“We join the Council after dinner. Just for talk—” Mikeli looked at them both. “No more questions—or not as formally, anyway.”
“Do you know yet what it was?” Aris asked. “Juris won’t tell me anything.” He glared down the table at his brother, who grinned.
“The Marshal and instructor believe they do, but are reserving that knowledge for the time being.”
“It was wicked,” Aris said.
“Yes,” Mikeli said. “But we will not talk of it during dinner. We have other things to discuss with both of you.”
Camwyn sat up at that.
“After the meal is served,” Mikeli said. He nodded to the guard at the door; servants came in with food, and the taster sampled each dish without incident. The servant withdrew, and the prince forked a slice of roast goose onto his plate. The others served themselves.
Camwyn ate steadily. Mikeli would talk when he was ready, not before, and the food—more varied and richer than what he was usually served—delighted him in spite of the situation.
Mikeli put down his fork. “Camwyn, you and Aris are not as close as Juris and I, I think. Is that not so?”
Camwyn nodded, his mouth full of roast goose.
“The attack on you two might be because someone thinks you’re like Juris and me—or because you’re my brother and Aris is a Marrakai—or because you were both riding Marrakai-bred horses today. Duke Verrakai planned to put blame on Juris for killing me … whichever Verrakai did this might have wanted to put blame on the Marrakai for your horse’s behavior.”
“But his horse died, too,” Camwyn said.
“Yes. Perhaps they hoped both of you would be injured or killed when your horses reacted to the poison.” Mikeli sighed. “Cam, you’ve never been that interested in Council meetings and such.”
“No …”
“And your tutor says you like anything military better than anything about politics or finance—”
“I don’t like all the gossip,” Camwyn said, ducking his head.
“At your age, neither did I,” Mikeli said. “But I knew I would be king, and must learn why it mattered. Camwyn—you know how close to death I came. And if I had died, you are my heir. You and I are our father’s only living children.”
“Why me? Rothlin’s older and he knows more. If there’s an emergency he’d be better—”
“Because that’s the way it’s done. Roth only gets the crown if both of us die, and that’s after Uncle. Cam, I haven’t pushed you much; I remember too well how I hated giving up my boyhood interests. Now I can’t wait any longer. I need you; the land needs you.” Mikeli stopped there and looked at him.
Camwyn felt a stab of fear. Mikeli was serious … he had not let himself think much about the assassination attempt. He hadn’t wanted to imagine his brother sitting helpless with a magicked sword coming at him. Now he let himself imagine Mikeli dead, and someone telling him, and having suddenly the whole weight of the kingdom on his shoulders. He couldn’t do it—could not—and yet … and yet he was named for Camwyn Dragonmaster. Did that count for nothing? Was he like an infant’s toy, given a hero’s name but capable of nothing?
“I did not know,” he said, to give himself time.
“No, any more than I did when Father died. I don’t blame you, Cam, but now I need you. I need a brother who may be a king after me, and will be a help to me while I live. I had hoped the menace was over and you could have a few more years—but it’s not, and you can’t.”
Camwyn tried for the feeling he’d had riding back from practice—solid, sober, knightly. He glanced at Aris. The younger boy’s face lit up. Egan Verrakai had said Aris was a cocky upstart who thought he was the equal of his elders. That he was pleasant around Camwyn only because he was currying favor. But since Egan had … left … something had changed in the boys’ riding group. Aris hadn’t acted differently than any other boy his age assigned the duties of page or squire. Now Aris’s smile warmed his fear. “I’ll do my best,” Camwyn said.
“I want my friends to know you better, and you to know them,” Mikeli said. “And I want to know your friends, as well. That doesn’t mean you and Aris have to become like brothers, as Juris and I are, but we need all of you, for the struggle that’s going on.”
The rest of the meal passed quickly; the older ones talked of things Camwyn didn’t fully understand, but he tried, instead of ignoring them. The older men of the Council, the young men’s fathers and uncles, continued to treat him and even Aris as if they were adult, equals. They talked of affairs of the realm without explanation, but Camwyn found it easier to follow a conversation between Duke Serrostin and Duke Mahieran on the movement of funds between Vérella and Fin Panir than to listen to his tutor. Aris, he noted, was quicker to ask questions, willing to risk his father’s correction or his brother’s scorn—which didn’t come as often as he’d expected.
Egan had always insisted that lords must never show ignorance, never admit they didn’t understand, but the Marrakaien—now that he could watch Juris and Aris together with their father—all seemed as comfortable asking questions as answering them.
“What do you think?” Crown Prince Mikeli turned to his uncle and the other Council members after the younger boys had left.
“I think we’re damned lucky they’re alive, either of them,” Duke Mahieran said. “That was a close call this morning; Gird’s grace their instructor knew what to do.”
“I’m asking about Camwyn,” the crown prince said. “Is he what you’d expect—what we need?”
“Hard to tell what he’s really like, after something like this … he seemed quiet … a little stiff …”
“He’s lost his best friend,” Duke Marrakai said. “It can’t be easy, knowing the Verrakai boy’s in prison, under charge of attainder. Aris said Egan was always with him.”
“And I didn’t do anything,” the crown prince said. “I thought—if Cam liked him, that might ease the tension with the Verrakaien.”
“Egan didn’t like Aris,” Juris Marrakai said. “He didn’t want Camwyn and Aris to be friends. Though in all fairness, Aris didn’t like Egan either. I don’t know who started it.”
“I do,” Count Destvaorn said. “And unfortunately it fuels our suspicions of Egan Verrakai. He told tales of Aris, and some of them were not true. I heard him; I scolded him; he apologized. But later I heard through a friend’s son that he was spreading the same tales again. And tales of me, as a Marrakai friend who could not be trusted.”
“I worry that Cam’s loyalty to his friend could overcome his good sense,” Mikeli said, helping himself to a handful of shelled nuts.
“After the attack on you? And on himself today?”
“I hope not, but—I don’t know, my lords. This business today frightened me, I don’t mind admitting. We were warned some of them could take other bodies, and to keep watch, but—a groom? A stableboy? How can we tell?”
“Dorrin Verrakai has some way to tell—she found some, she reported,” Duke Marrakai said.
“And we’ve heard nothing from her since—”
“Except reports from the Marshals in Harway and Darkon Edge that things are better. No specifics,” Destvaorn said.
“We could send someone to ask, but she’s surely coming to your coronation,” Duke Marrakai said.
“I am not sure,” Mikeli said. “If she’s battling renegades over there, she may not come.”
“I would send her a very clear invitation,” Duke Marrakai said. “A royal courier. We will all feel better if we see her again and can be sure of her loyalty, and you can also ask her advice.”
35
The prince’s courier cantered up to the house on a lathered horse at midafternoon. Dorrin, riding out of the stable yard at the same time to visit the nearest village, reined in.
“My lord Duke,” the courier said. He was a tough-looking middle-aged man with a courier’s tabard over his clothes, sweating heavily in the early summer heat.