The Minstrel's Tale Part 3

Edwin touched his wrist again to reassure himself. The tiny vial was there, tied securely to his arm. The king sat at the head of the table with the prince on his right side. The banquet table was lined from end to end with the various lords and ladies who had come to the castle for his birthday celebration tomorrow. The food had not yet been brought from the kitchen, but servers rushed here and there, anxiously refilling wine goblets before they could be drained.

A lock of light golden hair brushed the prince’s shoulder. He turned to look and beheld the most perfect face he had ever seen. Long, thick lashes framed a pair of large, wide-set gray eyes. “May I fill your wine?” she asked, giving him a small but radiant smile.

“Yes, of course,” the prince breathed. His gaze dropped as she leaned over, giving him a glimpse of a deep, sensuous bosom and the very edge of a pink nipple. He pretended to bump her accidentally and grabbed for her waist to steady her, his breath quickening at the feel of the warm, soft flesh beneath her apron. His cock pressed uncomfortably against his clothes. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, to which the girl only smiled good-naturedly and then rushed off to help another. He had never seen her before, he mused. She must have only recently been hired. He watched her move around the table, weighed and measured her with his eyes. Every moment that passed, his desire for her grew. He had to have her.

So focused was the prince’s attention on the serving girl that he almost missed the entrance of Lord Glaston, who spared only an acrid look at him before sitting at the far end of the table with Reyna.

“Father,” Edwin said, “I want to talk to Reyna. Can you call her over here for me?”

The king nodded and called the girl over. She approached with her head down and gave a curtsy. “Yes, lord?”

“My son has something to tell you.”

She looked at Edwin uncertainly, as if unsure whether to stay or run from him. Finally, she stepped up next to him.

“I’m sorry, Reyna,” Edwin said, loudly enough for his father to hear. “It was wrong of me to call you a liar and to do those awful things I did. I am the one who lied. I hope you can forgive me.”

She took a deep breath and smiled in relief. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“And there’s something more.” Edwin made a show of winking at his father. “Come closer. I don’t want anyone else to hear.” Reyna leaned close so that he could whisper into her ear. “After dinner, I want you to come to my room so that I can fuck your pretty little ass.”

The slap was harder than Edwin had been expecting. He blinked and put his hand over the spot. Reyna looked down at her hand as if only just realizing what she had done. “Never,” she hissed at him. “You’re a pig!” And she stalked out of the room.

“What’s going on here?” Glaston asked, putting a firm hand on Edwin’s shoulder.

“I asked the girl to marry me,” Edwin said, still rubbing his cheek. “After I apologized for my earlier behavior.”

Glaston sighed. “Well, I’m glad you’ve come around. You hurt her very badly, but she must realize that this is the only way. I’ll go and have a talk with her.”

Edwin twisted open the vial beneath his sleeve. While his father and the other nearby guests were watching Glaston leave, he quickly put out his hand and let a few drops trickle into the king’s wine glass, then emptied the rest into his own glass. A few moments later, he rose. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel very hungry anymore. Thank you for everything, father.”

He walked out of the banquet hall and down the corridor to a balcony that overlooked the garden. The stars were bright tonight. He took a deep breath and chuckled to himself. He had played the part as planned. If Bastien had done what he told him, it would all work out perfectly. Tomorrow, he would be crowned the new king and he would have his revenge for Reyna’s treachery.

Screams suddenly erupted from the banquet hall. The prince felt a surge of well-being as he turned around. He tried to affect a mask of horrified concern as he rushed back to the banquet hall.

The king lay on the floor, his limbs shaking uncontrollably. A knot of people had rushed to attend him, while others stood back and huddled in terror. Edwin stood over his father, looking down into the old man’s eyes. The prince wondered, as he watched the king take his last breath, whether he suspected who had really killed him.

One of the people kneeling next to the king was the serving girl Edwin had noticed earlier. She put her hands to her mouth and shook her head. “I should have seen it,” she said. “I didn’t realize.” She glanced up at Edwin, noticing him there for the first time, and tore her gaze quickly away. The prince stared at her, wondering what the words could have meant.

The doors were bolted and no one was allowed to leave. Conversations died when an apothecary arrived and tested the king’s food and drink. “His wine was poisoned,” the old man announced, and a din of talking erupted at once.

