Chapter 6

During the first week that Dusty and the others had left Marie and Seth had met with the King and Marie trained in the yard to keep up her skills, tone her body, and generally keep busy.

The King gave her one of the outer rooms that faced the parade yards so that she was well away from the other nobles but close enough that she could work out in the yard and visit with Seth.

King William gave her a knowing smile as his secretary briefed her where she would be staying. Marie smiled back at him in gratitude.

But the day that Dusty and the team left they had met with the King and right away the King had impressed Marie with his level of intelligence.

"Marie, remember this is the real meeting. The one earlier today was for show. The King needs the nobles to support him to help shore up the Kingdom. The Nobles are allowed to keep a small force of men as their guards, but they each control an area of the kingdom that they pledge to the King," said Seth as they walked across the field to meet with the King.

Andre wasn't invited, but the King requested Seth bring Marie so they could get an idea of what was going on and what assets they had to work with. He wanted to know more about her friends.

"I understand. Once you explained it to me it made sense why you stood there and took that abuse. I didn't like it, but I understand it," said Marie.

Seth smiled before he suddenly took on a strange look.

"Marie did something happen with Alana? I walked her to the castle gates she tried her level best to suck my tongue out of my, uh," Seth blushed bright crimson as he continued "uhhm, mouth before she left. I was just wondering," said Seth.

But even though he was blushing as he spoke with Marie about this she was just smiling.

"Nothing but girl talk. She said she had to leave and I wished her good luck in her future endeavors. That's all," said Marie with a smile.

Seth wanted to ask more, but they were in the castle and the castle walls had ears. Especially the rumors when it came to him and his love life. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why so many people were interested in what he did.

As the entered the chamber the King came forward to shake Marie's hand.

"Young lady you have courage. Not many would stand up to perfect strangers to fight for someone else's rights," said the King.

"I'm sorry to have done that in your presences your Highness. I shouldn't have over reacted. Now that I understand better I will better control myself in your presence," said Marie.

"Don't tame that fire on my account. You made yourself a target when you were linked with our Kingdom's most eligible bachelor. Now you just have the men looking your way as well. At some point they will need to figure out if they want to kill you or bed you, but I'm sure Seth is going to protect you no matter what they choose to do," said the King with a jovial smile.

Marie smiled big as well and they both looked at Seth and he seemed to be blushing three shades of red.

Turning, the King approached his covered comfortable chair and gestured to the two chairs across from him for Marie and Seth.

"So what really happened?" asked the King as he settled in his chair and started to seriously get down to business.

Seth filled in what happened from what he saw. He included the list of men who were killed and how Corporal Prewitt saved his life by being in between him and the door. Prewitt was killed instantly and he just had a building partial fall on him. He was among the first saved and from there he organized the others.

As Seth gave his report in more detail the King alternated between sadness and anger. Marie filled him in on what happened once they came on the scene and what happened while Seth was out. She decided to leave out who sent them there.

"So do we know who it was or what it was?" asked the King.

The King couldn't miss the sidelong glance that Marie and Seth gave each other.

"Out with it, what do you know, or suspect?" asked the King.

"Your Highness, Dusty, our Battlemage, believes that it was things that shouldn't be here in this land. They might possibly be weapons from his land that we have no defense against," said Marie.

"Do you know what they are?" asked the King.

"Not myself personally no. Even my tracker Rachel had no idea what they were. Who ever they were, they were good enough that she couldn't follow them and I've seen her follow tracks over dry creek beds before. She's very good," said Marie with some pride.

"Well if they were there then we need to find out why. What is strange is that in all the patrols that went out not one of them was attacked. You go out and are attacked almost immediately. Someone must want you out of the way Seth. I've always said you were too kind for your own good, and someone must have tried to use that against you.

"If nothing else, by Marie's account, you put yourself so far behind everyone else you could have died. You need to stop doing that. You're no good to me dead.

"I think based on that and the fact that most of the nobles hate you because of how much even their own vassals love you, I think I need to have some of my internal people look around, ask a few questions, and listen to what falls out of the trees," said the King as he leaned back.

After a moment the King said "In a couple days I want you to do 'Inspections' of the different lands of the Counts and their surrounding counties sides. We'll call it beating the brush to see if we can flush out our kingdom's attackers, but something doesn't feel right about this.

"I don't believe in coincidences since your attack seemed just a little too pat for me. Not to mention when I sat down and looked at all of your reports over the last season of all the attacks I realized that while various towns and cities are being attacked, not one of the Count's homes have ever been assaulted. See too pat," said the King.

