Chapter 123 A Question of Honor
In the Greenwood.
Esteban was standing on a tree trunk, looking out at more than a thousand faces, illuminated by the rapidly fading light. The count read aloud and clearly the details of the promises of Valero. He looked at several men, whose eyes widened in astonishment upon hearing the amounts of coin. The count handed the parchment to Pedro and tried to catch the gaze of the men who were further away.
Esteban: I can talk about your oaths. I can tell you that those promises are lies. But each of you must decide whether your oath is worth more than coin. You must consider whether the words of a traitor have any value. Tonight, one hundred unicorns will be at the edge of the forest to defend our position against any attack from the soldiers who are in a camp an hour east of here.
The man remained silent, watching with tired eyes a group of soldiers and knights who were staring at him.
Esteban: Those guards are not going to stop any man who leaves our camp to accept the offer. If a knight wants to leave with his horse or unicorn to receive a bag of coins from an impostor king, no one will try to kill him. We are here because we know that the king was weak and the kingdom suffered under his rule. Valero will be no better. He is a puppet of Count Octavio, just like Aloisio.
The count jumped to the ground and Captain Rodrigo took his place on the tree stump.
Rodrigo: They offered me a title and a noble house. Gold, servants, and power. I am not a Blue Knight because I desire those things. I am a knight because there are things that deserve my sword, my blood, and my life. For years, we forgot about that. But I have met a queen who deserves my loyalty. I have seen a girl who was like the characters in the stories our parents used to tell us.
When he moved away from the tree trunk, Pedro, the captain of the royal guard, jumped onto the trunk and looked at the ground as he spoke.
Pedro: If you want to leave, think it over carefully. If you were in the army of Valero and the Queen offered you a sack of gold to switch sides, what would Valero do? Would he tell you to leave if you wanted to, or would he say that any man who tried to desert would be beheaded?
He left like the others. The giant from Isla Oveja walked alongside the tree stump. He raised his enormous mace and struck the stump, causing the wood to split slightly.
Peador: Queen Oliva the Pure.
Hundreds of voices: Queen Olivia the Pure.
The man struck the tree trunk again with more force: Queen Olivia the Kind.
More than a thousand voices: Queen Olivia the Kind.
He struck the tree trunk with incredible force: Queen Olivia, the Fearless!
Everyone: Queen Olivia, the Fearless!
A few men did leave. But so few that the captains were afraid to return and tell the King how few. No knight betrayed his oath.
In the forest, near the camps of the army of the queen.
He approached very carefully and in almost complete silence. He had heard a lot of noise in this area of the forest. He had seen those strange animals many times before, near the small trees at the edge of the forest. In the past, the animals like this left when the leaves turned brown and dry. Few of them were seen during the winter, after the arrival of the snow. That was a good thing. The animals that walked on two legs were very noisy, and many of them smelled bad.
Like the others, they had four-legged animals that they sometimes rode. But this group of strange animals was different in some ways. They killed some of the forest animals, but not in the large numbers they did in the summer. Furthermore, some of them were females. He had never seen a female of that animal before, but the smell was different and easy to distinguish.
Another strange thing was the Unicorns. Some of the two-legged creatures were riding on them. That seemed incredible to him. The strangest thing of all was a large animal with gray fur and large wings of the same color. In his twenty-five years of life, he had never seen an animal like it. His curiosity was immense. He decided to observe the animals more closely that night.
Near the royal castle.
Fausto served under Prince Edgardo as a squire. He became a scout during the wars in the Ridges and the conquest of Puerto Blanco. He had fought alongside King Reynaldo and all the legends of the royal army.
The moons were shining brightly and the night was clear. Only a madman or an experienced military scout would dare to approach the castle, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers and guards.
He was near a group of soldiers who were drinking and playing with dice. They were supposed to be guarding a crossroads, but like many soldiers, they were not doing their job properly. The innkeeper walked past them without anyone noticing.
As he approached the castle, Fausto noticed that all the doors had guards. Even the small doors of the building where the servants lived. He would have liked to talk to some friends, but that was not possible with so much security around.
The old scout decided to venture into the vast shadows of the nest and the elevated path of the Pegasi. He stealthily slipped past the guards who were patrolling the area around the castle. He found some arrows that had not been discovered by the servants since the night before Unification Day.
Fausto stopped in the shadows, in front of a stone support for the nest. In the moonlight, two bodies hung from the support, suspended by their necks. His eyesight was still very good, and one of the faces looked familiar. He approached to make sure. One of the bodies was that of an older woman, and the other that of an old man whom Fausto had known for many years.
Fausto thought: The king killed a hero of the kingdom. A man who had saved the army from destruction and the lives of thousands of men.
He left with his heart full of sadness and rage.