Ce’Aret, an ancient, wizened woman with the face and humor of a brick, poked at my cheek with a sharp finger and snorted, whether in disbelief or general disapproval I didn’t know. I gripped her finger and returned it to her firmly, which didn’t seem to please her at all. Ce’Aret had taken on herself the duty of ferreting out those who secretly aided our enemies. Everyone feared her.
Ustele was almost as old as Ce’Aret, but his quick and incisive probe of my thoughts belied any impression I might have had of diminished faculties. Touching my mind without consent was an unthinkable offense, an invasion of my privacy that would permit me to summarily dismiss him from the Preceptorate, if not banish him from Avonar… assuming I was accepted as the true Prince. No one in the room, save perhaps the Dulcé, would have failed to register it. If I wished to retain any semblance of respect from the others, I could not ignore such an attempt.
“This day’s grace I will give you, Ustele, because you were my grandfather’s mentor. But no more. Age grants you no privilege to violate your Prince, because age has clearly not dimmed your gifts. The Wastes await those who take such liberties. Be warned.” To my relief, my voice neither croaked nor wavered.
The old man curled his lip, but withdrew. Dassine’s satisfaction wafted through the air from behind me like scented smoke. In truth, my thoughts were in such confusion, no one could have learned anything from them.
Y’Dan, a thin, dry stick of a man, would not rise when I touched his shoulder. He shook his hairless brown skull vigorously, chewed on a bony knuckle, and refused to look me in the eye. “My lord”-he dropped his voice to a whisper so that I had to bend close to his mouth to hear- “listen, my lord. I beg you listen.” He wanted me to read his thoughts.
I nodded, uneasy, for this was an act I had not been capable of performing as D’Natheil, and that custom had been strictly forbidden in my other life. But the Preceptorate had been told that whatever I had done to restore the Bridge had changed me, so I left off worrying and opened my mind to him.
… murder… conspiracy… treachery… your forgiveness, my lord… we did not know you… our faith lost… the Zhid among us… we thought it was the only way… Searing, consuming guilt. Impossible to sort out the flood of incoherent confession that accompanied it. Who had been murdered? My father perhaps or my brothers? What was the conspiracy of which he spoke?
Confused and wary, I put my finger to his silent lips, telling him to stop. “Another time,” I said. “I’ll hear you in private.” Sometime when I knew what he was talking about.
Madyalar looked more like a fishwife than a Preceptor of Gondai. Rawboned and red-cheeked, her gray hair tangled, she stood almost as tall as I. The soft-hued stripes of her billowing robe kept subtly shifting their colors, confusing the eye. Madyalar had been an Examiner when I was a boy, one who supervised Dar’Nethi mentoring relationships such as mine with Exeget. Though I had counted no one as a friend in those days, she had fought a running battle with Exeget over my care. That lent her a bit of grace in my sight, though, in truth, the course she had espoused was no more dignified than Exeget’s, only less violent. She had declared that the only humane path was to teach me enough of duty, manners, and cleanliness that I could father a new Heir as soon as possible.
When she stood up after her genuflection, she probed me, not illicitly with her mind as Ustele had done, but with warm, rough hands that quickly and firmly traced every contour of my face.
“I hope I have exceeded your expectations, Mistress Madyalar,” I said to her. I started to add, “even though I’ve produced no son.” But in a moment’s unsettling clarity, I realized that I didn’t know whether I had fathered any children. I-Karon-was forty-two years old, so Dassine had told me. Twenty of those years were still missing. The thought was disconcerting, one I could ill afford in my present situation. I closed my eyes for a moment, afraid the world might disintegrate.
Madyalar drew me back. “You are no longer the boy I examined for so many years, my lord.”
My eyes flew open. She had a curious smile on her face.
“My bruises tell me that I am.”
She cast her eyes slightly to her right where Exeget was studiously gazing out of the window. “I don’t doubt that. Childhood bruises sting long after their discolor has faded. Though I would like to avoid contributing to Dassine’s inflated opinion of himself, you seem changed for the better. Whether it is the old devil’s skill in teaching or merely the fact that he saved your life until you matured on your own, the air is quiet about you now, whereas before it was a constant tumult. You bear many burdens that you did not when we saw you last, and you carry them with a strength that is different from that you displayed as a youth. And you have gray in your hair, Your Grace.”
“Years will do that.” No sooner had I said the words than I knew I’d made a mistake. The tension in the room drew tighter, and the dozen calculating eyes fixed on me widened.
“True,” said a puzzled Madyalar. “But you must tell us how a few months can work such an alteration.”
Although I remembered nothing of D’Natheil’s life since I was twelve, Dassine had told me that it had only been a few months since I-D’Natheil, a prince of some twenty-odd years of age-had been sent onto the Bridge a second time, crossing into the mundane world on a mission I could not remember. These people had witnessed my departure. But the details of that journey were embedded in the lost years of one life and buried under twenty missing years of another. Spirits of night… what had happened to me?
My tongue stumbled onward. “I’ve worked hard at improving myself and continue to do so.” Without further word, I moved on to Exeget.
Permit no questioning. Keep silent. Satisfy them. Get rid of them. These commands burst into my head as if I had thought them myself. Concentrate, fool. That command was my own.
“Our hopes and good wishes are with you, my lord Prince”-Madyalar spoke quietly to my back-“and, of course, the wisdom of Vasrin.”
I nodded, hoping I hadn’t offended her.
By an immense act of will I did not flinch when Exeget laid his perfectly manicured hands on mine. I knew he watched for it, hoped for a hint of cowering to demonstrate that he had power over me. For the greater part of the three years I’d spent in his custody, I had devoted my entire being to making sure he never received such a demonstration. I had never feared him, only despised him, but his hands had been heavy. Neither cold nor warm, neither soft nor hard, no roughness or other mark of age marring their smooth perfection. He took great pride in his hands, and had always required a servant to bathe and care for them after he beat me. In those vile years he had claimed that he could allow no one else to take on the onerous task of my discipline, as only a parent or mentor was permitted to chastise a child of my rank. But his apologetic disclaimers had not deceived me. He had enjoyed it immensely.
I confess I left him kneeling longer than the others, not so much to prove I could, but for the simple fact that I didn’t want to touch him again. Perhaps he felt the same. I had scarcely brushed his shoulder when he popped to his feet.
“We rejoice, my lord, in the happy outcome of your journey.” A nice sentiment, belied by his demeanor that expressed little of rejoicing and much of suspicion and arrogance.