A Sea of Shields

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Kendrick dismounted as he reached this small, lonely village in the northern part of the Ring, this desolate part of the country where the villages lay far and few between. He had ridden a long and dusty road, winding ever north, and had spent the entire ride wondering if the news could possibly be true. Kendrick had followed so many false leads over the years, each bringing him to a woman who was clearly not his mother.

Yet this time felt different. Kendrick’s heart pounded as he clutched both halves of the medallion in his palm.

Kendrick had followed directions meticulously, weaving his way through the Ring, galloping to this lonely town in the northern country, until it had led him here. This town was slightly bigger than the others, with too many taverns; Kendrick passed too many crude types roaming the streets, stumbling, drunk even in the day. His heart pounded as he scanned the faces of all the people, wondering if any of them could be his mother.

Another part of him told him it was not possible. Why would his mother live in a place like this? Wasn’t she a princess? He had always imagined her living in a castle—but as he looked around, he saw nothing but humble dwellings. It made no sense to him. Had his squire made a mistake?

Kendrick wondered, for the millionth time, if his mother had known about him. Surely, she must have. After all, Kendrick was famous as the King’s bastard son. Why, he wondered, had she never claimed him? Had the King’s people scared her away?

Kendrick secretly hoped so. He secretly hoped he would find a woman who was alone, sad without him, jubilant to see him, restored once again from some deep sadness she had suffered with all of these years. She would have the perfect explanation for why she had been away. He hoped she would tell him that she had searched for him his whole life, had wanted to come see him, but had been forbidden, kept away for some reason.

Kendrick walked through the streets with high hopes, feeling as if one of the defining moments of his life was about to happen.

He scanned the faces, unsure who to look for. He looked for a middle-aged woman who might resemble him. He looked for the face he’d pictured in his dreams his whole life.

Yet he found no one.

Kendrick hurried up to an old woman who sat before a tavern and watched everyone who passed by, and wondered if perhaps she would know.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but do you know a woman named Alisa?”

The woman peered at him suspiciously.

“Alisa?” she repeated slowly. “Everyone knows her. What do you want of her?”

Kendrick’s heart quickened.

“Please, tell me where she is. I am her son.”

The woman’s eyes opened wide.

“Her son?!”

The old woman broke into hysterical laughter, a cackle that set Kendrick’s hair on edge.

“Her son!” she repeated, laughing, as if she found that the funniest thing in the world.

Kendrick blushed, annoyed, baffled at her response and beginning to lose patience. He did not understand why she found it funny.

“You insult me in some way I do not understand,” Kendrick said. “I am a member of the Silver. Show your respect and hold your tongue.”

The woman’s cackle slowly subsided, her face morphing into fear.

“Your mother can be found at the Red Horse Inn,” she said. “The last building at the end of the street.”

Kendrick turned and walked away, and her laughter rose up again. He did not understand what it all meant, and he brushed it off as the musings of a crazy old lady. After all, this was a small town, far removed from any big city, and the people here seemed rude to him. Again, he wondered what his mother could be doing here. Was he in the wrong place?

Kendrick finally reached the Red Horse Inn and tied his horse to a post outside. His heart pounding, his palms sweating, he turned to the door—when suddenly, three men burst out of it, wrestling each other down to the ground. Kendrick stepped aside just in time as they drove each other down, stirring up dust. They were drunk, cursing and kicking each other.

Kendrick turned and looked inside the open door, and heard shouts and laughs coming from inside, and wondered how this could be the right place. This appeared to be a tavern of ill repute, one not even befitting a member of the Silver to enter—much less the leader of the Silver.

Kendrick steeled himself, strutted inside, and slammed open the door with the back of his Silver gauntlet, banging it hard to make every head turn.

The room quieted as every man stopped and examined Kendrick. There was a look of respect and fear in their eyes, as Kendrick strode into the room, his spurs jingling on the hardwood floors. He walked right up to the bartender.

