There at the portcullis the five warriors from the Duchy of Isen waited while the gate was raised. The guards had been well-spooked by Alistair’s overwhelming sense of presence in his transformed state, so it took a bit longer to smooth things over. At the same time though, he recognized that it wasn’t so much fear as instead a sense of awe. Just over a week ago, before he knew much about paladins or magic, he surely would have had the same reaction.

“You’re free to go in, milord,” said one of the guards to Sir Manus. He dipped his head low as a sign of respect.

The gate was cranked up with a wooden lever system, creaking every inch. The lashing of chains could be heard as the wrought iron was wrenched into the rafters of the gatehouse. Sir Manus ushered them forward and into the castle proper. The knights fell into step behind him and Alistair brought up the rear.

“Lady’s blessings upon ye, sir paladin,” said one of the guards, tipping his helmet.

“Yes milord, may she bless you,” said another.

He realized that a good bunch of guardsmen had gathered around to see him as the spectacle he was. The fear and shyness was gone from before. Alistair was surprised to see many of them smiling at him, crooked and yellowed teeth in all. The presence of a paladin really was enough to instill a sense of hope among the common folk.

Even though he wasn’t a paladin yet, he felt flattered all the same.

“Yes, may she bless you all as well,” he said in return. They made a small path for him forward as he took one heavy step at a time. None of them would even think a peasant like them could be inside this armor.

Small Duchy of Isen Renown Gain

Making your presence known as a warrior of Good will inspire the common people and give them hope. They will spread word of you now.

His behavior was rewarded, it looked like. Alistair wondered how the words knew to appear. Was it the Lady herself sending it? Or was it the magic inside of him? Too many questions and never enough answers. He decided not to worry about it.

Whatever is meant to happen will happen, Alistair thought.

“Enjoying yourself?” Sir Manus asked. The other knights had waited for him at the doors to the Lathurn keep. It was much bigger than Wyrdwood, fitting for a man of higher station.

“Sorry, milord-”

Remon knocked on Alistair’s steel side. “Eh, best to stow that way of speech. He’ll pick you out as a peasant right away with that ‘milord’ talk.”

“He has a point.” Sir Manus crossed his arms. “If you are really doing this to hide your origins, you’d best avoid that. ‘Viscount Lathurn’ or ‘My lord’ would do if you really must.”

“I see,” Alistair said. He felt a little embarrassed to have his speech so quickly corrected. They were right though, just one word or phrase could give him away.

“You shouldn’t need to talk much,” said Tomas. The red-headed knight fiddled with his buttons. “We’ll get in there. Make our introductions, offer condolences, and then leave with whatever information he has.”

“Yes, your best bet is to just stand there in a menacing fashion. He might be so intimidated he won’t say a word to you.” Griogair rapped his knuckle against Alistair to illustrate his point. “No man alive would want to waste the time of someone your size.”

The group shared a chuckle as they were let inside of the building. It was certainly odd to get an audience with a noble at this time of night but, considering the request came from someone as well known as Sir Manus Druim, Alphonse couldn’t refuse. Besides, they were here to solve what was surely his biggest problem.

If they went after his father, what was stopping them from coming back?

Alistair was thankful for the hubris of nobles and their love of riding horses just about everywhere. It was thanks to that kind of thought process that the doors were big enough and tall enough for him to fit inside without needing to transform back into a human. He definitely had to duck his head a bit and he wouldn’t be fitting into any little alcoves or side doors, but he could make his way through the halls without much trouble.

When they arrived at the doors to the audience chambers, the men-at-arms there kept their ceremonial polearms crossed over the door. It would be around this time now that courtiers and other members necessary for the meeting would be filtering in. Most important of all was the lord of the house, Alphonse. He would be announced inside first and then the guests would be allowed in.

They waited as quiet shuffling could be heard on the other side of the thick wooden doors. Alistair thought he could hear a crier announce a ‘Viscount Alphonse Lathurn’ before too long, and then a bit more shuffling. Then the doors were allowed open and the guards raised their weapons out of the way, allowing entry. Horns blasted through the halls to signal the arrival of guests to the chamber.

Sir Manus Druim went first and the rest followed. Each one had his name and title announced by the court’s herald. Alistair awkwardly followed behind his knee almost scraping the stone floor as he bent to get underneath the archway. When those inside caught sight him, right away there was a cacophony of ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ah’s’ as the nobles found his presence to be entertainment of itself.

At his side there was a portly man. He was pouring over a small scroll of some kind and had the look of someone flustered. His eyes went from Alistair’s hulking form and then back to his little paper a few times before he finally sighed. Quietly, this man leaned over and whispered to him.

