Daughter of the Rebellion

Chapter 13

What did that even mean? As much as he's able. Wasn't he the most powerful man here? Or one of them, at least?

Maybe he didn't want the extra responsibility and the extra expense. After all, he already had more than he bargained for with me.

I hurried to assure him that she wouldn't be any trouble. "She can share my meals and all of my things. I'll look after her. She won't be-"

"That's not it," Richard said. "I would gladly take care of her along with the hundreds of other girls trapped in this God-forsaken place. I just can't."

He had so much power. So much authority. How could that be true? It's not as if it would be the first time.

"But...you helped me."

"That's different."

Because I was going to marry him? I suppose he could only have one wife, but why should that limit his protection? Alyssa was just one more person. If he was rich, he must have servants and other people that worked for him. Alyssa would undoubtedly jump at that opportunity.

He seemed to debate something before he spoke again. When he did, he bent close to me, whispering so that I could barely hear him.

"You must promise not to breathe a word of what I'm about to tell you, to anyone," he said. "Not even Jeremiah."

Surprised by his urgency, I nodded.

"It could be disastrous for both of us if you do," he warned.

"I promise," I whispered.

"The king isn't responsible for all of this," he said to my astonishment.

"What do you mean?" The high king was the one who was behind everything. It was his outrageous demands that caused our people to go to war. He was the one behind the raids afterward - the reason that odious Captain Shields was there looking to kill my brothers and found me instead. The high king was responsible for all of it. Or, I thought he was.

"His brother has taken over," Richard said. "He's ambitious, smart, and cruel. He has appointed himself to be the Ambassador to the King. He uses the title to do his own bidding while claiming the orders come from the king. He's the one who caused the people to rise up. He's the reason..." Richard hesitated not wanting to say it, but I understood. The ambassador was the reason my father and brother were dead, and the reason that both Alyssa and I were here.

"I never supported the ambassador's ideas and he knows it," Richard said. "He would have liked to have gotten rid of me already, but I'm too elevated in the military - too important in general for it to be so simple. But he's looking for a reason and he's got plenty of his lapdogs watching me. I didn't have the option to remain impartial. It would have been considered treason. I've done what I could. Fought him wherever possible, delayed things whenever possible. But there are some things I can't interfere with, and some things I can't delay for very long without it being an open challenge to his authority."

My mind was spinning with the implications of what he was telling me. He wanted to help because he was a good person, but he couldn't help because he was working for the enemy who considered him an enemy.

But was he a good person really? My father died fighting against the ambassador. He probably knew he would die, but he fought anyway. Isn't that what any good person does? Fight evil whenever possible? Even if they could die?

Again I was reminded of the question that always seemed to surface in my mind.

"Did you..." I struggled to get the words out. "Did you kill my father?" He wouldn't know specifically, of course, but if he wasn't able to stay impartial, didn't that mean he had to fight? And if he killed anyone at all, it might have been Papa or Ian. And if that was the case, how could I possibly not despise him?