Chapter 15

If Aric hadn't said he would see Aaron before he left he would have gotten on a horse and let it take him where ever it felt like roaming. He was done here and there wasn't anything left to keep him here in the city any longer.

As he walked out of the castle into the guard house, he noticed that some guards looked away as he passed by, some had sad looks on their faces, and even a few as he walked past them put their hands on his shoulder and squeezed.

It was that moment he knew they all were aware of what was going on between Andrea and Daven.

He felt the fury rage up in him again.

How dare the two of them do this to him, make him feel ashamed in front of all these people.

At first he desperately wanted to forgive Andrea, because he had loved her for so long, but he knew he couldn't. Not after all she did and all the people that knew about it.

It was then that he recalled the old wine steward's comment about the castle family looking out for him. They sent him on a wild goose chase!

Again he was furious, if they had not gotten involved, he would still be happy but none the wiser.

But just as suddenly the fury went away, if they hadn't been looking out for him, who knows how many more times Andrea and Daven would have gotten together after they tricked him.

They probably would have gotten together even more after they were married and he proved how gullible he was to marry Daven's slut.

They didn't appear to be stopping their behavior, and Andrea was going to pass off her lover's child as his. Even in the mist of trying to trick him, they couldn't quit having sex with each other.

It was at that moment that he felt really sick. It was a good thing this was a guard house and there were buckets everywhere because he used one to the fullest.

Thankfully after he was done, one of the guards took it from him, patted him on the back, and pointed him towards the Captain's door.

As Aric opened the door, Aaron was sitting at his desk and pointed to a chair. Once seated Aaron leaned over and handed him a cup of spiced rum. Aric at once balked, but Aaron said, "It's very watered down, but you need something in your stomach right now. And it will help warm you up."

As the young man gulped down the drink Aaron asked "So what are your plans for now?"

"Its time for me to leave, I'm thinking of traveling some. After that I'm not sure," said Aric "There really isn't anything left to keep me here anymore."

Aaron got up from his chair and came around to the front of the desk, sat on it, leaned forward and squeezed the boy's shoulder and said "It will get better, trust me. Right now it's painful and you can't believe how much it hurts. You can't think of any other wound you may have gotten at any other time that was this painful, but trust me it will get better with time".

Aric looked up, suddenly very angry and said, "How would you know how I feel. You're a confirmed bachelor."

Aaron chuckled and leaned back. "You think you have the market cornered on pain now do you? Have you noticed how quiet all the men were when you came in, how somber they've been. Everyone one of them here, including myself has had this happen to them in some way, shape, or form."

Aric's eyes went wide. "What did you say? Daven did this to all of you as well?"

"No, not Daven, well in my case it wasn't Daven, but his father Garland the King. For some of the others it was various others, nobles and friends under the Kings protection" said Aaron. "The king and I, we weren't friends, not like you and Daven were, but he did it to me all the same".

"Let me tell you a story." said Aaron, "It took place almost sixteen seasons ago. This story is about a young soldier who at eighteen met and married a beauty with raven hair from one of the outlying villages in the kingdom.

"He always felt she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She always seemed to turn heads everywhere she went. She had a beautiful smile and a lusty sense of humor. She made coming home to her a joy that the soldier loved more than life its self.

"But she decided to shop at the Market in the Intercity one day, and the then crown prince noticed the young wife in the city as she was out shopping, and decided he would borrow her for awhile.

"The soldier objected when the wife came home and told him what happened, but he could see that the young wife was flattered from the attention.

"At first she tried to make her husband see it her way, to give in and allow her to take the Prince up on his offer, but the young solider refused to see it that way. She never figured out that he knew she was already taking him up on the offer. If he hadn't figured it out by the new jewelry she had, other guards would tell him each and every time when she went to an inn that the Prince was at.

"The young solider started to drink really heavy in those days to numb the pain. He kept thinking if she would just stop what she was doing he would take her back no questions asked. He thought that he loved her so much that he would be willing to put up with the ridicule from others if she would quit causing his public humiliation.

