Only the Worthy (8 page)

Genevieve, alone
in a small cell at the top of the fort’s tower, leaned beside an open-aired
window, looked down at the masses below, and wept. She was unable to hold back
her tears any longer. She looked out and recalled how she had watched Royce
disappear from view, dragged off by the knights, melting into the chaos of the
mob as they had slowly wound their way toward the docks. Her heart had
shatterede. Watching Royce bound at the stake was more than she could take; yet
even worse was hearing him sentenced to the Pits. Before her eyes, the man she
loved most in the world, the one she had been about to wed, was being carried
away to a certain death.

It wasn’t fair.
Royce had given up his life to save hers, had so fearlessly burst into the
castle to risk it all. She flinched as she remembered Manfor’s hands grabbing
at her, as she recalled her sense of sheer terror. If Royce had not arrived
when he had, she did not know what she would have done. Her life would have
been over.

And yet maybe it
was still over. Here she was, after all that, still trapped, still waiting to
hear her fate. She recalled Lord Nor’s words, and they rang in her ears like a
death knell:

Yet your
bride-to-be shall never be yours. She shall become the property of one of our
nobles.

There was no
outrunning them; there was
never
any outrunning them. The nobles ruled
their lives, and always had. Disrespecting one of them meant a possible
death—and killing one guaranteed it. And yet Royce had not hesitated to kill
one for her sake.

Genevieve reeled
at the thought. How much Royce had loved her; she had seen it in that moment.
It had been so easy for him to give up his very life for hers. She wanted to
risk it all for him, too, and what made her feel the worst of all was that she
was trapped here, unable to help him.

A heavy iron
bolt suddenly slid back on the other side of her door, shattering her silence,
and Genevieve flinched in her solitary cell. There came the sound of the thick
wooden door creaking as it was pulled open, and she saw two stone-faced
soldiers awaiting her silently. Her heart fell. Were they coming to lead her to
her death?

“You will be seen
now,” one announced gruffly.

They stood there
in silence, waiting, yet she only stood there, frozen in terror. A part of her
wanted to stay here, alone, in this cell, a prisoner for the rest of her days.
She was not ready to face the world, and certainly not the nobles. She wanted
more time to process it all, and more time to think of Royce. Yet returning to
her normal life, she knew, was no longer a possibility. She was the property of
these nobles now, theirs to do with as they wished.

Genevieve took a
deep breath in the stillness and took one step forward, then another. Walking
towards these men was worse than walking to the gallows.

As they walked
down the corridor, the door slamming behind her, one grabbed her roughly, too
roughly, his calloused fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arm. Genevieve
wanted to cry out in pain. But she did not. She would not give him the
satisfaction.

He leaned in
close, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her cheek.

“Your boyfriend
killed my lord,” he said. “He will suffer. You, too, will suffer—though in a
different way. A longer, crueler way.”

He jerked her,
leading her down the twisting and turning corridors, the sound of their footsteps
echoing on the stone, and as they went, Genevieve shuddered. She tried not to
think of what lay awaiting her. How had everything turned out this way? This
had begun as the happiest day of her life—and somehow had morphed into tragedy.

Genevieve glanced
out the open windows as they passed by and saw the courtyard far below, the
masses coming and going, all of them already back to their daily routine. She
wondered how life could just go on like that, as if nothing had ever happened.
For her, life had changed forever. Yet the world seemed to be unfazed.

As she looked
down at the stone far below, she felt a sudden rush of hope. She
did
have one last power at her disposal, she realized: the power to end it all. All
she had to do was break free of this soldier’s grip, run and jump out the
open-aired window. She could end it all.

She calculated
how many steps it would take, whether he would catch her before she leapt, and
whether the fall would be far enough to break her neck. Pondering this, she
felt a perverse sense of joy. It was the one power she had left. It was the one
thing she could do to show her solidarity to Royce. If Royce was going to die,
she should die, too.

“What are you
smiling about?” the guard hissed.

She didn’t
respond—she hadn’t even realized she was smiling. Her actions would answer for
her.

Heart pounding, Genevieve
waited for his grip to loosen so she could yank her arm away and run. Yet, to
her dismay, he only squeezed harder, never loosening it for one second.

Genevieve’s
heart fell as they turned down a new corridor, one with no windows. They
reached a new door and as he ushered her inside, she realized her opportunity
was lost.

Next time
, she told
herself.

Genevieve
entered a vaulted chamber, dim and cool in here, with soaring ceilings. She was
led to the center of the room by the two guards, who finally let go and stood a
few feet away. She rubbed her arm from where he had grabbed it, relieved to
have it free.

Facing Genevieve
was a man, clearly a noble from the looks of him. He stood opposite her, a few
feet away, and stared back with a cool, hard gaze. He seemed to examine her as
if she were a statue, or an interesting piece of art which had been brought
before him.

She felt an
immediate sense of revulsion upon looking at him: he resembled Manfor. His
brother, perhaps?

He stood there,
with his fine chiseled looks, a man of perhaps twenty, an arrogant look on his
face, not quite a scowl. Dressed in the finest of velvets, indicative of his
position, he was flanked by two older men, dressed equally luxuriously. Behind
these stood several attendants. His eyes were red, as though from crying, and
his face was framed by longish, wavy brown hair. He’d be attractive, she
thought, if his face wasn’t puffed up by such arrogance and cruelty.

The boy stared
coldly at her, and she locked her jaws and stared back at him, immune to his
hate. She, after all, wanted no one’s approval.

