A Vow of Glory

CHAPTER TWENTY

Gwendolyn stood on the upper ramparts of the castle, Steffen by her side, watching for Kendrick, looking for any sign of him on the horizon. All around her, her men were busy preparing the final defenses, a group beside her groaning as they pushed yet another iron cauldron filled with boiling tar into place. Archers took up positions, hundreds of them, kneeling all about the walls, bows and arrows at the ready. Beside them sat dozens of attendants, young boys holding torches ready to be lit.

On the lower ramparts, hundreds more men took up positions with long spears; amidst these were dozens more with slings.

Down below, in the inner court, amassing behind the gates, were hundreds more soldiers, bearing swords and shields and every weapon imaginable. Her army grew with each passing moment, and Silesia was beginning to feel impenetrable. Gwen was feeling optimistic.

But she looked out again over the horizon, and reminded herself of what was coming. She had heard stories of Andronicus her entire life, and she knew that while Silesia had lasted a thousand years, this time would be different. She closed her eyes and prayed that she be given the strength to at least put up a noble defense. Whatever should come, whether they should all live or die, she just wanted to go down with honor.

Gwen opened her eyes and looked back at the horizon, and began to pace again. She was a nervous wreck, and having Kendrick out there didn’t help. She could not imagine having to shut the gates on her brother. It was too painful to even contemplate.

“Watching the horizon won’t make him come any faster,” Steffen said, standing beside her.

She looked over, grateful, as always, for Steffen’s presence. He had become her backbone throughout all of this, always at her side, always looking out for her, always there to offer a good word of advice or comfort. He was wise beyond his appearance, and she was viewing him more and more as a sounding board. He was also the one she could trust most, who had saved her life already twice; she was growing comfortable sharing with him even her most private thoughts.

“I don’t think I could do it,” she said to him, quietly. “Seal the gates with Kendrick out there.”

“You will have to,” he said. “That is what it means to be Queen. To put country before family. Your brother is but one; your people are thousands.”

As she continued to pace, Gwendolyn knew that he was right. She just prayed she would not have to be put in that position.

A trumpet sounded, and Gwen spun, staring back down at the road, wondering whose approach they were heralding. Her heart beat faster as she hoped to see Kendrick riding towards the place.

But her heart fell as she saw a small caravan and realized it was not him. It was a horse and carriage, coming from the road from King’s Court. She was surprised: someone had made it out of there alive.

She was anxious to have the news. She took off down the twisting stone staircase until she reached the dusty inner court of Silesia. Steffen cleared a path for her between the soldiers, and she hurried down the middle as the inner gate was slowly opened.

The carriage came up to the entrance and pulled to a stop.

Several soldiers approached and opened the door, and Gwendolyn was shocked as she saw who came out.

There, standing before her, was a woman she was sure she would never see again.

Her mother. The former Queen.

And beside her, her devoted servant, Hafold.

Gwendolyn’s mother stared back at her, one queen to another, and Gwendolyn felt torn with a myriad of emotions. She went from being shocked to see her, to relief that she was alive, to sadness and compassion for her state of health, to anger from all the old memories. She also felt a sudden defiance: if her mother had arrived here to try to tell her how to rule, she would hear none of it.

Most of all, she was bewildered. How was her mother, who was so sick, standing? And how had she escaped from King’s Court?

“Mother,” Gwendolyn said.

Her mother stared back, expressionless.

“Gwendolyn,” she said, matter of factly. “I find myself in the odd and unfortunate position of having to ask my daughter to allow me into her court. Since the destruction of King’s Court, of the one place I called home, I find myself homeless. A great army follows on my tail, and if you shut me out from your gates, I will die out there. However you may feel about me, surely that would not be a way to honor your father.”

The crowd of soldiers around them grew quiet, and Gwendolyn felt them all watching the exchange between them. She took a deep breath, swirling with mixed emotions.

“I am not vindictive, mother,” Gwendolyn said. “Unlike you. I would never throw you to the mercy of the Empire, regardless of the sort of mother you have been. Of course, you shall be welcome within our gates.”

Her mother stared back, still expressionless, and gave her the slightest nod.

“How did you recover?” Gwendolyn asked. “Last I saw you, you were unable to speak, or to move.”

“I discovered she had been the victim of poisoning,” Hafold said. “By her son, the King.”

