Coping with a New Crown

CHAPTER 3. DEATH PENALTY

CHAPTER 3

DEATH PENALTY

“What's the last thing you remember?”

The half-crushed skeleton asked the spirit of Eggs.

Eggs tried to remember,

“I got to the keep,”

“I was given a warm welcome”

“I was given a tour of my new home by the head housemaid, Jackie.”

“I washed and got changed”

“There was a formal dinner, almost a full-on feast,”

“People like the guard captain, head mystic and the bishop were there”

“There was a swapping of outrageous stories,”

“I had a great one!”

“I started to tell it, and people seemed to be laughing and enjoying it,”

“Then……”

“Then what?” asked Death

Eggs felt around under her chin, around the front of her neck.

“Some assassin slit my throat from behind?!!”

“Was my storytelling THAT bad? I thought it was rather funny, myself!”

Eggs felt slightly annoyed, not about being killed but that her story might not have been very good!

“It was about this couple of cattle thieves with a forged document…”

She realised that Death did not care and stopped talking.

She looked up, remember the Death was prone on the floor on account of having no functioning or structurally complete legs, Then looked down expectantly.

“What now?”

A large black hole opened not far away,

Howls of the dammed and the smell of burning flesh wafted from it.

A large Demon arose, Its shape constantly shifting, each form more horrendous than the last.

Death spoke

“NOW YOU BURN!”

For the first time ever in her existence, Eggs felt true terror

The face of the demonic thing lumbered and slithered forward and Eggs could feel herself being observed by what might have been eyes.

There was a pause.

.

“I'm not touching that!” ‘It’ said, in a quivering voice.

If ‘It’ had not been a demon from the depths of the pit, you could almost imagine that the voice had a tinge of fear in it.

“Don’t tell me, what is it this time.” Exclaimed Death

“Some Immortality Pact with Hell?”

“Soul kept in an egg on top of a lonely mountain guarded by a flying monster.”

“Or are simply just feeling lazy?!” Continued Death angrily.

“Screw you!” Shouted back the demon.

“I'm telling you now! I am Not touching that!”

“That’s HER daughter, yeh know? The one that refuses to ever use any magic!”

The Demon and the portal to hell vanished!

It is a very weird sound, the sound of a fleshless skeleton trying to “gulp!”

But that was clearly what Death did!

“Errr there seems to have been some mistake” Death stuttered.

Egg’s was totally bewildered and confused.

Death tried to compose himself.

“IT IS NOT YET YOUR TIME, MORTAL!”

He said pointing one of his three remaining fingers on his one remaining arm.

“FOR YOU HAVE A DESINRY TO FULFIL!”

“What is my destiny?” Asked Eggs

“EEERrrrrr, it is a great destiny. For it is written!” Struggled Death, clearly making this crap up as he went along!

“BEGONE ANDF FULFIL YOUR DESTINY!”

Eggs spirit started to fade back to her awaiting body.

“Please tell your Mum I am really, sorry” 

“I did not know you were her daughter.” 

“Please don’t let her hurt me again!”

“I beg you!”

Death screamed after her, his voice quivering on the edge of whatever Deaths equivalent of tears might be, for a being with no eyeballs!

Then Eggs regained consciousness, on the floor of the banquet room of the keep.

There was shouting and screaming and Jackie in some sort of enraged fit being held back by the keep's guard.

Despite its being held down by three very large and well-trained men, they were still struggling!

Not because Jackie had any training at all, 

Her physical strength was just that of a normal woman.

She was simply out of her mind with a level of pure rage no one in that room, including the battle-hardened veterans of war, had ever seen before!

There was a bloody carving knife in her hand that they were still trying to take from her!

The Bishop was assuming that Jackie had become possessed and was trying to exorcise the evil spirit.

The head mystic was throwing counter curses and anti-mind control spells at Jackie.

The Guard captain was assuming some sort of psychotic poison had been put in Jackie's food or wine and was rushing around collecting samples for testing, out of every dish and bottle.

All the other dignitaries had backed away to the far wall acting as if they were frozen with horror.

In reality, each in their own head was thinking who they could replace Jackie with as the Head Housekeeper.

Either as a spy or as a possible tactical position to meet eligible lords for a good political marriage! 

Some of the dignitaries were quite convincing while others had not the talent for improvised performance at all!