"After going without sex during this time, he wasn't proud that he was now paying for it as a young married man. But he needed some companionship to help him get through it. The young wife was getting all she could handle at times from the Prince.

"But one day when the young soldier came home, his wife was no where to be found. But sometime shortly after he arrived home, she came home out of breath with a wild story.

"At first it was a rare occurrence, but every few weeks she would be out that late, and she always has a wild story that was barely believable. He knew she was still out meeting the prince.

"And early on when she started doing it, she would sneak and do it and thought he wouldn't notice. But after awhile she was slowing moving into the not caring phase, and started to stay out past when she was supposed to be home and kept telling him wild stories that she knew he couldn't possibly buy.

"Then after another few weeks, she started being late a couple times during the week, but she stopped giving any reason as to why she was late.

"After he challenged her with the truth of what she was doing, she would tell him he was lucky she came home at all. Then it started being longer and longer before she would get home, often some nights she would either come in very late, or not come home at all till the next morning.

"Finally the soldier decided to confront the wife one last time. You can't have all the other soldiers jeering and asking you why you couldn't manage to keep your young wife taken care of and not have it affect you somehow.

"In the end he got up the nerve and wanted to leave the slut of a wife behind and start over with a new wife. But somehow the Prince found out he was going to divorce her and made it very clear to him, if he divorced her and left her as a problem for him to deal with, something nasty would happen to the young soldier.

"So with a fear of death the young soldier sat back and did nothing.

"After a few months of his wife coming and going as she pleased, he confronted her for the last time, begged her to consider him, and asked her how she was expecting him to deal with what she was doing.

"But she said she didn't really care, that he was free to do what ever he wanted just as she was free to live her life as she wanted. And right then she was enjoying exactly doing that, and with that she went to get ready for another one of her nights out. She then said that all the nobles told her he was lucky to have her.

"The soldier was heartbroken, and not knowing what to do totally climbed into a bottle. That sham of a marriage lasted for about another six months with him drowning his sorrows in a bottle.

"But sometime during this time the wife had been giving a room in the castle to make her more accessible, and so he stopped going home to the house alone at nights and just took up resident in the barracks.

"And since this soldier had already learned that the wife had paid off the balance of their mortgage by her time on her back, he really didn't like living in that house anyway.

"But one day the soldier decided, he would quit feeling sorry for himself, and then he started concentrating on being a better soldier.

"If the crown was going to put him in a position where he was going to die, he would damn well make them pay for it. And then he spent the next season learning and perfecting every martial art he could get his hands on and brushing up on his tactics and troop management.

"The old King publicly acknowledged his ability.

"The old King felt guilty that, instead of just borrowing his wife for a night or two as most nobles did, his son had publicly turned his wife into his very own kept woman.

"So the old King decided to make him as Captain of the guard for life even though he was so young. He did it so that his son couldn't remove him at a whim if he was still holding his position after the old Kings death, as compensation for what his son was doing.

"But as the Captain, the soldier now had the ability to weed out the guards who were useful from the ones just hanging around for a place to live. He started to create a group of men that were loyal to him.

"But even in this position, he was still well aware his wife was still being used as a party favor sometimes among the Knights and upper level nobility to ensure their allegiance to the crown.

"Who knows how long this would have lasted except for three things.

"Three new soldiers had gotten married and they foolishly brought their wives to live with them near the castle, against the advice of the Captain of the guard.

"With newer and fresher temptations around, the Prince set his sights on the other women.

"One of the women was interested and immediately took the Prince up on his offer just as the young Captain's wife had done, but her husband objected loudly and publicly, and was never seen again, but his slut of a wife didn't seem to care at all. But the other two left the kingdom with their husbands as soon as humanly possible.

"It was strange how the men who were sent to bring them back got lost trying to find them before both couples crossed the border and managed to get free of this accursed kingdom.

"But the Captains wife, now that she has been replaced after almost two seasons of doing whatever she wanted, decided that she would re-enter the Captains life and they would go back to living their lives as if nothing had ever happened now.