“Mumma—”
“Don’t look. We have to get home.”
“He’s sick, mumma.”
“I’m not sick,” Olio said loudly. “I’m a general. Get me my horse.” Again he tried to stand, but without success. “Better yet, get my carriage.”
“Mumma?”
But mumma just walked faster, actually lifting the boy off his feet to get him past the drunk man.
Olio watched them go, feeling a little affronted. “I’m a prince, too!” he called out after them, but they just kept on going.
“I should have worn my crown,” Olio told himself. He was right next to the dead dog. A rat’s head poked out of a hole in the dog’s belly, sniffed the air, disappeared again.
Even though he was now sitting, the ground still seemed to spin. He put his hands out to steady himself, but they never seemed to connect with anything. He collapsed sideways and lay crookedly, his hand finally letting go of the leather bottle. A moment later two hooded men stood over him. One bent down and gently shook his shoulder.
“He is ill,” said the one still standing.
“He’s pissed,” said the one bending over Olio. He could feel rich cloth under his hand. “A nobleman, perhaps.” He grabbed Olio’s jaw and turned the man’s face so that he could see it. “It can’t be.”
“Who is it?”
“It can’t be.”
He stood up. “Get Father Powl. I will stay here with him.”
“Father Powl?”
“Quickly! As fast as your legs will carry you!”
Primate Giros Northam was woken by a lay brother.
“Your Grace, I have an urgent message for you from Father Powl.”
Northam shook his head of the last dregs of sleep and sat up. The lay brother handed him a wooden cup filled with warmed wine. He swallowed it thirstily, the loose flesh around his neck wobbling like a turkey’s wattle.
“He brings the message?”
“Another lay brother left it with Father Tere, who is on vigil tonight.”
“Give it to me.”
The lay brother took the empty cup and handed him the note. Northam read it quickly, and the words made him groan out loud.
“Is it bad, your Grace?”
“Is the lay brother who brought this still here?”
“Yes.”
“He is go to Father Powl and tell him I am coming immediately. Father Powl is to wait for me.”
“Yes, your Grace.”
The lay brother left and Northam dressed quickly.
“I knew it would come to this,” he said under his breath. “I knew it would end badly. I knew.”
Later, as he left the palace, the guards could hear him still muttering under his breath.
Father Powl sat in the room where his two student priests had laid out Prince Olio. He had dismissed the students and was now alone with the prince. He cupped his chin in one hand and wondered if God had delivered to him a great opportunity or a great burden.
Powl had heard stories about Olio, of course, but thought them nothing but gossip about a man who seemed to have no obvious vices. But here Olio was, reeking of wine and, Powl was even more disconcerted to discover, urine. To think that the prince would get so drunk he would lose control of his bladder was both a shock and a revelation to the priest.
This could be the lever Powl needed to open up the primate, who had, since Usharna’s death, become quite distant. Powl had been hurt by the colder relationship with his superior, one that before had always been so warm, but had shrugged it off and got on with his duties. This might create a new intimacy between them, the sharing of secret—indeed, almost sacred—knowledge.
The burden, of course, would be the weight on his mind and in his heart of Olio’s downfall. Powl stopped himself. He was not the Righteous God and would not judge his fellow man, let alone a crown prince. Nevertheless, it shook Powl’s conviction in the basic lightness of society’s structure. He had wanted to believe that the members of the royal family were more than human, that they contained in them some spark of the divine. Naturally that could not be expected of the outlaw Lynan, whose royal blood at best ran diluted in his veins and at worst perverted. But here was Prince Olio himself, the gentlest of the all the Rosethemes, brought low by the most common of all vices: excess.
He heard the primate enter the chapel, have a few hurried words with the local priest, and then make his way to the room. Father Powl stood up to greet him. The door opened, and the primate entered. He did not even look at Powl but went straight to the prince. He leaned over and smelled Olio’s breath and then, something Powl thought quite strange, pulled out the Key of the Heart from under Olio’s shirt and gently held it for a moment before putting it back.
Powl cleared his throat. “Your Grace?”
Northam glanced at him, looking distracted. “Hmm?”
“Two of my students returning from duties on the docks found him in a street nearby. They summoned me immediately.”
“Has anyone else seen the prince?”
“Only the chaplain here.”
Northam shook his head. “Too bad. That’s too bad.”
“We can trust the chaplain’s discretion, surely, your Grace? And I will speak for my two students.”
Northam studied the priest more carefully then. “You are sure the students will keep quiet?”
“I carefully explained to them the gravity of the situation; they will not repeat what they have seen tonight to another living soul.”
Northam turned back to Olio. “This isn’t the first time.”
“I have heard ... stories.”
“Yes, everyone in Kendra is hearing the stories now, but none of them know the true story.”
“Your Grace?”
Northam brushed his bald pate with a large hand as if there was still hair there to part. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know.”
“I am your secretary, Primate. Surely, if you carry some terrible burden, I can help you carry it.”
“That is a generous offer, but I must refuse you.” He faced Powl again and grasped the smaller man by the shoulders. “The queen must never hear of this, do you understand.”
“I am her confessor, your Grace; she is not mine.”
The primate released him. “Yes, of course. I know.” He closed his eyes in exhaustion. “You must do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Find the magicker prelate and ask him to come here straight away.”
“Edaytor Fanhow? What has he to do with this?”
“No more questions. I can say nothing else to you on this. Just get me the prelate.”
“Of course, your Grace,” Powl said and left.
Northam took the priest’s seat and held Olio’s hand. I don’t trust that man, he thought, and immediately felt guilty for having such thoughts about his own secretary, someone who had once been his friend.
And if I let him, could be again. But that would be too dangerous.
Olio dreamed of children again. He searched every cot for his brother. He could hear Lynan’s voice, calling out to him, but he could not find him. There were children ravaged by disease, sores, and injuries, but he ignored them. The room seemed to extend forever, the cots lined up in three neat rows, each one holding a child who needed his healing. But no Lynan.
Then he noticed that the faces of all the children were starting to look the same. They all became boys. Their hair became brown. Their heads became round. They were all Lynan when he was about seven or eight years old. Olio remembered looking after his brother when he was that age.
But the faces kept on changing. Skin became the color of ivory, and the whites of the eyes became a golden yellow.
“Olio!” all the children called. “Heal me!”
He ran from cot to cot, placing his hand on every forehead, feeling his own life draining away from him as he healed each Lynan.