Chapter 29 The Trial of Lord Morfran #2
“I knew, when my children caught this man in the forest and we forced him into the rebellion, that we’d be working with a man with a shady past,” he began.
“I knew that there was a chance that he might’ve harmed or even killed people I knew.
” He spoke the next part softly. “But I made a specific choice never to ask him about that. What he once was, what he was trying to flee from—it didn’t matter so much as where we were going, and what we would do.
Yet what I did ask of him was that he use his skills and knowledge for good, for the advancement of the rebellion, to put an end to the evil in this kingdom.
He didn’t always want to, I knew. There were plenty of times I was informed he’d tried to run.
And there were times I questioned if he’d lead us into an ambush. ”
Morfran winced.
He shrugged, and Morfran saw his great shadow turning, his arms spread out wide.
“Look around us. Where we stand now. Alive. And free.” It sounded like there was a light smile on his face.
“I think his current actions speak out in defense of his life. He was put to use, if at first he didn’t want that.
But he came around and he committed all in his power to help us take back our homes.
Those who’ve spoken up believe that there is good in him now.
I know there is good in him. I ask that you think on that.
Are we not a kingdom that believes in growth?
Growth of economy? Growth of the land? Growth in its people? ”
Even with his head bent low, shame eating him alive, Morfran could feel a shift in the crowd.
It was a receding of flames, Brim’s words like sand upon the heat.
He wanted to hug the man and he wanted to flee from his sight, and his heart ached knowing that he himself had been an indirect cause of the death of this man’s wife, and yet Brim still chose to stand up and speak out in support of him.
He didn’t know what the crowd would choose. In that moment, though, he was filled with love for every single individual who’d stood up and even those who hadn’t.
“My name is Bronwen.”
He stiffened. Raised his head. She was there, standing with her back towards him, facing the crowd.
“Many of you know me or have heard of me,” she was saying. “But for those who haven’t, I’m also known as the Red Rogue.”
For the first time in several minutes the crowd fluttered with whispers.
“One year ago I was sent to assassinate Queen Ravana, and during that time I failed. As I was fleeing with guards at my heels, I ran into this man.” She gestured at him. He could feel her quick glance over him, hot like sizzling oil. “Do you know what he did?”
The crowd had gone utterly still.
“He said, ‘Next time? Don’t miss.’ And then he let me go, after showing me a secret passage through the castle.
” She paused, and then she turned and stared him sharply in the eye, not looking away once.
“I’ve never told anyone that. I didn’t want to believe he was capable of goodness.
But this man spared my life, and actually encouraged me to return and try again, before he’d made the choice to turn his back on his life as Dark Lord of Ruthven.
He had an ounce of goodness in him, even before we forced him to change. ”
She turned back to the crowd. “There’s something else you need to know.” She hesitated before announcing, “I died yesterday.”
Morfran was still looking up, and it was because of that that he saw Hugh’s frown and Brim’s chagrined expression.
“I got pierced in the heart with magic and bled to death.” She went on. “He was there, too. And that was after I learned exactly who he was. He knew I wanted to kill him. Despite that, he not only brought me back, but brought me back in perfect form.”
At this, some in the crowd began to shift.
“Brought back? As in back from the dead?”
“You’re saying he used necromantic arts?”
“She is,” Grandfather Tortoise spoke, hobbling forward with his cane. “Morfran’s father was a necromancer, after all, and hands down the best one I’ve ever seen.”
All eyes flickered to the old man, to Bronwen, to Morfran, and back.
“I thought he killed all the necromancers in the Two-Year War!” someone complained.
“He killed all those who practiced it imperfectly,” Grandfather Tortoise answered.
“It’s only considered a wicked art because some of those who’d practiced it had done it for selfish reasons—true resurrected people don’t decompose, and they certainly maintain all their thoughts and knowledge as well.
Morfran killed those who’d despoiled the career and held back from ever using the practice his father taught him until now. Didn’t you?”
He directed this last sentence entirely at Morfran, who merely rested his head against the post, gaping at the old man. Hadn’t he seen the shape of him before he’d passed out in the castle? How did he know all these things?
