Council

Demetrius dressed carefully. He wanted to look his best for the council. He chose a long, plain, blue tunic, lighter in color than the dark blue robe that lay folded on a shelf. He wore light yellow trousers, tucked into knee high black boots. He pulled the tunic up until it hung slightly above his knees, wrapped a length of light blue material about eight inches wide around his waist several times and tied the king’s knot over his left hip, and let the excess tunic blouse over the belt. Demetrius opened a case on the wall and took out a pair of knives, not as fancy as the daggers that he gave to Cyrus but sharp, serviceable and each had a small emerald embedded in the handle. He slipped one in each boot and tucked all the coins he could find in his room into either the small pockets on his boots or the folds of his belt. He reached for his grandfather’s pocket watch and flushed when he remembered he let Cyrus have that treasure, and that was in part why he was going to stand before a disciplinary council this morning. He wondered if he would be allowed to see his sister before he left. He felt like he was facing the end of everything he knew. “That’s silly,” he muttered to himself, " They aren’t going to banish me, or beat me, I am still the crown prince.” He thought about the options he read through the past few days. He could be sent away, or housed on a small estate and made to tend gardens and care for animals and eat simple food. He shuddered. They could decide to lock him in an apartment in the tower, or they could strip him of his royal status and make him apprentice to someone in the village. “They aren’t going to go to that extreme, will they?” He shuttered at the thought of becoming an apprentice to the vendor that he threw coins at. He used to enjoy picking out a sweet bun from a street vendor and throwing the coins in the dirt for the boys working the stand to pick up. He shook himself. He needed a hat. He contemplated the row of hats in his dressing room. There were fancy, plain, warm and simple.

“The plain black one looks nice.” Demetrius jumped at the sound of the voice, He turned to face his little sister. She looked pretty as always, he waited for the familiar twinge of jealousy, but he only felt relief that she looked so well. The red scar across her forehead didn’t really detract from her beauty, if anything it made her look more regal.

“Thank you”, he took the hat from the shelf and turned to face Bellatrix “I truly am sorry for what I did at your birthday party. I wasn’t very brotherly or Princely”

“You are forgiven by me. I asked to walk with you to the council, Father got called away on some emergency, a lot of the guards went to the gate. I’m not sure what is happening.”

One of the sentries led the way Demetrius and Bellatrix followed side by side their personal attendants following a few paces behind. Their footsteps echoed in the stone corridor. No one spoke, the lead sentry took a torch from the wall and lit it, the group turned down a dark corridor, Demetrius could hear voices. He hadn’t expected the council to be debating before he arrived. His heart quickened, his breath came short. He felt a small reassuring hand on his arm. “Breathe deep, slowly count to four and let it out slowly, count of four.”

He smiled down at her, “I don’t deserve you, you are too good to me.”

Bellatrix smiled back at him, “I do the breathing exercises that Dr. taught us when we were getting over the sickness, several times a day. Malecent says I should be able to sing again soon. The choir is a lot smaller but some survivors are exercising their voices.” Her voice trailed off as they arrived at the council room. Demetrius had expected the group to be seated at the table looking through their papers. There were papers on the table, but the council members were surrounding a runner who was bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees gasping. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, some of their faces were red and others were pale. No one noticed that Demetrius had arrived. The sentry that led them ran to the group and tried to ask what was going on, it seemed to Demetrius that he was just sucked into the chaos. He heard Bellatrix sigh and saw her move. He reached out to catch her arm but she slipped away and climbed on the table and picked up the gong. Demetrius grinned and covered his ears just in time. When silence had settled. Bellatrix took a deep breath and said. “Runner Omar, please state your message.”

The messenger walked to stand by the table and nodded up at the princess.

“Red troops have crossed the river and taken Fort Bragg and are said to be marching toward the castle. Our Fair King was unable to reach an agreement with the Red rulers and they are attacking.”

A door at the back of the room that Demetrius hadn’t known existed opened and a strange group rushed in. Before he could process who they were, Demetrius was wrapped in a dark cloak and pulled toward another hidden door. He struggled and turned just in time to see his sister being swept through another door across the room. The council members were leaving some through the main door, some were following the men that were half dragging, half carrying Demetrius, through a tunnel. He heard a click and saw the door they just came through disappear into the wall. Demetrius heard a familiar voice speaking quietly next to his ear. “Pull your cloak around you, put the hood up and follow me”

“Master Bertrand, you look like. . .” a hand clamped over his mouth.