No one had yet noticed that the murder victim had stood up in a large puddle of her own blood, wiped the remaining blood from her throat and now showed no signs of injury or ill health at all.

Eggs shouted!

“MY STORY WAS NOT THAT BAD!”

“GIVE ME A BREAK!”

“EVERYONE ELSE BACK AT HOME THOUGHT IT WAS HILARIOUS!!

Everyone froze at once!

Even Jackie!

The Bishop fainted and faceplanted forward hard with a thump, but no one noticed.

His nose went “Crunch!”.

The looks of horror on all the dignitaries faces suddenly became very earnest and real.

As everyone (everyone who had not passed out) starred, Jackie took the brief opportunity to run forward and look Eggs straight in the eyes as she plunged the knife in again and again.

Eggs in total confusion doubled over in pain and felt the very weird sensation of all her wounds immediately sucking closed and instantly healing as quickly as they had happened!

Then the Jackie collapsed in a heap as the Guard Captain knocked her unconscious from behind!

Eight hours later the Guard Captain and the resident Keep Wizard met.

The two men did not respect each other.

One was smart and trying to solve problems while the other was rather dull and self-entitled.

The Guard Captain and the Wizard were finding it increasingly hard to stay polite to each other.

It had been a long day for Guard Captain Mitchel’s.

He had grown up being good a riding, hunting and fighting.

He was not a stupid man but if he had been born in our world he would have been the sort of man that had grown up as a “high school jock”.

Not, the “meathead” sort but instead the sort of ‘jock’ that would use a sports scholarship to get qualified with a degree or higher before entering them into law enforcement at a level above ‘normal policeman’, 

While many “high school nerds” may have looked at “high school jocks” and scoffed at them for not cracking open a book once in a while,

He would have been the sort of “high school jock” that scoffed at such “high school nerds” for missing an opportunity to hit the gym so help them decompress and unwind so they could study more effectively that same night.

If he had lived in our world, in America, he would have joined the FBI.

Social mobility was not an easy thing in an early medieval style society (Pre black death, in our world),

He saw the guards bullying peasants such as his father and thought,

“I could be ‘that!’”

He also thought,

“I could be ‘that’ and NOT become a bully!”

“I could be ‘THAT’ AND BE BETTER!”

“I could be what a guard ‘should be’, instead of as ‘they are’ now!”

Captain Mitchel’s has worked his way up from ‘Dung’ without losing innate feelings of justice most of the rest of us get beaten out of us before reaching 7 years old.

Both men considered that they had had a very long stressful day.

The Wizard Mal-eath thought it had been a long day because he had to get up at 8 am and go to a party. 

He had looked forward to this feast for days, only to have it been spoiled by current events and was now having to unexpectedly do work for the last 8 hours while some stupid meathead Guard Captain with delusions ‘above his station’ constantly bothering him.

Captain Mitchel thought it had been a long day because he had been up since 5am and had barely sat down, let alone eaten, when it had come time to stand to attention, on guard, his stomach growling and his feet burning all the way through a feast the Wizard had enjoyed until current events.

The Wizard looked at captain Mitchel’s and assumed that he was looking at a thick meathead from some minor aristocratic family who could not read.

Like many Wizards who both came from nice families and who found learning easier than doing any physical work, he looked down on “Guards” and scoffed at them for not rolling open a scroll once in a while,

In truth, Captain Mitchel’s could not only read better than the Wizard Mal-eath, but also in more languages.

This was a fact that Captain Mitchel’s had strong intentions of NEVER correcting the Wizard Mal-eath on!

Captain Mitchel’s kept the fact he could read ‘At all’ a closely guarded secret, from everyone!

Being only ever seen as mere Meat Head was vital to his investigation work!

This tactic may stop him ever being promoted to Kings Guard BUT it did mean he could catch more crooks and protect more people like the peasantry he had come from!

The Wizard Mal-Eath hated how the woman threw themselves at idiots like the guards!

When obviously with his brains, he was so vastly superior!

Young Captain Mitchel had not dated much not because he was “saving himself for marriage” but because he was “saving himself for a career”!

Captain Mitchel was burningly ambitious but not in the conventional sense.

For him, success was measured on justice served and people saved and not in his final retirement rank!

.

Captain Mitchel for his part looked at what seemed a nerdy, physically weak looking, lazy wizard and MADE NO ASSUMPTIONS AT ALL!

