Bailey, Sky Bay
AIREN
His, as well as six other pairs of boots, echoed on the stone steps as they jogged down the stairs.
Reginald made the lower hall, turned right and saw them loitering about outside the open door to a cell.
All the men except one, who was on his arse on the floor, his back to the wall beside the open door, holding a bloodied cloth to his head, rivulets of red that had not been wiped up marring the ink he had chosen to tell his story on the left side of his face.
Reginald walked swiftly toward them and the guards milling about stepped away from the door, and in doing such, none of them met his eyes.
He said nothing as he went to the doorway of the cell.
There he stopped.
Looked.
And then drew in a deep breath.
King Gallienus lay motionless on his blood-soaked pallet, his throat an open maw.
Reginald followed the trail of the crimson which had dripped to the floor and run across it, nearly reaching the door.
He looked down and left.
The guard on his arse was struggling to take his feet.
“Stay seated,” Reginald grunted before he turned. The first man he saw, he ordered, “Get him to the bloody infirmary.”
That guard nodded and moved.
Reginald then caught the eyes of the next man. “She was found in the room?”
“She was not. She was sitting in the hall with our man, holding a kerchief to his head. The bloody blade at her side,” the man answered.
“Where is she now?”
“She is above. In…in…” the guard stammered.
“Spit it out, man,” Reginald said between his teeth.
“In the visitor’s lounge.”
Of course she was.
He made a move to leave and kept doing it even when another guard called, “Should we send a messenger to the Regent?”
“I will report this to him myself,” Reginald answered, not looking forward to that and turning to the steps, alighting them, and not wasting time on his way to the visitor’s lounge.
There were two guards outside it, both of whom stood straighter and dipped their chins when Reginald came to the door.
He opened it and entered.
Inside the room, a table sat, bolted to the floor, iron loops in it as well as in the stone of the floor on which to lock chains. There were also four chairs, one on one side, three far more comfortable ones on the other.
And in the one on the one side sat Horatia, a Lady Royal, one of the wives of a now-dead king.
She was facing the door.
She was not chained.
Behind her stood a single guard.
On the table in front of her was a pot of bloody tea and a cup with saucer.
She was still wearing her cloak, regardless that a fire had been lit in the small fireplace and the room was cozy warm.
And across the chest of her gown and cloak was a spray of blood.
Crikey.
Reginald came to stand opposite her.
“Lady Royal,” he greeted.
“Warden,” she returned.
“It seems you made some friends during your brief stay here,” he noted.
Her head only slightly tipped to the side.
But at first, she said nothing.
Then she asked, “Is the guard I struck going to be all right?”
She, personally, struck no guard.
Not delivering the power behind the clout he’d seen.
“He’s being taken to the infirmary,” he told her.
“I lamented that part of the proceedings. Please extend my apologies.”
There were, he knew, many things that made a lady.
Now, he knew one of them was a lady remaining a lady even after she committed murder.
He moved to the three chairs opposite her, pulled out the middle, and sat in it.
“It’s my understanding Prince Cassius provided you with a lovely manor to the south,” he remarked.
“I had occasion to return,” she murmured.
“Mm,” he hummed.
“I suppose I’ll occupy a different cell now,” she said.
“This is for the Regent, uh, that is to say…the king to decide.”
She inclined her head, but he did not fail to note a flash of gladness in her eyes when he had called Cassius their king.
Reginald sighed before he queried gently, “Do I need to ask why?”
“Moran died at the Battle of the Heights.”
Reginald was confused.
“Moran?”
She tapped a finger on the table, then stopped herself doing that.
And she spoke. “I had a love once, Master Reginald. He was a good man. But he could not have me, for I caught the eye of the king. But that did not mean his life ended. He married. They made two daughters, but their firstborn was a son. A son who became a soldier with the ambition of earning the coveted