“My lord, you have my deepest apologies but I don’t have a name for my records. How would you like me to announce your titles?” The words squeaked out of him like a mouse. It was clear he was trying to avoid not only Alistair’s ire, but also the ever impatient Alphonse. The man sat on his throne tapping the wood with increasing severity.

“Simply Alistair of Wyrdwood will suffice,” he replied. Even with an effort to keep his voice low, it still came out with considerable volume.

The crier recoiled and perhaps he believed Alistair was cross with him. Nevertheless, he made a show of clearing his throat before proceeding with the introductions.

“And Alistair of Wyrdwood, one of the Lady’s chosen paladins!”

Despite the awkward length of the pause, the gathered nobles all clapped and hollered. Whether out of obligation or genuine interest he couldn’t tell. Still, Alistair couldn’t help but enjoy the fleeting feeling of acknowledgment.

“You have my apologies, Alistair!” said the viscount from his dais. “My crier may not recognize you, but Adelgard has heard of your work down south. Bravo on stomping out the hob infestation.” He then offered his own share of applause. The other nobles followed him in that second round of cheering. The crier looked as if he had died inside.

“Thank you, viscount,” Alistair said, bowing his head. He folded his arms in a respectful manner and hoped that he could avoid any further attention.

“Earl Druim, I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon! It’s a pleasure to have you, my lord,” Alphonse bellowed out. He actually seemed in a better mood than Alistair had been expecting. “When I heard you sought an audience I had no idea you would bring such fine folk with you. What tales from the south do you have to bring me? See any nice farmers’ daughters along the way? Any souvenirs to share?”

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Ah, that must have been a taste of the man’s lack of tact. His courtiers, knights and nobles all of them, ate it up like the only meal they’d had in days. Sir Manus and the others shuffled in place and made to laugh, if only a little.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I could say that would distract you from the loss of your father. You have our deepest condolences, Viscount Lathurn,” Manus said, bowing his head as the rest of them did the same.

“Yes, nasty business that,” Alphonse said, rubbing his clean-shaven chin. He was a young noble, only a few years older than Alistair himself. “Bastards killed three men before they got to my father. In his own bed chamber as he slept, no less. I scant believe it, even now.”

“That’s why we came, my friend. To help you bring the killers to justice.”

The court got excited again at the drama being presented, whooping and hollering at the knight’s brave declaration. They acted more like attendees of a play than noble men and women. Their presence served only to lengthen the amount of time Alistair and the others had to be there.

Alphonse let them cheer for a bit and smiled at the theatrics. Then he lazily lifted his hand, glimmering with regal jewelry, up to the crowd for silence.

“That’s very kind of you, Sir Manus. No doubt the killers would shake in their boots if they knew the ‘Beastslayer of Isenfell’ was coming for them. The lovely Rozena found you, did she?”

“That she did, my lord,” Manus said.

“The timing could not be more perfect, then.” Alphonse smiled and snapped his fingers. There was a hush to the crowd as someone next to the young viscount, a tall and pale man with not a single hair on his head, whispered something to another person. That messenger ran for a side door behind the throne.

“My lord?” Sir Manus sounded confused.

“You’ll see,” Alphonse said, chuckling. Despite that, there was only darkness in his eyes. An inner rage that Alistair recognized from his time dealing with Kevin Caldwell. He was somewhat nervous, even inside his armor.

From that same side door a trio of men emerged. Two of them had their arms around the third as they dragged him inside. The one being dragged was dressed in nothing but rags and his hands and feet were shackled. He was also covered in blood, his face swollen and bruised.

“We made a breakthrough in just the last hour or so, before your arrival. I’ve had my people pick up suspects quietly from the streets, so as not to arouse any suspicions.” Alphonse shrugged. “Not my preferred method, but my father’s seneschal here suggested it would allow us to lull them into a sense of safety, then snatch it away!” He made a fist with his hand to emphasize his point.

The tall bald man bowed his head in acknowledgment. Alistair looked at him and found that he was an enigma. Many nobles, even those who weren’t knights or men of battle, had their names recorded by the Sight. Yet there were literally no words to describe him. There were hints of an aura surrounding him, and something in his dark eyes spoke of a sense of foreign exoticism. He almost reminded Alistair of Devan, the Caldwell chamberlain.

They watched as the prisoner was brought near the viscount, but not too close. Just enough so that they might hear something slip from his swollen shut lips. The seneschal took what was left of the man’s head of hair into his spindly fingers and pulled on it hard. He was made to look up from the ground, where he had been deeply prostrating himself and crying softly, to stare at the son of the man whom he helped kill.

“Tell the viscount what you told me,” the seneschal said. His voice was like a chill breeze, soft but painful.

“P-Please, milordship, please…I dun’ nothin’. I swear-”

“Shut up! We’ve heard enough of your lies for one night.” The seneschal slapped him upside the head. He cried out in pain. “Or do you need more time to think?”

