Chapter 30: Mysteries and Warnings

Elizabeth Burbridge stood in the empty chamber and looked around in puzzlement. She had seen the quartet disappear down the hallway and she had heard a door close.

She had waited until she was certain the group was otherwise occupied before sneaking forward to listen. She pressed her ear to the door but heard no sounds. Intent upon catching the king in an embarrassing situation – and completely ignoring the fact that the three women with him might well kill her if she did – Elizabeth had opened the door slightly. She saw nothing so she pulled it open completely – and still saw nothing.

The wooden chest near the wall was the lone item in the barren room. There were no people – and nothing she could use to hurt the king. She had tried to open the chest but found that either the door was locked or it was too heavy for her to lift.

Certain that she had missed something, she retreated out of the room and retraced her steps down the corridor. She found no other doorways or anything to indicate a secret entrance. She turned around in the hallway and looked at the path she had just traversed. Something was going on – and she was determined to find out exactly what it was.

The king had said he could make her life difficult and she was resolved to even the score. No upstart that grew up smelling of fish and dirt would belittle her – regardless of who his parents might have been.

Elizabeth had been amazed that the people of Azkoval – including her brother and ... not her father but the man that raised her – had accepted the story so readily. There had been no independent verification of Joseph’s identity. He had come bearing a ring and carrying a sword and the entire country had fallen on its knees.

She would not, she decided. She would never bow down before the man who had killed her mother and ruined her life. Elizabeth had heard the king’s words earlier in the day but the more she reflected up on them, the hollower they rang.

Her mother doted upon her. She would never have permitted any man to send her away. She had spent the afternoon thinking of all the things she could have done if she were a princess. The power and influence that had tempted Elena so thoroughly would have been hers for a lifetime.

She wished her father had been the king. She wished Jonathan had been the Crown Prince of Azkoval. As heir to the throne, he would have protected Elizabeth. She was certain of that.

No, she determined, the new king’s arrival had disrupted two decades worth of carefully laid plans. If her father were dead, she would rather her brother inherit the throne than some barbarian from across the sea. After all, it was public knowledge that Jonathan was next in line to rule until he produced an heir.

She would find a way to ensure that her family – which now consisted entirely of her brother – would reap the fruits that their true parents had sown.

“Are you lost, Mistress Elizabeth?” a voice said from behind Elizabeth. She spun and found Rucar – the king’s spymaster – standing in her path.

“I’m not,” she said haughtily.

“Then be warned,” Rucar said in a deep, dangerous voice, “there are places you should not venture, young lady. It might prove to be perilous to your very life if you were to go beyond the bounds King Joseph has established for you.”

Elizabeth took an involuntary step backward.

“Let me pass,” she said in a quaking voice.

“Oh, I shall, once you hear me out,” Rucar said. “I am privy to everything the king knows – and several things that I have kept hidden from him. The man has given me a reason to live again. If I must, I will repay him with my life – or with yours – or with your brother’s – or with any person I need to eliminate to keep Joseph safe from harm.

“Hear my words, Little Girl. Wherever you’ve allowed your fertile mind to roam, it is time to return to the present. I will never allow you close enough to harm him. I will never allow you time to ferret out his secrets. Joseph is a kind and forgiving man. He will forget all your trespasses because he holds Alexander and Jonathan dear to him.

“I am neither kind, nor forgiving. I will permit you your follies because you are young and stupid. But there is a line that no one is permitted to cross and you are dangerously close to it. Step forward again and you will learn the consequences – but I fear you will remember them for only a short time. Because that will be the duration of your life if I feel you pose a threat to him in any way.”

“You dare threaten me?” Elizabeth asked.

“Little Girl, I have the blood of half the noble families of this land on my sword,” Rucar said. “I do not need to threaten because I have proven I will act. You should consider this a warning – and one I’ve offered you only because of the esteem in which I hold your brother and his bride-to-be. Perhaps you should return to your quarters and ruminate on what I’ve told you. If you behave, you and I will get along fine. If you misbehave, I will chastise you the way I did the lords and ladies that fell to my blade. Be aware, you have tried my patience for the last time.”

Rucar stepped aside and allowed Elizabeth to pass – carefully shielding his body from any possible harm from a dagger she might have hidden. Elizabeth was too intent upon escaping the awful man to even look back as she raced down the corridor and up the stairs to her chamber.

“You know, the water here is warm all year round,” Joseph noted. His wet underclothing hung on the rock drying as all four of the young people snuck glances at one another. Joseph had never been this close to an unclothed female near to his age. When he and Elena had shared the pool, they always wore at least an undershirt to cover them.

As with Genrico, he had not partaken in the tavern wenches and willing villagers that had offered their charms to his mercenary army. For Joseph, it was because he had kept his focus solely upon attaining his birthright. For Genrico, it was because Joseph had ignored the offers or refused them with a gentle word. More than one soldier had fallen to the pox or elected to stay behind after sampling the local wares.

Now, Joseph stood in the water within reaching distance of a trio of the most comely lasses he’d ever seen – and seeing all of them had given rise to not only portions of his anatomy but a host of prurient thoughts that were completely foreign to him.

He tried to ease his discomfort – physical and mental – by carrying on a conversation much as he would if they were sitting around a table together.

“That means we can come out for warm baths in the winter months!” Octavia said brightly. She had returned to her usual brazen self – rising so the top of her pink nipples rested at water level. It required her to stand on her tiptoes but she felt the fact that Joseph’s eyes constantly strayed in her direction was worth the effort.

“Sadly, that would be a bad idea,” Joseph told her, happy for a reason to turn in Octavia’s direction in order to speak to her. “While the water is warm, the air and land around it is not. You would freeze before you made it back to the castle unless you could find some way to dry yourself.”

