Charlie and the Chancellor’s Plot
By J. Dumas
(5)
Rochefort felt that there was no point in waiting before enacting the plan that by that point he was convinced he had hatched himself, and it did not take long for him to decide that the best opportunity had to be the King’s Blood Sacrifice Ceremony, which he performed at every full moon in the Temple in the presence of his daughter, and was one of the rare times he was not surrounded by guards.
Charlie had suggested the idea of adding the potion that Rochefort had stolen from the Chancellor to the Holy Mead used during the Ceremony. The effect upon the Princess was to be the expected one. The effect upon the King was unknown, but immaterial, as he would not survive the day.
The day of the Ceremony arrived. With twenty minutes to go before the King and the Princess entered the Temple, Charlie added the potion to the Mead in the Silver Chalice on the Temple’s altar. Even though the Temple was under guard, she gained through a secret passage that the Princess had shown her a year prior, one in a network of passages that the Princess had used to escape the strict curfew of her teenage years. That same secret passage would also provide access to the Temple once the King and Princess had drunk the potion.
It was almost time. Charlie, her mind rebelling at what she was about to do, but unable to resist it, walked towards the Temple, her hand on the pommel of her sword. She crossed a servant, who kept his head bowed low, and it was not until she had reached the double doors barring the entrance to the Temple and guarded by two Royal Guard knights that she realized that the servant had been Baltik.
She shivered. Baltik. Rocherfort had made good on his statement to the young Dragooner that he would let him sample her. Two nights earlier, Rochefort had welcomed Baltik to his chambers, and made Charlie dance for the boy. She danced the most seductive dance she knew of, a performance worthy of the best courtesans of the Southern Realms, a performance meant to drive the boy wild with lust, as per Rochefort’s orders. And Baltik had been wild with lust, mounting her with vigor and slamming into her powerfully. Charlie had been surprised, expecting more fumbling and hesitation from the boy, who had always struck her as shy and easily frazzled. Not that night. He possessed her with confidence and force. Rocherfort had watched with amusement, eventually joining the mating couple when Baltik flipped Charlie onto her hands and knees, thrusting his shaft deep in her throat as Baltik plowed into her from behind.
She stopped and shook her head to clear the memory, wondering what Baltik had been doing disguised as a servant. The Royal Guard at the door eyed her curiously, and she nodded to them as she picked up her pace and walked past them. Rochefort’s instructions did not allow her to arouse suspicion. The guards were at the ready, which meant the King and Princess were already inside. She turned the corner and met up with Rochefort, who was waiting for her near one of the chambers with access to the passage that led to the Temple. She was unhappy to have Rochefort there with her, but he was necessary to control the Princess while Charlie slew the King. Slaying the King. She still could not conceive of that action she was about to undertake.
Rochefort was excited, and gave Charlie a slap on the ass as she walked past him to enter the chamber. It was all coming together. He followed Charlie as she walked to the far wall and pressed a brick that unlatched a doorway concealed underneath draperies.
They followed a dark musty passage that led to a small chamber adjacent to the temple, from which they witnessed the Blood Sacrifice Ceremony through a long slit between two stones.
The Ceremony was long and drawn out, much of it led by the King who was chanting in a language neither Rochefort nor Charlie recognized. Rochefort was not a man known for his patience. To relieve the boredom and the tension, Rochefort had Charlie service him, pushing her to her knees between his legs.
When finally the King reached for the Silver Chalice holding the Sacrificial Mead, Rochefort bumped Charlie on the head and gestured for her to get ready. The King offered the Chalice to the Princess, who drank from it deeply before passing it back to the King. Rochefort was almost jumping in place, and kept rubbing his hands together. Seeing Princess Helena right there in front of his eyes, drinking from the potion that would make her his, just made everything so very real he had difficulty refastening his breeches.
He nodded to Charlie to let her know it was time. Charlie knew, but kept praying that Rochefort would change his mind. He did not.
