Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Who informed Sir Alfie Henriksson.
Who had the body collected, and at the behest of True, burned on a not-so-pauper’s pyre.
No one but Alfie and Bronagh attended, and they only did it because it was the right thing to do.
Vanka didn’t, because she refused.
Silence and True didn’t, because they were still in Mar-el, in attendance at a celebration with the kings and queens from the Northlands and Southlands prior to their friends departing to journey home.
But also…
They simply just couldn’t be bothered.
Sir Alfie Henriksson, King’s Counsellor
Crittich Keep, Notting Thicket
WODELL
When Alfie arrived at the Keep, he wound his reins around the hook in front of him, tossed the rug from his legs, bent to the side and unsnapped his wheel from the floor of the chariot.
He then bent to the other side to undo that one.
He pushed the lever which tipped the wain back, then twisted at the waist, and freed the lock on the back door, which swung open.
He then wrapped a gloved hand around one wheel as he unlocked the other, and vice versa.
His exit set, Alfie backed out, wheeled to the Keep, and nodded to the guards who opened the door for him.
One followed as he entered.
“Where are they?” Alfie asked.
“You asked for them all, sir, and seeing as there are a number of them fucks, ’scuse my language, milord, but no other way to describe ’em, we’ve set ’em in the Council Chambers,” the man answered.
Alfie nodded.
He then turned right at the end of the entry hall and wheeled himself to the Council Chambers.
There were two guards on either side of the chambers’ door.
One moved to open it.
Alfie wheeled in.
The men were standing against the back wall. They looked sunken and haggard and as if they were what they’d been for some time now.
On the run or incarcerated.
They had wrists chained in front of them connected to further chains that ran up to their throats and down to their ankles as well as being chained together.
Regardless, there were two guards on either side of the door on the interior, and three lining each side of the room.
Alfie wheeled in and instructed, “You can keep the door open. I won’t be long.”
“Sir,” a guard murmured his assent.
Alfie looked down the lot of them, and as he had better things to do, he didn’t delay.
“You’ve each been identified by one or more of the surviving women you abducted. And it’s been reported you were also instrumental in the kidnapping of Tedrey Swensson, Our Brother Golden Hair, the hero of the Battle of the Beasts. As is your right on the soil of Wodell, you will stand tribunal. However, I’ve received a raven from our king, and he advises no pleas of mercy will be heard. Thus, when you’re found guilty, you will be hung by the neck publicly, in the Lawn of this Keep. Due to the heinousness of your crimes, your families will be disallowed to collect your bodies. You will be burned on a communal pyre. Thus, if you have any family, I would advise you get word to them. You will each be allowed a single visit in order to say your goodbyes.”
He looked to the side and up to a guard.
“That is all, you can take them back to their cells,” he finished.
And not having removed his hands from his wheels, he began to make his turn to exit the room.
“It wasn’t our idea!” one called out.
Alfie looked in the direction of the voice.
“It was…we were under orders,” he stated. “You understand. We were at war.”
“You were at war with forty-one women?” Alfie asked.
“They were…they were…that was…” the man stammered, shook his head. “I do not know what that was. I was not in my normal mind. None of us were. It was like a…a…frenzy. We’d all gone quite mad.”
“To that, I’ll agree,” Alfie replied.
And before the man could say another word, he turned and wheeled away.
It was unsurprising when, one month hence, Alfie sat in his chair on the Lawn at Crittich Keep and watched all the men who had been in chains in that room as they were hung by the neck until they were dead.
He did not allow his stubborn woman to accompany him.
And as a first, she did not argue.
Hans Swensson
Trevor’s Gorge
WODELL
It had been a herald in royal livery who had stood at attention at his door and handed him the missive.
A missive with the green wax seal on the back.
The seal of the king.
News of late was much, it came swift, and it was weighty.
The treachery of that bloody Rising.
Servitude abolished in Mar-el.
Civil War fought and won by King Cassius in Airen.
The massacre of those poor girls in the Lesser Thicket, though he’d been pleased to hear them Rising arseholes who did those deeds were now good and dead.
And the Battle of the Beasts in Mar-el across the sea.