Spears looked at his hands as if they’d been acting on their own, then shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. It’s time to be truthful.”
“Oh, God, not more truth,” Kay muttered.
Spears turned to Drake. The king had not moved during the quick fight, and now he stared dully at Gillian’s corpse. I could well imagine he felt overwhelmed. It took a moment for him to realize Spears wanted his attention.
“Your Majesty, I must speak. The queen is innocent of the charges against her, as I’m sure you realize. She and I have never been intimate. But I have been party to treason and betrayal. I ask no mercy for myself, just that you look mercifully on my fellow conspirators.”
The words took a long time to register on Drake. “I’m sorry, Elliot, you said… what?”
It was my last chance to salvage something here. I said loudly, “Elliot, before you say anything else, please give me a moment.”
Avoiding any sudden movements, I went around Spears and bent over the coffin. He grabbed my arm in a grip like a blacksmith’s tongs and jerked me back. “Do not touch her,” he commanded.
The pain revived my own temper. Who the hell were any of these fucked-up, low-down maniacs to tell me anything? I twisted free and snarled, “Or what? You’ll cut my throat, too?”
His gaze slid to Gillian, and he swallowed hard. “My apologies. I am… wrought.”
“Yeah,” I said. I unstoppered Kern’s second bottle and waved it under Jenny’s nose. I didn’t catch any odor from it, but almost at once her eyes popped open and she looked around disoriented.
I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me. I turned, but it wasn’t Spears. Marcus had turned white as a sheet, and his eyes were bigger than I’d ever seen them.
“Elliot?” Dark Jenny asked hoarsely.
Spears pushed me aside so hard that if Drake hadn’t caught me, I might’ve gone right through the tent wall. He swept her from the box and crushed her to him. “Jenny!” he cried with relief. “Oh, my God, I was so frightened, you don’t know!”
He kissed her furiously. Drake stared in confusion, Bob Kay looked puzzled, and even Megan Drake seemed taken aback. Medraft ignored the whole thing, more interested in his bleeding scalp.
They broke the kiss. Jenny touched Spears’s face with her fingertips and said, “Oh, my love, I wish this were the happy ending you deserve, but I don’t have long. I was poisoned. I’ll die soon. Cameron and Mr. LaCrosse fixed it so I could see you one last time.”
“What?” Spears said numbly.
“I am dying,” she said carefully. “Nothing can stop it. I want your face to be the last thing I see.”
Spears now looked as blasted as Drake. Both men had taken their share of blows today. “How… how long?”
“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes and winced at a fresh wave of pain. “Not long, I suspect.”
“Then we’re leaving,” he said, and turned toward the exit. “You will not die in this loathsome company.”
“Wait!” she said, and looked around until she found Drake. “Your Majesty… dear Marc… I hope you understand. Elliot never betrayed you. I did, and my sister, but not him. He was your best and bravest, true to the end.”
Drake said nothing. What could he say?
“You switched,” Megan said almost in delight. “That fat bastard Kern helped you. You switched.”
Spears turned to Megan. “I have broken my oath and slain a fellow knight, one who served his king with loyalty and valor. I am no longer worthy of my title. But if I find that you still breathe when she does not…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but carried Jenny out of the tent. A moment later we heard the hay cart clatter off. And as far as anyone knows, neither of them were ever seen or heard from again.
The tent was silent.
Finally Bob Kay spoke for us all. “Well, what the hell do we do now?”
“Obviously the king can’t continue to rule Grand Bruan,” Medraft said calmly, daubing at the blood on his face with a corner of his cape. “I don’t know exactly what just happened with the queen and her apparent twin, but clearly the king doesn’t, either. And once word of my parentage gets out-and it will-no one will look at him the same way again.”
We all watched Drake. He remained silent. He hadn’t physically shrunk, but his presence no longer dominated. He was like an image on glass, so insubstantial you could see through him if the light was right.
Medraft grinned as he continued, “Publicly I’m still his nephew, and the closest he’s got to a legitimate heir. People will accept that. Not to mention I’ve got him outmanned five to one. Don’t I… Dad? ”
“You are a heartless monster,” Queen Jennifer said.
“Oh, you tease,” Medraft said mockingly. To Drake he said, “And I’ll take her off your hands as well as the crown. It’ll make the transition go more smoothly. No one else needs to know about that other woman in the box.”
Drake just stared at him dully, mouth slightly open, no longer in the same place as the rest of us.
Jennifer stood protectively in front of Drake and hissed, “You will never touch me. And you will never be king of Grand Bruan.”
“But he’s my son,” Drake said numbly, those four words giving long-sought legitimacy to everything Medraft, and his mother, wanted.
I don’t know if my next act came from anger, exhaustion, moral outrage, or simply because I was fed up with everything to do with this stupid island. But I nudged Jennifer aside, stepped in front of Drake, looked him in the eye, and slapped him as hard as I could with my miraculously healed hand.
“Listen to yourself!” I yelled. “Act like a goddamn king, will you? So what if you made mistakes and did horrible things? There’s an island full of people out there counting on you! You don’t get to crap out!”
He stared at me.
I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. I yanked Belacrux from its scabbard at his waist and waved it at him, barely registering its weight. “When you pulled this out of that goddamned tree, you knew you couldn’t put it back! You signed up for the ride, now suit up and get to work!” I grabbed his wrist and pressed the sword’s hilt into his palm. His fingers closed around it with no conviction.
Man, was I rolling now. “So what if you’re outnumbered? You’re fucking King Marcus Drake, and those are the goddamn Knights of the Double Tarn! You lead them up that hill, I guarantee three-fourths of those jackasses will turn and run at their first sight of you.”
Drake stared at me, blinked as if waking from a dream, and said slowly, “You know… you’re right.”
He turned on his heel and with one thrust of his huge sword ran Medraft through.
Megan’s scream will haunt my nightmares forever. Every man was once someone’s little baby and had a mother who probably loved him.
For a moment father and son looked into each other’s eyes. I wondered what common things they saw. Then Medraft slid off Belacrux’s heavy blade to the floor of the tent.
“Teddy!” Megan wailed.
“Shut up,” Drake snapped calmly. “Bob, put her in irons and have three men guard her. And gag her, too: her words are as dangerous as any man’s sword.”
“My pleasure,” Kay said, and wrapped a strip of the tablecloth around her head, covering her mouth. She sobbed through it.
Drake knelt beside Gillian. A red arterial spray marked the tent wall where he’d fallen, and blood soaked the rug beneath him. “Sorry, Tommy,” he murmured. “You were a good knight.”
Then Drake turned to Jennifer. He produced a key and unlocked the manacles at her wrists. They fell to the ground between them. He said, “When this is over, I expect an explanation as to why you changed places with the girl I fell in love with all those years ago.” When Jennifer opened her mouth to speak, he said, “I’m not threatening you. You’ve been the best queen a king could ask for. Whatever else you’ve done, we can discuss in private, husband to wife. When this is finished.” He grabbed her forcefully around the waist, pulled her close, and passionately kissed her.