“I seek a woman named Alisa,” Kendrick said.

The bartender gestured with his head.

“The back room,” he said. “The red hair. But I think it’s too early for her,” he added.

Kendrick did not understand with the bartender meant, but before he could ask he had already moved on to another customer.

Kendrick turned and hurried to the back room of the tavern, an increasing sense of foreboding rising within him. This all felt wrong. None of this was making any sense. He was certain now that his squire must have been mistaken. What would his mother, the one-time partner of a King, be doing here?

Kendrick pushed back a black, velvet drape partitioning the back room, and he stopped short, shocked at what he saw.

Before him were dozens of women, scantily clad, paired up with men behind thinly veiled partitions. Dozens more women roamed the place, and Kendrick flushed as he realized immediately what this place was: a brothel.

Before he could turn to walk out, Kendrick’s blood ran cold as he saw a woman walking toward him, a smile on her face, middle-aged, the only one in the room with red hair. He felt his world slowly crumbling as he examined her face, and realized she looked exactly like him. An older, female version of him.

She smiled as she approached.

No, he thought. This cannot be. Not her. Not my mother.

“How can we serve you?” she asked Kendrick, smiling, laying a hand on his shoulder. “A real member of the Silver in our place. To what do we owe the honor?”

Kendrick’s face collapsed in dismay as he stared back at the woman, feeling all his hopes, ever since he was a child, crushed.

“I have come to see my mother,” he replied, his voice soft, humble, broken, his eyes filled with sadness.

Suddenly, the face of the woman crumbled; her smile dropped as she looked at him with confusion, then dawning recognition. She flinched and pulled back her hand, as if she had touched a snake, and her face fell with shame as she quickly covered herself up, wrapped the shawl around her shoulders modestly.

She raised a trembling hand to her mouth as she stared back at him, wide-eyed.

“Kendrick?” she asked.

Kendrick stood there, frozen, numb, not knowing what to say. He was overcome with dread and horror. Shame. Repulsion.

Most of all, disappointment. Crushing disappointment. His entire life had been spent as a bastard, and secretly, he’d always hoped to prove the world wrong, to prove that he had come from a royal mother, to prove that he had nothing to be ashamed about.

But now he saw the others were right all along. He was nothing but a bastard. He had never felt so low.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

But Kendrick had nothing more to say to her. He could not reconcile the image he saw before him with the vision he had always held in his mind. This woman could not be his mother. It was not fair.

“I’ve searched for you all my life,” he said slowly, his voice broken. “Unlike you—who never bothered to search for me. Now I understand why.”

His mother’s face flushed with embarrassment.

“You shouldn’t see me here,” she said.

“You’re my mother,” he said, accusingly. “How could you do this? How could you live your life like this? Have you no noble blood running through your body?”

She scowled, turning red. It was a look he recognized; he wore the same look when he was angry.

“You don’t know the life I’ve lived!” she replied, indignant. “You are no one to judge me!”

“Oh yes I am,” he said. “I am your son. If not me, then who?”

She stared back at him, and her eyes flooded with tears.

“You should go now,” she said. “You shouldn’t be in this place.”

He stared back at her, his own eyes welling with tears.

“And you should?” he asked.

She suddenly broke into a sob. She held her face in her hands.

Kendrick could not stand it any longer; he turned, drew back the velvet drape, and hurried through the tavern.

“Hey!” a beefy man said, reaching out and grabbing Kendrick’s wrist roughly. “You went behind the drape and you didn’t pay. Everyone pays, whether you sample the merchandise or not.”

In a rage, Kendrick swung the man’s arm around, twisting it behind his back, and brought the man’s face down on his knee, smashing it into the silver armor and breaking it.

The man collapsed to the ground, and the rest of the men in the tavern froze, thinking twice about coming anywhere near him. The entire bar stood still, as the men stared, silent.

Kendrick turned and strutted out the door, into the daylight, determined to wipe this place from his memory, and to never, ever think of it again.