Ascendance

THE WHIRLWIND SWEPTher away to her private quarters, her arms bound behind her. Guards rushed around the room, searching for any gemstones or weapons. They took Defender and a circlet that Jilseponie kept that contained a cat's eye that allowed the wearer to see in the dark.

"You'll give us no trouble, my lady?" one of the guards asked her, coming up behind and grabbing the ropes that bound her wrists.

Jilseponie merely shook her head, too stunned even to respond to the insanity that had come so suddenly to Castle Ursal. What had happened? Who had murdered Constance and why?

And why had she so adamantly cried out that Jilseponie had killed her? And how - how indeed! - had that open vial gotten under Jilseponie's sash?

It made no sense to her.

She hardly moved as the guards walked by, leaving the room. The last, the one who had untied her, paused to offer a slight bow, then departed, closing the door behind him.

How had this happened?

Then it hit her, and the reality of it seemed somehow the only explanation, and yet seemed somehow to be even more ridiculous.

Had Constance killed herself? Had she invited her rival to tea with the express purpose of incriminating Jilseponie, even at the cost of her own life? It was crazy, and who would believe such a tale?

But that was the beauty of it, was it not? From Jilseponie's viewpoint, it all made sense, Constance's improved mood and her request for the meeting. And then at the bitter end, Constance's refusing aid from Jilseponie, who was as powerful a user of the healing stone as any person in all the world. From any other viewpoint, though, the tale would seem preposterous, perhaps beyond belief. Was it not likely, after all, that Queen Jilseponie might have noticed Constance's improved mood and then decided to take action against her, her avowed enemy, simply for that reason?

Jilseponie went over to the bed and sat down. She stayed there, alone, for the remainder of the day, until a fitful sleep came over her.

Predictably, at least to Duke Kalas, Marcalo De'Unnero came to him that same night, in the guise of Bruce of Oredale.

"I am hardly surprised," De'Unnero remarked, making himself quite at home, flopping into the comfortable chair opposite the Duke, who was reading another book, this one on the laws of the kingdom. "Ever has she been a vengeful witch. Poor Lady Constance apparently gnawed too far up Jilseponie's arm."

"What do you know of this?" Kalas demanded.

De'Unnero sat back and folded his hands, bringing them to his chin. What indeed did he know of it, any of it? Had Jilseponie really murdered Constance? It made no sense to De'Unnero, given what he knew of Jilseponie and of Constance. What then had brought about this thrilling and unexpected event? De'Unnero could think of only two possible answers. The first was dumb luck, or misfortune, depending on how this played out. He suspected that the rumors of Jilseponie's denial - her claim that Constance had killed herself - held more than a bit of truth. Had the woman done it of her own accord, a tragic end to a tragic and misguided figure?

Or had another variable entered the game, another source of suggestion and power that pushed Constance to the edge, and then over it?

He knew it. He knew in his heart that Aydrian had done this. Perhaps the young warrior had possessed Constance - certainly he was powerful enough with the gemstones - and then used her mortal body to damn Jilseponie.

But to what end? That, De'Unnero did not understand. Not yet, but he held faith that Aydrian would soon enough enlighten him.

"I know what everyone at court is saying," he answered the patiently waiting Duke Kalas. "That Jilseponie poisoned Lady Pemblebury's tea."

Kalas pushed his chair back from his small desk. "So it would seem."

"You have reason to doubt the claim?"

Kalas paused, then looked back at De'Unnero and shook his head. "The evidence against her is damning, and Constance proclaimed Jilseponie's guilt before she expired," he admitted. "But tell me, my friend, why do you seem so excited by the unexpected turn?"

De'Unnero chuckled. "I pity your lost friend - let me extend my condolences to you in this time of your grief," he said.

Kalas didn't blink.

"But am I upset to learn that Jilseponie finally erred in her devious and dangerous ascent?" De'Unnero went on. "Surely not! I have known the truth of the witch for many years. I only wish that I might have had some way to prevent the tragedy."

"It should upset you," Kalas reasoned. "Given your agenda for your young protege."

De'Unnero shook his head. "Not so," he replied.

"If she is brought to trial - "

"Do so!" exclaimed the monk. "At once, I beg. Hang the witch or burn her. Surely she deserves no better!"

"Are you so blinded by your hatred of Jilseponie?" Kalas asked, leaning forward. "For if Jilseponie is tried and hanged, as she surely must be, then the King will likely deny your precious Aydrian his rights of ascension."

"So be it, if that is the consequence," De'Unnero answered without hesitation. "I believe Aydrian prepared to properly lead Honce-the-Bear, but I am far more concerned with the health of the kingdom than with his personal gain. The kingdom will survive this. King Danube will find his strength in Duke Kalas and in the others who have been his supporters since before Jilseponie, since before the demon dactyl and the misery that has festered in the kingdom and in the Abellican Church."

