Thirst for Vengeance

Dremeadow's king, paralyzed by grief in the immediate aftermath of his wife's murder, begins to realize the need for justice and revenge

            Hrothgar Foxtrot slumped down into the feathered maroon cushion covering the seat of his throne. Part of him wanted to turn his back on the one next to him meant for his queen. Never again would she use it. Eventually, he’d have to order its removal- just the thought made his throat constrict almost as though he’d been the one that man poisoned- but he could not bring himself to do it yet. It’d have to wait until at least the funeral procession and dinner were done .             

By all the gods… he was going to have to plan a funeral. Yes, he’d done it for both his parents many years ago. Yes, he’d helped Arabella plan her mother’s after Ida Thornmallow, the last of their children’s grandparents, met her untimely end in an accident attempting to repair her wagon’s broken axle.  However, this wasn’t something he was supposed to worry about until he was much older! Drémeadow did not often suffer the plagues other places dealt with because unlike humans hobbits were not fool enough to cram as many as possible into small spaces, nor did they rush into having children as soon as they were old enough to reproduce, preferring to wait until well into their twenties and in some cases thirties.  Speaking of children, there had been the worry of losing her in childbirth, but he had the gold to ensure he had a midwife and healers that knew how to keep their charges alive and recognize danger signs through every pregnancy from Nora through- he felt revolted to even think the name- Folco.There’d been that horrifyingly close call with Nora when she fell out of a tree at nine, but his oldest child lived yet, though unable to bear her own. No, his wife was supposed to have several decades of life left. She was 58 and perfectly healthy, seeming much more in her early forties in looks and vigor.             

Murder had never entered his calculations. Especially murder resulting from a family guest conspiring with his son and possibly others.              

 His son. His own son! How could he? How could anyone ever be an accessory in the death of their own mother? Less civilized orcs than the ones his advisor Jarmir had brought in to help maintain law and order might, and humans certainly would, but a hobbit? It was almost unheard of! And worst of all, that hobbit was a prince of Drémeadow! The queen’s own youngest son!         

    It might not have been Folco’s idea.  Folco might not have done anything other than passively assisting that Cancalian. However, several things combined made him look very guilty. His deliberately ignoring the kitchen after being told to oversee it. His sowing the seeds of dissent by interrupting the king’s confrontation of the paladin, which directly caused the brouhaha in the dining hall which even now servants were attempting to clean up. They’d likely be there all night as was. Many things, like smashed glassware and damaged furniture, would need replacing.

 Worst of all out of many signs of guilt, there was Folco’s giving the gatekeepers false orders. He’d tricked them into letting that murderous human Kiran Mani and the traitors who dared defend him escape with the prevarication that he was relaying the king’s orders. Hrothgar had said no such thing. Yes, he’d ordered the Cancalian emissary to leave, as the law of the Intracontinental Trade Alliance forbade him prosecuting an emissary sent by a close relative of Cancalia’s royal family, but that was before his vile excuse of a son had stirred up opposition, escalating things to the point where he no longer cared what ICTA thought. Besides, that emissary had been sent by Ivan Benoit, Duke of a Cancalian city called Northchester, brother to their king Irwin and uncle to their Crown Prince by blood! Perhaps the Benoits had nothing to do with Arabella’s murder, but it looked bad. Very bad.

 It also said a lot that Folco had apparently disappeared completely from the palace and the grounds. The king had asked three different groups of servants to take a break from cleaning up the feast hall to look for his youngest. All three had come back saying the same thing, that both Folco and his friend Lindo Rivers, the one most likely to be informed of the prince’s whereabouts, were nowhere to found.  Several remarked that  Folco’s feast attire had been thrown on the floor of his bedchamber. A particularly observant one had even noticed Folco’s favorite travel pack, Lindo’s overnight items and two sets of clothes were missing. 

Given all of the above, it was clear he’d gone with the murderer. The lad’s running away eliminated the possibility that he’d simply acted foolishly out of a naïve conviction of the human’s innocence. Were his hands clean of his mother’s death, as Jarmir commented once it was obvious Folco had fled, Folco would have stayed. Folco would have to be found too. That lad had to face justice for what he’d done. Hrothgar’s golden-brown  eyes flickered toward three advisors, an elf named Jarmir Esteel, a dwarf named Flynn Thragglekin, and a human named Samuel Grant stood. Also present was his friend Kirk Sorefellow, who had been active with the Drémeadow Council back when it existed. Normally, he would not permit others to see him doing something so undignified as slouching like an adolescent, but tonight he was too distraught to heed much of anything. In fact, he felt almost paralyzed by the enormity of everything that had happened.            

 “Your Majesty,” came Gordo’s voice. The king straightened up. It was the voice he always used when alerting him and others in his presence to a new arrival in the throne room, whether expected or not. “Princess Nora has arrived.”   

          This was not going to be an easy conversation with them.  But it had to happen. They had to avenge Queen Arabella. Jarmir, Kirk, Flynn and Sam all thought the same thing. Vengeance was mandatory. Much as he hated the idea of more bloodshed, the Queen had been murdered in cold blood at a holiday feast. King Hrothgar would have his revenge on all guilty parties.             

Despite years of practice concealing emotion for the benefit of his political career, he was surprised at how calm his voice came out in his reply. Then again, the death of his wife and treachery of his youngest weren’t exactly ordinary nuisances.     

          “Send her on in”

Reviews

[Benita-Staebell M - Kin..]

King Hrothgar's seems very suspicious.


Then the Murder of the Queen this was
quite interest took me awhile to read
I don't like reading long stories so when I
do stories they are short stories.



Thank you for sharing and for
stopping by my page.



God Bless. Benita

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Thanks for dropping by and reading especially since this is outside your usual items of perusal! read moreThanks for dropping by and reading especially since this is outside your usual items of perusal!

