Chapter 35

Days passed and Rhain heard no further word from Keelin.  He also did not receive any letters from the queen.  In fact, he received no dispatch of any kind from England.

            "The French must have captured one of our ships," Rhain told Edwyn grimly.

            Edwyn frowned.  "We have had no word of it.  Perhaps Keelin and your mother are simply too busy seeing that your proclamation is spread to have time to write."

            "Then why do I not have any report at all?" Rhain demanded.  "There is no word from even my head of the guard at the castle.  I do not like this, Edwyn.  Something is wrong."

            "Come, Rhain, you are letting your anxieties get the best of you.  You cannot afford to lose your head now.  We are making a great deal of progress against the French and they will use whatever means necessary to stop us.  You must not allow yourself to become distracted.  You must be prepared for anything."

            Rhain ran a hand through his hair wearily and sank down onto a chair.  He put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, shaking it slightly.

            "So this is what it was like for my father every time," he said, his voice coming out muffled but that did nothing to conceal the weariness in it.  "I never appreciated what it meant for him.  I have fought in many battles but none so trying as this.  This is how it feels to be Atlas and to have the world resting upon your shoulders."

            "No one ever said 'twas easy to be king," Edwyn said softly.    

            Rhain chuckled quietly, raising his head out of his hands and looking at his friend.  "Nay, my father merely made it appear so."

            "I am certain that your father had his worries and anxieties of which you knew nothing," Edwyn said, gently.

            "I am certain that he did as well," Rhain responded with a sigh.  "What a fool I was.  I had no interest in being king, as if it were a simple decision such as what to eat at my morning meal.  I had no sense of responsibility, no sense of what it meant to be born into royalty or what it meant to have the welfare of thousands upon thousands of people resting upon my shoulders.  I never showed my father the respect he deserved."

            "Your father was not perfect," Edwyn reminded him gently.  "He was a great and venerable man but do not make him a saint in your mind and convince yourself that you could never be as good a man as he was.  He was a compassionate and fair ruler but he was not always so compassionate and fair when it came to his own wife and son."

            "I know that you are right, Edwyn, but I fear that perhaps the same will be true of me in the end.  Does a king really have time to think of his wife and children when he must think of the needs and hopes and worries of all of his people?"

            "You will have time for them," Edwyn said, firmly, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder.  "And you shall have a wife who will help you with the needs and hopes and worries of your people.  I believe that you and she are destined for greatness in your reign but I am certain that you are destined for true happiness and joy in your marriage."

            "Thank you, my old friend.  You have always known just what to say to give me the hope I need to carry on," Rhain said.

            "And you have always given me the hope I need to carry on," Edwyn said, with a warm smile.  "I know that everything has happened to you very fast, that you suddenly became king, and suddenly became betrothed, and suddenly became embroiled in war but I know that you shall pass this test of your strength and fortitude."

            "I have one clear advantage over my father, that of a friend whom I trust and love as a brother."

            Edwyn ducked his head and Rhain was struck once again at the incongruous image of so giant of a man being so easily embarrassed by a little praise.  It made Rhain smile and helped him to clear his head and focus his thoughts once again.

            One of the king's pages entered the tent, bowing before the king and his Secretary of State.  "Your Majesty, I have here a dispatch from the castle," the boy said, holding a small packet of vellum out to the king.  Rhain took the missive and dismissed the boy.

            "There," Edwyn said, satisfaction evident in his voice.  "You will read that and see that all of your fears were unfounded."

            "I certainly hope you are right," Rhain told his friend as he broke the wax seal.  He could see by the seal that the dispatch was from his palace guard and not his mother or Keelin.  He felt a sense of disappointment that the letter was from neither of the women but he also felt a sense of great relief at finally receiving some news from his kingdom.

            Rhain began to read the letter, the words not truly sinking in until he was halfway down the page.  As he began to realize just what it was the letter was trying to communicate, his heart began to race and his eyes skipped across the page, hungry for as much information in as little time possible.  And then, suddenly, everything was crystal clear.  Rhain leapt from his chair and issued a great howl from the very depths of his lungs.  His left hand clenched into a fist, crumpling the letter, and his right hand reached instinctively for the pommel of his sword.

            He turned and saw that Lord Edwyn's face was white as he studied his friend in concern.  Rhain knew that the only other time his friend had seen him react in such a manner was when the king had been slain.  Chest heaving, Rhain held his fist out to Edwyn and the other man gently pried the king's fingers back, freeing the letter.  Rhain could see Edwyn's eyes moving rapidly over the page and, if it were physically possibly, the other man seemed to grow even whiter.

            "Nay," Edwyn said, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.  "How is it possible?  How could the guard have let such a thing happen?"

            "I will see someone hang for this!" Rhain shouted, the words tearing savagely from his throat.  He began to pace like a caged animal, tugging a hand so forcefully through his hair that he actually pulled several strands of it right out of his scalp.  He barely felt the pain and he simply tossed the hairs aside.  He felt like tearing the entire tent apart, ripping it into shreds and then hacking the wooden poles to bits with his sword.  The king felt like jumping on his horse and racing straight out into the field, soothing his blood lust by burying his sword up to the hilt in the breasts of his enemies.  He had never felt so savage before, not even when he had watched his father killed before his own eyes.

            "Good God," Edwyn gasped.  He made a visible effort to pull himself together and he grabbed his friend firmly by the arm, stopping Rhain's restless movements.  "You must think, Rhain," he said, harshly.  "Do not react on rage alone or all will surely be lost.  You must know that this was all part of a plan to bring you down, that 'twas timed in such a manner as to seriously compromise the war that you are now certain to win."

