Arthur walked down the crowded streets of Birmingham taking in the sights and sounds, it was so strange to be walking through the crowded streets, not a soul knowing him, nor caring. He was as anonymous as the next man. Even the huge sword strapped to his back was nothing to be excited about, there were so many soldiers that had been released and were making their way home. It was almost strange to see a man of Arthur's age without a sword strapped about them. It had been almost three days since he had left, and he was feeling good, except for the occasions that Guinevere popped into his mind. He still felt like a heel for not speaking to her in person, but he knew that if he did, he would have been caught trying to convince her, then Percival, and God knows how many others. No, he had made the right decision.
Now he was his own man, he felt that any decisions he made, well, they were made for him, not for the cause or for the good of the country. It was far more freeing than he had even had the slightest idea that it would be. Like the fact that he was hungry and he decided to eat at a small tavern that he saw up on the left. In the past, there would have been no chance that he would have been able to do that simple thing. At least not without the place being cleared by a hundred guards, leaving him and whoever he was with to eat and drink. He just wanted to sit down, have a pint, maybe some stew, and listen to the conversations that usually flowed throughout the bar area.
He entered and not one person even looked at him, which made him smile, it was proved again that he was nobody, and nobody cared. He walked up to the bar and leant against the well worn top waiting for service.
"What can I get you, Son?" A skinny man of about sixty years asked him.
"A pint and maybe some food, what's good?" He asked.
"It's all good, Lad. But, I would say the Shepherds pie is the best of them." The Barkeep answered,
"Fair enough, I'll have the pie and some bread." Arthur said with a small smile.
"Take a seat and one of me girls will bring it out in a few." As he drew the pint and placed it on the bar, spilling a few drops so a ring formed on the bar top.
Arthur picked up the pint and took a long swig, it was the best beer he had tasted since he left Hong Kong. Probably because he was tasting it as a free man, the beer was probably very average, but just the act of sitting in the pub and not have twenty people fawning over him made it like liquid gold. Arthur sat at a long table that was over near the fire place, the table top had hundreds of initials and names carved into it, it must have been a tradition among the locals. So he took out his small dagger and set about carving his initials into the old wooden top. 'A.P.'
A few minutes passed and a pretty girl came over with the largest pie that he had ever seen in her hands. Arthur was a little shocked at what a few copper coins could buy here, the girl seeing his shock spoke up.
"Things are a little different now the Royalists are gone, Good Sir." She explained.
"How so?" He asked.
"Well, since the Born King has returned, the people are happier, business has been excellent and there has been plenty of money and jobs about." She went on. "The King has always stopped the businesses from getting to successful, and those that did ended up in the hands of the King's favourites." She looked sad for a moment. "More'n a few good people were disappeared over the years, but now King Arthur has returned and the war is going so well, we don't fear the 'Black Hearts'."
"You will have to excuse me, I'm from the North-East, I have not heard of these 'Black Hearts'." He explained.
"Think ye' self lucky, Sir. The 'Black Hearts' are the Secret Police, they make people they don't like disappear." Tears started welling I her pretty green eyes.
"You lost loved ones to these bastards?"
"Aye, that I did. Me ma and Pa were targeted because the Mayor didn't like Pa. They fought over me Ma years before."
"What happened to the Mayor?" Arthur was feeling very angry.
"He sits in his office still. He has thugs that keep those of us who know the truth silent."
"But, you are telling me."
"Aye, but ye just be a passerby, we that live 'ere know better."
"Has anyone tried to tell the King's Army?"
"I've said too much, too many ears round 'ere." She started to leave.
"Wait a moment, I might be able to help you out a bit. Meet me after your shift, I want to hear all about the Mayor and his bully boys. Please?" She looked at him for a moment, nodded slightly and walked away. The Barkeep whispered something to her and she shook her head and smiled, he was clearly making sure the newcomer hadn't been inappropriate to her. The man nodded and went back to wiping the bar top down.
Arthur ate, what turned out to be, one of the best shepherds pie he had ever tasted, sopping up the last of the gravy with the fresh crusty bread. For the next hour, he sat there watching the world go by and slyly listened to the patrons as they chatted about how different life was under the control of the loyalists, and how the Royal Soldiers had run like scalded cats when the Loyalist Army shattered the lines and rushed through the western cities like a flood of death. The were the usual bravado and tall tales that old men in pubs throughout the country told when they were three sheets to the wind. Sometimes Arthur found himself smiling at the tales told.
"See Bill, even those that don't know you laugh at the rubbish that you spill." A big man slapped the older man on the shoulder and pointed to Arthur. All the men laughed and the old man just argued his story all the harder, Arthur tried to appear as part of the furniture so they didn't pay too much attention to him. But, that was never going to happen.
"Oi, you there." The big man called at Arthur. "Where was you in the war?"
"Here and there." Arthur said trying to avoid too much attention.
"What does that mean, Lad?" the man continued. "Was ye a soldier or wasn't ye?"
"Yes, Sir. I served my King." They all smiled.
"Well come on over Lad, we need some fresh stories, Ole Bill here is getting stale." All of the others at the table started yelling for him to come over, and no matter how much he declined, if he wanted to avoid a scene, he would have to join them. He walked over and sat at the table across from Ole Bill, who despite being the butt of all the jokes was as keen as the others to hear Arthurs story.
"So what's ye called, Lad?" Better to have as much truth as he could, lies were always too easy to catch out.
"Arthur, Arthur Pennant."
"Good name that, the name of the Born King." They all agreed with an amount of awe as he was mentioned, well his former life as the Born King, anyway. "So where was ye stationed, Arthur Pennant?"
