Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 55 - Willing To Die For Him

The merriment of them playing the flute and clappings of hands in accompaniment to the music brought bliss to the entire community. A simple piece of musical instrument that was fashioned from the humble reed plant brought enjoyment to everyone ears.

As the night progressed on, the crowd gets thinner and I requested for 3 benches to come forward at my study as the engineers wanted to have a private discussion with me and the elders.

The benches were placed in a semi-circle before me and all of them sat close and spoke in low voices.

"Sir, thank you very much for accommodating our requests for having this private discussion. Let me start it off as with the rest of the engineers and witnesses from the pioneers."

"Firstly, we would like to thank our heartfelt appreciation for your kind hospitality even though we had rejected having to stay at a designated residential lot before."

"Secondly, right after tomorrow, 4 of the engineers will leave behind to mind the windmill and your security, Your Lordship, the Prince of Darlington"

The moment at the mention of the word 'Prince', the pioneers gasped in astonishment and a sense of impending doom overcame them.

"How do you know he is the Prince. Are you here to assassinate our Lordship?" Jack hissed as he got ready to spring into action while he bulged his arm muscles.

"If you try to come forward, you have to taste my blade in the next foot you advance." Gwen hissed as well as she removed her hunting knife from the sides.

"Are you sent by the rebels?" spat Frank as he removed his axe from his waist and readied to split anyone's skull if they made a move.

Even Kayla didn't spare herself in not joining the affray as she removed a hairpin from her bunned hair as it was a like a tiny dagger that would be held in a closed fist, the hilt nestled firmly in her fingers as the pommel was in the middle of the palm.

The hairpin, I would say was a miniature blade breaker. This was used by ladies who feared being harassed by men and would use this miniature blade breaker right into the side of the neck or jugular of an assailant. It was like a melee class warrior working like an assassin.

"If I were to assassinate Your Lordship , I would already do so on the first night we arrived. Why should we drag the matters right till this day? I revealed the fact about acknowledging Your Lordship as our Prince earlier today before Your Lordship fainted. Our Lordship cannot have too much stress and he would get worked up if he did."

"You knew about my ailment... You called me our Prince... And yet no one leaked out who I am and you told me no one informed you and you knew the moment you are here. Who are you, actually?" I asked softly in a quivering voice as I was part trembling in fear and partly excited to know how these group of 10 men knew about me.

"You even knew the old king as Ric-hard the Wise. Only people involved in the royal family knows about it. You even know my ailment which no one else here does."

"As expected of the loyal followers of the only living royal heir of the then Kingdom of Darlington, Prince Audemars Macleod. I am glad that Your Lordship followers are willing to fight for Your Lordship and stand in front of you."

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Levingstone. You may call me by your family's coat-of-arms symbol. I am the captain of this group."

"Two-headed winged eagles?"

"No... Just Eagle for short. The one you spoke to earlier was my sergeant. He is called Sparrow. The rest would be Hawk, Heron, Falcon, Goose, Willard, Pigeon, Parrot and Turkey. These are nicknames and we do have our own names too. Heh...".

"Better put away those weapons and Kayla, I am impressed with your miniature blade breaker."

"Ah...you knew about this hairpin? Jack made it for me," asked Kayla as she made her long luxurious hair in a bun once more and inserted it like a hairpin.

"Yes, I know as a gift when he was courting you at that time. He wished to keep harm away from those men you rejected that wanted to harm you, so he forged one when he was a young blacksmith apprentice back then."

"Waaahhh... That was so long time ago...! Levingstone, Eagle... I mean you are far too young to know all these. You might not even be born yet...!"

"You might be surprised who told me that before. It was your master, the blacksmith that you became his apprentice, who happens to be my grandfather and he sends his regards to you."

"Waaahhh... That old geezer is still kicking? My gosh... He left the shop one day and said he would be collecting ores one fine day and never returned after that. And I opened up my blacksmith and opened up my own thereafter. Here... This is your grandfather's old hammer. It is still with me and I uses it even though the current equipment bought for GraceHaven has several inside it."

"In this case, whatever you state is really true and the grandson of that old geezer can be trusted for he was like a father to me." Jack pointed out as he turned his gaze upon me and saw something that made him stumped. "Lady Heather..."

I heard Jack mentioned Lady Heather and turned my head to my right and saw that she was holding my reed pen in her hand poised in a stabbing position, with the ink flowing down her arms, pooling under her elbow and into the table.

"Hey, Heidi... Are you alright?"

