To Conquer the Heart of a King Read online

  The cup fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.

  “What is it?” The King asked weakly.

  “Lukas! And the Seer.” Magnus was not surprised at her presence. His spies had already informed him of Lukas’ visit to the cloister. What surprised him was that Lukas had survived the trip. He was supposed to have been waylaid and dispatched by the bandits that plagued the countryside. Magnus sighed. This was a temporary disappointment. He knew of a weapon he could use against Lukas, one that Lukas had been kind enough to provide himself. The Seer. Magnus knew exactly who she was. After all he’d helped to make her what she was. Not that she would have considered his actions helpful.

  If he was superstitious he would think his past sins were catching up to him. He was not. He was practical. Every action had a consequence, and every consequence could be turned to an advantage.

  “Bring the Seer to me. She will tell me what ails me,” the King panted.

  Magnus shrugged his shoulders as he rang for a servant. He would not deny a dying man his last request.

  Chapter Six

  Lukas had been 15 the last time he had laid eyes on the castle of Falkenberg. He’d been gone almost 20 years. Such a short time in the life of a 300-year-old fortress. Four towers of differing height crowned the stone monstrosity, each with a different purpose, a prison, a look-out, the King’s chambers, and the last closed off and crumbling, conquered by time and weather. They gave the castle a crooked appearance. The many-tiered courtyard was pleasant enough with its gardens and fountain, both picturesque and practical. With its own water source the castle could withstand a siege indefinitely. If the enemy was on the outside.

  It all had the busyness of an anthill, but there the similarity ended. Ants worked selflessly for the common good. Courtly life had always attracted the flatterers and the plotters and hangers-on. A bunch of Arschkriechers. The fools would crawl right up his ass if he let them get close enough. Lukas felt their calculating eyes upon him. It had been a long rough trip. He and his party had ridden in like muddy beggars. He would take the liberty of a bath before seeing his father. The King respected strength, and Lukas would meet him like a Prince.

  He entered the low archway into the great hall with the Seer, a woman he knew little about, Tilman, an awkward boy who had been entrusted to him as a page, and Lothar, a man who had fought beside him before, but might not realize what he was getting himself into. In the vastness of the hall, his party seemed miniscule and outnumbered. The leaded stained-glass windows only grudgingly let in the weak sunlight. As the door closed behind them, Lukas had the sudden feeling they had been swallowed and had landed in the belly of a beast.

  Chapter Seven

  The Seer was taken immediately to the King. He had asked her the same question three times now.

  For the third time she gave him the same answer. “I cannot see your future.”

  “I am not…going to…die!” he whined.

  But he was.

  The room was close, too warm. Was there someone else here? She sensed a presence. Was it a man, or just a sense of evil? And there was a sickly sweet scent. Something unnatural. Poison most likely. Could she tell him? He would doubt her. The weakness in his voice, his inability to complete a sentence, it was too late for him. But not too late for this Kingdom.

  “Tell me…what you see for me!”

  She said nothing. What could she say?

  “Fetch the guard. Have her put in the tower,” he panted. “Maybe that will open her mouth.”

  Unhurried steps told her she’d been right. There was another person in the room. One who passed close enough to her so she could catch the scent of sulfur. Her knees buckled. If the King thought she was afraid of being imprisoned, he was wrong. She would have fallen, if the rough hand of a guard had not clamped tightly around her arm. All the while she could sense that silent devil watching her. It was a devil, she was sure. She had met him once before when her world had almost ended in fire.

  Chapter Eight

  Lukas was refreshed, but not reassured when he collected Lothar from the guest chamber and they wound their way through the castle’s maze of corridors under the glassy-eyed scrutiny of stuffed boars’ and stags’ heads which lined the stone walls. The corridors had the same musty smell of tradition and hubris he remembered from his youth. They ascended the narrow spiral stone stairs into the upper rooms. It was cold, even draftier than in his memory. Only a fool would want to live in a castle. Only a fool would want to be King.

  They had been directed to the plotting room. If his father was there fulfilling his duties, surely he was not as ill as had been feared. Not that he had any deep feeling for his father, but the castle oppressed him. The cold stone seemed to weigh on him. Did he want the burden of a crown?

  They passed through the room’s low arched door, and Lukas had to bow his head to clear it. There was the same ornate writing desk he remembered, the broad table strewn with maps, the aging pictures on the walls of men in battle. The shutters to the wrought iron balcony stood open. The chair with its lion feet was empty.

  “We’re going to his sleeping chambers,” he said to Lothar.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Outside in the corridor, four guards blocked the exit. When they finally parted it was only to let Magnus in.

  Lukas did not greet him, although it had been years since they had last met. Magnus had not aged. He was as fair as ever. He had always had the face of an angel. And the heart of a devil. “Let me see him.”

  “He won’t be seeing anyone today,”

  “He’ll see me!”

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand. The King is dead. The prophetess you brought foresaw it.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’ll instruct the guards to take you to her now.”

