The boy tried to think that through.
"There is no doubt now, though?" he muttered.
"None at all. Prince Vindax is dead," the duke said.
"Ah!" Young Sir Griorgi bent over and picked up his pouch, almost falling from his settle. "I have some more documents, Your Grace."
So that was what the duke was after! The courier produced a bulky package, wrapped in black ribbon. The duke rose and almost snatched it.
"One for you, my lord," he said to the vice-marshal.
Ninomar took the document and examined the royal seal carefully, then broke it open. It was the missing citation, explaining his star. He squinted in the firelight. For diligence in searching for the body of...well, that was better. A little weak, though. He wondered uneasily if he had merely been given a bribe to make sure that he was on the right side.
But there was more. He looked up in surprise at the duke.
The duke was scowling at another parchment. "I am summoned to court, Ukarres," he said. "At my earliest convenience, to do homage to the new king."
"Your post is here!" Ukarres said sharply.
"The frontier is quiet, surely?" Ninomar muttered.
"It may not be so much longer," Ukarres replied cryptically. He and the duke were frowning about something. The courier was slumping on the settle, sliding silently into one corner, his eyes closing.
"And here," the keeper said, "a death warrant for the man hitherto known as Prince Shadow, convicted in absentia of high treason, the sentence to be carried out in accordance with the law of..." He read on for a while and then growled. "That belongs with the cooks' recipes!" He tossed the parchment onto the table with an expression of disgust.
It was very fortunate, thought Ninomar, that the man in question had taken the hint and drilled a hole in the sky. Not a bad kid, really. He had even had the tact to leave the fake orders which Ninomar had made for him--and had so quickly destroyed when he recovered them. He hoped that young Shadow would find a better life in Piatorra, if he had the sense to go that far. He should be there by now.
"And," the duke said, "a royal letter addressed to my daughter."
He stared at it thoughtfully and again exchanged glances with Ukarres.
Ninomar coughed politely. "I am instructed to escort Lady Elosa to court, Your Grace."
The duke took the orders from his hand without asking and read them through. His face grew grimmer than ever.
"Her mother is not invited also?" Ukarres asked.
"No," the duke said. "And the letter to me suggests that she is to remain and hold the castle."
Sir Griorgi was asleep, snoring. The duke leaned down, peered in the courier pouch, and took out a second package, this one wrapped with red ribbon.
Ukarres chuckled.
"These, I suppose," the duke of Foan said, "were to be delivered in the event that Vindax had been recovered and was alive?"
"A reasonable supposition," the old man said, grinning.
Both of them glanced at Ninomar, who smiled politely.
The duke laid the package on the table and opened it.
"Another for you, my lord."
The vice-marshal felt his hands shake as he opened it. He peered at the writing, finding it very hard to focus. Then it was removed from his hand.
"You had it upside down," the duke said. "Let's see...an order for you to conduct the man calling himself Prince Vindax to court at once, regardless of his physical condition. Mmm? Also to conduct myself. At once. Interesting. I think you would have earned your bauble, my lord. Yes, here is the citation for it. Postdated, this one, I see. You would have had to deliver the goods."
Ninomar took a long drink, emptying the tankard.
"And a summons for me," the duke said. "To come at once, though--no mention of convenience. No mention of Elosa. And a proclamation of bastardy against the person calling himself Prince Vindax! Well, well!" He was almost as red as the unconscious courier now, flaming with anger. "It takes two to make a bastard, I understand. I wonder how the little punk's mother feels about this, if she knows. And here? A warrant, promoting Ensign Harl to flight commander!"
Ninomar was speechless.
"I wonder what he would have said? I think that young man's price might have been higher than flight commander." The duke glanced thoughtfully at the vice-marshal's chest.
Ninomar quietly tucked the Order of the Eagle, Second Class, inside the edge of his tunic, out of sight. Dukes should be humored when in this sort of mood.
Foan read on. "Ah! There's more. Sir Hindrin Harl and his wife have been released from jail." He looked thoughtfully at Ukarres.
"Aurolron said that his background was relevant," the old man wheezed. "It would be Schagarn he was covering, I should guess. Both, maybe. The new king would prefer willing witnesses?"
The duke frowned angrily. It was all well above Ninomar's head, but he was not going to ask.
"The little creep has been busy," Ukarres remarked, probably referring to his liege lord, King Jarkadon X of Rantorra.
"Very." The duke bundled up the second group of documents and stuffed them back in the courier's pouch. "We'll let this lad worry about these, I think. They are irrelevant, as the prince is dead."
He sat down and reached for the copper jug. "Now, Ukarres, do I run to court like a whistled dog? Or do lock up my daughter and tell the king to--" He stopped. "Well?"
There was a thoughtful silence. Ninomar remembered that he had orders to escort Elosa and began to sweat even harder than before.
"Aurolron is gone," Ukarres said. "How long until they find out?"
Who?
"He will not know of that," the duke said. "Vindax did not. Do I write or dare I go in person and warn him?"
"He will not believe," Ukarres said. "It will be Schagarn all over again."
What? Where?
The door began to open even as someone knocked on it. Vak Vonimor came bursting in, panting, his straggly gray hair awry, his shirt half out of his belt. He was too out of breath to speak and just stood there, gasping, pointing behind him.
Ninomar felt suddenly less drunk.
"Well?" the duke demanded.
"Shadow..." Vonimor said.
Ninomar laid down his tankard. If Shadow had not gone to Piatorra...if Shadow had returned...
"He's back?" Foan asked, frowning.
Vonimor nodded. "Up in the aerie...wants to speak to you...and Vice-Marshal..."
"Then invite him here," the duke said, folding his arms and crossing his ankles. "I am not summoned to my own aerie."
The eagler shook his head. "I did, Your Grace. He won't come."
Foan scowled. "Bring him."
"I daren't...I can't..." A few more pants, and Vonimor said what Ninomar had been dreading. "He says he has a message from the prince."
Halfway to the aerie, Lord Ninomar concluded that he should properly have waited for the duke to move first, but it was a little late by then. Word had spread throughout the castle, and there seemed to be runners everywhere. He passed the duchess, tall and bundled in a burgundy robe with her gray hair flying loose; he was himself passed by Lady Elosa, still wearing the pink dress she had worn at dinner but with her black hair also unfastened and streaming behind her.
He went up all those hundreds of steps faster than he had run up an aerie since he was a cadet.
If the prince was alive, then there were two claimants to the throne...a proclamation of bastardy against one, which meant high treason against the queen dowager...and he had orders to find Vindax and take him to Ramo...and also orders which effectively told him to arrest the duke of Foan also and take him...He ran.