The Keep

“Total privacy,” the king said to his Master of Guards.

The Master of Guards, dressed in smooth, white armour like a porcelain chess piece, nodded in subservient agreement.

“I don’t care if the walls of this castle are being battered down, nobody interrupts me. Understand?”

“Understood, my lord,” he said, bowing in the stone hallway. He remained just out of the sunbeam of the castle courtyard; one that the king stood fully immersed in.

“Good, now piss off.”

The guard dutifully pissed off down the hallway, his footsteps echoing quieter and quieter until he was gone. The king took in a deep breath of the sticky, late summer air and smiled, turning to face the bright courtyard.

Sunlight rained down on the uneven stone ground. Under the heat, a cool wind whistled through the castle courtyard that shook the stiff trees that lined the stone walls. The king’s grey wispy hairs and purple regalia fluttered in the wind. He shuffled his way through the grounds, deep in thought but ever present in his surroundings. Despite the heat, the breeze was chill. The king did not shiver. Still firm in his memory was the never-ending summer that his kingdom had just crawled out of. A summer of brown crops and rotting livestock.

All at once, the wind died down; a hard stop that threw the courtyard into a dark silence as the sun disappeared behind a cloud. The trees, arranged in their neat little rows, fell still. The king realised that he had seen something sitting on the far stone bench.

He was not alone.

A shiver ran up his back. He understood what was happening and placed a hand on the central shrine, a small stone building that sat in the middle of the courtyard, to keep the shock from pulling his feet out. Though an old man, this was not how he wished to go. This is not how good kings went. He heard behind him the dull crunching of stone under another man’s shoes; a man who stood up and began walking towards him.

Though the air was now still and the sun peeking out once again, he was colder than he ever thought possible; a chill that penetrated deep into his veins. He made to speak, but his throat, afflicted by the same frozen terror, was sealed shut.

Step by step, closer and closer.

“I won’t call my guards,” the king finally forced out.

The walking stopped. The king took his hand off the wall, wobbling on his feet.

“Nor would that help,” the gruff voice behind him said.

“At least let me look upon my assassin before I am sent to die,” the king said.

No response, save for the distant clang of bells and the clatter of the castle town guards changing shifts.

He took the silence as a go-ahead to shuffle around, turning to face his killer. The assassin, a man not any taller than the king’s nose, held a vacant, dark expression. The haggard scraps of black leather that made up his cuirass were held together with silver bolts which snaked the edges of each piece.

Dressed like a peasant, the king thought, But with the fine silver bolts of a wealthy assassin.

There was a frigid silence between the men. The king’s eyes were drawn to the handle of a dagger, dangling from a piece of rope that the assassin had fashioned into a simple belt, and poking out of a makeshift leather sheathe.

“Just for my own edification,” the king said, “You understand that I am King Stuart the Fifth, highest lord of the realm and protector of the spirits?”

The assassin nodded, resting a hand on the hilt of his dagger.

“And you intend to murder me?” King Stuart asked, eyes still glued on the knife.

“I intend to fulfil my contract,” the man replied in a careful monotone.

King Stuart nodded, looking back at the eyes of this man. No apology, no fear, and no anger. Vacant. The man advanced a step and King Stuart fought with all his might the urge to retreat, as an attempted escape would only make his death more painful. And pathetic.

His mind hummed, trying to make himself at peace with his end. Seeing his wife and son again in Yonderland. No longer being an old man bound to a frail body. Debating with the great philosophers of his youth, all of whom had died before he had a chance to talk to them. But none of these gave him any solace. He could only hear his heart pounding in his ear and see his killer sliding the knife out of its scabbard.

He took a sharp breath, and a thought finally broke through. One that came not out of a desperate need to cram peace into his soul, but out of something else.

“Wait,” he said, “One last conversation before I die. That is all I ask.”

The assassin stared, repositioning himself slightly as the stone floor crunched like bone under his wrapped boots. Despite his short stature, in this moment he towered over the king.

“You owe me that much,” King Stuart muttered, “I saved your life, Valkyrian.”

The assassin stopped.

“War for the Valkyrie Islands,” he continued, “I knew you were Valkyrian from your accent. I halted the barbarian general from his cleansing of the island. I saved you; I saved your people”

The assassin tapped the tip of the dagger against his own finger, creating a tinny scraping sound as he did so.

“You subjugated the people.”

“Your people were dead without me,” King Stuart said, “You would be dead without me. I’m not asking you to thank me, nor would I expect you or any other Valkyrian to do so. I’m a bastard and a monster, I know. Just give me one conversation.”

King Stuart sighed and advanced forward with the stride of a man at least ten years his junior. The assassin took a cautious step back as the king came within muttering distance.

“At least do it so I am not so annoying. Fulfill my last request for just a moment and I will accept my death without fighting back. I imagine in your line of work that is a luxury.”

The wall behind the assassin’s eyes was chipped, if slightly, and behind it was bemusement. He gave a half turn of a smirk.

“And this way I do not have to scuff up your disguise.”

The assassin chuckled against his will. He turned the dagger over in his hand, keeping his ever-vigilant eyes on his target but thinking through him.

“I keep my dagger unsheathed.”

“Agreed.”

“And I do not have all day, I barely have a moment.”

The king regained his posture, scraping his polished black boots along the floor to stand at attention. His hands delicately and in a practiced manner met together at the fingers, creating the royal cradle shape.

“A moment is all I need.”

The king turned and walked off, the assassin following closely in tow.