  Lukas had always thought Magnus capable of anything…but regicide. He had underestimated him and that would have costly consequences. He didn’t care so much for himself as for the men…and woman that he had brought into this. Tilman was from the house of Rodeck, under the protection of the King of Zaehringen. Magnus would spare him. But Lothar? And the Seer? What awaited her? He hoped for her sake she was already dead.

  He turned to Lothar. Nothing needed to be said. The man knew. And understood. He blinked once. In acknowledgment. In preparation for the fight ahead. Lukas hoped not in farewell.

  Chapter Nine

  The Seer had considered her 15 years in the cloister a torture. How wrong she had been. Up and up she stumbled, the guard’s merciless hand around her wrist. The sickening scent of sulfur was replaced now by a potent mix of urine, vomit, sweat and fear as a heavy door scraped open and she was dragged over a threshold.

  “Throw her in there,” her escort demanded.

  “But…she’s a woman,” a voice said.

  “Give me those keys!”

  She was released for a moment. There was a tussle, the wrangling of keys, a lock opening, and she was being shoved forward. “Come get me when she stops screaming and starts talking.”

  She heard nothing else but grunts, heavy steps, arguing voices. Were the prisoners fighting over their prize? She sank to the stone floor, shuddering as a hand clawed at her shoulder. She was too frightened to scream.

  “Don’t be afraid.” The voice was as comforting as the blanket, or was it a coat, that went around her. “My name is Sebastian. My men call me Bastian.” He continued to talk as if sensing that it soothed her. “We would never hurt a woman. We’re here because we fought for the wrong man.”

  “How many of you are there?” the Seer asked in a shaky voice.

  “14.”

  “Would you like to fight for the right man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She told him in a quiet voice, then called loudly to the jailor. “Let them go!” Her voice now did not tremble.

  The jailor approached. “Don’t ask that of me. It would mean my death.”

  “It will mean your death if you don
’t.”

  “You’ve seen my future?” he gasped.

  “I see no future here.” She said. God forgive her, she knew exactly how he would understand that. “Let this man out. It’s the only chance you have.”

  She waited for an answer. It came in the click of the lock as the cell door opened. There was the sound of quick movements, of another tussle. Then the door to the cell clanged shut again. With her inside.

  Sebastian’s voice was near. “I’ve locked you in. It’s the safest place for you now. If I don’t come for you, it means--”

  She cut him off. “You’ll come. Now go!”

  The Seer crawled to the far corner of the cell and waited. She was practiced at waiting, but that had been in the silence of the cloister. Exhaustion claimed her more than a few times, and each time she woke to a new horror. The groans of some prisoners, the vile exclamations of others, the prickling feet of mice. How she hoped they weren’t rats. How long had she lain there before smoke tickled her nostrils. Was it hours or days? She had almost burned before. Would fire claim her now? She was almost, almost too tired to care. Her limbs were stiff from cold, her mouth dry. Her eyes, useless as they were to her, refused to open. Voices floated past her like leaves on a stream, so hard to catch. Then there was a voice she knew, a voice her heart responded to.

  “Is she alive?”

  She tried to say yes. Tried to sit up.

  “I…I don’t know. I didn’t touch her, I swear.”

  “Nor did you help her!”

  The jailor was begging for mercy. The answer to his plea was the angry scrape of a blade from a scabbard.

  “No!” the Seer cried, but her dry lips made no sound. Even if they had, it would have been too late. Too late! The wheels of fate were turning. She had done her part to set them in motion, and nothing she could do could stop them.

  She felt hands on her then. Gentle, lifting her up as she sank into a deep blackness.

  Chapter Ten

  The Seer woke to brightness. Like any other sightless flower, she could recognize and respond to light. There was darkness still, but that was in her mind. Her body was sore, but it also ached for freedom and movement. She climbed out of the plush bed, how unused she was to such luxury of down and satin. She stumbled here over a low couch, there over a plush chair, and now a table. She did not feel the edges smart against her shins. She did not feel the cold penetrating her thin nightdress or emanating from the stone floor against her bare feet. Like an animal in a trap she only felt the urge to escape. At last she found the door and pulled on the ornately carved handle. It was locked.

  The Seer screamed.

  On the other side a key slid into the lock. “Is something wrong?” Tilman’s voice was anxious.

  “Yes,” the Seer said. “Tell the King I’ve had a vision. It’s urgent.”

  It was not really a lie. She had had a vision, a dream of freedom, but that had been destroyed.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Seer had awoken that morning. It was the news Lukas had hoped for, but it was night before he was able to escape from his advisors and courtly duties to see for himself that she was well. At her quarters, he commanded Tilman to open the door without wasting a glance at the boy. He reminded him too much of what he’d lost. He did not knock. He was King; everything in this castle now belonged to him.

  The Seer was standing by the window, her back to him, dressed in a simple shift. The gowns he had ordered made for her lay strewn over the canopy bed as if discarded. She had heard him come in, he was sure, but she did not turn. From anyone else he would not have tolerated that sign of disrespect, but this almost amused him. Almost.

  He joined her at the window. The night was black, he saw only their reflections in the glass. She was quiet and still as a statue. He put his fingers under her chin and angled her face towards the flame that burned in the sconce. Shadows of exhaustion still marred the whiteness of her face.

