Chapter 8

"This is a very unusual kind of man. He is not really a man, but is an artificial construct of flesh and bone. He was controlled by a wizard much more powerful than I will ever be, probably from some distance away. There is not much else that I can tell you, except that I am surprised that you could kill it. May I examine the knife that was used?"

Rolf handed her his knife and Granny Eltman held it for a few seconds. "Sir Rolf, where did you get this knife?"

"Sir Geoffrey gave it to me some years ago. I liked the feel and the balance, so I have always kept it handy."

"Sir Geoffrey, where did this knife come from? It is of very unusual composition."

"As far as I know, it is identical to the other knives I found in a set of six many years ago when I was playing in an unused section of Springfeld Keep. There are five of them in use right now. Gwendolyn, Elbert, Rolf, my father, and I all have one of them. What is unusual about them?"

"You see this tiny bead of gray metal running down the center of the blade? Well, that is made of a mixture of bismuth and antimony. I have no idea of its original purpose, but this knife is one of the few things that could have killed that construct that was annoying Sir Rolf. Bopping him in the head with a heavy pewter cup might have done the same thing, but I cannot be sure. In any case, never let this knife get far from your hand: it may save your lives again."

I had to ask, "Granny Eltman, do you have any more information on what the King is doing and why he might want me dead?"

"Right now, I do not know any more about that than I did when we last talked. However, this construct does tell me that there may be more to what is going on here than just some interest from the King. You have to be extremely important for a wizard who can make and control constructs to have an interest in you. I am sorry to say, though, that I cannot imagine what it could be. Hopefully, you will stay alive long enough for us to understand what that is." A grin from her told me that she really had more feeling for me than her little joke seemed to say.

"Thank you, my Lady, but the other question is what should we do? Should we stay here and wait for someone or something else to show up to try to harm us, or should we escape. And, if we escape, where should we go? Should we simply return to that room in the palace, should we return to the caravan, or should we return to the Keep? For that matter, should we try to disappear completely so that neither the King nor anyone else can find us? Furthermore, I have no idea how many people to put into that 'us' that I just mentioned. I really need your advice on this."

"Sir Geoffrey, I am not sure how to answer your question. There is no doubt that the wizard knows what happened to his construct. Were I in his shoes, my first thought would be how you killed it. My second thought would be how you discovered what it was so that you knew how to kill it. My third thought would be to forget those other two thoughts and to try to kill you as quickly and expeditiously as possible. As that wizard, I would believe that you were simply too dangerous to allow to live any longer than it took for me to kill you.

"That wizard may not be the one directly involved with the King, but he has to have some contact with a wizard who does have contact with the king. My feeling is that you are now in de facto rebellion to the current King. Therefore, I think that your only hope is to run for the hills, literally. Forget Blakeslee Keep and becoming a baron. There is a very good chance that you will lose your head within the next few weeks.

"I want to prevent that, but I will need time to make that happen. Also, I will have to keep my identity secret from the wizards who are chasing you. Therefore, my suggestion is that you abandon your caravan and transport all of your people back to Blakeslee Keep. From there, you and you wife disappear from human ken. I would suggest that you take Sir Rolf and Sir Elbert with you if they would go: that may be the only way to save their lives.

"The longer you stay at Blakeslee Keep, the more danger you are to the innocent people who live there. If the wizards get too exasperated or fearful of you, they could well destroy Blakeslee Keep and all who live there with a series of lighting strikes. In any case, you can expect the King to send an army to eliminate you if the wizards do not strike first.

"In other words, my advice is to head into the mountains north of Blakeslee and hide there until you can strike at the King. Yes, you will have to destroy the King before he destroys you. You may also have to destroy some wizards, and I do not know how you could possibly do that. But, whatever you do, get yourself, your wife, and your friends to safety as soon as possible!"

"Very well, Granny Eltman, I will take your advice. One detail would be of great help. The King's men took away our warhorses when we came to the palace. Is there any way to get them back? A warhorse is vital to a knight as a symbol of his status. Without a warhorse, it would be impossible to get most people to take me seriously. Can you help us recover them?"

"Certainly, Sir Geoffrey. You will find your warhorses waiting for you at the last place you camped with your caravan. Transport yourself to that place and ride to find your caravan. Transport all of them to Blakeslee Keep, and I will leave it to you to work out further details of your escape."

"Very well, Granny Eltman, and thank you for all of your help." As usual, she nodded and disappeared. I transported Rolf and me to our room where we recovered our clothes and weapons. From there, I jumped us to the caravan site where the horses would be waiting. Rolf and I mounted and raced away to find the caravan before it got to King's Home.

It was a short, but tiring chase. We found the caravan only one day's journey from King's Home. Thank God we had found them soon enough! I called everyone together so that I could tell them that we were going home. I had every man mount his horse and put the women on the horses behind three of the men. Gwen sat behind me, of course.

The men without horses clasped hands and grabbed a horse's tail. Some of the men were embarrassed to hold another man's hand, but I told them that they were required to do it. Eventually, I got through to everybody and we jumped to the courtyard at Blakeslee Keep.

My God! We arrived just in time. Each of my men took his weapon and charged into the fray. We could not tell who we were fighting at first, but it soon became apparent that we were fighting the King's men. This was an underhanded attack that had caught many people by surprise. Fortunately, Capt Morley was not one of them. He had his men fighting only seconds after they realized that they were under attack.

The Blakeslee Keep people were outnumbered about two to one, but our sudden appearance at the rear of the attackers broke their wall of fighting men. It took nearly 90 minutes before we won, but my men were incensed over the treachery, and they fought like demons! Nobody could understand why Blakeslee Keep would be attacked by the King. I certainly could not explain it to them. Nevertheless, when I told everybody what had happened to Rolf and me in King's Home, they were all ready to go to war against the King.

It took a while for me to get through to them that it was too early to rebel against the unjust King, but it would happen. It was just that somethings had to happen first before we could hope to win. I was finally able to make my point that Gwen and I had to hide in the mountains until we could be ready to fight. In the meantime, I said that some of them could come with us to form the nucleus of a new holding that would not swear fealty to the King.

The others would have to stay where they were. That was because there was no way an undeveloped holding could feed so many people. That they could understand, and the argument changed to one of who would go and who would stay at Blakeslee Keep.

I said that I wanted Steward Simp to work that out, and everybody should talk to him about it, but not all at the same time. Steward Simp gave me a dirty look when I dumped all of that into his lap, but he was the logical man to work it out.