"And what of Marcalo De'Unnero?"

"I will trust in Duke Kalas to aid my reinstatement in the Church, and the return of the Church to its previous Godly ways," the former monk answered.

"You believe that the King will involve himself in the affairs of the Church?" Kalas asked skeptically. "Or that I will?"

"He will leave the Bishop in place in Palmaris?" the former monk asked bluntly, and doubtfully; and the question made Duke Kalas sit up a bit straighter in his chair.

De'Unnero knew that he had made his point.

"Press forward the charges, the trial, and the execution," he said to Kalas. "Rid the world of the scourge that is Jilseponie once and for all time. Young Aydrian will find his way, as will Marcalo De'Unnero, do not doubt, but in the end we - both of us - desire only that which is best for Honce-the-Bear."

Kalas stared at De'Unnero for a short while, offering no confirmation that he intended to do just that.

But De'Unnero didn't need any confirmation. He knew that this seed needed no watering. In his heart, he understood that Duke Kalas would do everything in his power to see Queen Jilseponie utterly destroyed.

De'Unnero still wasn't sure how Aydrian planned to play this out to their ultimate advantage, but he was learning quickly to trust the young warrior.

After all, had Aydrian not just destroyed the woman who had haunted De'Unnero for more than a decade?

And with so little effort.

Jilseponie awakened before dawn and had sat for many hours, again pondering the shocking events, when the door swung open and King Danube and Duke Kalas entered, the Duke striding toward her, as if he meant to throttle her on the spot.

"Murderess!" he said, his tone low and even, though he was surely fighting to control his trembling rage.

"Enough, Duke Kalas," King Danube said, and he put a hand on Kalas' shoulder and held him back.

"I did nothing," Jilseponie remarked.

Kalas growled at her and held up the torn packet. "Jo'santha root," he said, "from Behren. A common item in the apothecary of St. Honce, to which you had complete access!"

"I know nothing of it," the Queen protested, "unless Constance slipped it under my sash when she fell against me."

Kalas leaped forward and raised his arm as if to strike her, but Danube grabbed him and held him. Jilseponie was up in an instant anyway, ready to dodge, to block, and to counter.

"Why would I kill her?" Jilseponie demanded, finding some strength in the simple logic of that statement.

"Why would you invite her to tea?" Duke Kalas countered. "What might Queen Jilseponie desire from the company of Constance Pemblebury."

"I accepted her invitation!" Jilseponie protested, but her bluster was lost as she looked at her husband, who winced and looked away, as if he had solid evidence to the contrary.

Jilseponie thought on that for a moment, considered the lady-in-waiting who had brought her the invitation from Constance. "What did she say?" she asked the pair.

No answer.

"I demand to see her," Jilseponie declared. "The lady-in-waiting - Mame Tonnebruk. Bring her to me and I will pry the truth from her."

"You will get your chance to answer the charges!" Duke Kalas interrupted. "Out there," he said, pointing to the window, "on the public gallows that are even now being constructed. Oh, yes, you will answer the charges of murder, and then you will hang by your pretty neck - "

"Enough!" roared Danube, and he shoved Kalas aside, then moved to the bed and took Jilseponie's hands in his own. He kissed her hands gently, one at a time, then looked up into her blue eyes.

"Forgive me," he said.

"Forgive?" Jilseponie echoed, her voice barely a whisper, for she could hardly believe what she was hearing. Would Danube allow this?

But when she looked more deeply into her husband's sad eyes, she understood that he had to allow it, that he could not prevent it.

Jilseponie took a deep, deep breath and closed her eyes.

"You will have your trial," Duke Kalas said, breaking the silence a moment later. Jilseponie glared at him, recognizing that he simply could not hold back these too sweet words. "At the public gallows, as is decreed by law. You will have your trial, though I see no escape from the obvious."

"I did nothing," said Jilseponie.

"You will need more than a heartfelt denial to deter the hangman," Kalas retorted. Before King Danube could even turn and yell at him, the Duke gave a curt bow and stormed away, slamming the door behind him.

"This is insanity," King Danube said to his wife when they were alone.

"Constance killed herself," Jilseponie remarked, and Danube's eyes widened. "She did this to me, at that cost, with purpose and malice."

Danube was shaking his head, his face locked in an expression of the purest confusion.

"She gave up," Jilseponie tried to explain, though in truth, the Queen could hardly fathom the perversion of reality that had led Constance to so brutal and costly an act. "She knew that she would never gain back your favor, and certainly would never gain the throne, and so she did this to destroy me as she destroyed herself."

King Danube knelt there before her, staring up at her.

