Chapter 35: Chandra has been busy

Cousin to the queen, damn.

"Lord Allard, sheathe your weapons and see to your men. After we take care of them, you and I will need to talk. Just don't do anything dumb, I'd hate to have to kill you." I sheathed my sword after cleaning it off. He looked incredulous but followed my directions. Unfortunately for him, I only left one of his guards unscathed and four with a survivable wound. Two would be permanently crippled because of it, but they'd live.

Bright Lady, watch over the souls of the fallen.

I then prayed over the man with the lost foot. I sent a trickle of healing into him.

Allard looked distraught about his horse. I had dealt it a fatal wound. "I'm sorry about your horse and your men, Lord Allard." He kept glancing at me and then at the carnage that I had caused. It was like he just couldn't believe that one man could do something like this. He seemed lost, and more than a little confused.

I looked him over, he was five-seven, with a dancer's build. He had a thick mop of light blond hair that was almost a bowl cut, with a mass of freckles that populated the center of his face. Lord Allard was gifted with a clean honest face. I figured that he was who he said he was, I could not see him lying about it.

"Before I let you go, I have a message for the King." I pulled out the ring that I had been storing for the last week or so, and tossed it to him. I then went over my report of the raid on the valley and the lack of male survivors, the attack on the wizard's guild in the mountains to the northeast, and the request for reinforcements and suitable men for repopulating the decimated valley before harvest.

He stood there taking it all in and frowned in thought. "Why didn't you come to the King right away?"

"Good question, I have only been in the city for a couple of days. I have no friends in town, and the one person that I was told to see was not to be found," I supplied. "As an unknown Lord, what would be my chances to see the king anytime soon?"

"Not good," he replied.

"I have also relayed this message to Duchess Polyantha this afternoon, and she did not seem in the least interested. She was more focused on getting me into her bed than anything else." He blushed at this.

"I see that you've also had a run in with her," I teased. He was definitely off balance. I had hit him with too many things at once, and he was still trying to deal with the decimation of his troops.

He just blushed further.

"Listen, Lord Allard, I defeated Steven's man Squire Michael in a duel yesterday morning. That is when I proclaimed myself to be Lady Megan's protector. I have not taken the Lady Megan anywhere that she did not want to go. She is currently residing at Duke Dwayne's estate with Lord Richard and Lady Elizabeth of Water Wind. I took her to Lady Kathryn's ball last night, and when we returned I was ambushed by a Priestess of Bane, who tried to assassinate me. I stopped her and returned her body to her temple last night.

"The lady needs protection from Steven because he kidnapped her from her home, and is pressuring her to marry him. If you know anything about him, you will understand why she is refusing to marry the evil bastard.

"Now in my position, what would you do?"

I could see his ire increasing during my explanation. "I would do the same, my lord," he admitted.

"Good for you, lad. Now let us gather the horses and take your men back to Duke Dwayne's estate, and have the good people there help them." We collected the surviving soldiers and returned to the estate. To say that we made an uproar was an understatement. It didn't stop the people there from going out of their way to help the injured.

I introduced Lord Allard to Megan. Richard already knew him and Elizabeth was helping the wounded. I encouraged Megan to retell her story in her own words. As naive as Allard was, he became incensed and asked aloud how this could be.

"Lord Allard, you know Steven. He is an evil bastard. Anyone that he thinks is going to get in his way, he goes out of his way to make their life miserable until he get what he wants. And he's a Duke," I offered. "Could you stand against him if he decided to have you killed?"

Allard, for his credit was honest and just hung his head. "No, Milord."

"You know this, and so does everyone else," I explained. "Now am I still under arrest?"

"Yes, Milord, I have the king's writ," he said shamefacedly.

"Fine, consider me under house arrest. I will not leave the kingdom before my court date. Since there is a duke involved, I would expect that the king would be the judge. I will accept no one less than he or the High Priestess of Kassandra. If there is a problem with that, inform me beforehand."

"The king presides over all the disputes between the nobility, Milord."

"You should escort me back to town to verify that I am staying at the Hawk's Rest. If I am not there, I'll let Miss Lori know where I can be found."

We took our leave after we saw that the wounded was in good hands. We were kept away from the room where Elizabeth was working on one of the men, but we did see the rest. The prognosis wasn't all that good for some of them, so I prayed for their quick recovery. That now familiar, but strange, tingling accompanied each blessing. Each one still took quite a bit of strength from me, so I had to be careful to not to try and heal too many of them.

On the way back I asked Lord Allard about his home to get his mind off of his men. This he was more than happy to expound on. It sounded like a nice place to grow up, he even mentioned that the queen and her family were frequent visitors. That was before she married the king, 'of course'.