  “Didn’t Tilman tell your Majesty I had a vision? That it was urgent?” she said coldly.

  “Didn’t you tell me you can’t see the future?”

  She shook her face from his hand. “You killed that man.”

  He gave a short bitter laugh. “Which man?” There had been too many.

  “The jailor. He saved you.”

  “You saved me.”

  “I gave him hope.”

  “It wasn’t yours to give.”

  She faced him now. “You gave me hope. You said I would be free as soon as you were King.”

  “Did I? I said when I was King. I didn’t say exactly when. You see I’ve learned something from you.”

  Impotent anger tightened her features and she turned back to the window. Her voice was almost a hiss when she finally spoke. “I’ll be the dancing bear in your circus if you make me,” she said. “But just remember bears have claws.”

  It was not a loss of control on his part that his arm went around her like a vice. It was a test of his willpower that he did not hurt her then as his hand took hold of her chin from behind and forced her head back onto his shoulder. It was exactly the position in which to slit a man’s throat. And God knows, he had. More than once. He’d seen too much of brutality, too much betrayal. His mouth was at her ear. “Don’t,” he spoke barely above a whisper. “Ever threaten me again.”

  “Let me go!”

  He wasn’t ready to free her. In any way. He clamped his arm around her abdomen even tighter until she couldn’t breathe or speak. “There are a million ways a man could hurt you. You’re lucky I got to you first. I will protect you, but should you cross me, you’ll see more than visions. You’ll see what a man is capable of. Do you understand me?”

  He waited for her answer. She didn’t give it. Admiration for her stubbornness vied with so many other emotions. Anger, disappointment, sorrow. As King he could show none of them, not truly mourn what he’d so lately lost. And behind that was a darker drive. As he held her pressed tightly against him, he was aware of the fragrance of her hair, her delicateness, her fragility. Her femininity. She had fought on his side, because he was the best choice in this world of bad men. But was he a good man?

  Before he found an answer he didn’t want to hear, he released her. He had never run from anything before, but he fled her chambers. His wounds were too new. His anger too great. His needs too many for her to take them up without being destroyed.

  “Lock the door, and don’t open it again tonight. For anyone. Even me.” he said hoarsely to Tilman as he brushed past the boy into the darkness of the corridor.

  Chapter Twelve

  There would be no freedom for the Seer. Of a physical kind. She sought a different type of escape. She was no stranger to fasting. If she refused food and drink long enough she would disappear. She was weaker than ever, and it gave her a grim sense of satisfaction that there was strength in that. When the King came to see her, she knew she had won a battle of wills.

  “What is it you want?” he asked.

  “Freedom.”

  “What would you do with it? Where would you go? What would you do?”

  “I mean freedom from this burden.” She had refused to eat, but guilt had gnawed at her insides since that night. “A man died because of me.”

  He snorted. “20 men have died on my account.”

  “It’s different.”

  “How? To make a difference takes decisions and consequences. Inaction has its own consequences.”

  “It’s too much.”

  “It’s only the beginning. There will be much more.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “I need you.”

  “It would be a bad sign, if I died. Wouldn’t it?”

  “If you die, I’ll wring your neck.”

  She didn’t smile. She turned her head back to the wall.

  “Please.”

  Was it the word? The gentleness in his voice, or the soft touch of his hand on her shoulder. On his last visit he had been brutal. Now he was kind. They were jus
t different tactics to gain the same goal, to have her bend to his will. She saw that all too clearly. But her heart? Her heart was dumb and blind and responded only to the way he stroked her cheek now, smoothing a strand of her long hair away from her face and tucking it so tenderly behind her ear.

  She had never been touched like that and the intimacy of it woke something in her, as violently as spring tears at the ground. And as painfully. Her mind started to work. Without her bidding, without her wanting it to, like in the cloister, when she would put it to the task of solving puzzles, of knitting one stray piece of information to another to form a picture of what the future could be like. After a long while she spoke. “You have 14 legions.”

  “Mmmh,” he said in response.

  “Sebastian had 14 men with him.”

  “So?”

  “Give each of them command.”

  “Half of them don’t have the experience.”

  “That doesn’t matter. All of them have loyalty. You need those 14 men.”

  “There are only 13.”

  She had not asked what had happened while she was locked away. She had not wanted to know. She sighed in regret and sadness. “What about Lothar? He could--”

  In an instant his touch was gone. “There will be only 13,” he repeated with a grim finality.

  She did not say, I’m sorry. There was nothing to say. She closed her eyes for a moment in pain over the loss of his friend. “Do you believe in God?” she asked then.

  “No.” There was no hesitation in his voice.

  “I do.”

  “How could you? Locked away in that cloister slowly starving to death?”

  “Those were the trappings of religion, not faith. I felt his presence. I felt him shelter me when I was burning.”

  She opened her palm, realizing only now that her fists had been clenched. With a finger, he touched the star-shaped scar and she closed her hand instinctively over his, as if he could pull her from this darkness. Maybe he could.