they were old enough to flee their father’s home.

The first thing her daughter’s missed while visiting Larchman were the forests of the Wellington area. The girls had played in the trees from the time they were toddlers and Amelia was certain that somewhere there was a map of every deadfall and foxhole drawn by her children.

Amelia had never cared for the forests. The former land of Trimble, now Genrico’s territory, was a coastal region south of the capital. It was a day’s walk to Azkoval’s largest western port and the area survived on fishing and farming. The trees in the area weren’t the old-growth timber of Wellington, where some trees were twice as wide as a man’s waist. These were trees that had sprung up after the land was cleared for farming purposes. The wood for the houses had been brought in by ship from other areas.

As a girl, Amelia had spent days sitting on the dock, watching the ocean tides come and go. She had hoped her daughters would enjoy the same thing but they were past the age where sedentary pursuits appealed to them – and too young to have reach the point where sitting still was a luxury.

She knew Victoria might one day return to the area as mistress of Larchman manor. The young woman had set her sights on Genrico from the outset and had spent almost every waking minute by the man’s side since his arrival in Wellington several months earlier. The man’s emotions were almost unreadable but Amelia could tell he was kind and that he cared about her daughter so she didn’t worry much about Victoria’s future.

Julia was another matter.

The more vocal of the twins seemed to have a love-hate relationship going with the king. She found him exciting and dangerous but the same traits that attracted her also repelled her. The scars of Joseph’s past sometimes rose to the surface and he could be a frightening spectacle to behold.

There was also the matter of Julia’s heritage to consider. She was the daughter of a traitor. She wasn’t born of a queen or an empress – as two of the eligible women waiting in Tyrell had been. She wasn’t Joseph’s oldest friend and hadn’t once been promised to him – as Lady Elena had been.

She feared her daughter was in for heartbreak and she was concerned that Julia would react rashly and perhaps put the entire family out of favor (or worse, land the entire family in the dungeon or dead).

She knew Julia was too stubborn to listen to reason. Both Amelia and Victoria had tried to sit her down and explain the facts to her. Victoria had opined that if Julia were interested in King Joseph, she needed to make it known to him. She couldn’t avoid him for days at a time and then ignore him when she next saw him. Amelia’s advice was far different. She advised her daughter to forget about the king and set her sights lower. Joseph had done all in his power to remove the stain of treachery from her, and there were several young men in the capital that would be more than happy to have a bride with Julia’s pedigree.

Amelia had hoped to stay in the area longer but she could see that the girls were growing bored. She knew full well that, even at age 17, boredom would lead them to mischief so she said her goodbyes to the families she had known in her youth and set off for Tyrell with her memories to keep her company.

The king was having no better afternoon than Jonathan Burbridge. He was locked away with Lady Elena and Choran, going over documents and listening to explanations.

“I do not need to approve every coin that comes out of the treasury!” he exclaimed as he heard another request for spending from one of myriad groups that had cropped up since his return two years earlier. “I have not even had a moment to put my own house in order. Has anyone seen Lydia?”

Choran and Elena both offered a blank look. They did not know who Lydia was or why the king would ask for her.

“She is the woman I have asked to run my household,” Joseph said. “I need someone to oversee things because it appears that I am destined to sit in this office with you two for the rest of my life. I have no one to ensure I have clean clothing or even a blanket for my bed. I have slept with my bedroll for the past two weeks and I am tired of having to track down someone to get my laundry done. I am willing to do it myself but I have not had a moment of free time since that ship docked. So I will ask again if anyone named Lydia has sought me out.”