“Shhhh, I’ll explain later.”

Demetrius flipped the hood over his hat, pulled the cloak around him and ran.

His sides hurt, and his feet felt numb, terror coursed through Demetrius, he could barely make out Master Bertrand’s form darting through the trees, he couldn’t lose site of him. He stumbled and fell. He lay on the ground trying to breathe the way his sister had reminded him too. Fresh terror hit him. Where was his sister? his parents? his personal guard? He struggled to his feet and stumbled forward, clawing his way through thick bushes, he had to catch up to Master Bertrand. He cleared the thicket and landed face down in a clearing, no wait it was a road, an old partly overgrown road but a road. A horse drawn cart came around a curve headed straight for him. Demetrius started to dash back into the brush but heard his teacher call out, “Demetrius” He lost his balance again when he turned to face the man pulling the horse to a stop under the trees. The horse stomped and snorted, shaking his mane. Demetrius caught himself on the side of the cart, and reached out and rubbed the creature’s neck, the horse quieted, the man on the seat got down and unhitched the horse.

“What are you doing?”

“Get in the wagon and move the seat to the other end. On this road it is easier to hitch the horse to the other end of the cart than it is to turn the cart around.”

“Where are we? I don’t recognize this place.”

“This is one of the escape routes, it is maintained only a few times a year and kept as secret as possible. The King, one elite guardsman, and I know what it really is. The couple of men that maintain it believe that it is a hunting retreat that the king never uses.”

“So we will stay here a few days and then go back home, right?

“Afraid not, the Red army was about an hour from the castle with at least twice as many troops as our palace guard and they are full strength, not weakened by the sickness.”

“I thought that the whole planet was infected with the sickness, why are they not weakened?”

“The Red King didn’t make the healing herbs available to everyone. He gave all he had to his family and his best troops. They are stronger than they were before the sickness. They also want to keep drinking the tea every morning.”

Demetrius stared at the man seated on the box seat of the wagon. The healing plants were rare and took three years to bloom. The blooms had to be dried for months in a dark place before they were ground to make tea. There were two plants in the castle green house about to bloom. Five more that might bloom in the next year or so. “They invaded us for the plants?”

“They believe that there are hundreds of blooming plants somewhere in the kingdom and they intend to get them.”

“Are there?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so, I only know of one other gardener that had been able to get the plants to grow, in a green house. Hers haven’t budded yet, she’s not sure that they will ever bloom.”

“Don’t they grow wild somewhere?”

“Somewhere maybe, but if they do, and if he knows where the king hasn’t shared it with me.” The path narrowed and the cart stopped. “We walk from here.”

“My legs haven’t recovered from the run,” Demetrius slowly got down from the wagon, he watched wide eye has Master Bertrand, dressed as a peddler, removed three packs from the cart then unhitched the horse and took off all of his tack and and began dismantling the cart.

“Here, Help me get all of this out of the road, there is a cavity over there behind those large spruce trees, we can put the pieces in,” They were both wheezing with each breath and drenched with sweat long before the pieces were hidden and the road swept of their tracks.

“Where’s the horse?”

“He is free to go where ever he wants, he will probably find a herd to join or a more likely a cave to rest in. Hopefully he won’t follow and lead the red blood hounds to us.”

Demetrius nearly fainted at the mention of blood hounds, he struggled to take a deep breath, and rasped out “blood hounds”

Master Bertrand nodded and motioned for the boy to follow him. They slowly and carefully picked their way through the thick undergrowth, Demetrius wasn’t sure if it was dark because of the dense forest or if it was night. He didn’t have breath enough to ask. Finally they reached a small cabin, it was built of dirt and stone and seemed to grow right out of the ground. Demetrius wasn’t sure he would have found it if he hadn’t literally tripped over the step. They struggled to get the door opened and pulled themselves and the three packs inside. The weather was mild but they were hot, sweaty and exhausted. They shoved the packs together in a pile and spread their cloaks on the dirt floor and collapsed on them.