A gasp spread through the crowd, most of all from Gwendolyn. Despite the depth of Gareth’s treachery, she had never imagined this. She shook her head involuntarily.

“Then we shall put you into the hands of Illepra, our healer who is here with us, and she will give you whatever help you need for a permanent recovery. I welcome you here, mother.”

Her mother nodded, but stood where she was.

“I hear you are queen now,” her mother said.

Gwendolyn nodded back, guarded, unsure where she was going with this.

“It is what your father wanted. I fought it. But now, finally, I see that it was a wise decision. Perhaps his only wise decision.”

With that, her mother turned and walked past her, followed by Hafold, too proud to stop and say anything else.

Gwendolyn, knowing how proud her mother was, knowing that she’d never had a kind word for her, knew how hard it was for her to say something like that. She was touched. She wondered, for the millionth time, why she and her mother could not have been closer.

The carriage door opened yet again, and Gwendolyn turned and was surprised to see Aberthol exit the other side, walking slowly with his cane, the soldiers helping him.

He turned and walked with his distinctive gait towards Gwendolyn, smiling warmly as he approached.

She took several steps towards him, and gave him a hug. It warmed her heart to see her old teacher and her father’s advisor again; it was, in some ways, like having a piece of her father there.

“Gwendolyn, my dear,” he said slowly in his ancient voice. “Hugging a humble old man like me will not seem quite appropriate in front of all your new subjects,” he said with a smile, pulling back. “You are queen now, after all. For that, I am very proud of you. And a queen must always act as a queen.”

Gwendolyn smiled back.

“True,” she said, “but being queen also gives me prerogative to give anyone I want to a hug.”

He smiled.

“You always were too smart for your own good,” he said.

“Seeing you here makes me fear the worst,” Gwendolyn said, somber. “I have heard that King’s Court was attacked. But knowing that you have fled your precious books makes me know now, for certain, that it is true.”

Aberthol’s face fell, as he gravely shook his head.

“Burned,” he said. “It’s all been burned to the ground. We escaped the night before.”

Gwendolyn, heart thumping, was afraid to ask the next question.

“And what of the House of Scholars?” she finally asked. Her heart pounded as she thought of the place that was a second home to her, that was more sacred to her than anything in the world.

Aberthol looked down sadly, and for the first time in her life, she watched a tear fall from his eye.

“Nothing remains,” he said, his voice gravel. “Thousands of years of history, of priceless, precious volumes—all set aflame by barbarians.”

Despite herself, Gwendolyn groaned; she reached for her heart, clutching her chest.

“All that remains are the few volumes I grabbed before fleeing, all I could fit in the carriage. A thousand years of history, of poetry, of philosophy—all of it, wiped away.”

Gravely, he shook his head again and again.

“We will rebuild it,” she said to him, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “One day, we will get it all back again.”

She tried to sound confident, to restore his spirits, but even she knew it could never be.

He looked up at her in doubt.

“Do you know what’s coming for us on the horizon?” he said. “An army greater than anything your father had faced.”

“I do,” she said. “And I know who we are. We will survive. Somehow. And we will rebuild.”

He looked at her, long and hard, and finally he nodded.

“Your father chose well,” he said. “Very, very well.”

Aberthol squinted, his face collapsing in a million lines.

“You remember your history?” he asked. “The Acholemes?”

Gwen wracked her brain, it slowly coming back to her.

“They were faced with a great siege,” she said.

“The greatest siege in all the annals of the MacGils,” Aberthol added. “They were but one hundred men—and they fended off ten thousand.”

Gwen’s eyes opened wide and her heart swelled with hope as the story began to come back to her.

“How?” she asked.

“They fought as one,” he answered. “Battles are not always won by the sword. More often, they are won by the heart. By the cause. The book of the ancient language is filled with stories of few triumphing against many.”

He sighed.

“When you rule these men,” he said, “don’t appeal to their weaponry. Look to their hearts. Each is a son, a father, a brother, a husband. Each has a reason to die—but each also has a reason to live. Find the reason to live, and you will find your path to victory.”

He began to walk away, when suddenly he stopped and looked at her.

“Most importantly,” he asked her, “ask yourself: what is your reason to live?”

She stood there, alone, his words ringing in her head. What was her reason to live?

As she pondered it, she realized she had two of them. She reached down and rubbed her stomach, then looked to the horizon and thought of Thor.

In that moment, she resolved to live.

No matter what, she would live.