Pentigrast Read Online Free Page A

midwives’ and clergy were summoned to a secret conclave and the princess was brought before them and stripped naked. They poked and prodded her frame and checked every nuance of her body, but it was too early to tell if she was indeed with child or merely eating through her emotions due to the pending betrothal. That night I was summoned by the Arch bishop and told of the day’s events. I was then ordered to keep my eyes on the princess and the comings and goings of all people to her chambers as well as anyone she might meet with elsewhere. I was bound by the church and I obeyed my orders but secretly wondered why a man of my talents would be wasted on such a mundane chore.”
     
    I watched and I waited for weeks and saw no one but chamber maids, servants, ladies in waiting and the king’s guard, more specifically you, Talen. Not accustomed to such trivialities and angered at my use in this matter I didn’t give it the attention it deserved, because if I would have I would have discovered that you were her lover. I gave all this information over to the Arch Bishop in daily reports, his eyes and ears in the palace quickly realized that you were the lover and that is when the Queen and council had you summarily dismissed from the longriders and the princesses private guard. Another month passed and I was again called before the Arch Bishop who sternly dressed me down for not taking my task seriously. I was told I would be sent away to the parish of Downwater but before I left he had one final task for me. I was to meet the queen at the chambers of the princess and do what I was told. When I arrived I was led into the chambers, the princess lay naked on a wooden table already dead. I was handed a small bundle wrapped in a blanket and told to dispose of it in the barrens past the borderlands, it was your child, Talen, and it was dead.”
     
    “You tell me a tale that I already know well old man, now if that is all…”
     
    “No, that is not all, if you know of me as well as you would like to think you do then you know that I am an accomplished killer of men. The princess didn’t die giving birth to your child she was murdered, the tell tale sign of faint bruising to her neck was all I needed to see. As I left the city for the borderlands of Quinth I stopped and inspected my obscene package. The child was pulled from the womb in pieces and at best was but 4 months into its lifecycle. It was not possible that she died giving birth.”
     
    Talen listened quietly, his face belying the anger and sorrow overtaking him “Why would anyone want to murder the princess much less her own mother?”
     
    “Exactly what I thought Talen, I assumed my skills would be needed to dispose of you, the lover, not to dispose of a dead infant. These questions weighed heavy on my mind, I took no joy in carrying out the perverse orders of the church or the queen and I had questions that needed answers. I reported to Downwater parish as ordered but quickly made excuses within the month to be elsewhere on an urgent matter. I traveled back to the kingdom and stealthily made my way into the crypts beneath the castle, and do you know what I found?”
     
    “Dead people” replied Talen mockingly.
     
    “No, what I found was something very peculiar. When I opened the princess’s crypt it was empty with no sign that she had ever been interred there at all, but I did find something curious, a pentagram drawn in blood on the floor with one inverted point which would have been aimed directly at the princesses resting place.” Do you understand me now Talen, do you see.”
     
    “I understand nothing. I have heard wives tales like this many times in my life, most are well travelled and bloated with lies.”
     
    “You know I speak plainly the truth, you saw with your own eyes the pentagram in the barrens. Do you mean to tell me you believe these tales unconnected and nothing at all to do with you?”
     
    “I mean to tell you I am tired and I