“Which brings us to this.” Grandfather Tortoise gestured to Bronwen. “If Morfran was still as evil as you believe, then how did he not only resurrect a woman he knew wanted to kill him, but resurrect her in a way that in all shapes and forms demonstrates complete and selfless love?”
Bronwen was looking back at him, not with hate, but not with love, and he found that he could handle her gaze only for so long before he had to shut his eyes.
“Think on all we’ve testified today,” Grandfather Tortoise said, before leaning against Bronwen. “We’ll hold the vote in one hour’s time.”
One hour was an awfully long time while waiting on a verdict of whether or not he’d be torched to death. Morfran hit the back of his head against the pole, again and again, mindlessly. Everyone else had left. Everyone except Grandfather Tortoise.
Someone had brought him out a chair, and he was leaning comfortably against the back of it, watching the butterflies flutter by and smiling at the sweet sound of the birds.
“You were in the trophy room with us.” Morfran finally said it, when it became apparent that the old man wouldn’t.
“That’s where you were during the battle.
I don’t know how you got in. But that’s how I didn’t die.
You healed me before I could.” He gritted his teeth. “Which also means you let Bronwen die.”
The old man was still admiring the free, flying critters around them. “Have you ever wondered why I request to be called Tortoise?”
“What?”
“It’s not my actual name. What idiot names their son after a reptile?”
Morfran stopped banging his head on the post.
“I admire tortoises. They carry their home with them, of course, so they’re never lost. They know precisely who they are, and are at peace wherever life takes them.
You”—he pointed a crooked finger at Morfran—“could do with some peace. You fled your childhood home after burning it to the ground. Then you found a new home in a sizable castle before you realized what evil lived inside it with you, and then you fled home again. Now where are you? Homeless yet again.”
“Thanks for rubbing it in.”
“No, I’m pointing it out. You’ve wanted to run away this entire time you were with us.
Guilt and shame and fear were eating at you, telling you that you were no good.
But, lad, it is time you learned something else about being good that is often forgotten.
” He leaned forward. “Good people forgive themselves.”
He snorted, bitter. “I don’t deserve—”
“Brood about it all you want, Morfran, Lord of Brooding, but it’s the truth.
Good people forgive themselves. And if they ever find that they can’t, then they try to mend the ill deeds that are preventing them from finding that peace, and afterwards, check in on how they’re feeling and if that feeling is closer to peace.
Because it is only when one is at peace that one ceases to run away, and there they find that everywhere they go can be called home. ”
Morfran glanced across the courtyard. Smoke still wreathed the sky, but behind it he could see the promise of blue.
His wrists had long since grown sore, and his eyes stung.
Stung from the ache of nearly dying yesterday, the battle of Warshire, the battle of Redmoth, the battles of Atlantis 2.
0 and Ferndock and all those others he’d fought for the past twenty years, going to and fro across the lands but never satisfied.
It was no wonder he was tired. Tired of being afraid, and ashamed of everything he’d done.
“Now, you blame me for allowing Bronwen to die when I could have saved her,” Grandfather Tortoise said. “But it was necessary. I knew you could bring her back, besides. And was I wrong?”
He looked at him. The man knew too much. Far too much to be a mere old man. “Who are you?”
Grandfather Tortoise smiled. “Your godfather. I suppose the full term would be fairy godfather, but I don’t have wings, just a shell.” He chuckled to himself.
Morfran wanted to punch him. “What?”
“Yes. Magic is sparse in the kingdom, but it does thrive in little pockets and people here and there. I’ve watched you and your family from afar, Morfran.
I suspected everything you were going to do, just as I suspected that Ravana’s magic ring had gone rancid because of her wicked soul, just as I suspected that Bronwen was your true love. ”
“What?”
He squinted at him. “Surely your vocabulary is more extensive than that single interrogative pronoun. Yes, Morfran. Did you not notice how she didn’t stutter once when she gave her testimony?
You at least had to have noticed that she’d killed Ravana without her hex getting in the way.
” He grinned, sly. “Just what happened in those tunnels earlier?”
“But—but she had Arthur—”
“Young people believe that everyone they become infatuated with is their true love.” He rolled his eyes. “She didn’t believe me, either.”
“You told her?” He frowned, thinking of all those passing looks she’d given him. But he’d seen her eyes. She didn’t love him back. She couldn’t, after all he’d done.