Jilseponie almost smiled at the ridiculousness of it all, then lifted her poor, confused husband's hands to her lips and gently kissed them.

Soon after, Danube stumbled out of the room, his face streaked with tears, his eyes full of rage and confusion.

"She did not do this," King Danube said to Kalas, the two of them standing outside the castle's front gates, watching the construction of the high wooden platform and the trapdoor that would spring open to drop a convicted murderess to her death. Though the trial was still days away, many vendors arrived staking their claim to positions from which to sell their wares to the throngs that were expected at the spectacle that would be the trial of Queen Jilseponie.

Danube looked at them with disgust, but said nothing. He knew that the peasants would crowd the area and that most of them would arrive hoping to see a conviction and an execution. For that was their way. It wasn't even about Jilseponie, though it did a common man's heart good to see one of high rank fall to the swift hand of justice. It wasn't about Jilseponie, but was about the show, the spectacle, the execution that would lodge in the memories of all in attendance forever and ever.

"She had no reason. . . ."

"When Constance left Ursal, it was because your wife, the Queen, banished her," Duke Kalas replied. "Did you know that?"

Danube's expression turned curious as he looked at the Duke.

"Jilseponie learned that Constance was secretly feeding her the herbs the courtesans use to prevent pregnancy," Kalas explained. "Thus, she chased Constance away. And you brought her back. That was more than your wife could tolerate, it would seem."

He had rattled Danube, to be sure, but while the King swayed, he did not waver in his conviction. "She did not do this," he said again, more forcefully. "She could not, would not! This is insanity, and I'll allow no such trial. Stand down the hangman, Duke Kalas!" As he finished, he turned to leave, but Kalas grabbed him hard by the arm and would not let go.

"You cannot do this," the Duke said.

"I know my wife to be innocent," Danube said.

"What you know means nothing against the weight of the law," Kalas retorted, not backing down an inch from Danube's icy stare, "the laws of your forefathers that you swore to uphold when you took your coronation oath to the people of Honce-the-Bear."

"I am the King," Danube said slowly and deliberately. "I'll not have this.

"And what will Danube the King tell the next farmer's wife who comes to trial protesting her husband's innocence, claiming that she knows that her husband could not have committed the crime of which he was accused? Will King Danube the Fair similarly stop the trial of the farmer?"

"You should beware your words," Danube warned.

"And you should beware your kingdom," said Kalas, still holding his ground. "The Queen is charged - the evidence seems damning. You cannot undo that by decree, not unless you wish to destroy the loyalty of your subjects, not unless you wish to invite open rebellion! And will your wife ever be accepted again, by nobleman or peasant, when it is known that the only thing that kept her neck from the hangman's noose was her husband's royal hand?"

"She is my wife, my love," Danube protested, shaking his head.

"She is the Queen and an accused murderer," Kalas coldly replied. "She will, she must, stand trial before the crown and castle. That is the law! Defy it at your own peril, my old friend."

A threat?

"An honest warning," said Kalas. "For if you so decree Jilseponie's innocence and deny justice the trial it demands, then you do so at the peril of the kingdom itself!"

"And where, should such a rebellion come to pass, will Duke Kalas stand?" Danube asked, his eyes narrowing as he issued the accusatory question.

"On the side of Honce-the-Bear," the Duke promptly answered.

Danube pulled away and left him.

The hammers sounded in the morning air.

The vendors arranged their goods.

"The King is trapped, and Jilseponie will be tried, and publicly," De'Unnero announced to Sadye and Aydrian. "Danube has no choice, unless he wishes to throw his entire kingdom into an uproar - and one that neither he nor his doomed wife would likely survive. The nobility wants Jilseponie tried and hanged, and they would lead the cries of outrage to an explosive pitch."

Sadye's smile widened, and she sat there, shaking her head in disbelief at the sudden turn of events.

Aydrian, though, seemed perfectly at ease and in control.

"You did this," De'Unnero said to Aydrian. "You led Constance to Jilseponie and to suicide."

"You do not believe that the Queen murdered her?" Sadye asked, honestly surprised. "After all the trouble Constance has been giving Jilseponie, it does not seem so implausible."

"Nor will it seem so to the masses at the trial," De'Unnero agreed. "But that is the beauty, is it not?" he asked Aydrian with a sly smile.

"Did you do this?" Sadye asked the young warrior. "Did you somehow induce Constance to kill herself so that Jilseponie would be blamed?"

Aydrian sat back and chuckled.

"And do you believe this will be to our benefit?" De'Unnero added. "What gain might we find by discrediting and eliminating the Queen? By destroying your mother, perhaps our only tie to the throne? Believe me when I say that it will do my heart good to see that witch tried and executed, as I know it pleases you to pay her back for abandoning you to those wretched elves. But to what end? Have we lost sight of the goal?"