Marie couldn't have agreed with him more.

With that they were dismissed.

While they spent that week waiting Marie got to spar with different soldiers and Seth.

The Pike, while a weapon given to new recruits and the men with little training, in the hands of a good fighter could be dangerous. Since it was the closest thing to a staff that was the agreed upon weapon to use when someone sparred with Marie.

Seth had watched one of the soldiers training with Marie while she was using her own borrowed pike against them and was impressed with her level of skill. Early on Seth had been training alone because he couldn't find anyone that he could go all out against.

But that changed when he noticed how quickly and easily Marie defeated all opponents.

After their first training session he found he trained from then on with her more often. He could press her and win, but it wasn't a given or an easy win. She made him work for it each and every time and he appreciated that.

Soon they became the topic of conversation around the castle.

Marie didn't crowd him or chase him, but she did drop hints and deeply kissed him from time to time, and Seth had to admit that a sweaty Marie with her clothing plastered to her body left little to his imagination and left him dreaming about her for hours afterwards.

The other effect their training had was that women seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork to get in between her and Seth. Women that he hadn't seen in a while seemed to all have worked out a way to constantly be around him now.

The first few days Marie had Seth all to herself, but now she seemed to be tripping over all the new and different women who now appeared. And they all seemed to show up now at times when it was the least opportune for her.

Marie never acted jealous, even when a few showed up dressed in something they painted on and tried to use their tongues to probe his mouth for hidden treasures right in front of her.

She just smiled at a flustered Seth, and at various times if the attention by the females went on too long Marie would smile as she called out that she could see he was busy and would catch up with him later. She then left him in the clutches of whatever women found them as she hummed while walking away.

But one thing she did notice was that Seth didn't go out with the women and refused all their dates, no matter what they were, when asked. Because of how he acted when she was around and how hard he was working to make her feel comfortable, she knew it was only a matter of time before she had him all to herself.

It wasn't long before he stopped letting the other women touch him at all if he could see them coming.

The King finally called them back near the end of the second week and told them he was ready for them to start their inspections under the guise of looking for the one responsible for the attacks.

He told the Counts it was to make sure that their lands weren't attacked or destroyed, but they were smart enough to realize there might be things they didn't want the King to know about.

But they also knew that protesting too much would lead to suspicion.

While Seth wanted to leave Marie at the castle the King and Marie agreed that there was nothing she could do other than spend her time fighting off would be suitors and it would be best if she had something to do to quit distracting the men.

Marie just smiled at him as she said he was hers and she wanted to keep an eye on him and would be ready to go when he was. She left and Seth just looked at the King helplessly as the King smiled and dismissed him as well.

The first few manors that were homes to the Counts weren't anything special. Well not special in the fact that Seth already expected their homes to be far more "lavish" than anything else in the Kingdom, and he wasn't disappointed in what he found.

But Seth also found that some of them were growing things that weren't to be exported and raised in the lands. There was a ban on some produce because of how it robbed the land and its surrounding area's of its nutrients. These items were delicacy among the nobles.

And a few others manors they found evidence that they were poaching game out of the Kings Forrest. Those Count's knew that this was also a no no. So that also went into his report.

On the next manor and lands to be examined Seth recognized it as the manor belonging to Count Randall, one of his loudest critics.

But as he and his men drew closer they noticed that the road leading up to his manor passed through a village of surf's that managed his lands and fields.

The villagers came out of their homes and from behind buildings jeering and telling the soldiers to go home. They said that they didn't want them there and they were only there to try to remove their lord by giving false witness and throwing accusations his way.

As the soldiers marched to a stop, the villagers surrounded Seth, his men, and Marie as they were menacing all of them with various farming utensils. Various pitchforks, backhoes, swing blades, and scythes were being brandished in the air all around them.

Seth was confused because what they were doing would take less than two hours and only involved them walking around the lands. They would do nothing invasive to anyone or their homes. All too quick he realized that the local Count organized this rally against them.

The group was looking around at all of the villagers, men women, and children, and they all seemed to be calling for their blood. Seth tried to talk to them and allay their fears, but nothing Seth said to them seemed to quiet down the bloodlust. If anything it seemed to be being whipped up even more by some on the back.

Seth kept trying to find a peaceful solution because he didn't want to harm any of the villagers or cause them lasting damage. He was sure that Count Randall sent an envoy to his manor and they gave the surf's the wild stories they were spouting now.

Realizing that he was standing on a powder keg that could go off at any moment, Seth decided to pull back and maybe come back to this area after the people had time to cool off and think about the fact they were defying the King's orders.