Panchessa nodded, slowly and deliberately. "Then my son…" he asked, letting the question hang like a sword blade.
"With the greatest sorrow and shame, I must tell Your Highness that Prince Panchetto is dead. He was killed by Moaradrid, in a cowardly and unprovoked attack."
Panchessa's voice remained cold and level as black ice. "And Moaradrid?"
"Dead as well. It was… an accident, of sorts."
Panchessa reached out one hand to the throne, steadied himself just slightly. The four guards edged closer. He warned them away with his free hand.
"My sons…"
Or so I thought I'd heard, and the sentence hung tantalisingly unfinished. Surely he must have meant to say "son's". But his son's what? His son's body? Could he be asking about the crown?
Then he drew himself erect, not looking at Alvantes. Abruptly, he turned to leave, and his entourage fell in around him. At the last moment, Ludovoco — who until then had played no part in proceedings — leaned to whisper something in his ear.
The King stopped. With a gesture, he picked out two of his personal guard. Without turning, he motioned to where Alvantes still stood on the stage.
"Take him to the dungeons," he said, "and cut his damned traitorous head from his body."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Easie Damasco. I fear you fail to appreciate the severity of your situation. You are guilty of treason, despised in the eyes of men and gods alike. And tomorrow, your head shall be struck from your shoulders."
"It isn't that I don't appreciate the severity," I said. "It's more that I don't see it as being significantly worse than any other day I've had lately."
The Royal Inquisitor looked at me with struggling annoyance and disdain, as though I were an insect and he was trying to decide whether swatting me would justify the effort involved. "I'll ask one more time. Will you answer my questions sensibly? I can't promise clemency, but perhaps your honesty will be rewarded in another life."
All I could manage was a weary sigh.
If I'd learned one thing that afternoon, it was how underrated boredom was as a tool of interrogation. It was a constant struggle not to confess to something, anything, just to enliven the conversation. My questioning was well into its third hour, and it was fair to say that progress had not been quick.
I looked to Alvantes for the hundredth time, desperate for some hint of affirmation. He was sat just as he'd been since our incarceration had begun, knees tucked to his chest, eyes focused on some distant point beyond the barred window. The fingers of his right hand played idly around the grubbily bandaged stump of his left arm. All told, he seemed to be taking imprisonment for treason even worse than I might have hoped.
The Inquisitor tutted to draw back my attention and said, "Let's start from the beginning."
I managed one word, which sounded to my own ears like, "Gfargh." Summoning what mental energy I had left, I tried to rephrase my complaint into something more like language. "We've started again five times now. Why won't you believe I'm telling the truth?"
He rolled his eyes. "Because I strain to find one aspect of your story that's less than preposterous."
"It is preposterous. That doesn't mean it didn't happen."
"You really expect me to believe that you kidnapped a giant?"
"Not kidnapped," I said. "Borrowed. Or, at any rate, liberated."
"You kidnapped a giant from the insurgent Moaradrid. You stole the stone he was using to control this giant and others of his kind. Then you escaped…" The Inquisitor paused to make a great show of consulting his own notes. "By riding upon said giant."
"Until he got tired. Then I liberated a horse instead."
"And it was your theft of this so-called giant-stone that set about the chain of events which ended in Prince Panchetto's murder."
"No! I mean, how am I supposed to know? Maybe if I hadn't taken the stone… if Moaradrid hadn't been a murderous lunatic…"
Had my brain not caught up with my mouth just in time, I'd have added, if Panchetto hadn't had all the sense of a wet sponge. The truth was, every time we went over the events preceding Panchetto's death I found myself feeling a little more guilty; every time I narrated my role in the last hours of his life, I sounded more culpable. I was slowly being condemned by the power of suggestion.
The Inquisitor frowned down his nose, apparently now trying to impress my guilt on me through sheer intensity of expression. "Maybe? Why can't you admit your iniquity?"
"I've admitted plenty of iniquity. It just hasn't been for the crime you're planning to execute me for."
He stamped his foot. The gesture should have seemed petulant and ridiculous, but the suddenness of it — in the close confines of the cell — set my nerves jangling. "Admit it. Your visit to Altapasaeda ended with Prince Panchetto's death."
I struggled to keep my voice level. Something told me that losing my temper in a royal prison cell had the potential to end badly. "His death at the hands of Moaradrid. Look, I feel as bad about Panchetto's death as anyone…"
"You refer to His Highness, Prince Panchetto," hissed the Inquisitor. "And I sincerely doubt you feel as badly as his father."
I fought back a groan. "I feel as badly about His Highness's death as anyone who barely knew him could. But the fact is, he got on the wrong side of a madman — a madman with a large sword. Of course I'd have tried to help him if only I'd realised what was happening."
"Perhaps that responsibility, at least, can't be laid at your feet."
The Inquisitor turned his hawkish glower on Alvantes. Sensing his gaze, Alvantes glanced up just for an instant — and a faint shudder ran through him.
The sliver of a smile hung on the Inquisitor's lips as he looked back at me. "However, even if your version of events is true, the fact remains that it was your actions that placed Prince Panchetto in jeopardy."
He had me there. As much as I'd have liked to deny it, and even without all this interrogation, I did feel a certain amount of responsibility for Panchetto's death. After all, it was a safe bet he wouldn't have been promenading the dockside in the middle of the night if I hadn't burgled his palace.
Nevertheless, the truth was that Panchetto had practically offered his neck to Moaradrid — and Moaradrid had been only too willing to oblige. That left only two real culprits. Both were dead, and one of them also happened to be the victim.
If there was a tactful way of explaining this to the Royal Inquisitor, however, my brain was missing it. In fact, considered like that, it was easy to see why he might be eager to pin the blame on Alvantes and me. It might not be the truth, but it had virtues the truth lacked — things like neatness, closure, and the satisfying spectacle of lopping the culprits' heads off in a public place.
Maybe I really wouldn't be able to talk my way out of this one.
"I'm not saying my time in Altapasaeda was blameless." Seeing the glint in the Inquisitor's eye, I added hastily, "But I'd like to think I've been punished enough by subsequent events, not to mention this chastening spell of imprisonment. Given all that, and the fact I helped bring the real culprit to justice…"
The Inquisitor raised a hand to silence me. "Here we return to your claim that Moaradrid is dead."
"He is dead. Extremely dead."
He spared a glance for his notes. "Your claim that the giant pushed him off a bridge."
"Not pushed," I said. It was an accident. He fell."
"Yet no one saw the body."
"Fell from the top of a mountain."
"Nor did they see the impact."
"Into the sea. Assuming he missed the rocks."
"But no one saw?"
"He's dead!" If I didn't quite shout it, I definitely came closer than was prudent. Doing my best to sound apologetic, I added, "Believe me, the King can be safe in the knowledge his son's death has been avenged."