“Then what value is that knowledge to us?” Liala asked. She had decided to rise upward until her entire chest was above the waterline. Joseph gulped when he turned to face her. He found himself staring at her breasts and forced his eyes upward – where he met Liala’s knowing smile.

He willed himself to look at her face – not an unpleasant task but one that was far more difficult when what lay just below kept entering his mind.

“You can come here before the snows come and when the weather first turns warm,” he said. “At times, Elena and I would build a small fire near the narrows before we ventured in. I will admit, it was a bit cold to run barefoot toward it but it kept our clothing warm and permitted us to dry ourselves. But once the snow comes, it is nigh impossible to keep a fire going – as we learned to our severe chagrin.”

“You’ll have to show us where that is – the next time we come out,” Julia said. She was still in the water to her neck as she tried to build up the nerve to act as the others had. She knew full well that once her mother returned, her trips to the pool would be limited because Amelia seemed intent upon knowing where Julia was at all given moments.

“This is a very interesting section,” Joseph said. “I’m certain it has grown over but there used to be a path that led to a section of the castle that was uninhabited. The corridor we just used sometimes housed guests – and, of course, it required us to exit from the main floor. The other way is through the lower section of the castle and can be accessed more readily when there is much going on.”

“So you’re saying we can return here for our conversations during Court?” Octavia posed – not only as a question but also in her form. She had moved into shallower water and now her breasts floated freely upon the water.

“I have only vague recollections of Court,” Joseph admitted as he tried to look anywhere but at the questioner. He found bare bosoms in every direction – because Julia had decided to be as daring as her friends.

“I’m certain you will have a clearer recollection of our time here,” Julia said, offering a wicked grin.

“Oh, I am certain of that,” Joseph agreed. He tried looking directly upward but the sun burned his eyes.

“We are friends,” Liala said, stepping close to the king. “In my land, friends explore not only terrain but also other facets of life.”

“I am afraid that is not the custom here,” Joseph said, trying to step backward. He felt Octavia’s soft mounds against his back. He tried to turn away but brushed against Liala’s soft nether hair when he shifted. He looked to Julia for support only to find her also pressing close to him.

“Perhaps it should be a custom here,” she opined. “Are you to say that you and Elena never shared ... intimacies ... while you explored.”

“Never,” Joseph replied.

“Not a touch,” Liala asked as she ran a hand across Joseph’s shoulder.

“No,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Or even a brush?” Octavia inquired as she swept her erect nipples across his back.

“Or even a kiss?” Julia wondered while she leaned forward and pressed her lips against the shoulder that did not have Liala’s hand resting upon it.

“No!” Joseph said. “We were children. We ... we didn’t know of any of that.”

He found one side of him unguarded and slipped away from the ladies, causing all three of them to break out into giggles when he lost his footing and fell on his behind with a splash when his arms slapped the water.

“I still know nothing of that!” he said ruefully.

The trio had been advancing upon him but stopped at his words.

“You have traveled the known world without learning of such things?” Liala asked.

They were into the shallow end of the water and Julia and Liala were far enough out that Joseph was at eye level with the matted downy hair below their waists. Rather than see what Octavia might be showing, he simply closed his eyes.

“Joseph?” Julia asked in a quiet voice. “Is what you say the truth?”

“It is the truth,” he said. “Yes, some of the men were entertained by willing companions during our travels. I ... I avoided such entanglements because I believed they would hamper my mission to return here. Returning to Azkoval was always at the forefront of my mind. I knew when I came here, I would be a king or I would be a corpse. Neither option boded well for the sorts of young ladies that offered companionship. Either way, they would be left with nothing. I couldn’t very well introduce a camp follower if I were the king; and if I died in my quest, a female that might travel with me would suffer a far worse fate. So, I have never been closer to an unclad woman that I am at this moment. I have never, since I was a baby, been unclothed around a female.”

“Except for Elena as children,” Liala pointed out.

“No, no,” Joseph interjected. “We also wore linen shirts and underclothing when we’d come here. I have never, to my knowledge, seen more than Elena’s bare calves. As I said, our relationship was ... not dissimilar to that I share with Genrico or Jonathan. We were ... adventurers. Someday, when I’ve had the chance to inspect that section of the castle, I will lead you to the spire. I swear, you can see forever from there.”

“Why do you need to inspect it?” Julia asked. She had sat down next to Joseph and lowered her bare form beneath the water again.

“I have long feared what I might find up there,” Joseph said. “There is no one alive but I have not done a thorough inspection. I fear we might find the remains of several of Wilhelm’s victims in the rooms up there. We made certain the lower levels were clear before we permitted anyone to take residence but the tower has remained closed. Once Court is concluded and I have less to worry about, I will see what is to be found.”

“You truly believe you will find skeletons?” Julia asked. A portion of her still had difficulty believing the atrocities she’d heard spoken.

“I don’t know what I’ll find,” Joseph admitted. “We ventured in as far as we could and the smell was sickening. There wasn’t even a rat scampering about so we knew there was nothing alive there. It is why I had the entrance boarded up and sealed for now. I had hoped to find ... bodies ... elsewhere. I wish to give the families a chance to bury the past. I worry that all those that have gone missing were sold like the daughter of my mother’s maid.”

“Sold?” Julia asked incredulously. “The child of your mother’s maid was sold?”

“Raped, crippled and then sold,” Joseph said, shaking his head in anger. “I ... I should have taken her with us. Annabelle was ... she was a very sweet girl. I remember her fondly. She was ... well, she was what Elena’s parents hoped Elena would be. Annabelle preferred frilly gowns and ringlet curls. Elena preferred to run through the castle and torment the guests. I will forever regret that I didn’t at least attempt to save Annabelle from her fate. Instead, I saved myself and forgot about everyone else.”