Alistair winced. This was barbaric, plain and simple. He had never been responsible for the cells of the castle in Wyrdwood and he knew very little of what happened to criminals before their confessions, but this was simply too much. Why was it necessary for the man to repeat himself if they already recorded it once?

Alphonse, on the other hand, was loving this. He seemed to relish in the fact that he had caught one of them red handed. This was simply what the peasant deserved for committing such a heinous crime, is no doubt what the viscount believed.

“No, no, no! I’ll say it, I’ll say it, I swear it.” The prisoner mumbled something to himself and gathered his thoughts. “I delivered the letter, that I did.”

“What letter?” The seneschal prodded him. He already knew this story but he wanted the rest of them to hear it told properly.

“The letter…” He grunted in pain as the pale man pulled his hair again. “The letter commissionin’ the murder of the viscount, of Lord Lathurn!”

“Who did you deliver it to?”

“A figure, someone cloaked in shadow.”

“Where?”

“Outside the city, in the Forest of Celidon. On the edge, they met me.”

Alphonse rose from his throne and went at the man. Whatever restraint or measure of patience he had was gone. He took the peasant by the throat and shook with righteous fury.

“Tell me who commissioned it! Give me their names, damn you!” he commanded it, even as he drew the life out of him. “Tell me and I might spare your family the same death that awaits you.”

The commotion was hard to follow for Alistair as far back as he was. He could hear the prisoner wheeze and struggle beneath his lord’s strong grasp. There would be no mercy for him regardless of what he confessed. How he could he not offer a name, any name at this point, if only just to get them to stop?

“...Was another figure,” the prisoner eked out between gasps for air.

“Speak up!” Alphonse said at the top of his lungs. He shook the peasant as if he were a rag doll. “I want their name!”

“Just a shadow m’lordship, that’s all I seen. I swear,” he whispered, tears streaking down from his eyes.

The viscount threw the man to the ground, disgusted. He held a hand out and someone soon gave him a cloth to wash his hands of the blood and sweat he had gotten on himself.

“Take him away,” Alphonse said, motioning for the guards. He sat back down in his chair and thought for a moment. “And round up his family. They’ll all hang at dawn!”

The prisoner wailed before he was taken away, the door shut behind them. Those present were stunned into silence. No applause was left for that performance. For nobles it was a dirty but necessary evil to root out justice. For some like Alphonse, it didn’t bother them the slightest bit knowing that it was the peasantry they were consigning to death.

For Alistair, he felt sick to his stomach. He knew that if the man was guilty then he deserved punishment, but for his family to follow him? On one hand the prisoner could be blamed as the source of his family’s woes, but he probably only did it for money to feed those same people. Or perhaps he was threatened by someone?

Not to mention the real possibility his confession was nothing but a fabricated lie to appease his torturers. He must have known he was dead the moment he landed in the viscount’s cell.

What am I doing here, Alistair asked himself. Maybe Sir Manus was right in that he should have stayed behind.

“Well, there you have it,” Alphonse said, straightening out his noble linens. His anger had subsided again, replaced with that familiar sense of highborn malaise. “The Celidon forest. With any luck the culprits will still be there. Can I trust you to bring them to justice?”

Sir Manus bowed his head, his expression grave. He had remained silent and unmoving throughout the whole performance. Alistair wondered how he truly felt seeing a man humiliated and beaten like that before his death.

“Yes, my lord. We will make haste there at first light. It will be done.”

Alphonse nodded, his grin widening.

“I knew I could count on you. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can’t pry out his master’s name. I want the name of the noble that would dare conspire to have my father killed in such a horrid manner. The rotter won’t live to see another summer.”

Manus’s assembled knights bowed and then turned on their heels to leave. The doors were opened and the guests were dismissed. Alistair let them pass and brought up the rear again. Before he could escape, however, the viscount called out to him.

“Oh, sir paladin! One more thing.”

Alistair’s blood ran cold as he looked over his shoulder. The young man that sat on the throne fixed an errant lock of hair as it fell in front of his eyes. Then he took an offered goblet of drink and held it high in a toast.

“Good hunting tomorrow! May the Lady bless you with a bountiful harvest of traitors. Crush a few underfoot for me, would you?”

If he were a braver, more clever man Alistair might have thought of a better response. As things were, he was simply a peasant forced to participate in the social maneuvers and games the nobles played with each other. His best defense was his own sense of patience. One day maybe, he could be someone that brave.

For now, he would have to grit his teeth and accept it.

“Thank you, milord,” he replied darkly.

Alistair didn’t wait to see if the little lord would notice his choice of words. He left before anyone could offer a comeback or retort. At least one of them might connect the dots and know that a peasant had been inside that suit of armor they so revered. He hoped it humbled them, even if just a little.

Let them stew on that, he thought.