Prologue

After vicious pounding on the thin wood, the flimsy door was smashed in and a woman was dragged out of her hut and thrown onto the ground in front of the waiting knights outside.

"We know you have it," a soldier spoke. His armor was finely polished and showed none of the dull sheen that the other knights' outfits possessed, revealing him to be the general. "Hand it over now, in the name of the king," he commanded.

The peasant at his feet looked up with a fierce fire of hatred burning in her eyes. Her dark, tangled hair reached down to her shoulders, barely touching the material there that had once been part of a beautiful and lavishly embroidered outfit. Now it was reduced to faded rags.

"You will never have it," the woman spat. The general slapped the side of her head and sent her sprawling.

"Then you know the punishment for your defiance," he responded coolly. The woman slowly sat up and wiped the blood from her cheek. In the silence, a child's voice could be heard crying from inside the hut.

"You would have killed me anyway," the woman responded. The general motioned for two knights to bind the woman's hands in front of her, and the company proceeded down the dusty road to the castle. As the barefooted woman crossed the splintery drawbridge, she stealthily reached into a small pocket at her hip and produced a small blue rock attached to a long silver chain. She let the necklace fall through the cracks in the drawbridge and listened to the splash as it hit the moat below. No one would find it now. Her daughter would be safe.

The group arrived in the castle courtyard, where a scaffold was set up, displaying a single noose. The woman was grateful that her method of execution would be fairly quick, nothing like drowning or being burned at the stake. She ascended the stairs and stepped out on the platform, coming in full view of the congregation that had gathered to watch her last few moments. They had come to see a show, and she had been cast as the lead role.

An announcer began to read from a scroll, listing the reasons for her fate. She was accused of being a heretic, charged with disobedience to the king, and just for effect, some commoner crimes such as stealing were added in. Anything plausible had been put in the list to increase the extent of her unlawful past. But the one thing that she was guilty of—the one and only reason she was there—was the only accusation not read to the public.

The woman's eyes roamed the audience for the one face she knew, wondering if he would be too much of a coward to show his face. Finally, she saw him, in the back of the crowd. Of course, dressed in commoner's clothes, he blended in perfectly, just as he had when he had made secret trips to her home, without the queen's knowledge. But that had been back when he had still loved her. Before he had become blind for the need for an heir—for the need of a son.

The executioner placed the noose around her neck as the tempo of the drums increased. The rough rope chafed her skin, but she paid it no attention; her life would be over too soon for anything to matter anymore. Her eyes were fixed on the man at the back of the crowd. The king only returned her look with a steady gaze of his own. Suddenly there was silence; the floor beneath her gave way, and she dropped—