When Kings Write Chains
Thun moved to stand from the large four poster bed. But pain coursed through his entire body, movement was a struggle but s challenge he’d graciously accept. He was needed the villagers … “Oh by the gods the villages what state was they in now.” Was all he think.
As the pain flared through ribs, shoulder, throat every place rope and iron and Saxon steel had kissed him. The room tilted. Light spilled across stone walls, too bright, too clean, wrong for a battlefield.
He swore softly.
“Lie.” Dægan’s voice. Close. Calm. The calm that came only after nights without sleep.
A hand pressed him back to the mattress.
“You stood on a gallows yesterday,” his brother added. “You don’t get to rise before noon.”
Thun blinked.
Ceiling beams. Whitewashed plaster. A shuttered window leaking winter light. Linen sheets expensive ones. The air smelled of beeswax and herbs instead of smoke and blood.
“Your house?” he rasped.
“My estate,” Dægan corrected. “And don’t pretend you don’t recognise it. You bled on the rugs often enough in younger centuries.”
“Good rugs.” Thun tried to grin it came out crooked. But after the hangmans noose and months of torture that’s still a good sign.
The patter of small feet was heard running towards his room The sounds of his sons laughter filled the air of the corridors until Wulfie entered the room,
“Da?”
He turned his head almost instinctively to look at his boys and smiled warmly.
James stood at the edge of the bed, hair still wild with sleep. Bram hovered behind him, clutching a wooden practice blade far too tightly. Harold lingered in the doorway, pretending not to worry and failing spectacularly.
Wulfie was already climbing the mattress.
“Oh, that’s unfair.” Thun groaned.
“You died,” Wulfie announced.
“Temporarily inconvenienced.”
“They hanged you.” James swallowed.
“Still breathing,” Thun murmured, brushing his knuckles through the boy’s hair. “See? Poor craftsmanship.”
Bram’s jaw wobbled.
Thun reached out to hold his boys. Dægan moved ahead to help him. As the four younger boys piled in awkwardly, careful of bandages they did not understand. Thun closed his eyes for half a heartbeat. Then opened them again he didn’t trust the world enough yet.
Leofric appeared in the doorway with a ledger under one arm and ink on his cheek.
“You lasted longer than I expected,” he said.
“Cheerful.”
“You stopped breathing for six seconds.”
“Six?”
“Eight, if we’re being dramatic.”
Dægan shot him a look.
“I keep precise records.” Leofric shrugged.suddenly the sound of shouting rose outside. But not of soldiers not this time .The peoples voices desperate and scared be heard so many voices. After a while Dægan’s gaze lifted he recognized it too well that wasn’t court noise. It was hunger, the people were being hit hard by vortigerns men. As steel rang in the yard.
A guard shoute then another and another eventually the entire courtyard was shouting. Leofrics soul stilled froze in a heart beat as he went still.
“…that will be refugees.”
Thun frowned.
“Already?”
“Word runs faster than horses when gallows break,” Leofric replied. “And kings do not enjoy being embarrassed.”
“How many?” Dægan exhaled through his nose.
Leofric opened the ledger.
“Thirty-two at dawn. Seventeen more while you were unconscious. Families. Three wounded. One with a spearhead still in the thigh.”
Thun shifted uncomfortable as pain bit.
“Send them to the lower barns.”
“I already did.”
“Feed them.”
“They already are.”
“Good.”
Dægan arched a brow as he watched his little brother and Thun coughed.
“I be outlawed but I’m not cruel.”
“My lord, horses are coming. It looks like the king’s men,” a sergeant said. Horses hooves thundered, hard and fast towards the estate. It was too formal for peasants and a great number as the horn sounded once.
The court sharp suddenly pierced the air causing Dægan to straightened up releasing a sigh.
“That’ll be a messenger.”
Leofric closed his book.
“I was hoping for breakfast.”
The horn sounded again.
Closer.
Sharper.
Steel scraped in the yard as men shifted into formation.
Dægan moved first.
“Barricade the east gate. No blades drawn unless I give the word.”
A captain bowed and ran.
