“I am sorry we did not do so earlier,” Olio added.
“Well and good. I will leave you two alone, then.” Powl put a hand on Olio’s shoulder. “Your Highness, if there is ever a time you need assistance or some comfort, I am always at your service. I know you held my predecessor in high regard and with great affection, but although he is gone and I am now in his place, the function and purpose of the office of primate had not changed.”
“Thank you,” Olio said sincerely. “I will not forget.”
Dejanus held out a full flagon of cheap wine. “Well, Hrelth? This or a penny?‘
Hrelth, still hugging his lantern, knew the wine would warm him better and reached for the flagon. Dejanus laughed and pulled it away.
“First, you take me to the hospice. It is dark and you have a lamp.”
Hrelth said nothing but scampered down the street, followed by Dejanus. He had to stop every twenty paces or so for Dejanus, who was still feeling the effects of his drinking bout, to catch up.
Eventually they reached the street where Hrelth had set up watch. He pointed to a dark window. “That is where I saw the magic.”
Dejanus checked no one else was on the street and went to the window. He cupped his hands on either side of his face and peered through the glass. He could only dimly make out the shape of a bed and someone lying in it. He grunted and moved back to where Hrelth waited.
“There’s no prince there now,” he said, unhappy he had crawled out into the cold night for nothing.
Hrelth suddenly put a finger to his lips, then pointed farther down the street. A sliver of light appeared, and a dark shape emerged. “Thank you, Father,” the shape said to someone still inside. “Good work tonight.”
“That’s the primate’s voice,” Dejanus whispered.
Hrelth was not sure if he was supposed to comment or not, but decided that saying nothing was the safest course.
The sliver of light disappeared, and the dark shape left behind turned and started walking away from the couple watching him.
“I must follow,” Dejanus decided suddenly. “The primate and I have things to talk about.” He handed the flagon to Hrelth. “You stay here and keep an eye on the hospice. I’ll be back later.”
Hrelth took the flagon gratefully and squatted down in the street.
Areava was woken by a sudden spasm of pain. At first she thought it had just been a dream, but then she noticed her sheets were wet. Another spasm made her gasp in surprise.
“God, it’s happening!” she cried. “Too soon! Two months too soon!” She put her hands over her belly, expecting to feel the baby moving. The shape felt different, but there was no kicking or wriggling.
She waited for the pain to pass and got out of her bed. It was harder to do than she would have thought possible. She half-walked, half-waddled to the door to her bedchamber and pulled it open. Two surprised guards snapped to attention. They caught a glimpse of her Majesty in a nightgown and averted their eyes.
“Get Doctor Trion,” she told them, her voice heavy, and disappeared back inside.
Powl had almost reached the palace gates when a dark shape suddenly loomed in front of him. He was too surprised to be afraid. There was not enough light by which to see a face, but there was no mistaking the bulk.
“Good evening, Constable,” Powl said. “What are you doing out at this hour?”
“I might ask the same thing of you,” Dejanus returned.
Powl could smell the wine even from two paces away, and was irritated by the sharp reply to what he thought was a perfectly amiable greeting.
“Visiting one of my priests, if you must know,” Powl answered.
“I am the constable. It is my job to know ...” Dejanus spread his arms as if he was trying to encompass the whole city. “... everything about everything.”
“That’s ambitious,” Powl said dryly.
“I am an ambitious man. Indeed, we are both ambitious men.”
Powl started, immediately suspicious. “What are you talking about?”
Dejanus laughed; the sound was like rocks rolling down a hill. “We have something in common. We both have secrets.”
Powl caught his breath. “I have no secrets.”
Dejanus put a huge arm around the primate’s shoulders and bent his face down near his. Powl winced at the smell of his breath. “Everyone has secrets. I bet even God has secrets. But I know some of yours. Do you want to know some of mine?”
Powl removed the man’s arm and said coldly, “I have no secrets that you could know about. And I am certainly not interested in yours.”
Dejanus, even in his semi-drunken state, could hear the growing alarm in the priest’s voice. So what was going on in that hospice? He put his arm around the priest again and drew him in.
“Believe me, your Grace, you would be very interested in my secrets. My secrets can tear down monarchs and put new monarchs in their place. My secrets can curdle milk and kingdoms. My secrets are so heavy that when I die I will sink straight to the underworld.”
Powl was now afraid. What was this oaf talking about?
“You are playing at the high table now, Primate Powl. You need friends.”
“I have friends,” Powl said angrily and twisted away. “I am the queen’s confessor, and I am a close associate of Chancellor Orkid Gravespear.”
Dejanus scowled at the priest, and then started laughing again. “You are no longer confessor to anyone but yourself, your Grace, and Orkid Gravespear has secrets as dark as mine.”
Powl pushed past the constable. He heard the man’s laughter follow him all the way to the palace gates.
The midwife used her hand to explore the queen’s body, keeping her eyes always averted. She was not so coy with any other patient, and the truth was Areava would have no objection to her using all her senses, but she felt that the majesty of the monarch should be preserved whenever possible.
“There is some dilation,” she said. “How often are the spasms apart?”
“I’ve only experienced them once,” Areava replied.
“Well, this is your first child, so we can expect a long labor,” Doctor Trion said.
He rested his palm against Areava’s forehead. “Good, good,” he muttered to himself.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Do? Why, your Majesty, you wait. And then you suffer. And then you are a mother.”
“The baby is too early.”
Doctor Trion tried to hide his concern. “I have delivered many early babies. Some are impatient to see the world for themselves, and since this is a Rosetheme, and you tell me it is a girl and I believe it, I do not think anyone in the kingdom will be surprised she wants to make an unexpected appearance.”
“I want my brother here. I want Olio.”
“I will see that someone gets him,” Trion assured her.
Hrelth had finished most of the flagon of wine Dejanus had given him. His fingers and toes were now quite warm, and his cheeks felt flushed. He stretched out a little. His head lolled back and his eyes closed. He did not see the prince and prelate leave the hospice. He did not wake when a rat crawled over his legs. His hand twitched, knocking over his lamp. The lamp rolled down the street and bumped into the hospice wall. The glass cage cracked, and burning oil spilled out. Yellow flame spurted up the wall, caught and consumed dry leaves on a window sill, travelled up a thatch fill to the roof, growing all the time, and then caught the tail end of the onshore breeze that riffled among all the rooftops of the city’s old quarter.
Chapter 29
Kumul lay awake in the early hours of a new day, his first in the civilized lands east of the Algonka Pass for many months. It was hard for him to believe that spring was almost over. He had forgotten how long it took a large army to march any distance, even one as mobile as the Chetts‘. In some ways it seemed a lifetime ago when he and his friends had crossed into the Oceans of Grass. Since then his prince had grown into adulthood and become a leader among warriors; the world he had lived in all his life had been turned upside down; the sureties of his past had become the uncertainties of his future. Most of all, he thought with wonder, Jenrosa Alucar had fallen in love with him.