A long, heavy
silence blanketed the room as they each stood there, staring in stony silence.
The room was filled with the silent tension of grief, of blame, of anger, of
vengeance. Almost nothing needed to be said.

Finally, the man
spoke.

“Do you know who
I am?” he asked. His voice was not unpleasant, smooth on the air, a voice of
authority, of privilege, of entitlement.

She looked into
his hard, brown eyes, studying them.

“Manfor’s
brother, I would assume,” she replied, her voice scratchy from lack of use.

He shook his
head.

“I
was
his brother,” he corrected. “My brother is dead now, thanks to you.”

His eyes
narrowed in disapproval as he looked at her as if she had stabbed his brother
herself. She wished she had. She wished she could take her beloved Royce’s
plight away from him, wished that he had not had to suffer because of her.

She desperately
wanted to end this. Here, after all, was her enemy, standing before her. She
furtively scanned the room, looking for any weapons—a sword she could draw, a
dagger she could throw—anything to plunge into this man’s heart. Her thought
quickly turned to resolve. She noticed one of the guards, now looking away, had
a dagger in his belt, at his waist, and she wondered if she could snatch it,
wondered how quickly she could take the few steps and stab him before they
could stop her.

“Did you hear
what I asked you?”

She blinked and
looked back at him as she snapped out of it, unaware that he’d been speaking.

“I said,” he
repeated, “my name is Altfor. And your precious Royce would lie dead right now
if it weren’t for the peasants. Indeed, nothing would give me greater pleasure
than to watch him beheaded in the square. Yet ultimately, it does not matter.
He will die regardless, albeit in a long, torturous way in the Pits. I suppose
that is better off, though it does rob me of my satisfaction.”

Genevieve burned
with indignation while Altfor took a step closer. His sneer deepened.

“My brother’s
life was robbed from him,” he seethed. “My
brother
. And by a poor
peasant. It’s
disgraceful
!” he yelled out, his words echoing off the
walls and the floors, his anger lingering in the air.

He lowered his voice.

“And all for
you
,”
he concluded with contempt.

A heavy silence
fell again. She had no intention of responding. She couldn’t care less that he
was angry—indeed, she wanted him to be. She wanted him to suffer, as she had
suffered.

“Have you
nothing to say?” he finally prodded.

A long silence
remained between them, each staring back, each equally determined, until
finally she spoke:

“What is it you
would like me to say?” she asked.

His gaze
hardened.

“That you are
sorry. That you never meant for it to happen. That you are glad that Royce will
die.”

Genevieve
clenched her jaws.

“None of those
are true,” she replied, her voice filled with a calm that she had not felt
until now. “I am thrilled your brother is dead. He was a thief and a murderer
and a rapist. He stole me away on the day of my wedding; he robbed me of the
greatest joy of my life; and as a result of your brother’s heinous actions, the
man who loved me, the man who came to save me, is now an outcast. I regret only
that your brother did not die sooner—and that I myself did not wield the
blade.”

Her words came
out with anger and venom to match his, and she could see each one hurting him.
She saw, too, his look of surprise. Clearly he had expected her to buckle—and
she had not.

He stared back
now with shock and, perhaps, with something close to respect.

“You are a
willful girl, aren’t you?” he said, slowly nodding. “Yes. That is what they say
about you. A girl with much spirit. And yet, what use is spirit in the life of
a girl? What shall your occupation be, after all? Wife. Mother. You shall be
spending your days sewing and knitting, wiping the behind of babes. What
purpose shall your spirit serve you then?”

She glowered.

“You tarnish a
profession that is more noble than yours,” she spat back. “You tarnish your own
mother’s profession—though from her handiwork, I am not surprised.”

He frowned,
clearly at a loss for words, and she stared back, silently fuming. She had in
fact resolved to be a devoted wife and mother, and for her there was no greater
calling. She had also resolved to train, to be a warrior in her own right; she
was already finer with a sword than most of the boys. She had taken her fair
share of the hunt, something other girls wouldn’t do, and had truer aim with
the arrow than most men she had met. Even Royce was not as accurate as she.

“The irony is,”
she continued, “if I had a fine bow and arrow at my disposal now, I would place
the arrow between your eyes before you could finish speaking. Wife and mother
are not exclusive talents,” she replied. “I have other talents, too, which I
would gladly display on you.”

He stared back,
clearly stunned.

Then, after what
seemed like an eternity, he broke into a smile.

“They
underestimated you, indeed,” he replied. “My brother snatched you as a sport to
discard at day’s end. He clearly had no idea whom he had chosen.”

He looked her up
and down with a new look, one that clearly held respect, and perhaps even
admiration. She did not like the look; she preferred it when he looked upon her
with scorn, only.

“I am above your
station,” he continued. “And yet I see something in you. My brother happened
upon you by mistake; I shall happen upon you by choice. You cannot be killed,
if we wish to appease the peasantry. Nor can we set you free, after all you’ve
been involved in, whether willingly or not.”

He sighed.

“So I will take
your hand in marriage,” he concluded, as if bargaining at a farmstand and
concluding to buy a particularly fine sheep for the night’s meal.

Genevieve stared
back, flabbergasted.

“Consider it a
lucky fortune that I found you here today,” he continued. “Endless women in
this countryside would die to be my bride; you have won. Count your blessings.
You shall walk into a life of nobility, and I shall settle this matter on my
father’s behalf and bring peace to the peasantry. We shall put all this
unpleasant business behind us, for the sake of our families, and the sake of
our kingdom.”