Leofric stepped to the window slit and peered down.
“Three riders. Court colours.”
“That’s never good news.” Thun scowled.
“It is if you enjoy being sentenced twice,” Leofric replied.
Boots thundered on stone below. A herald’s voice rang out formal, rehearsed, carrying the weight of a kingdom.
“By order of the High King’s council – open in the king’s name!”
Dægan sighed.
“They always phrase it like that.”
He glanced at Thun.
“Stay.”
Thun’s mouth twitched.
“No.”Dægan’s look hardened.
“You can barely breathe.”
“I’ve hung worse.”
“You literally just”
“I know.”
Thun swung his legs over the side of the bed. Instantly, he regretted every decision he had made in the last four centuries.
Leofric winced.
“Sit before gravity finishes what the executioner started.”
Thun muttered something unrepeatable and allowed himself to be lowered back onto the mattress.
“Five minutes,” he bargained.
Dægan ignored him and strode for the door.
“I’ll get them.”
“I’m coming,” Leofric said, tucking the ledger under his arm.
The courtyard buzzed when they arrived.
Refugees clustered near the barns. Thin figures were wrapped in blankets. Children were clinging to skirts. Carts were piled with the remnants of burned lives.
Guards held the space between them and the gate.
Three mounted men waited before the portcullis.
Red cloaks.
Silver pins.
Royal messengers.
The lead rider dismounted with practiced stiffness and removed his gloves.
“I bear writ from the High King’s court.” Dægan folded his hands behind his back.
“You show it.”
The man produced a parchment tube sealed with green wax.
Leofric’s eyes went instantly to the stamp.
“…That’s not today’s seal.”
Dægan flicked him a look.
The messenger hesitated.
“It is the king’s authority.”
“I did not dispute that,” Leofric said mildly. “I questioned the wax.”
The man bristled.
“Break it or do not, my lord.”
Dægan took the scroll.
The refugees watched.
So did the guards.
Leofric leaned in as the seal cracked.
His brows drew together.
Slowly.
“Oh.” Dægan scanned.
Once.
Twice.
Then his jaw tightened.
“This orders the arrest of Thunorric Stormwulf.”
As the started to settle behind clouds the animals and yard stilled. Birds stopped animals stopped people froze. But Leofric exhaled.
“Executed yesterday.” The messenger blinked.
“…He survived?”
“Unfortunately for whoever wrote that,” Dægan replied.
The man swallowed.
“And you are to surrender him to royal custody promptly.”
“And if I refuse?”
The rider straightened.
“You will be deemed in defiance of crown law.”
Leofric tilted his head.
“This handwriting is wrong.” leofric knew instantly something was wrong.
The messenger stiffened.
“It is sealed.”
“The flourish on the second line is Chancellor Osgar’s,” Leofric continued. “But the closing clause is not. He never uses that phrasing.”
Dægan looked at him.
“Someone altered it.”
“Yes.”
The wind lifted ash from the braziers.
Behind them, a child whimpered.
Leofric’s eyes slid to the refugees.
“This was written to provoke a siege.”
Dægan folded the parchment again.
“You will tell the court Thunorric remains under my protection while his wounds mend.”
“That is not-”
“It is what will happen.”
The messenger hesitated.
“My orders-”
“Are suspicious.”
Leofric stepped closer.
“You rode hard for three men carrying an arrest order but no escort?”
The rider’s jaw twitched.
“…We were told secrecy was required.”
“Of course you were.”
Dægan handed the scroll back.
“Ride carefully.”
“You dismiss me?”
“I spare you.”
The messenger mounted quickly.
The gates remained closed.
When the riders vanished down the road, Dægan released a breath.
“They want blood.”
“They want chaos,” Leofric corrected.
Dægan turned to a waiting officer.
“Double the watch. Archers on the towers. No one leaves without my seal.”
The man saluted and ran.
Leofric scribbled in his ledger.
“Someone at court wants the Storm-kin dead before winter.”
Dægan glanced toward the keep.
“And my brother is awake.”
Leofric grimaced.
“That’s usually when things get worse.”
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