THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (best books to read now txt) 📖

at her highness, wincing at the autumn sun.
“Chilly up there?”
Theo grinned. “I am used to the cold air. Besides” he said, indicating at his fur coat, “I have this … You must be cold, though?”
Marie-Louise came tripping down the steps to the coat laying a black coat over Belinda’s shoulders. She looked over her left shoulder and thanked her.
“That is why we have servants who take care of us.”
”Oh” Alex cried from inside the coach. “I almost forgot to greet you. Good morning, Theo!” Alex sing-songed. “How are we today?” Alexander took a look at Rolf and smiled. Rolf nodded and closed his eyes, knowing the jibe had been at his expense.
“I am doing very well. You, Sire?”
“Fine, my knee has never hurt so much. Means I’m alive.”
“You are a brave man.”
He laughed, mouth closed. It came out as giddy irony. “Bravery is my speciality.”
The former Nocturanian Defense Minister Zelat Murani twitched his moustache twice and nodded, lifted Belinda’s hand and kissed it. Belinda smiled sweetly, feeling the tickle of his large facial hair against her frail hand.
“Shall we leave?”
Belinda looked at Zelat and nodded.
“I am happy to be working for you and your father, Belinda.”
She smiled. “I know what it means to you to be a part of this empire, Zelat.”
He closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows. It was a gesture of humanity, of sleepy love and slight embarrassment of a people to long abused.
“We are happy that you are happy.”
He nodded. “You are so beautiful, Belinda. I met you when you were a girl. You’ve filled out just a tad and it suits you.”
She looked down and shook her head. “So everyone says.” She looked up.
“You are going to be almost as good a ruler as your father.”
“Almost?”
”You are going to be grand.”
She caressed his cheek.
Alex was growing impatient.
She nodded to her father and looked back at her friend.
“I know you have a crush on me, Zelat” she said almost in a whisper.
He looked surprised and then broke into a slight grin. “The old Achille’s Heal of widowers. Besides, I am way too old for a married woman.”
Belinda lifted her hand and caressed his cheek. “Yes, I am married” she said somewhat matter-of-fact. “But I am flattered.”
Alexander cleared his throat inside the coach.
Belinda nodded and stepped in.
Zelat waved the servants goodbye, followed Belinda into the coach, secretly watching Belinda’s backside as she sat down and Theo whipped the horses into action.
Soon enough the entourage was off and not until way outside the palace gates did anyone speak.
That morning had marked the twenty-third month of work on what had been called Triumph Avenue. Just under two years of work had been the labour of love for the victories of the modern age.
“Will anyone tell me” Alexander said, teasingly, “why we are leaving so soon. After all, it still morning. The ceremony is first when the sun hits its zenith.”
Belinda looked at Zelat and smiled. “He is so curious.”
Zelat nodded, agreeing. “Oh, yes. The eternal question always bothers him.”
Belinda giggled. “Why?” She looked at her father bemused. “Why is something you always ask, even when ...”
There was a pause. “Even when what?”
Zelat continued for Belinda when he thought she wouldn’t. “I think she means even when there is no reason to ask anything.”
“Why do you always have to analyse me? I am the king, for God’s sake. The king does not want to be analysed.”
Belinda looked down. “My apologies, Father.”
Zelat nodded. “I extend mine as well.”
There was another pause before Alex spoke again.
”Questions amuse me, if you want to know.” Alexander sighed. “Of course they do, how else will I find out anything if I did not ask.”
”You know enough already” Belinda said, looking out at the countryside. She looked back at her father. He looked at her incessantly.
“What do you mean by that?”
She saw his hurt look, smiled and took his hand. “Oh, no. Not anything like that. I mean, we have a little surprise for you.”
Alexander raised his eyebrows happily, his former sad heart now enlightened.
”I am curious why my entire family leaves way before us and what they are hiding.”
“We are not hiding our love for you, Father.”
Zelat began laughing. “You people are so much more entertaining than Adnicul.”
Alexander raised his right hand. “I know I’ve said before to you never to speak badly about that man. He has found his peace with God.”
Zelat nodded and held up his hands. “I know.” He smiled again and sighed. “I know.”
Belinda had those words dancing on her tongue before she spoke them.
“You are holding your breath, darling, what do you want to say?”
She smiled and breathed out, giggling. “Only that the people know that you have done great things.”
Alex looked at her, confused. Then he raised his eyebrows. Suddenly, it hit him. “Oh” he said, calmly grinning. “The legends, the stories, the cult. Do we have to talk about this?”
Belinda shook her head. “Don’t brush it off, Father. The people started spreading those rumours shortly after the eagle came with the message if not before. They say …”
Alexander looked at her. “What do they say?”
