“Aewyn?” his father asked, and rose to his feet—not startled, no. Upset.
Aewyn went at the matter in his father’s own way—head-on. “Where’s Otter?”
“In his rooms, one would have thought.”
Aewyn shook his head. “He’s not. He’s heard. I’veheard. He got a message from his gran by way of the Lord Commander. And you had already arranged the Guard to go with him in the dead of night, without seeing me! Why did you not tell me, Father?”
His father turned to the Lord Chancellor.
“My lord king,” the Lord Chancellor said, excusing himself, and Aewyn clamped his lips together and said not a word until witnesses, even the guards, had passed outside the doors.
Alone, his father stared at him until it occurred to him that he would lose, in any test of wills. It was his part to bow his head, unclench his jaw, however difficult, and adopt a milder tone.
“Why was I not informed?” Aewyn asked again, trembling with outrage.
“Where is he?”
“Not in his rooms. The fire’s still burning, but he’s not there. Neither is Brother Fool.”
“He was to leave,” his father said, ignoring the epithet. “Tomorrow. I’ve told the stables to notify the Guard if your brother should try to leave. I was going to speak to him tonight. Or earlier, if he appeared. I was going to send him off with a proper escort, all the help he and his gran could want.” His father drew a deep breath and his brows knit. “There was a message.”
“I read it.”
“It was a lie,” his father said. “Or at least, it was intended to give him an excuse.”
“ Youdid it!”
“I fear I did.”
“Then he’s taken off to help her, and it’s a lie?”
“He won’t have gotten a horse. Or passed the gates. The Guard will bring him back.”
“He’ll have walked out. He’ll have taken Paisi’s horse. He’s out there, in the snow.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because if he couldn’t get a horse at the stables, he knows where Paisi’s is, and he was going to ride him to the lodge.”
“What does the lodge have to do with this?”,
“We were going there, and he was going to ride Paisi’s horse, but I said you’d get him a better. But if he’s gone home, and not asked anyone, then he’s gone down and taken Paisi’s horse from the pasture.”
“Where will he have a saddle?”
“He couldn’t get one.”
“The boy can’t ride!”
“If he has to, he will,” Aewyn declared. He had not a doubt in the world. “He’d do it, for his gran. He loves her. And he’s not here! Father, how couldyou?”
His father sank into his chair. He looked tired and downhearted. “It wasn’t my best plan. Damn the luck, sit down. No, sit, I say! If you break into men’s councils, be ready to hear things that may displease you. There was no message. No real one, at least.”
“Then why is the Lord Commander—” he began to ask, but his father lifted a hand.
“Hush. Hush and listen. There is serious trouble. There is trouble in the Quinahine, beyond the matter of the spilled incense.”
“It was all cleaned up. And that wasn’t his fault!”
“It was not all cleaned up. Beyond it, I say. Marks remain, which some can see. I can’t. You can’t—I trust you can’t.”
“I don’t think so.”
“To your uncle’s eyes, and to your mother’s, and to Otter’s, I’m sure, the spot persists. It reappeared, on the new stone. And trouble is rising. Rumors. Accusations of sorcery that sit very ill. The Bryaltines are generally a peaceful sect, but the years since the war have brought a certain militancy to part of the sect, that which roots itself in Elwynor… in your mother’s kingdom. Hostilities breaking out between Bryalt and Quinalt in Guelessar is not a good thing for the treaty, for you, and most especially for your mother and your baby sister in any visit this spring. Do you understand me in this?”
“I understand about the Bryaltines. But that’s not Otter’s doing.”
“Most firmly it is not. But the manifestations are visible to your uncle— which, indeed, you are not to say, boy!”
“No, sir.” He was troubled. He knew his uncle was saintly and devout, and had a voice in the Quinaltine, and moved the priests when others couldn’t. He knew his mother saw things. “But what if there is a spot?”
“It’s not that. It’s an imperfection. A sign. There are haunts within the Quinaltine.”
“Haunts!”
“Something like. Or something worse. Our Otter is not welcome there, whether by the dead or the living, whether or not the scratches on the stones were helped along by mortal hands. There is something the matter, Efanor assures me. For his own safety, he should go away for a season—only for a season!—and then, then, I promise you, he will come back when things are quieter. We need not have the heir to Ylesuin involved in any whispers of impropriety, or, gods save us, blasphemy.”
“Blasphemy! He never—”
“Patience. Patience, I say, and we’ll have him back in the summer, or at latest, in the falclass="underline" it’s become imperative to have him back, not to have given in to this. He’ll come back a little wiser, better known to the people, to the priests, to the court. And ourselves a little wiser in the meanwhile. We’ll keep him out of the Quinaltine then. And things will have settled. They do, with time. Be patient.”
“I can be patient! It’s all very well for me to be patient! But he’s out in the snow! He’s had dreams about his gran, terrible dreams!”
“More than the one?”
“More than the one. And he’s been terribly scared for her.”
“Damnation.”
“So send someone to bring him back! To tell him it was all a lie!”
“He’s on his way. He should go.”
“Papa!”
“But I’d not have him riding away with no saddle, taking that damned message for the truth, either. I am entirely at fault here. If he’s afoot, we shall find him. And I count on you,” his father said, lifting a finger, “to remain here, dutifully, attending Festival as you should, being a very model of good behavior. I’ll ride after him myself, beg his pardon, and ask him to come back to us this summer, when you may go to the lodge, hunt, do what you like. May I count on you?”
He had never heard of his father apologizing. Ever. For the king to ride off and miss the last ceremonies of Festival was no small thing. He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, Papa.” He hadn’t used that word in the last year. But this was his papa talking, now, the man who had used to carry him on his back. It was his papa, not the king, who was going after Otter, and who stood the best chance of finding him. “Tell him… tell him I’ll see him this summer, and I’d have done something to stop him if I’d known.”
“I’m sure you would have,” his father said, and stood up and hugged him, and rang for the Guard. “Get my cloak, get my horse, get an escort. Now!”
“My lord king,” the answer was, and things happened quickly from that point.
Aewyn could only trudge back to his room, his troubled guard shadowing him. He wanted to turn and shout at them unreasonably to go away and do something useful, but they had to be there. He was the heir, and the Prince’s Guard always had to be there, for the rest of his life, no matter what he wanted.
v
STABLEBOYS SCURRIED, THE STABLEMASTER PROTESTED HE HAD AUTHORIZED no use of a horse, and sent some feckless boy to take inventory, great loving gods! inventoryin the tack room, as if that mended matters, or as if he had time to hear it. But a halter was missing from the stall nearest, and no one could find it.