"I have not, I assure you," Aydrian replied with confidence. "And, yes, this will work very much to our advantage, when the time comes."

"You have already figured that out?" Sadye asked.

Again Aydrian merely sat back in his seat and smiled.

Sadye looked to De'Unnero, who was nodding as he stared at Aydrian, his confidence in the young warrior obvious.

"I care little for this mystery," Sadye said at length. "What is the truth? And what shall we make of it? Out with it, if you know anything at all! Are we not partners? Coconspirators? But what faith might any of us hold if we do not understand the schemes of the others?"

"Whether Constance killed herself, or Jilseponie killed Constance, or even whether or not someone else might have murdered the lady is of no consequence," Aydrian explained, seeming very much ahead of the situation. "All that matters to us is that the evidence will damn Jilseponie in the eyes of the common people and will reinforce all the animosity most of the nobles have felt toward her from the very beginning. She will be tried and, barring another surprise, she will be found guilty, and she will be hanged. King Danube will not survive the ordeal unscathed, in reputation or in heart."

"But what does that mean for us?" Sadye pressed. "With Jilseponie gone, our - your - claim to the title diminishes greatly, perhaps completely."

She started to elaborate, but De'Unnero's laughter cut her short. She looked at the former monk to see him staring at Aydrian with admiration.

"He said, barring another surprise," De'Unnero remarked. "Am I wrong in assuming that young Aydrian has another surprise in store for us?"

Aydrian didn't blink, didn't smile. "Nothing that has happened did so without forethought and in pursuit of our goal," was all the answer he would give.

The three conspirators were in the crowd that morning of Jilseponie's trial. Abbot Olin was there as well, along with many mercenaries, disguised as peasants - which, in fact, was what most of them were. They had no idea of how this might play out, but De'Unnero and Olin wanted to be prepared for anything.

The trial itself proceeded at a brisk pace, with Duke Kalas doing the honors as prosecutor, a role he obviously enjoyed. He stood up on the platform beside the Queen, who was also standing, her hands bound behind her back. While Kalas was outfitted in his regal Allheart dress, complete with the more showy pieces of his armor and his great plumed helmet, Jilseponie wore a simple brown tunic and breeches. That had been her choice, so she had come out here in the clothes in which she was most comfortable, the ones that best reflected who she truly was and had always been: a young peasant girl who grew up on the borderlands of the civilized kingdom.

How ironic it seemed to her that such a simple truth of her identity could have so brought about her fall from what was nearly the very highest station in the world.

She watched the proceedings with a strange, almost amused, detachment. Here they were, deciding upon her very life. Yet to Jilseponie, it seemed a ridiculous show, unworthy of her interest. She knew the truth and suspected that many of her accusers knew it as well. But did that matter?

Kalas paraded all the expected witnesses up on the high stage, beginning with the lady-in-waiting who had first arranged the meeting between Jilseponie and Constance.

"Queen Jilseponie insisted upon it, my lord," the trembling woman answered to Kalas' questions concerning the tea. "I went to Lady Pemblebury, and she agreed, though she was holding her reservations, to be sure."

Jilseponie dropped her head, so that the closest onlookers wouldn't see, and misinterpret, her smile at the obvious, blatant lie. So Constance had enlisted this woman beforehand, obviously, and the woman really had little to do now but continue to lie.

How she wanted to fight back at that moment! To stand tall before the lady-in-waiting and question her, to wind her in circles until she inevitably contradicted herself. And then - oh, the pleasure Jilseponie might take in destroying the story altogether, in forcing an admission that Constance, not Jilseponie, had arranged for the tea and that Constance, and not Jilseponie, had used the poison.

But she could not. The law did not allow her to speak to witnesses. Only the nobility, any of them save her husband, who sat to the side as presiding magistrate, could do that. And none of them would, she knew. None of the courtiers would desire to find the truth - not if that truth exonerated Jilseponie and damned Constance Pemblebury.

Kalas next paraded the woman who had found the open poison vial in Jilseponie's sash, and then brought forth all those in attendance who had heard Constance's cries that the Queen had poisoned her. He ended with his own recounting of Constance's last moments, with his own testimony that the dying woman had damned Jilseponie.

Through it all, Jilseponie kept looking down or over at her husband. Danube sat on his throne at the side of the stage, flanked by stoic and disciplined Allheart knights, who seemed more like statues than living men. She could see the pain on his face, could recognize his wince with every damning word.

This was destroying him, perhaps more fully than it could ever destroy her, even if they hanged her that very morning.

When he finished his speech, Duke Kalas turned back and looked at Jilseponie and shook his head, his expression one of disgust.

He swung back and bowed to the crowd, then, as protocol demanded, his duty here finished, he started from the stage but took a route that would bring him right past the prisoner.