“Silence, silence,” Edwin called, clapping his hands. “A terrible tragedy has befallen us,” he said, pretending to choke on his words. “Someone has assassinated our king. No one should touch any of their drink. We need to test each plate and goblet for poison. Our killer may have been after more than just the king. If anyone saw anything that might help us find who killed him, they should speak up now.”

A severe-looking woman stepped forward. “Well there was that young lady who came over next to you and the king, the one who slapped you.”

“Lady Reyna,” Edwin supplied. He turned to a guard. “Take another and search her rooms at once.”

The apothecary straightened. “Sire, your goblet was poisoned as well. There was much more of it in fact.”

Edwin nodded, “I suspected as much. Please carry on.”

His heart pounded in anticipation. It would not take long for the guards to bring back what they were supposed to find. It was masterful. No mind but one as crafty as his could have created such a perfect plot. No one would ever again tell him what he couldn’t do. Certainly not a woman.

At that thought, his gaze was drawn once more to the serving girl, now standing against the wall, about to be searched by one of the guards. He hurried over. “That won’t be necessary,” he told the man. “This woman is innocent of any crime.”

The man bowed. “But sire, may I just point out that she only started work here today? We know very little about her.”

“I said,” the prince spoke through his teeth, “she is innocent. Be off with you.”

“Thank you, sire,” the woman said, gracing him with another of her small, pretty smiles.

He stepped closer to her, breathing in her scent. She smelled of lilacs, and beneath it, the intoxicating aroma of female flesh. “I would not have beauty such as yours touched by such rough, uncultured hands.”

“Would you rather they be your own hands?” she asked wryly.

Edwin would not be put off his guard. He laughed. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Tell me, my prince, what are your intentions?”

He stepped up still closer and leaned close to her cheek. She didn’t move. “When this is all over, go up to my chambers, and I will show you.”

“Is that an order?” she whispered back.

“An urgent request,” he corrected, and pressed the bulge of his manhood against her for just a moment.

She curtsied to him, keeping her gaze locked with his and then scurried off to help with cleaning up the wine that the apothecary had already tested for poison.

“My lord,” came a shout, at almost the same time that a young woman cried, “Let me go.”

Two men appeared along with Reyna. The guard Edwin had sent to her room held tightly to the cords binding her arms behind her back. “We found this under her bed,” the other guard said, holding out the bottle that Bastien had planted. The apothecary came forward to take it. “And this,” the man continued, holding out a book bound in leather for Edwin.

Lord Glaston appeared in the door and rushed forward. “Please, lord, there’s been a mistake!” The guards headed him off, drawing steel. He saw the body of the king and put his hand over his mouth in horror.

The prince took the book from the guard and looked it over. “This is your diary, isn’t it?” he asked Reyna.

“Yes, but I didn’t write what they said—“

“Quiet!” he snapped. He flipped through the pages to the last entry. “Very interesting. ‘The prince has rejected every one of my advances. He’s a swine and so is his father. They will both pay for denying me the throne. If I cannot be queen, then I’ll take their lives.’”

Gasps and murmurs went through the crowd. “I didn’t do anything,” Reyna sobbed.

“The handwriting matches,” Edwin said, handing the diary to a noble to examine. He stepped up to Reyna and delivered a stinging slap. Glaston cried out and had to be restrained by the guards. “You slew your king, didn’t you?”

“It’s the same poison,” the apothecary said, looking at the girl gravely.

“Daddy, I didn’t do it,” she cried, straining to peer at him around the guards.

“Please, your highness,” Glaston begged. “I know what it looks like, but Reyna could not have done this.”

“The evidence shows that she did,” Edwin said, shaking his head at the girl. “Tomorrow is my eighteenth birthday. With my father’s death, I will be crowned your king, but tonight I pass my first judgment. Reyna, you are to be executed at dawn, for treason and the murder of your king.” He gestured to the guards. “Take her.”

Edwin listened to her pleas echoing through the halls. Revenge felt better than he had imagined. He looked at the serving girl, bending over to clean a spot of wine spilled on the floor. Well, some things felt better still.

The body of the king was taken away and the nobles who had gathered for the feast slowly dispersed. Glaston continued to plead for his daughter’s life, and Edwin listened to him calmly, casually deflecting his arguments with the proof that Bastien had so faithfully planted. “You must come to terms with it,” Edwin said at last. “Your daughter murdered my father, and she tried to kill me.”