NINE

      ‘What the devil kind of answer was that?’ exclaimed Prince Conrig. ‘Was the cursèd thing mocking you?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Olmigon replied wretchedly.

      They were alone together in the royal bedchamber in Cala Palace. The cavalcade had arrived home around the eleventh hour, but the queen had refused to let Conrig visit his greatly weakened father until he had been put safely to bed. She would have forced the prince to wait until morning, but Olmigon would not take any sleep-inducing or painkilling medicine until he conferred with his son.

      ‘Sire — you’re certain the head of Bazekoy was real?’ Conrig could not hide his skepticism.

      ‘No, I’m not sure!’ croaked the king, in a feeble fury. ‘But the damned thing opened its eyes and looked at me, and its lips moved, and it had a snotty, overfamiliar manner at odds with any fake the Brethren might have rigged up. It was no puppet, I tell you! And if it was a sorcerer’s illusion, why did it insult me and then answer the Question with such casual ambiguity? Surely the Brothers of Zeth would have wanted to placate me with some soppy reassurance, rather than drive me daft with a riddle.’

      But the oracle couldn’t possibly be real, the prince told himself, feeling a pang of terrible presentiment. If it spoke true, then the great scheme’s attainment depended not on Conrig’s own meticulously planned strategy, but on this weak-willed, foolish old man who had already thwarted a bloodless victory over Didion.

      ‘“Only if you rise from your deathbed to assist him,”’ Conrig quoted. ‘What do you think it means, sire? Are we supposed to take the reply at face value, or are the emperor’s words only a metaphor for impossibility?’

      ‘I didn’t want to ask Abbas Noachil for his opinion, nor Kilian, either. The oracle’s answer is mine, Con — and yours! We must puzzle it out ourselves, king and king-to-be. It’s important. I’m certain of it.’

      Conrig was silent, searching his father’s ravaged face as his own mind was racked by turmoil. He had come to the king’s bedchamber this night resolved to have his way at any cost — to persuade, to browbeat, to do whatever was necessary to prevent this dying man from frustrating his plans for the invasion. He’d expected the oracle’s message to be pretentious nonsense. But this …

      ‘You’ve changed, sire,’ the prince finally said. ‘And I don’t refer to your advancing illness. Always before you treated me like an unruly child, belittling my aspirations, only grudgingly accepting my recommendations in Privy Council even when you knew well enough they were sensible and practicable. You treated me as a gadfly, a bothersome nuisance, never as a future king.’

      ‘Bazekoy said I was jealous of you,’ Olmigon said. He refused to meet Conrig’s eye. ‘Disappointed, rather! What joy have I ever had from my three sons? Stergos, my eldest, is ineligible for kingship because of arcane talent. My second-born, Tancoron, is a sweet-natured mental defective. And you-! Headstrong, insolently superior, aflame with crack-brained ambition, always convinced you’re right while I’m wrong.’

      Conrig could not help but smile. ‘True enough.’

      ‘Yet you were clearly born to some great destiny, as I was not.’ The words were spat out, like sour bits of unripe fruit. ‘Jealous? Why shouldn’t I be jealous? Look at you — bursting with confidence, young and strong! And me … the hunting accident that broke my body when I was scarce four-and-twenty put an end to any hope I had of performing valorous deeds. All I had to look forward to was a legacy of pain. Some men overcome such ill fortune. I … couldn’t. Instead I chose to rely on the strength of others. Sometimes that was for the best. But there were times when I should have done things another way, even when my advisors opposed me. I know that now. You know it.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I gave in too often. Wasn’t strong. And my choice of councilors … hasn’t always been sound.’ ‘You’ve never admitted that before.’

      The king laughed bitterly. ‘Emperor Bazekoy considerately pointed it out to me — along with certain other shortcomings of mine. I pondered his words during the long trip home and hated him. Hated him! I told myself over and over that the oracle was a lying fraud. But it wasn’t, Con. It told the truth about me … and if it did, then we must believe that it also told the truth about the two of us. My kingship is ending and yours will soon begin, but the Sovereignty of Blenholme depends on you and me.’

      Again there was silence, except for the old man’s labored breathing. His eyes were misty. ‘Is it too late to make it up between us? Bazekoy didn’t seem to think so.’ With an effort, the king composed himself. ‘Can’t we decide together what’s to be done about the immediate dangers facing our island?’

      ‘Perhaps we can try,’ Conrig said slowly. He sat in a chair at the king’s bedside, large hands resting easily on his black-clad knees, a man both resolute and cold of heart, as both of them knew.

      The king said, ‘You mustn’t castigate Odon Falmire for breaking your confidence and informing me about your council of war. The chancellor’s a loyal friend to both of us. When he heard that the Tarnian healer had given me only a short time to live, he felt it his duty to let me know what you were up to. It was necessary that Vra-Kilian know of it also, because I needed to have him windspeak you. But I adjured him to secrecy with a solemn oath. No one else on the Privy Council knows that you plan to make war on Didion. But I suppose we must tell them now.’

      ‘I’ve summoned the councilors to an extraordinary session tonight,’ the prince said. ‘I intend to tell them that a defensive war is in the offing, intended to repulse starving hordes from Didion who might attempt to cross Great Pass before winter snows close it down.’

      ‘You summoned my Council!’ Olmigon’s eyes widened in affronted disbelief. Conrig had usurped a royal prerogative.

      ‘Yes.’ The prince took from his doublet the writ, signed by the king, forbidding him from taking action against Didion. ‘You must understand, sire, that any discussion of ours concerning the dangers facing the kingdom will in no way be influenced by this.’

      At the king’s bedside was a nightstand holding a lit candlabrum and a silver tray with vials of medicine and a flagon of water. Conrig cleared the tray, then touched the corner of the vellum document to one of the candleflames.

      Olmigon cried out.

      The prince held up the burning parchment. ‘Shall I quench it?’

      The king hesitated only for a moment before turning his head away. ‘No. Let it burn.’

      Conrig dropped the flaming writ onto the tray, nodding in satisfaction.