"I have never liked you, I admit," he whispered to her, "but never did I imagine that you could do this to Constance. Was not destroying her hopes and dreams enough for you?"

"I did nothing," Jilseponie answered. "And you know the truth of it."

Kalas snorted at her, then walked off the stage and joined the ranks of nobles in the front rows of witnesses.

The cries began soon after, screams echoing throughout the crowd for the death of the Queen. It had all been so one-sided, presented by people who had no interest in even hinting that there might be another truth to this sordid tale, that Jilseponie could not rightly blame the people now calling for her death. Those cries built in magnitude and insistence as King Danube rose from his seat and moved front and center. When he got there, he held up his hands, motioning for silence, and so the cries gradually, only gradually, died away.

Danube turned and motioned for Jilseponie to join him, then motioned for the guards behind her, who began to approach her, to back off.

His wife was capable of making this walk herself.

Jilseponie did just that, moving to stand beside him, trying hard to keep all judgment from her face. She did not want to cause Danube any more pain.

"You have heard the charges and the testimony," the King said, and it was obvious to Jilseponie that he was working hard to keep a tremor out of his voice. "Do you agree, or do you protest your innocence?"

"I am innocent of these charges," Jilseponie said loudly and with all conviction. "I did not murder Lady Pemblebury."

The end of her statement was lost in the renewed screaming and cursing, the cries of "Liar!" and "Murderess!"

"I know not what possessed Lady Pemblebury to do this thing, if she did, or for what purpose anyone else would poison her," Jilseponie went on, not even trying to compete with the screaming, speaking, rather, for her husband's benefit and not the onlookers'. "I was as surprised - more surprised - than anyone else when the truth of the poisoning became obvious, when I caught Constance as she stumbled. . . ." She paused there, for she knew that telling them how the poison vial might have gotten into her sash would do her no good, would convince no one of her innocence. For they did not wish to be convinced. The nobles had come here seeking vengeance for much more than the murder of Constance Pemblebury. They sought vengeance against Jilseponie for ever coming to Ursal, for ever presuming to be one of them.

And the peasants? Once, twice, thrice, she had been their hero, defeating the dactyl, the corrupt Markwart, and the plague. But their memories were not so long, it seemed.

They had come out to see an execution. They had come to see evidence that even the Crown was not above the same basic laws that governed them, that even the Crown could not kill people at its whim. They wanted that reassurance, and if Jilseponie's fall had to be the catalyst for their comfort, then so be it.

She understood it all, and so she stopped there, saying again merely, "I did not do this."

Whistles and boos, howls for her execution, resounded throughout the public square, denying her denial in no uncertain terms. At this point in the proceedings, it was customary for the King to do a call of the nobles for the verdict, with each of them subsequently turning and appealing to the crowd for guidance, but that whole process seemed patently ridiculous at this point, where not a voice cried for the innocence of Queen Jilseponie.

Again Jilseponie looked to her husband, who seemed to her to be melting from the onslaught of the cries for a hanging. How far might he fall?

She reminded herself not to judge him, that he had more important issues on trial here than the life of his wife.

King Danube bolstered himself suddenly and stood straight and defiant. He held up his hands, a powerful gesture, and yelled, "Silence!"

Stunned, the crowd, the nobles, quieted.

Danube turned to his wife. "Tell me," he said softly. "I must hear it from you, here and now, face-to-face. Did you do this to Constance? Did you in any way bring about her death?"

Jilseponie stared at him for a long while. "I brought about much of her pain," she admitted, "though unintentionally, and that, I believe, led to her death. But in terms of the actual poisoning, no, I played no hand. None."

"No more pain did you bring to her than did I," Danube remarked. He looked into her eyes, deeply and lovingly, for a long while, and she felt his love for her and his admiration for her then, more keenly, perhaps, than ever before.

Danube smiled at her.

"The kingdom," she whispered.

"Is nothing without true justice," he replied, and he turned back to the crowd.

"We have heard compelling tales," he said. "This I cannot deny. And none more compelling than the recounting of the final words of Lady Constance, who was my dear friend. But this I say to you, Lady Constance has wished the destruction of Jilseponie from the first day she arrived here!

"Nay!" he went on as the murmuring began. "From even before that day. She wanted Jilseponie destroyed since she discovered my intent to ask her hand in marriage. And so, it would seem, has she succeeded. But this I say, and this I decree," he said powerfully, lifting his pointing finger to the sky. "Pen my words in stone, scribe. I have seen no evidence to prove that Jilseponie has done this heinous crime! None, save the words of a desperate, dying woman, who wanted above all else to destroy the Queen, who wanted, above all else, to ensure the line of succession - a line that included her two children - remain intact!"