King Stuart walked to a wooden bench which lay off the path in a patch of garden. He sat surrounded by wild lilies under the shade of two leafy elm trees. As soon as he did so, he was graced with a flush of relief. He had not realised just how much the courtyard sun burnt, flanked on all sides as he was by radiating hot stones, until this moment.

The assassin hesitated. He glanced left and right, the battlements still carrying no visible guards. He remained halted at the edge of the garden area, bisected by the light and shadow. The king shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” King Stuart said.

The king looked around at his little courtyard, at the tops of trees that poked over the battlements. If ever he wanted a castle without walls, it was now. A castle that would have shown him the wooded majesty of his grounds; where he could hear the cicadas that chirped from the other side like heckling prison guards.

“Well?” the assassin said.

The king forced a pained smile.

“I want to know who sent you.”

The assassin stopped playing with his dagger, the music in his head halting with a pluck. He raised an eyebrow. The chirping of a sparrow that had made its way into the courtyard punctuated the moment. “Really?”

“Really. I know you’re Valkyrian, but I doubt you were sent by them. Not when I have enemies more well equipped and with more resources. If anyone could get to me, it wouldn’t be the Valkyrians.”

He looked to the assassin for signs of agreement or disagreement, but the walls behind his eyes had been rebuilt. The king bowed his head in thought, touching his chin to his chest.

“The guild of thieves?” he said, “If any of them are even left after the torching. The Council of Nyr? Why would they send a Valkyrian. The Motherhood of---”

“Is this how you want to spend your last conversation?” the assassin said, “Useless speculating?”

The king looked up at the assassin and smiled.

“If I will not be at peace with what I have done in this life, at least not in the next minute or so, then all I have is finding out which deed of mine sealed my death. If for no other reason than I can meet them when they reach Yonderland give them a swift kick in the bollocks. Since you won’t tell me, then ‘useless speculating’ is all I’ve got.”

The assassin paused for a moment, taking in what he was hearing, and leaned in. The king leaned away in equal measure, the aches of his joints burning harder as he did so.

“I was sent by who you think I was,” the assassin said flatly.

“But…but that can’t be. No, it must be something bigger, more complex. Just be honest as a subject to his king. Who really sent you?”

“The answer remains the same. I’m simply the one who got to you first. Lucky me.”

“What could I offer you for the truth, money? I can tell you where my royal vault is and how to access it without anyone knowing.”

“Sir…”

“Land? I could have a proclamation of land written up on any nearby parchment. It would be all yours.”

“Sir.”

“I’m not trying to buy my life; I just want one bloody answ---”

“King Stuart!” the assassin roared, “I have said enough. You have your answer. It is beyond time now.”

“What, a know-nothing island of such little consequence that it has only had one invasion in the last hundred years? One that I averted? It does stretch belief, frankly. I find it insulting,” he said, standing up and jabbing his finger impotently at the assassin.

“Keep your voice down, please.”

“No! I am King Stuart, protector of the realm,” he said, marching in a rage towards the assassin. “I am not a peasant who is killed and left in a ditch by some little island throwing a tantrum for independence. Some insignificant patch of dirt in the middle of nowhere. I have faced apocalyptic threats to me and my realm from both within and without. I am not being killed by those people. I refuse to be killed by those scum. I…”

The king halted himself, his lungs having no more air for him to go on. He inhaled and bowed his head. The sweet summer air mixed oddly with the venom had built up in his system. He glanced to the assassin, who betrayed no feelings on his face. The king, his breath shaky without the ability to shout and command from his youth, stood staring with waning conviction.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” the assassin said, advancing and raising his dagger.

The king pursed his lips, fighting the tears that welled up in his eyes. He bowed his head, defeated, as the sun blared heat onto the back of his neck.

“I want to see my grounds. On the other side of that wall, please.”

The assassin glanced behind him at the nondescript walls, with those same trees poking up over the top, and stared back at the king incredulously.

“It’s not like I’m going to run away,” the king said.

The assassin paused a beat.

“Use the secret passage,” the assassin said.

The king raised an eyebrow.

“You really did your research,” the king said.

The assassin stood to the side and allowed the king one last walk across the courtyard. The king beelined for a patch of unassuming wall, of the same light shade of grey as the rest of the courtyard. He made a point of presenting the assassin the wall and pressed in a loose brick. A dull chunking sound gave way to muffled clockwork gears rumbling before the entire wall slid to the side, clicking as it did so.

There, standing in this mighty archway on the border between the stony courtyard and the fresh grass, the cool of the wind cut through the summer air. Hills rolled into the horizon, being flanked on the left by ocean, with only a distant fishing village making up the skyline.

His lands. His people.

And what was being king, if nobody could prevent this? he thought

He turned around to face the assassin.

“I hope in my death your people will find freedom,” the king said.

The assassin lowered his dagger slightly, surprised. For the first time he looked upon the king with a hint of remorse. The king nodded to the dagger, an urging expression on his face. One last breeze shook the trees and kicked up loose grass in the dirt behind him.

“Do what you need to---”

The last words turned to rushing air as they were forced out of his throat, the wind howling through his head as his clothing felt progressively slicker. He pressed a hand against the gash on his throat and felt an agony as he did so. This agony, like the world around him, began swirling into a distant darkness.

He had only a moment to notice the bloodied dagger in the assassin’s hand before his legs gave out, and his head collided with the ground.

The king’s hand grew weak and fell like a lead weight from his neck. The last he heard was the crunching of footsteps away into the wilderness and that gruff voice once last time.

“I’m sorry your death wasn’t more meaningful. Sometimes, it’s just who gets there first.”

Alone in the breeze with the sun and the sound of birdsong and cicadas, the king closed his eyes.