A familiar voice behind her said, “What have you done?”
Elyce spun around.
“You self-serving, selfish daughter,” her father hissed. He was flanked by half a dozen guards who were obviously loyal to him.
Elyce took a step back, her stomach twisting at her father’s words and tone.
“How does it feel to betray your own father? To malign and castigate him in front of our people? Guards, seize her.”
There was a commotion behind her as the guards who had been conferring with Father Johannes ran forward to put themselves between her and the king’s guards.
“Stop!” Father Johannes cried. “There can be no violence in the Lord’s chapel! Stop!”
Elyce’s heart leapt inside her. She could not let anyone get hurt. She threw herself between the two sets of guards, extending her arms, causing the guards to freeze in place.
“Please! No fighting!” Elyce’s heart pounded so hard it seemed to reverberate through her whole body. “I do not wish for anyone to be harmed. You are all my people.” She stared into the eyes of her father’s guards. “He wished to force our people to serve King Claude, but it does not have to be thusly. King Claude is dead, and his brother, Bertold, is the new King of Valkenfeld.”
Her father’s guards looked surprised and glanced around at one another.
“It is true,” Father Johannes said behind her. “Now no one will be forced to work in the Valkenfeld mines.”
“This is all nonsense.” Her father’s voice grew louder with every word. “No one was forcing anyone to work in the mines. And now King Claude has been killed by his own brother? What treachery is this, I ask you?”
“Father, everyone knows that King Claude had already started taking people from their meadows and homes in Montciel and putting them to work in his mines. And they now know you were allowing it, for your own gain.”
“Treacherous child,” her father snarled.
“Do you deny it?” Elyce noticed that Sir Gerard and Sir Oswalt had just entered the dimly lit chapel and were standing to one side, listening.
“I deny you.” Her father’s expression twisted, his eyes looking dark and small. “You are no longer my daughter, no longer the Princess of Montciel. You are to be executed for treason against your king. Guards, seize her!”
A pain stabbed her heart at her father’s words. Did he despise her enough to kill her? His own flesh-and-blood daughter?
Sir Gerard moved forward, his sword drawn, Sir Oswalt just behind him, but her father’s guards barely moved, hesitating.
“You are my father,” Elyce said, “but not a loving one. You have never said you loved me, not once in my whole life. You sold your people to a foreign king. You ignored me and spoke to me as if I were the most unlovable person you had ever known, and you allowed your sister, Duchess Winifred, to criticize and coerce me.” Elyce had to stop and press a hand to her mouth as sobs threatened to overtake her. Already tears were flowing down her cheeks.
“Look at you,” her father said, his lips curling in contempt, “crying and making such a show. You never could control your emotions. You’re disgusting. Guards, I said seize her! Take her to her room and lock the door.”
Still the guards made little movement. Instead, they looked at the guards who stood with Elyce, ready to defend her.
No one laid a hand on her. But her father’s words were like a dagger in her heart, and the contemptuous tone he used was even worse.
Her own father did not love her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it. But if she’d ever doubted that fact, she no longer could.
Sir Gerard stepped forward and placed himself between Elyce and her father.
“Your people have spoken, King Leandre. They no longer trust your leadership after you made a detrimental alliance with a king who wished to harm them. The only royal person here who cares about the people of Montciel is Princess Elyce. The guards of Montciel know it, the priest of Montciel knows it, and the people of Montciel know it.”
“Why are you listening to this . . . this . . . ? And from a man who does not even belong here, an Englishman!” Her father was sputtering and spitting his words, so angry she could see how red his cheeks were even in the dark candlelit chapel.
“We pledged our loyalty to Princess Elyce,” a guard said behind Elyce. “We all have.”
Father Johannes stepped up beside Elyce, saying in a respectful tone, “And now we need you to go to your bedchamber and stay there until our princess—soon to be our queen—decides what to do with you.”
“How dare you!” Her father’s voice was hoarse. “I shall have you flogged. Seize him!”
No one moved.
“I order you to seize this false priest and this traitorous daughter! Seize them or I shall have you all put to death!” His hand shook as he pointed a finger at one of his guards, his face growing even redder.
If Elyce did not fear her father so much, she might have mentioned the fact that he was showing a lot of emotion at the moment, the thing he always criticized her for.
“You should go,” Father Johannes said softly to her father.
“I will go!” her father shouted. “I will go! Not because you said so, but because I plan to find my most loyal guards and send them to throw every one of you into the dungeon to await your execution. You will regret this!”
He shook his finger at them just before hurrying from the chapel, his boots clacking on the stone floors as he left.
Twenty-Four
The guards were now looking to Elyce and Father Johannes. The priest said, “Go and recruit any guards who have not heard of all that has transpired and persuade them that their loyalty is now to our soon-to-be queen, Elyce.”
The guards nodded and headed out of the chapel.
Sir Gerard’s eyes locked on hers, and he walked toward her. He glanced first at Sir Oswalt, then at Father Johannes. “Can you give us a moment alone, please?”
Elyce rubbed her cheeks with her hands to wipe away the tears on her face.
A moment later there was hardly a sound in the chapel besides her heart roaring in her ears.
“I am sorry you had to see me get so upset,” she whispered, wiping off the last of the tears from her face. “My father . . .”
“Your father treats you poorly, and that is not your fault.”
He had once said that honest emotion was nothing to be ashamed of. But surely, after what her father had said, he could not possibly see her as lovable. What was it her father had called her? Disgusting.
“It looks as if my people are safe.” The words made tears sting her eyes again.
He took a step closer to her. “Thanks to you and your diligence.”
“I had a lot of help. From you. From Sir Oswalt, Father Johannes, and Bertold and the guards and Jacob and Ysa.” Though saying Ysa’s name made her spirit sink a bit.
“But you are the one who stood up to your father and refused to allow him to harm your people. They owe their salvation from the Valkenfeld mines to you.”
“Thank you for your kind words, and please thank Delia for telling you about my troubles.” She hung her head, trying to hide her face from him as she wiped at the tears that were still leaking from her eyes. “I know you can’t possibly care for me. I am foolish and emotional and completely without self-control. But I shall never forget you.”