He pointedly looked at Merwick and Torrence at that point, and Jilseponie could see that he was trying to offer them silent assurances that the sins of the mother would not be visited upon them, that the line of ascension did indeed remain intact.

"And so I decree this trial ended, and the Queen freed, with no guilt proven!" Danube declared, and it was well within his power to do that. He was the king, after all. He could do anything he wanted.

But at what cost?

Aydrian did not hear Danube's statement, did not hear the screams of outrage and protest, or De'Unnero and Sadye's exclamations of disbelief at his side.

He was not there. Using the soul stone, the young warrior had soared out of his body to the small graveyard in one of the sheltered outdoor alcoves of Castle Ursal. Down he went, through the ground, through the pine lid of the coffin, to the body of Constance Pemblebury.

There he found his connection to the dead woman, found a link that led him to her departed spirit.

He pulled that tormented spirit back from the grave, willed her to drift along the walls and to the open square before the castle, gave her spirit visible substance and recognizable form.

Aydrian blinked his eyes open as the frenzy continued, with soldiers lining the stage to keep back the rush of outraged onlookers.

"Is this what you intended?" De'Unnero said to him, scolded him. "The King has thrown the kingdom into tumult - an act that may well lead to revolution. See the noblemen? See their hatred for this action? Oh, the fool Danube!"

"Is that not what we wanted?" Aydrian asked innocently.

"This was your plan?" De'Unnero scoffed at him. "Do you not understand that Jilseponie is discredited in any event? Do you not understand that you have just been removed from any possibilities of legal ascension to the throne?"

"We shall see," Aydrian replied with a smile, and even as he finished, many of the screams from the crowd shifted in timbre, from outrage to something even more primal, to complete horror.

Those heightened screams, coming from one specific area, quieted the rest of the crowd and turned all eyes to that one section, which was parting like the ocean before the prow of a great ship.

Torn and bedraggled, pale in death, nearly translucent, the ghost of Constance Pemblebury walked slowly toward the public gallows, toward King Danube and Jilseponie.

Aydrian looked from his conjured spirit to the King and Queen; and the expressions of horror upon their faces were among the most enjoyable sights Aydrian had ever known. Danube in particular blanched and seemed as if he would faint.

"Allhearts to the front!" Duke Kalas cried, rushing before the gallows, his courage inspiring several others to join him.

Constance walked right through them, their slashing swords and grabbing hands hitting nothing but insubstantial mist.

Then she was standing beside the King and the prisoner Queen.

Danube backed away, breathing hard, trying to take Jilseponie with him. But the Queen, with a much deeper understanding of the spirit world than her husband, the Queen, who had entered that world of shadows before, held her ground.

"I am trapped," the ghost of Constance cried, her voice carrying about the common square. Many of the people had run off, but most had stayed, mesmerized, overwhelmed. "By my own deception am I bound to this place."

Danube squared his shoulders and held up his hand to keep Kalas and the others at bay as they gallantly moved to try again to block the spirit from their King.

"Constance?" Danube asked, gathering his strength and moving forward to the ghost.

"Wickedness has a consequence," the ghost explained, and she seemed a forlorn creature indeed. "And my own wickedness compounds if I allow this to continue."

Jilseponie moved beside her husband, moved right up to the ghost. She had no idea of how this might be happening, of course. What magic could so tear a spirit from the netherworld? But neither had she any doubt that this was indeed the spirit of Constance Pemblebury.

"You are doing this!" Duke Kalas said sharply at the Queen, from behind and to the side of the ghost.

In response, Jilseponie gave a half turn, showing him her bound and empty hands behind her back.

"Queen Jilseponie is innocent," the ghost of Constance wailed, and every ear in the square heard each word clearly. "She played no part in my demise, a death orchestrated by my own hands, that I might . . ."

The ghost paused, so obviously full of regret and terror. Constance turned slightly to more directly face King Danube. "Visit not the sins of the mother upon her children, I beg," she pleaded, and her voice began to grow thin.

Danube began to shake his head immediately, wanting to give the poor dead woman that much, at least, an assurance that Merwick and Torrence would be well cared for.

Both of them climbed onto the stage at that very moment, Merwick coming forward, Torrence hanging back.

"Mother, what have you done?" the eldest son, the Prince of Honce-the- Bear, asked, trembling with every word. "Mother, how?"

He came forward toward her, but the ghost gave a wistful smile and dissipated, melting away into a formless mist that blew apart in the breeze.

A thousand murmurs rolled through the crowd.

"You did that," De'Unnero said accusingly to Aydrian. "But how?"

"And why?" asked a shaken Sadye. "To what end? What have we gained, but the loss of Constance Pemblebury, a death that will only make life easier for the Queen? Why . . ."