            "Hell hath no bastard more evil than Mordrid," Rhain said.  He spat at the bitter taste the name left in his mouth.  Suddenly, the blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice as the terror set in.  He grabbed Edwyn, clutching his friend by the surcoat.  "Edwyn, do you think he will kill her?"

            Edwyn's gaze was full of compassion as he studied his friend.  "Nay, not at this time.  She is too valuable to him," he said, truthfully.

            Rhain slumped into his chair once again, laying his arms on his table and burying his face in them.  His shoulders began to shake convulsively as he gave vent to his fear and grief, the emotions ripping through him so powerfully that he was certain they would make him run mad.

            "If I lose her, I shall have nothing left," Rhain whispered.

            "You shall not lose her," Edwyn said, fiercely.  He moved over to his friend and forced the king to look up at him.  "We shall get her back.  I swear to you, Rhain, I will not see any harm come to her.  I shall stop at nothing to see to it that Keelin is returned safely to you."

            Edwyn sat down as his friend continued to weep.  Rhain tried to get his emotions under control, but he had already been at the breaking point.  The news of Keelin's capture had just sent him over the edge.  It was the realization of the greatest of his fears and he was so terrified that he felt as if his heart might give out and he might die right then and there.  He was only able to keep a grip on his sanity by reminding himself over and over that Keelin needed him, that he needed to keep his thoughts as clear as possible if there was to be any hope of her safe return to England.

            The letter had been carefully worded and it was clear that the head of his castle guard had agonized over every word.  However, there was no good way to express to the king that his beloved had been captured and with apparently little effort while she was supposed to be under the protection of some of the best guards in the country.  She had simply vanished one day.  The queen had sounded the alert when Keelin had failed to come to her chamber for dinner but, by that time, the guard was convinced that Keelin had been missing for several hours.  The last people to see her were her ladies and they attested to Keelin's presence at the midday meal but were unable to account for her whereabouts after that point.  The ladies also pointed out that Keelin's favorite lady-in-waiting, the maiden Alinda, was missing as well.  As Keelin's fondness for the forest was widely known, it was concluded that she and Alinda must have been out walking when they were taken.

            Rhain could not credit this explanation.  He had explicitly expressed to Keelin his desire that she remain within the castle walls.  He had written in no uncertain terms of his fear of what might happen to her if she were to quit the castle's protective sphere.  Rhain knew that it was impossible that Keelin would ignore his concerns.  She would not wish to trouble him needlessly.  The more he thought about it the more certain he became that something or someone must have lured Keelin outside of the castle walls and that this person or persons had done so without force.

            The king rose from his chair, beginning to pace once again.  "We will hear from Mordrid shortly, of that I am certain.  He would not have taken her had he not wished to use her capture against me.  I am certain that he relishes his capture of her and I am certain that he wishes to do her harm in the end, but I do not think he would have gone to the trouble of taking her were it not for our betrothal."

            "Aye, with that I do agree.  It would be far too much for him to risk if he were not certain he could capture you in the end by using Keelin's capture against you," Edwyn said.  He too began to pace around the tent, rubbing a hand across his forehead either because his head ached or because he was doing so in an unconscious attempt to help himself think more clearly.

            "He will not do anything as obvious as call me out to a duel and then ambush me.  I am certain that he has a well-laid trap and that he will lure me into it slowly."

            "Aye," Edwyn replied once again.  "But how are we to discover these lures?"

            Rhain shrugged and gripped his hair once again in frustration.  "How can I not allow myself to follow the lures?  I must get to Keelin, I must free her somehow.  Yet if I let myself fall into his trap we will both be lost and England along with us."

            "We shall defeat Mordrid at his own game," Edwyn said, his voice suddenly full of conviction.  When he raised his head, Rhain saw the look of cold, hard determination that he had seen in his friend's face each and every time they had faced a difficult challenge together.  "We shall turn his game around on him so that he will be the one to be lured in the end."

            "How do we do that?" Rhain asked him.

            "He will be counting on you to operate on emotion.  It may prove very difficult, but you must not allow him to manipulate you in that manner.  We must adhere to our original plan of action and we must continue to push forward with this war.  'Tis the only way we will have the strength to rescue Keelin in the end."

            Edwyn was right; Rhain did not like the plan.  It might yet take them months to win the war and he did not relish the thought of his betrothed suffering at the hands of her captor for all that time.  He feared she might become ill or, worse yet, that she might be led to believe that he did not care about her and that he would not come for her.  The thought was unbearable to Rhain.

            "There is sense in what you say and I will adhere to it as much as I am able but when it comes to a point that I feel I must move, I want to know that you will be behind me," Rhain said, at last.

            Edwyn placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.  "We are all behind you.  You are our king and we trust in your wisdom.  You know your men love, respect, and admire you.  They will not hesitate to believe, to know, that you are acting when action is called for.  They will have no doubts when you ask them to fight, they shall simply fight because they trust in you.  They have spent many years fighting at your side and they know who you are and of what you are made."

            Rhain felt reassured by his friend's words.  "I believe he must have taken her to Paris.  The risk is too great for him to attempt to conceal her in another town.  We have taken many of them and are certain to take many more.  The palace in Paris is the most heavily guarded and fortified area for such a prisoner as she.  He would not have taken her to Spain because there is no guarantee that the Spanish king would agree to it and because if he aims to capture me and to use Keelin as a weapon, he would want her nearby in the event of my capture."

            "Aye," Edwyn agreed.  "Paris is the most logical choice.  As you said, I am not certain that the king of Spain would condone such an action as the capture of Keelin.  I should not be surprised if the capture does create some tension between France and her ally."

                "Let us hope so," Rhain said, grimly.  "For now, all we can do is wait and hope for the worst for France and Mordrid."