Making no noise, Charlie pressed the release that swiveled the section of wall that led into the Temple, and slowly unsheathed her sword. While the King and the Princess where bowing down for the last rituals of the Ceremony, she advanced upon them, trying to achieve the stealthiness of a great feline. She was fighting it with all of her worth, fighting what Rochefort had ordered her to do, but it was hopeless. She advanced, sword drawn.
Charlie’s sword was swinging to strike a decapitating blow to the King when he moved faster than she would have thought an old man could move. How he knew she was there behind him striking she did not know. But he moved, and he was fast, and he grabbed a heavy candelabrum from the altar to fend off Charlie’s next blow.
Princess Helena screamed.
The King’s parried Charlie’s sword easily, for despite his age he was still King Altobar the First, Hero of the Great Darkness War. And Charlie was sluggish. Whether it was her resisting the impulse to obey Rochefort’s order she did not know, but the strength, agility, and grace that usually accompanied her sword play was absent, and the King took full advantage of it. And when the heavy candelabrum he was wielding connected to the side of her head and sent her sprawling to the ground, she was secretly overjoyed, and wanted nothing more than for the King to kill her.
Meanwhile, Rochefort was advancing towards Princess Helena. He had followed Charlie in her silent stalking, and he was committed, since the concealed door had closed behind him and he did not know how to open it again. The King and Charlie were fighting, and the King seemed to be holding his own admirably. The Princess saw Rochefort approaching and screamed again, stepping back from him.
“Stop screaming, Princess, and give me your hand,” he said.
“Get away from me, you traitor!” Princess Helena stepped away from him, slamming her back against one of the worship benches behind her.
“Princess, come here!” Rochefort was confused, keeping an eye on the King who had just delivered a blow to Charlie’s head that sent her to the ground. The Princess backed away from Rochefort still, her look of fear now replaced by a look of anger and resolve. Rochefort did not know how she could resist him. Did she not drink the potion? Had he been tricked? Did Charlie not pour the potion into the Chalice?
As he reached for the Princess’s arm, the King’s voice arose. “Unhand her, you fiend!” He had grabbed Charlie’s sword and took two quick steps towards Rochefort, who unsheathed his own sword and turned towards the King.
Charlie saw all of that, and the instructions that Rochefort had driven into her like a brand into tender flesh forced her to defend her Lord and Master, despite her best intentions, and she grabbed a volume of worship and tossed it in the King’s general direction. She was too dizzy to aim accurately, but precision was not needed. The King was distracted for a fateful second, and Rochefort drove his blade through the King’s breast, killing him instantly. Charlie’s heart sank. The Princess screamed again.
“Shut up!” screamed Rochefort, turning to the collapsing Princess, who screamed even louder. He was about to turn his blade towards her when the doors to the Temple crashed open and the two Royal Guard Charlie had seen earlier came running, swords drawn, closely followed by the Prime Chancellor and Baltik, of all people.
“Drop your sword or perish!” shouted one of the Guard, and Rochefort froze, staring wildly from one Guard to the other and to the Chancellor and to a stony-faced Baltik, and he debated between fighting and running but in the end dropped his sword and knelt, his hands on his bent head.
The Prime Chancellor advanced towards Rochefort, while the two Guards pointed their blades towards the assassin. The Princess was crying and cradling her dead father’s body.
“Princess,” said the Chancellor, still staring at Rochefort, “stop crying, and come to me.”
The Princess’s tears stopped, and she stood and came to rest beside the Chancellor. Rochefort looked from one to the other with widening eyes. He was beginning to understand.
“That’s right, Rochefort,” said the Chancellor, softly, “I got to her first. You will never know what you missed.” He turned to the Princess. “Order the Guards to execute him. He killed the King.”
The Princess looked at the Guards. “This man killed the King. Execute him, by order of the Queen.”
Rochefort had no chance to protest before two sharpened blades ran him through and through. A subsequent blow sent his head flying. His headless body collapsed at the foot the dead King.
The Prime Chancellor and the Princess left the Temple, the Royal Guards following closely. Charlie, who was partially hidden by a worship bench, was paralyzed. She had felt the blows to Rochefort as if she had been hit herself, and since then she could not move, her body on fire from the inside.