He was, once again, playing “the role” of “Thick meathead” to stay underestimated and get the Wizard to let his guard down

It was, unfortunately, a waste of time and of effort.

Because the Grand Keep Wizard Mal-eath (Real name Nigel Pact) was exactly what he at first appeared to be!

As already stated, the two men did not respect each other.

One was smart and trying to solve problems while the other was rather dull and self-entitled.

Captain Mitched appeared to be rubbing his tired eyes, (while secretly squinting through the eyelids in case the Wizard was a double agent who might take the apparent drop in guard to either attack or dispose of evidence,)

“So, there are no signs of any poisons that might make Jackie go suddenly insane with rage,” he said.

The Wizard tried to explain once again to what he thought was the “Stupid Captain”,

“As I said, Sir,” the Wizard replied in a sarcastic tone, “I have wasted my precious time testing all the food samples from her food and drink and there is nothing obvious! But there are so many different possible toxins that could have that effect that such a series test is useless anyway.”

“It is by far more likely to be some sort of curse or mind control!”

The Wizard rubbed his tired eyes, closing them tightly and wishing the stupid captain would go away!

The Captain took this opportunity to read the wizards scrawled notes via a reflection of a mirror behind the desk. They may have appeared backwards through the mirror, but I took no real effort for The Captain to quickly adjust for that. 

To his surprise, it seemed that the Wizard had actually done the work!

He quickly berated himself for being surprised at all, as it meant part of him had used the mental crutch of allowing some assumptions to happen. 

He would verify all result with his own secret chemistry bench later.

But unlike the Wizard he would not be making the mistake of looking for a specific toxin but instead for any signs of various families of toxins.

The Captain Knew Jackie.

This was so very unlike her.

He had been the only one to have silently noticed her secret exhaustion, but that alone did not adequately explain her outlandish behaviour.

He had tried to talk to her, but her mind seemed to have simply ‘shut down’ and she had just rocked back and forth while looking at the cell wall.

He had seemed that look before in various villages after some battles.

Although he hated assumptions, to him, it looked like a reaction to normal human horror rather than some sort of spell or curse.

Out of the two, usually, normal human horror was usually far worse!

But all his investigations so far would indicate that Jackie had never met the new ever Duchess before.

Yet the attack seemed deeply personal as if it were some sort of revenge.

There was something, he knew, he was not seeing here.

Then there was the apartment New Duchess immortality.

The Captain knew of ‘the young man’, a very powerful and evil force that wanted this throne, but he had gone quiet recently.

But this was a level of magic that surpassed even his dark arts!

Instant healing? 

It had maybe been known to happen in epic legend after some great quest, searched for on purpose, and achieved after many mighty struggles, quest and tasks.

It was not something that just sort of spontaneously happened and would come to a complete surprise the person that had it!

It was the sort of thing that Eggs mother would have achieved….

The Captain stopped in mid-thought…

Nah!

It is true that Eggs ‘dear ole mum’ was indeed that level of legendary hero but unlike every other hero in history she had always refused to ever use magic.

So, while the captain did not totally discount the fact that maybe ‘all that’ might have been a lie, it was not the immediate concern.

It was something for the ‘Backburner’.

It was something to look into much later if there was ever a time to do so!

Meanwhile.

The ‘Young Man’ sitting on this throne of skulls had just heard from his spies that A New Duchess, the daughter of ‘Dear ole Mum’ might have spontaneously become a true immortal!

Not one of those pretending ones, with a hidden weakness, a vampire or such creature with an unholy pact, but instead, ‘True Immortality”!

Without any effort or grand quest at all!

For the ‘Young Man,’ this was most certainly not merely something for the ‘Backburner’.

It was something to investigate RIGHT NOW and IMMEDIATELY!

This was every evil arch villain's dream come true!

He knew that he had wiped his own mind and killed his own court.

He knew that he, himself had left him the knowledge that the newly entitled Baroness must not be interfered with in any way, shape, or form.

Despite all this!

How could possibly resist!

He did now know why he had taken such action.

He could not remember who the New Baronesses mother was supposed to be,

If he had.

He would have listened to his own advice, that he had left for himself.

And kept the hell away!  

At the same time, Jackie was just waiting to die.

She wanted to die.

The emotional pain was unbearable.

She was a commoner who had openly tried to commit treason against the crown.

She was awaiting her death penalty.