“What is this outrage? What has come over you? In all the history of Cronine, no guest has been robbed of his rights this way! Where is your chivalry? Your hospitality? We have a proper way of doing things in this kingdom. I brought the wisdom of Rey Polilla into your home—I’m his representative in your domain!” The voice of the marquess squealed at that final word, and he resembled a stuck hog. The marquess continued to protest his treatment, but no one gave him an ear.
The king approached Sir Casey with damp eyes. He placed a hand on Sir Casey’s shoulder and smiled underneath his thick beard.
“Sir Casey, I sent Sir Colm to fetch you from far outside Cronine, from the green hills of Abernathair, knowing the poison of this cult’s way of thinking hadn’t penetrated your mind. It’s why I—and so many others in this court—have placed our trust in you and believe you to be the only one who would put an end to this. Their mind-rot has penetrated every institution in Cronine. So few of us remain who will stand firm. You continue to show the valor deserving the title knight, but it isn’t over.”
“I know. My liege, we’ve turned a corner. The momentum of this fight accelerates. Now we see the character of our peers.”
Lady Lauren Bellucci placed a supportive hand on Sir Casey’s back. Her dark eyes looked into Casey’s. “What did Sir Colm say to you? His last words. He commanded you to act and trusted you above all. He trained you and then left you to this world. What did he say then?”
Sir Casey slipped his sword sheath out of the belt on his waist. With the sword still in its sheath, he poked the end of it into the thick face of Marquess Meadows, who fell silent. His beady eyes stared up at Sir Casey, like the eyes of a trapped pest in the woods. Sir Casey pushed the marquess by his face until he rolled over, compliant and powerless. The marquess possessed a title and power far superior to Sir Casey, but his actions brought him to this humiliation.
“It’s true, what you’ve said,” Sir Casey said with a nod. “I was a bakers’ apprentice, barely a yeoman. Sir Colm Murphy took me under his wing as if I were his own squire, transformed me into a different man, and left me this abode when the life left his body. Although it had never been an act of deception meant to hide us. Think of it more as a bear trap, a pot of honey.”
“Ohhhhh,” the marquess moaned. Sir Casey poked and prodded him with the sheath of his word, and the marquess squirmed.
“He looked into my eyes, that wrinkled old man, so deadly tired from all the trials he faced. He chose me to speak to on his death bed. Not his sons. Not his dear wife. His last words were for me.” Sir Casey gritted his teeth, and tears welled up in his eyes. He felt them cold and icy on his cheeks. He raised his sword over the marquess. “He told me I would know the time. He said it would be when words have no meaning and are twisted in knots.” Casey swung the sword, still in its sheath, down on the marquess’s side. It landed with a dense thump, and the marquess cried out.
“Please!” he begged.
“Good men scaffold the earth on their words. But words in the hands of evil become serpents that coil up and bite. Nothing can be built on them. Everything we’ve erected collapses. He told me I would know the day—the hour, even—and that it would pain my conscience every moment I didn’t act. Now I’m sick with inaction, and you’ve come to me asking for one more surrender, one more gruesome inch yielded to the tyrant. You came to the home of a nobleman and demanded two children from his peers, with the nerve to promise our safety as you took two of our lives. What evil has led you to feel entitled to this duplicitous theft is beyond the knowing of good men. I’ve laid fallow and trained. My mentor is dead, and there’s no way left to learn but through action. You chose this moment to ask me for a thing I can’t give you.”
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Lady Lauren took Sir Casey in her arms and pulled him back with tender care. “You can’t beat the evil out of him; a curse of the mind requires more. We discussed the plan of action.” She smiled at him. “You are clever as you are brave. Do you recall what we planned?”
***
The Lady Lauren Bellucci entered the armory as pages dressed up Sir Casey in his armor. They selected sharpened weapons for him and laced up his jack-of-plates armor. Some time ago, they did these deeds in the service of Sir Colm, and now Sir Casey wondered how they would fare if he died, too.
The dark eyes of Lady Lauren called his attention, even as his thoughts remained grim. She stalled his mind.
“I wanted to confirm everything with you, to see that you’re ready.”
“I am,” he answered, but he knew he had never fought a dragon before.
“Why do you knights always have to seek out problems?” one of the page boys asked. “It would be so much better around here if one man stayed to keep the estate forever.”
“People don’t live forever,” Lady Lauren said with a smile, amused by the child’s innocence.
Sir Casey said, “Sir Colm lectured that right words must be confirmed by right actions, or the actions are failures, and the words are fictions. The cowardice of inaction hollows words out. I’ll kill Rey Polilla, or I’ll render the words of so many people who love me false. The things this noble community has said about me have transformed me into this man.”
“Those words were also commandments in stealth,” Lady Lauren added. “When good words are attached to you, you have a burden to live up to that standard.”
Sir Casey gave the lady a silent nod.
“I don’t need to remind you what we need you to do then,” she said with a grave dip in her tone. “You must have a plan to defeat him.”
“Of course. Sir Colm trained me.”
“How is it done, then?” one of the pages asked.
Sir Casey shot him a glare to keep him silent. The page boys weren’t supposed to be so chatty, especially at a tense time like this.
“How can you kill a dragon?” Lady Lauren asked.
“A dragon wins because it sees windows with its speed and cunning that men can’t see,” Sir Casey explained.
She titled her head closer to listen to him.
“To kill a dragon, the knight must close those windows in advanced. The dragon must be invited in to succeed in its evil. I’ll make no such invitation. The first window occurs as the knight charges at the dragon. He closes it by obtaining the element of surprise. He can also use a very long lance that extends beyond the dragon’s reach. The joust must wound the dragon badly enough to slow him. Failing this, the slayer must continue to ride away.”
“Ride away?” she asked.
Sir Casey nodded and continued, “The time it takes a horse to turn around from a charge is double the time it takes a healthy dragon to kill a man. That’s the second window that must remain closed.”
“And there’s a third window?” the lady asked.
“After a successful lancing, the knight must dismount and leap into melee with the dragon. He must use the longest sword possible—a great sword—to close the distance between himself and the best targets: the heart, the brain, or throat through the dragon’s mouth. The melee is the dragon’s third window. Knights remedy this with either a sword of egregious length—to close the distance faster—or a shield to provide cover.”
“Which will you choose?”
“My lady, allow me a pinch of mystery,” Sir Casey said with a smile. “You’ve already seen me dressing.”
She blushed and stepped back. She paced with a troubling thought weighing down her brow. “Our deception of Rey Polilla has to be complete. I’ll take the children up the mountain pass in a trailer of the Guarantor’s caravan. The king will lead the way in place of Marquess Meadows. We’ll borrow clothes from the Guarantors, and Rey Polilla will believe our servitude is sincere.”
“You shouldn’t have to endanger yourself at all. Just let me go.”
She shook her head and said, “We must look servile until the final moment. How else will you get close to him? Work with me, please. I’ll buy you the time you need to do what you must.”
“I don’t want to lose you to Rey Polilla.”
“You’ll do your part, and I’ll never be in danger at all.”
Before Sir Casey could object, she took his head in her hands and kissed his cheek. Her perfume intoxicated him, lavender and vanilla mingled. Stunned, he watched her leave his armory. No choice existed now, if there ever had been one. The whole community risked for this endeavor.