Her voice trailed off as she noted her companion on the other side of Aydrian, Marcalo De'Unnero, smiling wryly and nodding.

"Now is the hour of my ascent," said Aydrian.

"By the words of the ghost, Jilseponie is innocent!" King Danube proclaimed. "Let any who deny this speak now or be forever silent!"

The response came as a great and thunderous cheer from the always-fickle common folk, who had witnessed enough of a spectacle - too much of a spectacle! - already that morning.

Danube turned to Kalas, who stood with sword still drawn, and the stunned Duke merely shrugged, having no response.

"The trial thus ends!" cried Danube, and the cheers continued, louder still, and Danube lifted his arms in this, perhaps the greatest victory of his life. He looked at Jilseponie, sharing her smile, and the look she returned was one of the purest love. For he had stood there, beside her, at the potential cost of everything. He had stood beside her, with honor and love, against all odds.

His smile widened.

And then he winced suddenly and clutched at his chest.

And then he fell over backward to the platform.

In the next few moments, as celebration turned to confusion, turned to terror, De'Unnero, Sadye, and Aydrian pressed forward, through the line of nobles, to the edge of the stage.

There lay Danube, in obvious pain, gasping and clutching at his chest.

Kalas was with him, along with Jilseponie, who was fighting her bonds, trying to pull a hand free that she could hold the dying King.

She cried out to him, over and over, told him that she loved him, pressed her cheek against his.

"A hematite for me!" she wailed. "A soul stone, and at once!"

To her surprise, it was Duke Kalas himself who pressed the smooth gray gemstone into her hand.

Jilseponie dove into the magic of the gem, into the spirit world, the healing world, rushing for her husband.

Aydrian was already there, waiting.

In no form that the woman could ever recognize, surely. No, Jilseponie found only a disembodied hand waiting for her, tightly clenched over her husband's heart.

She tore at it with her own hands, desperately trying to pry it free, and gradually she began to make some progress.

And then the hand disappeared, and Danube was free of its icy, murderous grasp.

But it was too late.

Jilseponie came out of her trance to find her husband lying dead before her. Duke Kalas, a single tear streaking his cheek, leaning low over the man. The Duke looked up at her, and she shook her head.

"I could not," she weakly explained.

Kalas gave a sharp intake of breath and stood up, staring hard at her. "Of course not," he said. He turned to the Allhearts about the stage, then to the huge gathering.

"King Danube is dead," he proclaimed. "Mark this day as black."

"A runner to Prince Midalis!" came a cry from one of the noblemen near to the stage. "Long live Midalis, King of Honce-the-Bear!"

As was customary, even in this moment of shock and grief, many took up that cry for the new King.

Duke Kalas looked to the side, to Marcalo De'Unnero and to the young warrior standing beside him, the young unknown prince who had defeated Kalas and then had pulled him back from the realm of death.

"Not so!" the Duke proclaimed, and as those words echoed about, the crowd grew very silent, every eye, particularly those of Aydrian and Merwick, locked upon him.

"By King Danube's own words, the successor to the throne would be Prince Midalis only if Jilseponie did not bear any children," the Duke explained.

"She is with child?" one nobleman cried in shock and outrage, and many confused expressions fell over Jilseponie, whose look was no less dumbfounded.

"She bore a child," Kalas explained, struggling with every word, but keeping his course and his composure.

As he spoke, Aydrian leaped onto the stage, striding forward confidently, and De'Unnero flashed his signal to his nearest agent, who passed it along from conspirator to conspirator.

Abbot Olin, too, made his appearance then, ascending the platform from the stairway at the side.

"Tai'maqwilloq!" Duke Kalas cried. "Aydrian the Nighthawk, the son of Queen Jilseponie, the new King of Honce-the-Bear!"

"Never!" shouted Merwick, and many others shared that sentiment.

Half the crowd was cheering, half screaming in protest.

"This is insanity," Jilseponie breathed, and she staggered, staring at Aydrian, knowing then the truth of it, knowing without doubt that this blond-haired youth was indeed her son, and the son of Elbryan. His walk, his fighting style, his sword - which now hung undisguised at his hip and which she now recognized as Tempest! - and his horse all spoke the truth to her.

"Dasslerond," she gasped, "what have you done?"

"Never!" cried Merwick, drawing his sword.

"I am the Duke of Wester-Honce!" Kalas yelled at the Allhearts, many of them bristling and readying their weapons. "Stand down, I say! They are Danube's own words, spoken on the day of his marriage. The King is dead, long live Tai'maqwilloq!"

"What do you know of this?" one nobleman shouted from the edge of the platform. "How do you know his name, Kalas? What treachery?"

