第18章 The True Heir

The duel between Edward and Richard took place in the courtyard of Northgate Castle, before a crowd of nobles and soldiers and commoners who had gathered to witness the contest. It was not a formal duel, with rules and referees and honor. It was a fight to the death, fought on ground that was bare and cold, with the wind howling around them and the sky dark with coming snow. The courtyard was packed with people, hundreds of them, who had come from across the land to see the bastard of Northgate face the legitimate heir in single combat. Richard was a skilled fighter, trained from childhood in the art of the sword, and he pressed the attack with ferocity and precision. He had practiced for years, drilling with masters and sparring with peers, preparing for moments like this. But Edward fought with something more than skill. He fought with the anger of a lifetime of injustice, with the determination of a man who had nothing left to lose, with the fire of a king who had been forged in suffering and emerged stronger for it. They clashed steel against steel, the sound ringing through the courtyard like a death knell. Richard struck hard and fast, his blade a blur of silver and death, but Edward parried and countered, his movements growing more confident with each passing moment. He was not the most skilled fighter in the courtyard, but he was the most determined, and determination was a weapon that skill could not match. You cannot win, Richard gasped, his breath coming in ragged gasps. I am the rightful lord! I was born to this! I have trained for it my entire life! And I have lived for it, Edward replied. I have suffered for it. I have fought for it. You were given everything. I had to take everything. Do not tell me about right. Tell me about worth. Richard screamed and charged, his sword aimed at Edward's heart. But Edward was ready. He had been expecting this move, had anticipated it, had prepared for it. He sidestepped the blow, caught Richard's arm, and drove his own sword through his half-brother's chest. Richard fell, his eyes wide with shock and pain, and he looked at Edward with something that was almost understanding. The hatred was gone, replaced by something else—recognition, perhaps, or acceptance, or simply the end of all struggle. You won, he whispered. You won. I did not want this, Edward said. I wanted only justice. I wanted only to be recognized as my father's son. But you left me no choice. Richard's breath came in ragged gasps, and then it stopped. He was dead. Edward stood over his body, breathing hard, his sword still dripping with blood. The crowd was silent, their faces full of shock and awe and something that might have been respect. They had come to see a duel, and they had seen something more—a brother killing a brother, a bastard defeating a lord, a man claiming his birthright at the point of a sword. I am Edward of Northgate, he said, his voice carrying across the courtyard. Son of Gareth and Isabella. Heir of Edmund the Third. And I claim this land, this title, this destiny, not by force but by right. I will be a just king. I will be a good lord. And I will never forget the price of justice. The crowd erupted in cheers. Edward sheathed his sword and looked up at the castle, at the towers and battlements that had been his father's, that had been Richard's, that were now his. He had won. He had claimed his birthright. And he had done it without sacrificing his soul. The journey was long and arduous, but Edward did not complain. He rode with a small escort of loyalists, men and women who had served under his grandfather and who had sworn to serve him now. They moved through the countryside, through forests and fields and villages, and Edward saw the poverty and hardship that had been caused by Aldric's tyranny, the suffering of people who had nothing to do with the politics of thrones and crowns. He reached Northgate on a cold morning in early winter, the castle rising from the mist like a vision of his past and his future. He dismounted at the gate and waited, his heart hammering, his hand on the hilt of his sword. The snow began while the yard was still emptying, settling on Richard's body where it lay, and Edward ordered two men-at-arms to carry his brother into the keep with more care than gentleness required. Wash him. Dress him in the green and gold. He lies beside our father in the crypt, and the rites are said whole, without a word against him in the priest's mouth. Ser Hale, still holding the second's white staff, looked at him as if measuring whether this mercy was a trap, then bowed and went to see it done. The stewardship of Northgate had no ceremony for surrender, so old Master Corvin simply walked across the courtyard, held out the ring of keys, and asked which stores my lord wished inventoried first. Edward did not take the keys. You served my father twenty years, he said. Keep them. Tell me instead what is broken that I cannot see. The list was longer than the victory: seed grain sold off in Richard's last winter, the east mill dam cracked, wages three seasons in arrears to half the garrison, and a widow in Oakhaven—the innkeeper's wife, who had once set an extra bowl at her table for a boy with no mother—who now kept the inn alone with failing eyes. Edward wrote her name first on the page Corvin gave him, though it was not a list of repairs. That night he slept in the lord's chamber out of duty rather than desire and woke before dawn to the smell of snow on stone, lying still while the room resolved around him, understanding that everything here was now called his, including every mistake the place contained. Down in the yard, someone had already swept a path from the kitchen to the well, and the sweeping sound reached him through the shutters with absurd domesticity—the first ordinary noise Northgate had ever sent him. He dressed in the dark rather than ring for a servant, found his old field coat still hanging where the chamberlain had disapprovingly left it, and put it on over the fine wool just to feel both weights at once before going down to learn what he owned. The True Heir - Continued