Dismissed Johnathan returned to the order of the Mercurial Rose in shame. He was bombarded with questions from the king, wondering why he was dismissed by his daughter even thought it was a mystery to himself. The members of the order also questioned him and soon stripped him of their regalia and support. Through it all he kept his tongue tied on why he was dismissed for he did not understand without the chance to continue asking her questions when he was not given the chance. The other members of the order were cold to him now that he was stripped of their support and regalia and he was dismissed into the lands as a free knight. He did not approach another order and disappeared into obscurity.
The Mercurial Rose asked and bid the king forgiveness and offered their undying support and strength in repentance of their failure to provide the best the realm had to offer. The eldest of them offered their personal clerks and servants in payment for the loss of such a promising young knight.
Lady Cassandra spoke to her father when he asked her in private why she had released such a promising warrior to the world when he had done so excellently for so long. It is said that she spoke of his honor but she worried that he was wasting away and losing his edge for combat despite the work he was putting in. She spoke of how she worried that he had become more scribe than knight. More of a poet and story maker. She found that to be unacceptable in what she truly needed for her own protection.
The king, satisfied, did not hold another tournament and instead reached out to those he trusted of the most prodigious order whose fame had grown since the tournament had been done. Three knights were hired to attend to her from the order of the Ruminating Owl to protect Cassandra. They were different, far removed from her day to day conversations and it was said that they found her a tedious charge who had too little interest in the things that mattered such as court politics and ways.
A year passed as everyone went their own way and Johnathan sat with a broken heart. His blade work suffered from his distraction. He found temptation nearly overwhelming to embrace that which soothed the souls of many soldiers, wine and women. However he wanted more than ever to remain pure and maybe one day he would be called by the king for him to return and earn his honor back.
One fateful night in the height of summer the order of Ruminating Owl was put to the test. This is that story.
The moons were just coming over the mountains in the east. Their faces full and bright shining through the clouds that floated through the sky. The forest owls and their mournful songs echoed throughout the lands as the knight that was tasked with watching her over the peaceful evenings stood guard. No one suspected his poor habit of relaxing far too much while doing his duty. For who would question a knight’s honor? So it was that he did not see the attack coming from the unskilled man.
While being ambushed the clatter of a club against the metal helmet of the knight rang through the halls and started everyone awake. The knight was able to draw free his blade and charge after his attacker as they fled. Abandoning his post at the door to the Princess. So focused was he on the retribution he would find in striking down the man that had stuck him. His armor clanged as he charged after the mysterious figure.
As the knights burst forth from their nearby chambers they ran across a group of people that had come to attack the castle in the night. Blades clashed in the darkness as they went to war against one another in order to secure the palatial castle against the foul ruffians. In the zeal of combat blood was spilled and the floors died crimson. The rugs upon the hall forever would be stained by the death of these men and women that came there to enact some mysterious plan. Thanks to their training none of the knights fell to the battle but neither did they take any prisoners.
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Relaxed knowing that they had done their duty no one went to check upon Lady Cassandra in her chambers. Thinking they had kept her safe and sound throughout it all. None of them knew the truth of it. Someone had abducted her while they battled ferociously in the halls. These culprits slipped her away in the creeping shadows as the moons were cloaked once more in clouds.
It was the next morning when the ladies in waiting went to check upon they found nothing but a disheveled bed with no signs of what had happened to Lady Cassandra. Word flew through the castle as the women screamed about the injustice and incompetence of the guards. Why did they not check upon the princess when the battle was over? Some misguided notion of leaving her to her own devices after something so critical. The worries about what else the ruffians might have been after ringing through the air.
The king met with the knights. His voice a thundering roar of anger and betrayal, “YOU DARE LOSE MY DAUGHTER ON YOUR WATCH! IT WAS WRONG TO TRUST THE RUMINATING OWL WITH HER SAFETY! I STRIP YOU AND YOUR ORDER OF ALL RANK AND LANDS!” The king’s rage was nearly unending as he stormed about the castle confronting the women in waiting in the court asking them why they had failed to check upon his daughter after such a commotion. When they might have had the chance to stop the abductors where they stood. His rage fell upon them and they too were stripped of all their titles and sent as disgraces back to their families to live lives of obscurity and shame.
The knights of the Ruminating Owl did not take this news well and raised a militia of men from the nearby towns and led a revolt against the king as he reeled from the loss of his daughter. He reached out to every other order and had to make a choice that would haunt him for the few weeks he had left to live before the tragic loss of his life and the handing of the kingdom to his most prosperous son. Choosing to defend himself he tasked no one to find and save his daughter from whatever fate that would befall her as men of the lands attacked and burned down a nearby fort. Razing it to nothing but ash and foundations.
The battle of the plains was said to last weeks as peasants and knights fought in a civil war as the orders of the land were slow to come to the aid of the king. Their strength greatly diminished by the lack of support he had given them after choosing the Ruminating Owl as his most recent champions. So the fields were dyed and the wheat of the lands would forever be red when grown upon those fields.
The king was called to the battlefield to lead his people as his generals failed battle after battle to keep the losses to a minimum. It wasn’t until one decisive push that the forces of the rebellion ended up overextending themselves and leaving their flanks open to the finally ready order’s of the knights to spring into action and destroy them in an encirclement so powerful that no man who flew the banner of the owl was left alive on the field of battle.
In a twist of fate so profound the king was assassinated one night in his chamber but not before claiming the life of his would be attacker by strangling the female assassin to death. So quiet had been their battle that it was far too late for anyone to notice what had happened until he stumbled out of his chambers clutching his slashed throat with his hands. So his sons mourned the loss of their sister and father all in one single season of betrayal. The castle was nearly torn down in their rage of knowing that it failed in its one duty to protect those that lived inside it. Now though the kingdom is in tatters, the princes warring with one another instead of following their father’s teachings of unity and respect.
It wasn’t the true ending to the story. I did not speak of what I had done when the word of Lady Cassandra had disappeared after I had become so enamored with her over the years we had spent together. I had been heart broken when being dismissed and had wondered greatly how my honor would recover. I had spent so much hope on this life to gain strength and manage to spread the writing of an honored knight as a way to spread the stories I needed in order to be as powerful as possible.
As I counted my coins for the night of work I purchased the strongest bottle of spirits I could and smoked with the other men and soldiers for they were going to be sent out into the field the next day with their marching orders ready. Long gone was my oath to be pure and virtuous. I knew that the ending of the story would come to me tonight. The dream would come and fill me with what had ended the life I had led as Sir Johnathan. The truth of what happened to Cassandra.