Chapter 29 The Trial of Lord Morfran #3
“Yes. Didn’t accept it until I asked her what you smelled like, and if you smelled ridiculously good all the time.”
“What does scent have to do with it?”
“Our true love always has a scent that reminds us of home.” He looked at him curiously. “What did she smell like to you?”
“Wildflowers,” he replied, dazed. “What did I smell like to her…?”
“You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”
Morfran didn’t say anything to that. But he did ask, “If you’re my godfather, and you know things that others don’t…what happens next? Do they vote to kill me?”
He grinned. “I’m your godfather. Not a crystal ball. Most things you have to learn on your own.”
The verdict was reached. The crowd gathered back in the courtyard, and judging by the lack of torches and pickaxes, that verdict was—
“You’re to be released,” Brim announced to him when everyone had returned. Morfran caught grins exchanged between the Fleet Foot brothers, a shared hand squeeze between Rapunzo and Drezella. “The citizens of Warshire have voted against your death.”
Morfran exhaled at that, and even though a fraction of him still wanted to be put out of his misery, there was always that part that wanted to live. And yet Brim still lingered over him, an and yet in his voice.
Morfran waited.
“You’re not to leave the kingdom,” Brim continued. “If you do, you’ll be killed on the spot. The people have come to an agreement that they’ll only let you live if you serve a penance for all you’ve done.”
He swallowed. “What type of penance?”
Brim’s gaze softened. “With the discovery that you’re a necromancer who’s brought back someone in perfect form, the people have decided that you are to be sentenced to serve the kingdom by resurrecting the people who’ve died by your influence if you can, starting with all those who died in battle yesterday. ”
It wasn’t a terrible sentence. In fact, he found it quite possibly a relieving one.
He could resurrect Reginald. Owain. The rest of them.
But— “What if I can’t bring someone back like I did with Bronwen?
” he asked, because it was a very real possibility.
She was easy to love—but half the people he encountered he found, quite frankly, annoyingly stupid.
Brim grimaced. “Then you’re to be executed according to how that individual died.
” Then he leaned down, lowering his voice so only the two of them could hear.
“For your sake, I hope it’s not a problem.
Be well…Morfran.” As he walked away, those words carried a hint of that friendship they’d had before.
It left him with the hope that perhaps, one day, he could earn it back.
Others came up to him after that. Hugh with his sword to cut his ropes.
Brim’s men, who gave him either a big slap upside the head for all the lies or a half-love, half-hate tap that he deserved.
Drezella came, too, leading Beni and the kids.
He ruffled Beni’s head, held Minny and Jak in his lap.
His goat friend was nudging his hand, but he found that while he relished knowing that she was safe, he couldn’t feel true comfort because of what he had to do next.
“Take care of her for me?” he asked the little girl. “And the kids. Minny and Jak are wonderful, proper names, and anyone who can name them and keep them happy will make for a great goat owner.”
She beamed. “As president of the Fleet Foot Club, I accept that responsibility.”
Rapunzo knelt next. He set a small stuffed lamb down beside Morfran, then erupted into sobs and yanked him into a near-death hug.
“They say I’m a missing prince and that my father was Good King Richard and that I’m to stay in Castle Atrago,” he wailed.
“But I don’t want to go to school. I want to bake beef Wellington and lemon squares, and Little Woman promised to induct me into the Fleet Foot Club, and Randy the Duck told me he wants to travel south for the upcoming winter. ”
“Rapunzo, I need to tell you something.” Morfran took a breath, ready to pour out all the apologies he could for stealing the man’s true love and for his predicament of being trapped in a tower.
But then he realized that the man had perhaps just as much personal growth to undergo as he did, and finally settled on a smaller, albeit still dangerous confession. “Randy the Duck is female.”
Rapunzo and Morfran looked behind Rapunzo, where Randy the Duck stood staring at them.
“You’re a woman?” Rapunzo asked her, betrayal in his eyes.