Baltik, who had remained behind in the Temple, rounded the corner to stare at the motionless Charlie. She could see him, from the corner of her eye, but she could not do or say anything, could not protect herself if he wanted to attack her, did not even know if she wanted to.
Baltik simply stared at her. He must have read the panic in her eyes, because he said, “The paralysis should subside in a few minutes, child.”
They were long agonizing minutes, but eventually Charlie could move her fingers, and then her hands. She blinked, and coughed, and tried to stand. “Don’t try to stand just yet. You won’t make it. The legs are the last to come back. If they ever do.”
“How... What...”
Baltik smiled, and before her eyes he shimmered and seemed to vanish into a dark shape that resolved itself into the dark-robed figure she had seen with the Chancellor. The Dark Mage was staring at her, his yellow eyes peering into her depths. If she had been frightened before, now she was terrified.
“The... The Princess...?”
“I believe she is now Queen, and that the Chancellor has her well in hand at this time. He was most... enthusiastic in his descriptions of what he wanted to put our new ruler through once he had her in his power. The poor girl will find herself a woman by night’s end, well trained in the arts of pleasure.”
“The potion... You switched the potion...”
“I did. The poor Count of Rochefort could not keep his precious plan—my apologies, child, I meant your plan—to himself. He was most happy to sing his plans for the future with but a little prompt from his favorite sycophant. It made everything so much easier. In the end, the cretin proved to be valuable.”
“The... Chancellor...”
“The Chancellor is a fool. Blinded by power, blinded by his desires for flesh. A bigger fool than the Count of Rochefort, for his dreams are more ambitious. He is a fool, but a useful fool, a controllable fool.”
“What... what are you going to... to do with me?”
“That is the question, is it not? I would keep you as a pet, but you are not my type, child. And I do not need a servant. And the Chancellor will kill you once he finds you, for you are Royal Guard, and he will wipe the lot of you off the kingdom. The Guard will be outlawed, eliminated, pursued to the ends of the World. A policy my Order heartily approves.”
The Dark Mage tilted his head, looked at her with his odd luminous eyes. He crouched at her feet. “I would therefore advise you to run, child.”
“You... you are letting... me go?”
“You have strength, and courage. Being inside of you, besides confirming that you were in the thrall of one of my magical philters, gave me a glimpse of your mind, and your resistance to my magic has been impressive. Doomed, but impressive. Consider this a gesture of recognition.”
He stood, and turned to leave, his robe swishing on the ground. He stopped to look at her one final time. “But you should know that this is not a pardon, merely a respite. It is beyond even my powers to counteract the effects of the philter. Your link to the Count was severed roughly, explaining your current paralysis, but his instructions are still there, and will remain there forever. You will not be able to talk of any of this, to anyone. And soon, the blood fever will descend upon you, and drive you mad. I bid you farewell, Lady Charlotte of Artagnia.”
Charlie was left alone in the darkening Temple, slowly regaining usage of her body. While the paralysis faded, the heat inside her body still raged strong. Was this the blood fever the Dark Mage had warned her about? She did not know how long she had before someone came to gather the corpses, but she figured it would not be long. She had to leave now, while she still had a chance. She did not know how much of what the Dark Mage had told her was true, but while she was alive, she still had a chance—a chance to find Oliver, to warn him about the death that was coming his way, and perchance even a chance to save the Princess, now her Queen, from the Chancellor, and more worryingly, the Dark Mage.
As she stumbled into the secret passage through which she and Rochefort had entered the Temple, she was on automatic. She knew the routine of the Castle, knew the guards schedules, knew the layout perfectly. She could leave without being seen, and race through the Northern Woods before the rest of the night was out. She would find shelter, and plan her next step.
An hour later, as her horse galloped on the trail through the Northern Woods, the full moon peeking in and out of the canopy of trees above her, Charlie thought of Oliver. She wondered where he was, wondered if he had given up on her, wondered if he believed he had lost her. You haven’t lost me, she thought, I’m still here, I’m still me. I still love you. Find me, Oliver. Find me, and we shall be together again.