The next day

A busy morning had dawned for the people of Corona and it was not because of the original day-to-day activities of them, but it was because everyone was heading towards the castle for an important event after something had happened during the night.

Word had spread out through the city this morning that guards had found the one responsible for the death of Crusader commander Geoffrey during the night and now he had been taken to the gallows in the execution courtyard next to the castle. Many were going to see if this criminal was a Crusader or not so as to put an end to the rivalry between the Crusaders and the Coronan citizens. The Crusaders, however, had already tried to preach about and say that this man was not a Crusader, though few believed them and wanted to see for themselves. At least there was one thing everyone would be happy about and that is all this trouble making this man had caused would finally be paid back and brought to an end.

Inside the castle, there was a great rush as guards were preparing to keep an eye on the crowd and prevent any fighting breaking out between them and the Crusaders. The king, his queen, the captain and Rapunzel were also preparing to go out into the courtyard to watch what was going to happen, but they felt uneasy about this because the captain had found this person so soon and they were worried he would be innocent and that the real killer would still be out in the streets of the city somewhere.

Rapunzel, however, was more nervous than her parents. As she sat in her room, looking down at the courtyard from her window, watching the crowd mass into it and the guards line up around the edges, all of them looking like little toy figures from where she was, she felt uneasy and even began to sweat a little. What she was worried about was that in one of the towers nearby, Eugene and Altair had gone there where they planned to get Harry, who was going to be carrying out the execution of the one who had killed his commander. The captain had ordered no guards to line up along the walls of the courtyard in case, as he explained, an associate(s) of the killer, or someone who may want to take their own revenge against him, attacked them and used their weapons on him and right now, a feeling of revenge was the last thing that would be needed in the kingdom with what was about to happen.

Rapunzel heaved a heavy sigh and looked down towards a small section of the right courtyard wall that came to the side of the castle where an entrance door was. Above that was a small tower with a ledge about fifteen feet above the wall. That was where Eugene and Altair were headed to, or where they might be now and were just planning their attack. Another stroke of worry swept through her, thinking that somehow this could all go wrong. After all, it nearly had done yesterday when they were going after Geoffrey so there was a chance it could all go wrong with the Crusaders now on edge and more cautious and vigilant than before.

She felt something crawl onto her shoulder and she looked to see it was Pascal. He gave her a smile when she looked at him and she returned it, though hers was small and filled with nervous tension.

"Hey Pascal," she greeted softly, stroking his back with her finger. He closed his eyes dreamily, loving it when she did that. But when he looked back up at her, she was looking nervously back down at the courtyard below. He gave a slight squeak and she looked at him. "Huh, oh, I'm fine," she told him.

Pascal raised an eyebrow and gave her an: "Oh really," kind of look, obviously seeing through her excuse. She saw this and sighed.

"Oh, alright, Pascal," she gave in. "I'm worried about Eugene and Altair. I mean…what if this all goes wrong like yesterday?" she said worryingly. "What if they find out it was us that killed that guy? I mean…oh!" she buried her face in her hands. Pascal placed one of his paws on her cheek to reassure her and calm her down, but in the back of his head he too was thinking that this plan they had set down for today might go horribly wrong, but he tried not to show it to Rapunzel and gently rubbed his paw up and down her cheek. She turned her head to look at him and gave another small smile.

"Thanks, Pascal," she said. "You never really seem to lose faith in anything, do you,"

Just then, a knock came at the door. Rapunzel and Pascal looked to see her mother open it.

"Rapunzel, dear, It's time," she said.

Her daughter nodded. "Alright, mother," she replied. She gently took Pascal off her shoulder and placed him on the windowsill. "You best stay here, Pascal. I don't want you to see this," and before he could protest, she got up and walked out of the room with her mother. As they walked left, Pascal saw the king about to close the door when he heard another voice from the right of the corridor call him.

"Your majesty," the voice said. Pascal instantly recognized it to be the captain's. The king turned to look right down the corridor. "Can I talk to you for a moment, please, sir?"

A puzzled look came upon the king's face but he decided to oblige and walked down the corridor. Pascal became curious. Why was the king going to speak to the captain right before the execution of the prisoner? It was something that they did not do before.

Deciding to try and find out, he jumped down from the windowsill to the floor and crawled across the floor to the corridor. With a quick glance left and right to make sure no one was coming, he scuttled down the corridor towards a small door at the end that lay slightly ajar. Voices were coming from inside it as Pascal approached. Yes, they were the captain and the king's. What was it they were discussing? More importantly, why now and why in private?

As he reached the door, he stopped and poked his head from behind it to look into the room. It was a large rectangular shape with bare brick walls and several torches lined up along the walls to light up the room. In the middle of the room was a small oval shaped table with a bowl of fruit on it and under another kind of desk on the left wall of the room was a small box with a tiny lock on it. The king and the captain were standing facing each other at the moment with their sides to Pascal. They could not see him now, but trying to sneak in either way would make them see him. Luckily, he had one advantage they did not.

The door was a kind of dark brown colour. He crawled onto it and turned himself dark brown colour and made his way across it into the room and up the side of it so he was near the top.

"One moment, sire," the captain said as he walked over to the door and pushed it shut, leaving Pascal trapped inside and, if he was seen, in big trouble.