Chapter 188

Calca paled when Kelart said that. "What do you mean… 'it's true'?"

Kelart sighed and took her Queen's hands. "My precious Queen, my wonderful Lady," she came as close as she dared, so close that she could feel the breath of life coming past the lips of the radiant and beautiful blonde royal. "My sister and I have always been devoted to your ideals. Please believe me, but ideals are not a system of government, and there have been… times when it appeared someone would escape justice. Someone who might be a threat to your rule, who might make your people cry. When that happened, I knew that my sister, always for the greater good, would take action."

"Action… like bribing a jury? Blackmail a jury? Murder?" Calca's eyes hardened.

"Even I can't say for sure, my sister was very tight lipped even to me, but her belief in the absolute justice of your rule was such that she would do anything to ensure it was successful. I know how she is, a scout who let demihumans live, who openly called them 'people', is a dangerous and disruptive element no matter what her reputation." Kelart bit her lower lip while she felt the bright eyes of her Queen searching her face.

Calca's hands were shaking in the touch of Kelart, "How many times…?" The Queen finally asked.

Kelart's jaw tensed, "My Queen, how many times were the guilty looking like they might escape justice? Yes, it was wrong… but it was for the greater good of all humanity, please understand that."

"And why wasn't I informed?" Calca demanded, her voice becoming more regal, the shaking fingers stopped, her eyes hardened, she was not the beautiful idealist in that moment, but the hardened Queen who so excelled, that her own brother, who could have had the throne, deferred to her.

"Because it would wound you." Kelart rushed the words out, she tightened her hold on the warm hands of her Queen, "As long as you were 'uninjured', you would continue to work without stopping, always making us better. Always making us stronger."

"You intended well, but I have no doubt that this is the root cause of the corruption that has begun to rot us from within." Calca shook her head with an almost violent energy, "No more of that… when Remedios is resurrected, I will speak with her alone."

"My Queen…" Kelart tried to speak, but the Queen's sudden glare shut her down.

"Go, have the resources gathered that we need to help the South, but make sure you collect whatever taxes you need to, Gustav will join you with reinforcements to ensure that taxes are collected without incident." The Queen gave the order, and for a moment Kelart was still.

"Go. Now." The Queen's voice hardened like her eyes, and the Kelart stepped backward with a deep bow.

"At once, my Queen." She said, and withdrew from the royal presence with a heavy, aching heart.

Gustav rode along at the head of the column, for this they chose the more circuitous route, it carried them through the Wildlands and the peripheral villages that eked out a living on tiny farms, harvesting wood, herbs, and other things from the forest. Such small places should have been easy prey for demihuman raiders.

But one thing was common, they almost all had low walls, nothing dramatic, but spike tipped logs that surrounded the few dwellings in the area. When Gustav asked, the answer was the same, "The Huntress had some captive demihumans help us, and let them go in exchange."

Learning that 'The Huntress' had been sentenced to die on the wall and been 'eaten' by a dragon, left the occupants of those little villages to turn their backs or outright boo the paladins until they rode on.

'What have I done?' He asked himself, in twenty years service, the new commander could not recall ever having been 'booed' or had a peasant show their back to him.

But the more he gathered stories about what went on in the Wildlands south of the wall, the more he felt he made the single largest mistake of his life. He tightened his hold on the reins of his horse and kept his eyes facing front.

'You were just following orders! Just doing what you were told! The squire was found guilty! You were just doing your job! That's all! There's nothing to feel guilty about!' Gustav raged at himself and his conscience, but the agonized screams of the woman on the wall haunted him night after night. The wails of her parents as they tried desperately to get to her. And knowing beyond question that the trial had been a sham.

It made every denial in his heart burn as if he were the one pierced by the swords on the wall. In his heart he accused himself.

In his heart, Gustav pronounced himself guilty.

In his heart, he sentenced himself to life.

'Never again. I will never do that again! Damn the orders! I have to live by following them, and I don't know how to live with this!' He argued with himself as he recalled the peasant girl's quiet night time admonition, her indifference, her scolding, her outright mockery of everything he believed and held to be true, and she could have been said to epitomize it all in that she simply wouldn't stand close enough for him to reach her.

Once he understood that, a lot of things fell into place that he never considered. Now that he was aware, he noticed that almost none of the younger peasant women that had to live in those villages would emerge from their homes while he or his soldiers were present. Old women, men, and young children were all they ever saw. The only exceptions were when a young woman expressly sought a lover or two.

'So this is how we're really seen. Cheers when we're defending them, but suspicion behind every set of eyes, and, worse,justified.' The recognition of the reality he was long oblivious to set him on edge, making him hypersensitive.

"My Lord, why are we taking the long road back to Hoburns?" One of his subordinates asked.

"Because I said so." Gustav snapped and the young soldier fell silent at his side.

He could feel the young man's flinch and hear it in the way the shining burnished armor clinked as he stiffened his back.

Gustav relaxed and sighed, "Because I wanted to see something of the work of the one we ordered killed. That's why. And because I had a lot of thinking to do, Remedios' remains won't rot in the preserving cloth, and I needed to know what I'd really done back there."

"I see." The soldier said halfheartedly.

But Gustav could tell from the young man's voice that he clearly did not see, and the provisional Commander of the Paladin order was fine with that. 'I hope he never does.' The Commander thought at once, and relaxed into the rocking motion of his steadily walking horse, and tried not to think of anything else for just a little while.