First Official Visit
By Montez
Disclaimer: see chapter one
Chapter 26
Epilogue #1
Sir Cador stood next to his friend, no his King, his friend had retreated nearly ten years ago. The morning the scroll from Lord Andrew was opened the second war on magic had begun. The older Knight will never forget the words scribbled onto the parchment, the backing of those words with the interrogation of the man who had delivered it. The Lady Elizabeth, beloved wife of Lord Andrew had been enchanted by a Sorcerer and been led to believe that the King of Camelot was an evil man and that his son Arthur was to bring death and destruction to the Kingdom because of what Uther had done during the Great Purge. She had been convinced that all the people prosecuted during those two years were non-magic people and that Uther had just been a bloodthirsty King and with his son becoming older and learning the ways of a leader, that he too would soon be targeting anyone he saw as an enemy and would lay waste to the Kingdom, destroying the way of life for all within. The Sorcerer had known of Uther's yearly visits and was preparing an ambush on the King's return trip, but once Arthur was known to be traveling with his father the man had doubled the number of mercenaries, he got Lady Elizabeth to help pay for, to attack the party hoping to wipe out the Pendragon line in one, seemingly random, attack. The so-called Mastermind could never have believed that his forty-plus men could have been beaten so completely and both the King and Prince would survive. The man attempted to kill Lady Elizabeth, but Lord Andrew had found out and managed to kill the man just as he had sent a spell toward the Lord killing him. Elizabeth had become so distraught with what had happened and the death of her husband that she sent word of who was behind the attack and her part in it, begging for mercy from the King, but unfortunately with the return of magic as a threat to his family, Uther showed no mercy when he sent men to arrest Lady Elizabeth and stripping the family of all right's to the Lordship that Andrew had held, thus being the catalyst for what began the return of pyre's, chopping blocks, and gallows being constructed in and around the Citadel. Mercy was no longer a word that King Uther recognized.
Cador watched as his friend hardened into an almost unrecognizable man, isolated in his hate for magic he had even pushed his beloved son away. Leon had tried to remain close to the boy, but sooner than was expected Uther forced the young Prince to begin his training to be a full Knight, the boy bypassed the squire stage and his training became so intense Cador sometimes feared for the boy not only physically, but mentally as Uther never seemed to offer any encouragement just constant judgement on what the boy was doing wrong.
The older Knight will never forget the first 'assignment' Uther forced his barely teenage son to undertake. An assignment Cador begged the boy not to be sent on because of his age, but Uther would hear none of it and at just 15 years old, the boy was given the lead on a disastrous raid on a Druid camp. Though the party returned triumphant in eliminating a magical threat, Arthur had come back a broken child, no, now considered a man. Cador remembered his own son trying to console the broken Prince that night, but by the next day the look behind the boy's eyes was shuttered and so began the 'good little knight' who never again questioned his father's orders and never again showed his emotions, the hardened Knight was born that day and Cador's heart had broken.
That was how Sir Cador, First Knight to the King of Camelot came to be standing on the balcony next to his King as he watched the man's son bring out a condemned woman and child to the chopping block, the woman begging the Prince the whole time to spare the child, for the child had no magic. Cador had learned fast that it didn't mean much to Uther, as whole families were sometimes killed for one member having magic or being accused of having magic. The Knight watched as the Prince emotionlessly walked the two to the stair's amide the screams and cries of both the child and mother, the boy, no man turning as the executioners grabbed the two condemned persons only just flinching as the cries of the child abruptly stopped and the screams of the mother became hysterical before a quick silence. Cador watched as the Prince never looked back, barely glancing toward the balcony which held his father, but in that brief moment the Knight saw the cracks in the Prince and if he saw the young man raise a hand to his face as he stepped into the shadows of the castle Cador would never betray his Prince to his King on just how much the father had damaged the son.
"Let that be a lesson to all who wish to practice the evils of magic. I swear on my life the vile practice of magic will be eliminated from this Kingdom if it is the last thing I do." Uther's voice was hard and emotionless. "The next execution of a magic user will be noon tomorrow with the execution of Thomas Collins for the practice of witchcraft and sorcery."