King's Ride

Chapter 2

Bjorn stared, dumbfounded, at the corner where the woman with the beautiful voice had disappeared. Behind him, a boot scraped on stone.

He turned and watched, wary-hearted, as Baron Gayle approached. What will he do, now that his king is gone?

With a grim, tight-lipped look, Gayle drew his sword and laid it flat across his hands. Red suffused the baron's face. Wet tear-tracks ran down his grizzled cheeks. His shoulders slumped as he knelt down at Bjorn's boots on the rough, stony shore and held out the bared sword flat across his palms.

The proper form of the oath Gayle offered required words too, but Bjorn understood the baron's turmoil and desperation. Astarkand must have a king and Gayle must have a liege-lord, yet Olaf had summarily abandoned both when he waded into the lake. Only God's mercy sent the woman to sing and a mermaid to answer, to rescue the bitter, selfish king from his just deserts. All the same, Olaf should not have done it!

Bjorn's anger flared, but not on his own behalf. How would the king's men feel, when they realized Olaf had cavalierly thrown their devotion and fealty away as if it counted for less than nothing with him? They all took such pride in being known as the king's men.

Bjorn looked down at the offered weapon, then back at Gayle's weeping face and nodded. Gayle was right. Take their oaths quickly. Give them no time to find themselves adrift without a leader. Any other course would find their devotion shaken, pride humiliated, and fealty suspect. Definitely suspect, if they all sustained the shocking blow that Gayle had just taken. The baron should not have had to take the brunt of his kinsman's selfish whim!

Bjorn touched the distraught man's shoulder."I accept your sword, Baron Gayle."

Gayle nodded, put the sword away, and struggled to his feet. Bjorn would have helped him, but the baron waved him off. After an unsteady lunge upward, he achieved sounder footing.

Relieved that the baron's dignity was intact, Bjorn started to turn away, his mind darting to the next few necessary tasks.

"A moment more," Gayle choked, grasping his sleeve. He swiped at his eyes with his left hand.

Bjorn mustered his patience and waited. Olaf is gone. I am king, ran through his mind. Threaded through that refrain flitted, Trehan's not going to like this. Who will believe Olaf did this? and, Summer's nearly past. I'm running out of time! Behind all his other musings, hung one big question: Who was that woman?

"He's always insisted on having everything on his own terms." Gayle offered Bjorn a thin-lipped smile. "I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised at the manner of his going, Your Highness."

"Olaf isn't dead," Bjorn said forcefully, gripping Gayle's arm. "You must believe me on that."

"Well, I've not known you to lie yet, but—" The baron met Bjorn's measuring stare, drawing his brows together. "Don't tell his men that. He's as good as dead," he tucked Olaf's boots under his arm. "Pulled beneath the waves by that—that—"

"Mermaid?" Bjorn filled in.

"Siren of the deep," the baron corrected, laughed shakily in spite of his obvious grief, then raised his eyebrows in apparent shock at his own levity. He added, "Come to steal him from this life."

Bjorn shook his head as he let go of the baron's arm. "He's well enough where he's gone, I think. I hope he finds peace."

As they left the beach and headed up the cobbled street to the keep, the baron asked, "What will you do now, Your Highness?"

"Break the news to my men after I secure Olaf's regalia." Bjorn darted another measuring glance at the baron. He assessed his new liegeman in light of his behavior on the beach; the counsel Olaf credited him for; and Olaf's apparent trust in him.