“Your power would never have been complete as long as you treated the people so cruelly,” Brion snapped. “What did you do with Mother? Did you slay her, too?”
“Mother? Of course not!” John’s eyes glittered with contempt. “Really, Brion, you are unbelievably stupid!”
Brion strove to master sudden fury, and Matt wondered what ace John thought he had in the hole.
“I kept Mother alive, though also soundly locked in her gilded prison,” John said. “Fool that I was, I had some vague hope that, with you gone, she might lavish upon me the affections she gave to you, and which I craved. Twice foolish I was, for she was still in love with Father, no matter how she railed at him, and had no love to spare for me!”
“So when your father had served his purpose and declared you his heir,” Matt said, “you poisoned him.”
John frowned. “How did you guess that? No matter, for you are quite right—I commanded Niobhyte to bring me poison, and mixed it in my father’s wine. Then the archbishop declared me king, and I proceeded to lord it over everybody, deriving great satisfaction from seeing the ones who had treated me with contempt now fawning over me.”
“Except for Earl Marshal, and one or two others who would not fawn,” Brion said, tight-lipped.
“Yes, I shall tear down the earl’s castle when I am done with you.” John speared his brother with a venomous glance, apparently forgetting who had the upper hand—or confident that he himself did, which gave Matt cold chills.
Of course, John gave him cold chills, period, now that he had dropped his simpleton act.
“Yes, there were those who would not grovel,” John said, “or who had treated me far too badly to forgive—so I had them tortured and executed. I derived a great deal of pleasure from their screams, I assure you, except for those obdurate few who were determined to spoil my fun and refused to cry out. But I gained my greatest pleasure from the sense of power, proved by caprice—making people miserable, then occasionally freeing a felon or showing mercy for no good reason at all, then hauling him back and watching him hang.”
“Murderer!” Brion cried, his face darkening.
“Listen to him!” John said, lip twisting in scorn. “It matters not to him that I tried to slay his very self, but learning that I slew a blameless commoner ignites his rage! What a fool, to care more for another’s life than for his own!”
Brion’s face turned thunderous. He gripped his sword, moving his horse closer.
John waited, lips parting, eyes glistening.
“Yes, almost fool enough to lose his temper with you and give you an opening for hitting him with evil magic that would explode his brain,” Matt said quickly.
Brion froze, and John seemed to deflate with disappointment. He turned to glare at Matt, as though counting the tortures he would visit on him.
It was so venomous a stare that Matt shuddered. “You’ve dedicated yourself to evil,” he whispered. “You’ve sold your soul to the Devil.”
“What, sign a bargain with the Prince of Liars?” John sneered. “I am not such a fool! No, I have sold nothing—but I have seen that power is won not by virtue or justice, but by breaking every Commandment, especially since my enemies choose to let those absurd laws limit them!”
“As I said—you’ve sold your soul.”
John turned pale, trembling. “I have not! I am not damned!”
Matt wondered what had gone wrong in John’s childhood, but realized that he couldn’t know the whole of it. Some he could guess—that the child-prince had been ugly and scrawny and acquired zero social skills, so went after negative attention, and had his Oedipal feelings inverted because his mother so plainly favored Brion and barely tolerated him. That had set John to being eaten with envy, especially when she was quite willing to send him away with his father. But he had seen courtiers bowing and scraping to the king, imitated them and ingratiated himself with Drustan, and decided to become king himself by killing his brothers, which had gained him the added satisfaction of revenge.
“You can still repent,” Matt told him, “though I doubt that you will, when you take such pride in having assassinated your father and your eldest brother.”
“Yes, that was my doing—the planning, though not the actual stabbing.” Instantly, John was preening again, showing off his cleverness. “I would have loved to stick the knife in him myself, but I had to be far away at the time so that I could avoid suspicion.”
“You knew you’d have a chance when the family went visiting Queen Alisande,” Matt guessed. “When your brothers decided to go wenching—”
“Decided? It was I who put the idea into their heads!” John cried. “Or into Gaheris’, at least—I knew Brion’s stupid loyalty would make him follow, whether he wished such pleasures himself or not. I only regret that he went in disguise and my man could not find him in the melee.”
“So the disguises weren’t your idea?”
“They were indeed, but who would have guessed Brion would dress as a common soldier?”
Anyone who knew him, Matt thought, and realized that John didn’t—but this wasn’t the time to say it. “So you sent Niobhyte to do the actual killing.”
“No, only to see that it was done,” John said, grinning without the slightest hint of remorse.
“As the prince commanded, I waited until Gaheris was embroiled with his doxy, then slipped into the chamber and stole his purse,” Niobhyte said. “That I did myself, but could not slay Gaheris with my own hand, for I had to brew magicks that would make everyone quick to anger.”
“Why did you jump out the window, then?” Matt held up a hand, the answer dawning even as he asked the question. “No, let me guess—to draw attention away from the real murderer long enough for him to escape.”
“Or to avoid suspicion,” Niobhyte confirmed.
“Then who committed the actual murder?” Matt asked, more at sea than ever.
John threw back his head and laughed. “If you can guess that, Lord Wizard, I shall surrender my crown here and now!”
The offer of the reward, and of all the lives saved by avoiding John’s last-ditch magical assault, kicked Matt’s brain into overdrive. Suddenly, the teaming of chief synthodruid and false king made him connect a series of other facts, leading to only one possible conclusion. “I’ll take you at your word. It was Sergeant Brock.”
CHAPTER 25
Brion and Sir Orizhan turned to stare at the sergeant.
Brock, white-faced and trembling, slowly sank to his knees, bowing his head with a cry of anguish.
Matt risked a quick glimpse at Brock and noticed, for the first time, a tall archer in a peasant’s hooded smock standing in the shadows with an arrow nocked to his bow. His face was in shadow, but his leggins were furry. Matt felt his stomach sink and hoped Buckeye liked him today.
“Sergeant, you have been a good and trustworthy companion!” Sir Orizhan exclaimed. “Why have you done this dreadful deed?”
“Because he was one of the original synthodruids,” Matt said. “He didn’t really know what he was getting into, only liked the sound of it. Besides, Niobhyte told him battle was good and said the strong had the right to take what they wanted—very appealing, to a soldier.”
“It is true,” Brock said through stiff lips. “I forswore the Christ, to my shame, and followed Niobhyte with all my heart. Even when he bade me find a moment to slay the prince and promised me chaos to hide my deed, my heart sang with joy, for none wanted to live in a Bretanglia ruled by Gaheris—your pardon, Majesty…”
“Given,” Brion snapped. “What assurance have I that you would feel differently about me?” Then he answered himself. “Yet you do, for in that cavern in Erin, you had chance after chance to slay me if you had wished. You did not, though. Why?”