Out of curiosity, in the first sentence, were you saying the king seems suspicious like something's off about him like he's not someone to trust or something? =]

[Benita-Staebell M - KindredPoet]

You're Welcome. and thank you keep me in your prayers I will get better just will rest my wrist. blessings. Benita

[Mila]

Maybe make the font a little larger? Also that last sentence "Send her on in" had a bit too much space between "on" and "in" and also needs a period at the end.

I could feel the king's sadness and frustration over what Folco did, so great job with this one! :)

-Mila

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Ahhh, wow WC, it does look microscopic after my last edit o.O

And excellent, glad that came through, especially for sake of anyone who knows what he ends up doing in response!

[jjwilbourne]

Ahh. So I finally understand what's going on in Hrothgar's head. Good to know.
I'm really curious to see how his advisors and friends have reacted to the events and if they agree with the king or not. Moreover, Do they disagree but are afraid to openly admit it?
Does anyone have anything to gain by assuring that Falco or Lindo are swept away cleanly?
(just some things I'm wondering if the plot is leading. You don't have to answer them now)
There are a few typos and a couple formatting issues in this. From reading Noel's review, it seems you're victim of your word processor. To add to that conversation, I use Google Docs in Google Drive to write my book. I don't know if you like Google Docs or Google at all, but it catches typos (mostly).
I'm not so sure that this suggestion will be relevant once you make the next part. In fact, pretend I never said this until that is complete: It may serve the chapter to combine this one and the next, but not simply tacking it on the end of this scene.
Excellent work. Let me know when the next part is posted!

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Ohhh, yes, shock and grief certainly are not bringing out the best of his Majesty, hmm? You raise a lot of good questions in regards to this whole nasty situation! What I'll tell you for now is that next chapter comes from the POV of Nora, the oldest of the king's kids. We'll also learn some more information about the various advisors not to mention Nora (who is a rather complex person herself, partly because of health issues resulting from a childhood accident that I may or may not touch upon. I have a novella started about that).

I wish I could use Google Docs. The main issue with that is I live in a rural area and the source of our internet comes from a stick that you put in the USB drive of your computers. It operates off of cell phone signal. 3GF is slow, 4G doesn't work at all and I have 0-2 bars of service depending where I am in my house, just to give you an idea of how out in the sticks I am on Long Island. No fancy DSL (most companies don't service my neighborhood) for me; only option is Optimum Online and my mom boycotts anything Cablevision.

[jjwilbourne]

Ouch. Well, screw my solution :P

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

I know, if my internet were any more backwards I'd have dialup. It'd be awesome if it wasn't stuck in 2003!

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Oh, and only one person at a time can use the magic internet stick to add to the fun

[jjwilbourne]

I hope you have no siblings.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Thankfully I'm an only child. Just 1 parent to fight over internet with

[Craig2591]

Interesting to see things from Hrothgar's point of view. I initially thought his irrational behavior was because he was under the influence of other more devious persons.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

You might not be entirely wrong, we shall see ;) But yes, grief and what looks like evidence against his son from his POV are huge factors at this point

[NoelHC]

An interesting chapter, I can hardly wait for the miscreants to show up, drunk.

Some small corrections:
Less civilized orcs than the ones his advisor Jarmir had seen to bringing in to help with maintaining law and order might,
That seemed a bit dificult to parse, maybe
Less civilized orcs than the ones his advisor Jarmir had brought in to help with maintaining law and order might,

His sewing the seeds of dissent (sowing)

soundignified (so undignified)

his voice came out in his repluy. (reply)

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Gahhhh thanks for pointing those out. I've been using this free .doc program and it doesn't do those squigglies.

Haha yeah that will be interesting, trying to figure out how the king would react

[NoelHC]

Well, based on past experience, when I used to go pick my son up from junior high parties, when he and his buddies had been sneaking beers, and trying ever so hard to convince me they were sober, I strung them along and prompted them to reveal more.

I believe you mentioned using Kingsoft Writer, I have it on a computer at work, so I can"t check for red squiggles. Take a look at OpenOffice https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html It does that. It is also free, and very stable.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Haha good call. And you're right about the software being used

[Rana]

Being for a while in the fictional world of Dremeadow turned out to be so much satisfying. The plot is amazing, with so many possibilities. I wonder at whats next; the couple of discoveries to be made by the hobbit king.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Awww, thanks so much Rana! This is indeed just a small portion of a much grander plot scheme. I had a lot of fun with this chapter as Hrothgar is actually one of the minor characters in this tale. I like adding more dimension to my characters, and this was an effort to do some with Hrothgar

[Rana]

=) !!
And oh, I see. Thought he ruled the book. But yeah its better to let the younger characters do that.. Anyway, I liked this protrayal of him wherein the readers get one with him.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Yah, the ones ruling the majority of this and the two books most related to this range from 18 to 30, so definitely young. (=

[Jennie Baron]

King Hrothgar's perspective is interesting, since he only seems to be mentioned in derogatory terms from what I've read elsewhere. Your other writings raise much speculation as to why he mistrusted Folco and allowed such horrible treatment of his own son; there are always two sides to the story. A very good chapter, Speedy! I would like to see what happens with Jillian and Odo once it becomes clear that they aren't exactly sober.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Excellent, I am very glad you picked up on that! I was hoping to have an effect where a little understanding of Grothgar is cultivated. You're right, Lindo and Folco (for very understandable reasons) have an extremely negative view of him, and Kiran doesn't exactly take kindly to being falsely accused of murder- and if he gets wind of what's happening to Lindo and Folco it'll doubtless get much worse.

I most definitely have ideas on those two, though reactions might not even be as expected ;)