"Huh...? Eh... Aaahhh... My arms... Oh no...! I've got ink all over...!" she bellowed as she stood up and ran to the fireplace and brought a rag and cleaned her arms and returned to her seat beside me and cleaned the table with the rag.

"As you can see, Heather here is trying to make a point by stating 'A pen is mightier than a sword' and she could even draw blood without leaving her seat. Such power...! Hahahaha..."

"Baam..."

Another flat fist landed on my c.h.e.s.t as Heather spoke through her teeth, "In this kind of situation, you could still make a joke and take matters ever so lightly."

"Heather the Feather would Our Lordship call you but there is only one person who called you Heather the Madhatter. And that is me..."

"Ehh... You... Only our math teacher would call me that...you...are our math teacher?!? Hey Mars, he's our math teacher that is the only one called me the Madhatter because I would punch anyone who bullies me in class except for you." Heather was excited to find the person who sat in front of us was our math teacher as Heather grabbed at my sleeves excitedly.

"Yes, I am your teacher...a Bishop actually... Bishop Levingstone at your service, Lady Heather. Please forgive me for calling the names mentioned earlier. This is to let you know that I am acquainted with the Royal family after all. I do serve under the old King before."

"About working with the royal household, as proof, I did mention to our to our Lordship here we know the way in and out of the Manor without anyone seeing means, we also knew the secret path in the gardens that lead to the cellar and right into the main hall."

"You...you knew about it?!? Then where were you and why not come and save my family?!? Why tell me all this after I've been banished from my own kingdom?!? WHY...!!!" There was a change in my tone and my features as I thought how my father and mother who shielded me and took those bolts for themselves, and even Tanya, she was supposed to run away with me but she took an arrow for me as well... Making me the only person alive in the whole of the kingdom.

When I bellowed out my voice filled with anger and anguish, the citizens that were merrying stopped what they were doing and quickly scampered off the courtyard and head to their homes immediately, leaving just the Chadwells behind.

"Please calm yourself, Your Lordship. Lady Heather, could you kindly bring a jug of water for us? Please forgive me for being an insolence in front of Your Ladyship and Lordship."

Heather ran up into the house to get the pitcher and poured me a cup of cool water and I slowly settled down and sipped on it trying to calm my nerves and unseemingly rare temper.

"Please pardon your humble servants, Your Lordship. We deeply regretted not being able to be there when our old king needed us. We were out on a mission that time, but somehow a rat had misguided us to go to a mission that had been totally misinformed. Don't worry, that rat had been taken care of."

"We are the Shadows, an elite alliance force set to study and protect those right and just nobles and kingship. To be the truth, the 8 families now are just fine. There's no worry of backstabbing Your Lordship in the future."

"Now, let me explain my absence during the day. Your Lordship noticed those pigeons in the rafters when you entered the mill earlier today, right? Those are carrier pigeons where we would use to send messages back to our headquarters. I've received a message stating that a group of mercenaries were sent by a rebel leader named One-eyed Jack to scourge the lands to find out those 'unexplored treasures'."

"Here is the message sent. It's clearly written." Levingstone or Eagle handed me a small note which I slowly unfurled and it read, "20 bandits heading your way. Take them out. No prisoners. 2 days en route." I handed the note back after Heather reads it at all as she gasped deeply.

"Your Lordship, what did the note says?" Jack was curious, so was everyone else and I explained to them the contents of the note.

"Falcon, Heron, Hawk and I had taken them out. They never knew what hit them and we had hidden their bodies deep in the forest. As I've mentioned we are here to learn more about your predicament as we were much earlier trying to find out any living persons from Darlington. We finally got there 3 days after when we received the news of a siege. That siege was done by 500 or more rebels that performed a pincer attack simultaneously on 3 sides of the kingdom. It is a miracle that our Lordship is alive."

"That's the reason you wanted to stay here for 30 days?"

"More than that. We are assigned to protect this village and build from scratch to be the grand kingdom of Darlington. 30 days is just an excuse to throw off the rest of citizens mind off of us."

"So you still need to go back to your spouses for 5 days right?"

"Yes and no. Those 5 days are what I had spoken to you much earlier..."

Author's Note:

I wanted to use Assassin Creed as one of its association that had been playing in my head for the last couple of days but I used the Shadows instead.

At least those who listened to The Shadows would also listen to Sir Cliff Richard who was the first rock star that was knighted in 1995.

Only ancient authors like me would know about Sir Richard and The Shadows. Google in YouTube to listen to their hits as you read through the novels especially the instrumental 'The Shadows'.

Enjoy the music and the following chapters.

Cheers...