"I am the abbot of St. Bondabruce," Olin interjected, coming toward the nobleman with his entourage of monks clearing a wide path about him. "Soon to be the father abbot of the Abellican Church, do not doubt. Beware that your words do not come back to haunt you, good sir."

Never had Ursal seen such confusion, such wailing, such screaming, all edging toward explosive levels. Fights broke out among the crowd and among many of the soldiers.

De'Unnero's agents, his mercenaries, were right there, finishing every battle in the favor of their secret cause.

On the stage, Jilseponie stood dumbstruck, hardly hearing Kalas at all and not even registering the appearance that a conspiracy had occurred here, one that had perhaps just taken the life of her husband. No, she just stood there helplessly - and even more helpless did she become when Kalas took the soul stone from her bound hands! - staring at Aydrian, gawking at this man who was her son.

She saw Merwick's approach, murder in his eyes.

She shook her head, trying to yell out for the foolish young man to desist. She knew what was coming as she watched Aydrian, smiling widely, draw out his sword in response. To her horror, Duke Kalas and the other Allhearts stepped back from the spectacle - apparently duels were an acceptable way to decide such issues.

Certainly the spectacle of the proclaimed King and the man who had been second in line for the throne brought a measure of calm about the stage, where men held their punches to turn and gawk.

Merwick came on hard, his sword led by fury. "I deny you!" he cried, ending his words with the punctuation of a downward slash and then a sudden stab.

The slash got nowhere near to hitting Aydrian, and the stab slid harmlessly wide, turned by a subtle parry of Tempest.

Still Merwick pressed forward - another slash, a stab, a stab again. Then, as the retreating Aydrian pressed to the edge of the stage, Merwick retracted and leaped ahead, his sword going up over one shoulder, to come careening down at Aydrian's head.

He stopped short, though, his sword barely clearing his shoulder, when he realized that Tempest had sunk deep into his chest.

Aydrian came forward, driving the blade in to the hilt, putting his face very close to Merwick's.

"I deny your denial," the young King casually remarked.

With a rough shove and jerk, he sent Merwick sliding off the sword and down to the stage, to lie dying beside the body of his father.

Jilseponie lowered her gaze and shook her head, thinking that there could be no greater insanity.

Then she looked up, to see a strangely familiar man striding up beside Aydrian and Duke Kalas.

Marcalo De'Unnero.

She did not breathe for a long while, did not blink. The issue seemed settled then, and so quickly, with those yelling for Prince Midalis beaten down and silenced, with poor Torrence brought forward by a pair of Allheart knights.

Allheart knights! Men loyal to the Crown, but not blindly so. Yet here they were, presenting Torrence to the new King!

Unlike his brother, the younger son of Constance and Danube did not seem so brash and brave, did not even attempt to draw out his sword or challenge Tai'maqwilloq. He was beaten already, his eyes begging for mercy, and it seemed as if he needed the support of the two flanking soldiers to even stand up.

Jilseponie could appreciate that. He had just seen his mother's ghost, had just watched his father and his only sibling die. And now he stood before the man who could, and likely would, destroy him utterly.

"Choose wisely here," Duke Kalas whispered to Aydrian, as the new king stood staring at Torrence. "Prince Midalis will not suffer this."

"He will not suffer any of it," Aydrian replied with a snicker. "But what might he do?"

"Merwick challenged you openly and was defeated," Kalas reminded. "Torrence has offered no challenge."

"And if you kill him, then you will be giving Midalis cause to rally even more about him," Marcalo De'Unnero agreed.

"Be gone from Ursal," Aydrian pronounced to Torrence, "this day - at once. A horse!" he cried. "A horse for Torrence Pemblebury.

"For that is your name now," Aydrian explained to the boy - for indeed, Torrence seemed much more a boy than a man at that moment. "No longer do you claim the name of Ursal, nor any bearing that name would bestow upon you. Go and make your way, in good health and with our respect."

For a second, it seemed as if Torrence would lash out at Aydrian, but the young King only smiled, obviously inviting it.

Duke Kalas moved past Aydrian to the young Pemblebury. "I promised your mother that I would look after you," he explained, and he looked to dead Merwick as the irony of that statement hit him. "I could do nothing to protect Merwick from Merwick, but for you, I beg, take the horse and ride far from Ursal. Forsake this place and thoughts of the throne. It is Aydrian's now, rightfully, by the words of your father the King."

"King Danube never meant - " Torrence started to protest, but Kalas brought a finger to his lips, silencing the boy.

"What he meant cannot now be known," the Duke explained. "Nor does it matter, given the reality before us. I pray you, Torrence, be gone. When the world has settled, we will talk again."

Kalas motioned for the flanking knights, and they took Torrence away to the waiting horse.

And Kalas' knights broke up the gathering then, leading the way for the new King to assume his throne.