And with that thought Karl, seized with sudden fury and disgust at the brocade-bound, robed and stuffed Palacedwellers all around him, leaped to his feet and began to clap.
Teran stood first, as duty required, but everyone else followed a heartbeat later. You did not stay seated when the Prince stood. Nor did you refuse to applaud, and so applause there was, just enough to be almost polite, as the eight actors, five men and three women, took their bows. To Karl, they appeared pale and frightened…
… all but Verdsmitt. He bowed as though receiving the greatest accolades of his career, then joined hands with the rest of the cast and bowed again.
And at that moment, the first Royal guards burst onto the stage.
They rushed on from the wings, down from the back of the theater, from behind the set. Someone screamed, whether on stage or in the audience, Karl couldn’t tell, but it was over in a moment. The actors, hands bound, were dragged away. Lord Falk himself took charge of Verdsmitt, who accompanied the Minister of Public Safety into the wings with his head held high and even a hint of a smile on his face.
Karl watched it all in stunned silence, then was furious at himself for saying nothing. He was the Prince! He could have stopped the arrests-
But even as he thought that, he knew that he could do nothing of the kind. Falk would not answer to him. His orders, he would surely say, came from the King, and the King would certainly never gainsay him.
And then, to his shock, Teran seized his arms and pulled him toward the exit, almost as though he were under arrest himself. “What are you doing?” Karl shouted at him, pulling back.
“Please, Your Highness,” Teran said, a note of near panic in his throat. “Lord Falk ordered me to get you out of here when the arrest happened.”
That shocked Karl even more, and he let himself be pulled out into the hallway and toward his quarters, even as the rest of the audience spilled out behind him. But once they were in his sitting room, he rounded on Teran. “You knew about this arrest?” He remembered Teran’s comment that it should be an “interesting evening,” and his anger burned higher. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Your Highness,” said Teran, looking pale. “I had my orders. From Falk.”
“I am your Prince,” Karl snarled. “And your friend!”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Teran said softly. “But Lord Falk is my supreme commander. If I failed to obey his orders…” His voice trailed off. “I cannot disobey his orders, Your Highness.”
“You can if I tell you to!”
“But you didn’t tell me to, Your Highness. You did not order me to tell you of Falk’s plans to arrest Verdsmitt.”
“How could I order you to tell me about something I didn’t know about?” Karl shouted.
Teran flinched, but stood firm. “Even so, Your Highness. And so I had to obey the orders I was given, by Lord Falk.”
In disgust, Karl spun away from him, strode to the sideboard, and poured a glass of asproga. “And what are your orders now?” he said, then downed the fiery yellow liqueur in a single gulp.
“Lord Falk requests that you await him here, Your Highness,” Teran said.
“Then perhaps you had better wait for him outside, so you can confirm you carried out your instructions,” Karl said coldly.
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Teran. He went out into the hallway, and closed the door.
Karl, upset with himself, furious at what he had just witnessed and at Teran’s part in it, stripped off his ridiculous finery, donning in its place plain black trousers and a white shirt. Barefoot, he padded to the window and gazed out over the Palace grounds. The night was moonless, but globular magelights on metal poles cast circles of cold illumination every few yards along the paths that wound through the formal gardens. Their illumination revealed nothing out of the ordinary.
He squinted. Unless…
Karl had an enchanted device known as a “magniseer” beside his window. Tagaza had provided it to him so that he could study the stars. Somehow it canceled out the faint shimmer of the Lesser Barrier, allowing him a clear view. But now he seized the chill metal tube and pointed it downward, toward the Palace grounds.
There. Near the bronze equestrian statue of Queen Castilla, down at the far end of the gardens. Karl pushed at the focus lever, and turned the knob that made it as light sensitive as possible. The action of the magic within drew energy from the air around the device, frosting the controls. Karl blew on his fingers to warm them, then took a closer look through the magniseer. Even with the adjustments, he could not make out any features of the two figures lurking in the shadow of the statue. Still, they were obviously hiding-waiting for a signal, perhaps.
A signal that Davydd had been taken prisoner? And then what?
Karl watched them for the next few minutes, but they did nothing but lurk. He straightened up to relieve his back just as he heard the door opening in the other room.
Instantly he pointed the magniseer up to the ceiling, and was at the bedroom door before Lord Falk finished closing the main door. “Lord Falk,” Prince Karl said in his haughtiest I-am-royal-and-you-are-not voice, “I demand to know what is going on!”
“Of course, Your Highness,” Lord Falk said. “That is precisely why I have come.”
“ On your orders, Teran came perilously close to dragging me to my chambers, Lord Falk. I am still Prince, am I not?”
Lord Falk spread his hands, though his face remained expressionless. Karl suspected Queen Castilla’s statue could show more emotion than Falk when he didn’t want to reveal anything. “I trust Your Highness will forgive him,” Falk said. “He was following my orders. I feared there might be some unrest following the arrest of Davydd Verdsmitt and his troupe. As it turned out, those fears were unfounded, Verdsmitt’s play having scandalized even his most ardent supporters in the Palace.”
“Are you mad, Lord Falk?” Karl said. “Davydd Verdsmitt is the leading playwright of the kingdom and much beloved by the Commons. You may have arrested him without any ‘unrest’ in the theater, but when word of this reaches the Commons-”
“Unrest among Commoners is of little concern,” Falk said. “While magic lives, the Commons pose no threat to the rule of the MageLords. And despite the fond wishes of radical Common Causers like Verdsmitt, magic is not going to fail.”
Karl’s eyes narrowed. “If you aren’t worried about the Common Cause, why have you arrested him?”
“Not because he is a threat to the Kingdom, Your Highness,” Lord Falk said. “Because he is a threat to you. It was he who ordered and organized the attack on your person.”
“ What? ”
“My source is unimpeachable,” Falk said. “Verdsmitt ordered the attack.”
“Three days before coming to the Palace to perform?” Karl did not try to keep the skepticism out of his voice.
Falk shrugged. “Hubris. He either believed we would never find out, or else he believed he is untouchable because of his fame. In either case, more fool he.”
“But why would Verdsmitt want to kill me?”
“My working assumption is, as I told you earlier, as a simple act of terror. But I’m sure his exact motivation will become clearer after a thorough interrogation. Which I had best be about. If Your Highness will excuse me…?”
Karl waved a hand. “Of course. Please keep me informed.” Falk bowed and took his leave. Teran looked in momentarily, then stepped back into the hall, closing and locking the door behind him.
Karl went back to the magniseer.
The mysterious figures still waited in the dark. But even as he watched them, they moved.
He didn’t know what he had expected them to do. Approach the Palace, perhaps, maybe attempt to free Verdsmitt, armed with enchanted weapons provided by the same renegade mage who had provided the one that had mysteriously failed to kill him. But instead they went the other way, to the shore of the lake; and then, as he watched, they got into a boat and rowed out onto the water.