“But most women are quite wonderful,” Morfran hastily added. “You’ve only been exposed to the terrible ones so far. But there are many who are kind, and helpful, and thoughtful, and— Look, you don’t even have to change her name. Just replace the Y with an I, all right?”
Randi. The man-child mouthed it. Rand-I.
“That’s the spirit. Let that thought sink in. I once had to undergo the same realization with my pet goat, and we’re now the best of buds.” Were the best of buds. She can’t come with you.
Shortly after this, Rapunzo left, gently stroking Randi’s head and lifting up her leg as if to peer beneath her tail. Morfran watched him leave. One day, maybe, he’d make up for ruining his life. As it were, he found he only had the strength for baby steps.
He looked about the courtyard. Everyone else had left except Bronwen, who stood at a distance, solemn faced.
He felt like curling up in a hole and dying. But he was an ex–Dark Lord, damn it, and he was done cowering. Stepping closer so he didn’t have to shout, he said, “So. Grandfather Tortoise told me your hex is gone.” He tried to smile. “You’re finally free.”
She pressed her lips together, as if she still felt it, too—the ghost of a kiss they’d shared just yesterday. But she didn’t come forward, and didn’t return his smile.
“Yesterday I tried to kill you,” she whispered, wringing her skirts. “And today I voted to save your life. I don’t quite know what to think of it.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets to hide how much they were shaking. He was completely stripped bare in front of her now, and he’d never felt more vulnerable. “There’s time for that now. For thinking,” he said, then felt stupid stating the obvious.
She said nothing, and he felt like he was watching her fade, the usual bright light in her gaze receding like a star being covered by clouds. He knew what she needed to hear. What she’d stayed to hear. If this was all she wanted, he’d give it to her.
“I wasn’t lying, when I said it earlier.
Arthur was brave,” Morfran managed to get out.
“He was the only one on the field who ran at me rather than away. That rarely happened over my twenty years of ruling. And you’re right.
I didn’t know him long enough to learn his name.
But just know that now I’ll never forget it. And, Bronwen?”
She’d dropped her gaze as he’d spoken, but now she raised it again, clenching her teeth as if to hold back tears.
“I am sorry.” Not because his past actions had ruined his chance of ever being with her. But because he’d ended a life, and he’d ended a love, cutting it short. How many more lives had he done the same to? “About him.” He paused, then added, “About all of it.”
She studied him slowly, tracing the lines of his shoulders, the expression on his face. It was a particularly tender action, something he’d only ever seen a parent do to a child, or a lover do to their loved one only when the two of them knew they were alone.
He stayed where he was, however, even though all he wanted to do was tear across the distance and yank her into his arms, to ask her, against all wisdom and reason, to stay at his side, to come with him.
But even as he saw the tilt of a frown and the sad, dwindling light in her eyes, he knew he couldn’t ask that.
She’d been tugged around by him, indirectly and directly, for a great deal of her life, and the last thing she needed was his constant presence redirecting her steps.
She needed time to restructure who she was again: if she wanted to become the Red Rogue and hunt down the rest of his generals, if she wanted to become whoever she’d been before she’d picked up the assassin’s blade, if she wanted to become someone else entirely.
She couldn’t do that if he was still in her life.
So instead he smiled. And even though it hurt to say the words, it also felt like a release.
“I also wanted to say thank you,” he whispered.
“For always chasing me down and dragging me back. For recognizing the good in me, even when all I saw was the bad. Without you, all of this”—he gestured behind her, to the city freed from his and Ravana’s evil reign, and the happy sounds of celebration from her people—“would never have happened.”
Her eyes were gleaming now. She continued twisting her skirts, her eyes on the ground. Then finally, she tipped her chin down in a little nod. “Do good,” she said. “Morfran.”
She turned to leave, and he knew he needed to let her. But a last smidge of selfishness he couldn’t quell made him ask it, made him call out, “What was my scent to you?” Quieter, he explained, “To me you were my mother’s wildflowers.”
She paused a step before she continued walking. And he thought that maybe she wouldn’t answer. That he’d never know. And he didn’t—for although she did turn her head and speak, the answer was so soft he didn’t hear.