King's Ride

Chapter 1

As Baron Robert Gayle read his wife's letter, he couldn't shake the feeling of unfriendly eyes watching him. No one lurked down the hall toward the stairs. No one in the other direction either. Trying to dismiss the creepy-crawlies making his neck hairs stand on end, he leaned against the rough stonework behind him.

He found his place in the closely written words and began to read again just as His Royal Highness, Prince Bjorn Horsa slipped out of Olaf of Astarkand's chambers.

The prince yanked the door closed. "Stop him. He's trying to get away!"

The demand startled Robert out of his idle slouch against the wall. "Eh—what?" He stuffed the letter away and drew his sword. As the blade hissed out of the leather, he hesitated. "Who, Your Highness?" The echoing passage remained empty, except for the two of them.

"Olaf." Bjorn darted an anxious-seeming glance behind him at the door. His hand still lingered on the doorknob. "He means to swim with the mermaids."

Faint, mocking laughter echoed in Gayle's ears as the king's door opened again. His Highness seemed very reluctant to let go of the knob, but he eased aside as His Majesty, Olaf of Astarkand stepped through.

The laughter troubled Gayle. Surely it was an echo from the floor below? He stuck a blunt-tipped finger in his ear and wiggled it as he met the prince's desperate expression, begging him to do something. His kinsman, the king of Astarkand intended such madness? Surely His Highness jested.

At Gayle's bemused look of inquiry, the king's lips twitched into a bitter smile. He said, "Say rather, I've seen sense. I'm abdicating and making way for a new king. A better man, as you have hinted a time or two, Gayle. You're my witness that I do this of my own free will," he added.

Bjorn grabbed Gayle's arm, urging him to follow as the king walked out the door into the courtyard in just his tunic, pants, and boots. Beyond the gatehouse, Olaf surprised Gayle further when he took off running for the beach. Never one to waste time, the young prince pelted after the king.

Gayle winced in sympathy at the ungainly bandage around Bjorn's lower leg. The broken bone, however mended in the last month, had to hurt with every jolting step the prince took, though he didn't sensibly slow his pace to favor it.

Regretting that he lacked the ability of the prince to ignore his pain, the baron puffed after the pair, favoring an achy knee and muttering under his breath about damp lake breezes.

"Hah!" he said to himself, slowing to a walk as he reached the last row of houses before the beach. "My kinsman is having a jest at Dragonsbane's expense. I'll get there and he'll be laughing his head off, and the prince—" Will endure the king's mockery stoic-faced, as he did so often at court, the baron reassured himself.

“Will what? Come on, you oaf! Pick up your feet.” The impatient annoyance in the unknown voice made Gayle glance over his shoulder in dismay. No one there.

“Hello?” He waited in chagrined silence for an answer. Had he really heard a voice? Was he going mad?

The breeze brought him the alarming sound of mermaids singing. Then again...

"He's right. I've got to stop the king before he does something foolish!" Gayle limp-galloped around the corner of the last house, and down to the rocky beach. The feeling of being watched abruptly deserted him. He felt, more than heard, a faint disgusted hiss, and was tempted to look around again, but—

Olaf stood up from removing his boots. The king said something to the prince, but Gayle couldn't make out his words above the noise of the wind, the singing, the cries of shore birds, and water hissing on the rocks.

Olaf met Gayle's worried glance over Bjorn's shoulder, jerked up his chin and turned hastily away. Gayle sucked in his breath, horrified, as the king hurried down into the gray waters of the Bleuet, apparently just because he, the king's kinsman, had arrived.

The baron bit his lip and shook his head. "No! Don't do it," he shouted, but a gust of wind swallowed his words. "Olaf! Kinsman—" But the wind snatched the cries from his mouth and hurled them away, over the rooftops of Neith.

As Olaf forced himself forward into deeper waters, Gayle shivered in horrified empathy. The baron would never have put one toe in the frigid Bleuet, much less bathed in it!

The wind dropped a little and Gayle thought of calling out again.

A woman dressed all in white, with golden hair that fell to her ankles came down to the water's edge and raised her arms. She lifted a song to the vault of heaven. Her singing drifted out over the water and held Gayle tongue-tied and frozen in place. He watched, helpless as the woman mesmerized the prince too, saw the way the young lord stiffened and turned an eager, enthralled look her way.

Gayle hoped the song would bring Olaf back to shore, but he pressed stubbornly on into deeper water. Gayle could do nothing but watch as a mermaid came and took his lord and king from him, her wet fishy embrace severing all their mutual oaths of allegiance and lordship. As his kinsman disappeared beneath the waves, hot, angry tears poured down the baron's grizzled cheeks.

The mermaids stopped their tormenting song. He felt only relief when the woman also stopped singing and departed, taking her enchantments with her.

Released, he hurried forward thinking, My liege is gone! Impossible, unthinkable, and yet the inescapable truth. I have no lord—no. Dangerously untrue. The one to whom he must give allegiance stared in a most alarming fashion after the retreating woman, as if any moment he intended to sprint after her and leave Gayle alone, adrift in this distressfully liege-less state.

The baron had been too late to save Olaf, but now he was here, he saw every needful reason to save Bjorn—and possibly himself—from an even worse situation.

* * * * *

He shivered as the hairs on his neck rose again. His unseen watcher had returned. Desperate to ignore him, Baron Gayle hastened forward across the skittering rocks, and cleared his throat.