I rose from the chair where I’d passed the last hours of the night, paced over and offered him my hand. “Prince Malekrin,” I said. “What a surprise to find you here.”
Ignoring my outstretched palm, Malekrin hopped to his feet and backed away from me, looking somewhat like a startled rabbit. “Surprise?” he spat; his eyes were on the remains of the tripwire I’d set above the third step and the bundle of pans and cups I’d hung from the other end, which were now spread over the tiled floor.
“All right, you’ve got me,” I admitted. “The truth is I may have been hoping to run into you. And I’d have hated for you to leave without seeing me, after I’d come all this way.”
Malekrin took another backwards step towards the door, placing a table between him and me. He looked tired and dishevelled; I suspected he’d slept in his clothes, and that they’d still been damp when he’d got into bed. There was less of the cocky bravado I’d come to expect from him in his expression, more a nervousness that he was trying hard to hide. “You’ve come to take me back,” he said. “Well, I’m not going. You can’t make me.”
“You’re right,” I said, “I’ve come to take you back. Not through choice, mind you. Still… I’m not going to try and force you.”
“You couldn’t,” he said.
“You’re probably right,” I agreed — and even as I said it, I fantasised briefly about the other, simpler plan I’d toyed with, the one that involved my cosh and the back of Malekrin’s head. “So there’s no hurry for you to leave, is there? Frankly, you look like a bucket of boiled shit, Mal. Why don’t you join me for breakfast? If you want to keep running, you’d do better on a full stomach.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “I told you,” he said, “I’m damned if I’m going back.”
“Yes, you told me,” I agreed, pulling up a chair at the nearest table. “Ho, Marga,” I bellowed, “what are the chances of getting a little service in here?”
Marga, the innkeeper whose acquaintance I’d made during the night, bustled into the room. It was a safe bet that she’d been woken by my little booby-trap, just as I had, and that she’d been listening at the door ever since. “I can make porridge,” she told me grudgingly.
With the money I’d given her last night to light the taproom fire and let me misuse her culinary implements, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect a fresh lobster flown in from the coast by a squadron of trained eagles. Still, I had no desire for an argument on two fronts. “Porridge will suffice, so long as it’s hot,” I agreed, “and so long as you warm two cups of good red wine to serve along with it.”
“This isn’t Altapasaeda,” she said, “I can’t promise you better than mediocre wine,” and she disappeared back into the kitchen.
Malekrin stayed on his feet until the smell of cooking porridge began to waft in through the doorway; then, grudgingly, he sat, at the farthest corner to me. “I’ll eat with you,” he said. “And then I’ll leave.”
“Fine, you do that. At least I can tell your grandmother I got a meal inside you. Maybe she’ll give me a blindfold when they chop my head off.”
He let that one go, and I didn’t press the point. The scanty hours I’d spent asleep before the fire had done nothing but emphasise how exhausted I was, and my stomach was growling as fiercely as any angry mother bear. I couldn’t deny that this plan had as much to do with serving my own bodily needs as it did keeping Malekrin in place.
So we sat in stubborn silence, neither of us looking at the other, as the odours drifting from the kitchen became almost too much to stand. Just as I was beginning to wonder deliriously if starting breakfast with my own fingers might not be the worst idea I’d ever had, Marga flurried in with a broad platter in her arms and crashed it down upon the table. There were two deep bowls and two brimming cups, each now sitting in its own ruby puddle.
The final result was a considerable improvement on what I’d been expecting. There was dried apple and raisins in the porridge, and a swirl of honey and milk floating upon its surface. Just then, I thought it was the most enticing thing I’d ever laid eyes on. A glance at Malekrin told me that he was just as captivated, however hard he was trying not to show it; the drool working unnoticed down his jaw was a sure giveaway.
First things first, though: I caught up my cup and tipped half its contents down my throat, almost groaning with pleasure as its rousing warmth worked into my veins. Marga had been too hard on the local vintners, the wine was at least decent, and in my present state of mind I was willing to believe it might even be quite good. Slamming my cup down, I nodded to Malekrin, and with some reluctance he picked up his own — reluctance, at least, until the first drops ran into his gullet. When he finally managed to tear the cup from his lips, there was barely a finger’s breadth of fluid left swirling in its base. He gave a trembling sigh. For a moment, I thought he might even smile.
“Better?” I asked.
Malekrin frowned. “Your southern wine tastes like horse piss.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, “I’ve never drunk horse piss. I hear you wean babies on it up in Shoan?”
Malekrin leaped to his feet, his face flushing.
“Sit down,” I said, “and don’t insult your hostess. Manners are manners wherever you go; the wine’s fine and you know it.” I dipped a spoon into my bowl, shovelled a mound of grey sludge into my mouth and chewed. “So’s the porridge,” I added. “You should try it.”
Reluctantly, Malekrin sat down again. He stared hungrily at his bowl, but although his fingers twitched near his spoon, he didn’t pick it up. “How do I know this isn’t a trap?” he said.
“A trap?” I asked. “Does it really look like a trap?”
Malekrin pointedly turned his eyes to the tangle of kitchenware near the base of the stairs.
“I’ve already explained that,” I reminded him. Then, when he still made no move to claim his spoon, I shoved my bowl across to him and dragged his untouched one to me. “There. If it’s a trap, we’re both in it now.”
Perhaps that was enough to satisfy him; from the longing in his eyes and the way his jaw had been slowly working at nothing, however, I thought it was more likely that ravenousness had simply won out. He clutched the spoon as if it was a timber thrown a drowning man, and ten quick mouthfuls had vanished before he even paused to breath.
“Careful,” I said. “You’re no use to anyone if you choke.”
Malekrin managed to tear his eyes from the bowl long enough to spare me one of his characteristic frowns. “I don’t want to be any use to anyone. Not you, not my grandmother, not the people of Shoan. I don’t want to be my father. I don’t want to be a hero.”
I doubted he was in much danger on those last two points; certainly, the only similarity I could see just then between the tired, dishevelled boy before me and the ferocious warlord who’d so dramatically upended my life was that they were both colossal pains in the arse.
“So what then?” I asked. “You’re going to roam the Castoval like a vagabond?”
“I have money,” he said. “And I’ve got skills. Maybe I’ll become a fisherman.”
“Or a cutpurse. You still have the crown, I suppose? Any thoughts on what you’re going to do with it?”
Malekrin looked wary. “That’s my problem, isn’t it?”
“The only possible heir to the throne,” I said, “wandering around with the crown of the Castoval. They’ll never stop looking for you, you know. If it isn’t your grandmother, it’ll be the King. Or someone else… someone even worse, maybe.”
“They won’t find me.”
“Oh? Because I had so much trouble.”
Malekrin gave me another filthy look and returned aggressively to his porridge. I left him to it for a minute and then said, “There are other possibilities, you know. Other than becoming the next top warlord of Shoan or getting your head lopped off by your grandfather, I mean. If you’re so smart and capable, why not put all that ability towards something useful? Like trying to stop a war?”