"The King's Guard." You could have heard a pin drop when he mentioned the King's Guard. "I was a Lieutenant in the fourth platoon."
"Did ye see any action?"
"I saw my fair share." He responded nonchalantly. "But most of the time we were running point for anywhere the King wanted to go."
"That's something to be proud of lad, I wouldn't want the responsibility of protecting King Arthur." Ole Bill said with reverence, the others nodding in agreement. "Why you here, get injured?"
"No, Bill. I requested discharge, my family suffered in the early part of the war and I want to return home and help fix the homestead." The men all looked satisfied at the reason he gave.
"Aye, a great many people suffered under the iron fist of the 'Black Hearts'." A man that Arthur hadn't heard the name of said. "More'n a few disappeared from around here too, Lad." A mordlin feel settled over the group, clearly remembering the men and women that they knew who were gone now, and usually for no other reason than the Secret Police had taken a dislike to them. Arthur felt a heavy sadness rest on his heart when he thought about the horrible deaths these people would have suffered.
The mood lifted pretty quickly when Arthur bought the next three rounds, nothing made a local happier than a new face buying them beer. So for the next few hours the men continued to tell tall stories and laugh uproariously as Arthur tried to out do the others with tall tales about his imaginary service. There was no way that he could tell them the real story, not that they would believe him anyway. Finally the owner called time and the men slowly staggered out of the pub and stumbled off down the street. Arthur had had the most enjoyable evening he had had in many a long day, the men were friendly and ready with a joke. More than that, they saw Arthur as a serviceman that had done his duty and didn't push him.
He waited in the alley behind the pub, the waitress would come out this way in a little bit, she had whispered in his ear just before time was called. He leant against the brick wall and thought about what the men and the waitress said to him about the 'Black Hearts' and the way the Mayor was hiding his guilt by threatening the people with his gang of thugs. This sort of thing was what he should have been told from the start, but the soldiers had considered the public a low priority when there were Royalist forces nearby. It wasn't an excuse, but by the time that the enemy had been moved far from the city, the bad guys had plenty of time to put their plans and thugs into play. He might not be the King-in-waiting anymore, but he was still able to make life hard for those that would threaten and hurt those that could bring down their petty little empires.
The door to the pub opened and the young woman stepped out, she was rugged up with a coat and a thick scarf. Her name, he found out was Honour, and she was twenty two years old and she had worked at the pub for two years. She was a student at the local university, but when the Loyalists started making waves, the King ordered that only men of good breeding could attend higher learning institutions. Women should be happy keeping house for the men, not trying to do jobs better suited to men, according to his Uncle Harold. Arthur was again horrified at the thought of alienating half the population simply because of their sex.
She smiled as she approached him, it was a smile that would light up a room, and he wondered what this young lady would do now that the Loyalists had evicted the previous regime from the area?
"Hello, Honour." He said with a small smile.
"Good Evening, Sir." She replied happily. "I see you were the life of the party with Ole Bill and his mates."
"Yes, they are a lively bunch, Ole Bill has a very active imagination, I must say." Honour just smiled and nodded.
"So may I walk you home? Then you can tell me about this Mayor of yours." Her mood darkened at the mention of the Mayor.
"Aye, that would be gladly received kind Sir." she said. Arthur could see that she was weighing up the man in front of her and whether she could trust him with more of the story.
"When the Loyalist Army started attacking the garrison outside the city, the Mayor saw that thing's were not going well and he went about employing some of the most vile of men to act as his personal guard." Arthur could see the cloud of sadness that fell over the vibrant young woman. "There were a few people that had said they were going to tell the Loyalists that the Mayor had been a direct source of information for the 'Black Hearts'." She paused for a moment to look around them, there was no one about. "One of the men was a respected Doctor, and then one night, his house burned down, with him in it."
"I gather this wasn't an accident." Arthur asked.
"Doctor Halliwell was a very careful man and there was no way that he would have left one of his burners going. It was just the will of God that his family was of visiting his wife's sister when the fire was set."
"I assume that he was not the only one?"
"No Sir, there have been more than ten people that were a threat to the Mayor, that have had convenient accidents in the last year or so, the only thing they had in common was that were going to report the Mayor to the Army." She was clearly scared to be talking about this subject. "There have been others that have suddenly decided to move, or have become unusually quiet. I have heard tell that the Mayor's security have had quiet words with them all."
"How do you know all this, Honour?" He asked. "I believe you, it is just an unusual source of information for me."
"Sir, you would be shocked at the things that you over hear when you are cleaning tables. Most think that because I'm a girl who waits tables, that I am deaf, dumb and blind." Arthur nodded as he listened, he had been guilty of that exact mindset. It was then that he noticed that it was dead quiet, not even cats and dogs were out and about.
"Why is it so quiet, Honour?" He asked.
"The Mayors men are on the prowl around this time of night, they are above the law." She explained. "They have been treating the town like it was their own little fiefdom. There have been a lot of incidents that the police won't investigate, on the order of the Mayor."
Arthur felt the anger rise in him as she talked and he heard about the attacks that had taken place over the past months. She explained that the Barkeep had usually walked her home, but Arthur had offered and Ole Bill said he was a good sort.
"Thank you for trusting me with this information, Honour."
"I just hope there is something good that can come out of this, are you going to fix this, Sir?"
"I will do all I can to help, just make sure you keep your head down. I don't want you to be put at risk because of me."
They reached her lodgings and he kissed her hand and thanked her again for the information. She smiled and blushed as he kissed her and, it was not something that happened to a bar maid on a regular basis. She said goodnight and disappeared into the boarding house, looking back at him as she closed the door. A small smile on her face.