She closed her eyes. “They say what they say.” She wrinkled her brow. “Come now, you know what they say. We’ve discussed this.”
He nodded and looked at Zelat. “Thanks to you we brought it up.”
Zelat cocked his head and winked at the king. “You should be honoured that people are thinking this.”
Alexander smiled at his two companions. “What amazes me is that the people’s rumours often are true.” The king leaned forward and shook his head. “The children, I have heard, are being told I rode a year from Clurafar into hell fighting wolves and dragon and demons in order to crush Nocturania. They say that my family …” He stopped, for he saw Belinda looking down. “They say I saved them. They say I am an angel.”
He smiled, putting his hand on her left knee.
”All the rumours are true except the angel part.”
Zelat lifted a finger and opened his eyes wide. “Amongst the people of Nocturania, the real people of the country, there was an expression. We had taken it from folklore and from fairytales. It said ‘what you hear through the grapevine is an echo of an angel’s kiss’.”
Alexander smiled.
“That is nice, but leave the angels their exclusive rights to glory.”
Belinda agreed.
“Never heard that expression, Zelat. I like it.”
”It means” Zelat continued “that rumours are like the waves that a stone makes on the water. The impact itself might be small, but the effects of the impact might be greater than the actual event. That is always to be remembered. The decision and the venture you take on might take less than a minute, but it might determine your future.”
“I was a messenger and very few of us know what I had to go through to get where we are now.”
Zelat waited for something to be said. No one said anything and so he continued. “I don’t know exactly everything that happened in that world, but I do know that it saved us all. No tyrannical king gives up and dies so quickly. No country can be so vastly transformed so fast. The people knew that when they heard that Nocturania from one day to the next had given up and that Adnicul was dead. Besides, the ghosts were gone. The rumours simply came from the vibrations that were circling around the country. You can’t hide that you are a hero, Alex!”
Alex brushed that off. “Hogwash, I did my duty, nothing more ...” He looked out the window and it was clear to Belinda that her father was still in pain. Something was unfinished. Something left uncertain. He was missing something.
Belinda shook her head, vehemently. “No, Father. Not hogwash. You saved us all. We would have none of this if you had given up somewhere along the way. You didn’t and that is why we are here.”
The father took his daughter’s hand and smiled. “You know I just did it for you.”
There was a spiritual connection there that seemed to break every bit of ice in the universe. The earth hummed and Zelat, the old man who had written Nocturania’s death notice five years ago, sat and looked at the two family members, not being able to help himself. They were drawn to each other.
A tear rolled down her cheek and she dried it away.
“Then, thank you, Father!”
Belinda let her head fall onto her Father’s shoulder and it lay there until they arrived in Clurafar.
Zelat G. Murani sat and looked out the window, thanking the Maker that he was here to experience this, happy just to be alive to see the Golden Age.
The two thirty-feet columns were the new entrance to Clurafar. The two eagles on each of the columns, one looking east and one looking west represented the newly found freedom.
On the left column was the name Matthew written in gold letters and above it an angel.
Under it the name Mark was inscribed in silver and a lion had been carved into the stone.
Under it was an ox with the name Luke under it in white and beneath this name an eagle whose accompanying name John decorated the left column in the colour blue.
The right column had three angelic names carved into its surface: Michael, Raphael and Gabriel.
There was a fourth name under that, carved in Gold at Alexander’s own request.
It read: Mercutio, my friend.
At the end and at the top of each column the words Dominus et Jesus Regnavit.
The design and the initiative and been only Alexander’s. It was a thank you note to another world.
By now, the king had become a legend.
When they arrived, it was Alexander who first said how wondrous it looked.
The others had no choice but to agree.
King Alexander never spoke to anyone but his family about what had happened in what all they called “the lost years”. But the people knew that other explanations were necessary. This monument too many proved that the rumours were true. Alexander had communed with angels, he had once had a secret horse and Mercutio must’ve been the one that he spoke of.
As the three dignitaries stepped out of the coach they had Theo drive his coach away toward the small house that had been built by after the gates. They walked to the family who had the door to the left house open. These two houses were small houses, no more and were intended as a resting spot for travellers and nothing more. Built in old style with roman columns they entailed a fireplace and a separate kitchen and a thermal bath by the way of a side entrance.
There was a path leading to the back where coaches could be parked and horses could be fed. Theo was leading the coach in the back of the other one across the road.
Clearly, there was massive activity inside the left house. The door was open and a fire had been lit.
Alexander was the first one to walk in.
Fabian almost tripped over the king’s feet as he did.
The boy looked up, holding Lance by the shoulder’s in the midst of a tickling fit. He smiled.
“Morning, Grandfather!”
There was a slight confused expression