I suddenly became aware that King Ban was staring at me, obviously waiting for me to say something, and I realized that he must have asked me a question that I had not heard. I felt my face grow red.
“Forgive me, Sire, I didn’t hear what you asked me. I was dreaming.”
“I asked you if there was anything else you wanted to ask me, about all of this.”
I thought about that for a few moments, then shook my head. “No, Sire. I can’t think of anything.”
“Excellent!” He rose to his feet, stretching up onto tiptoe and raising his arms high above his head. “Perhaps now we can get some sleep before the dawn breaks. Come, bed for both of us, for an hour at least.”
II
CHULDERIC
EVEN THOUGH I HAD GONE to sleep filled with excitement and wonder mere hours earlier and had slept right through until midmorning, I awoke feeling angry, confused, and resentful, my mind reeling with half-remembered statements and hazy, maddeningly elusive images of some of the things King Ban had described to me. My old nurse, Ludda, had been waiting for me to wake up—the Lady Vivienne had told her of my late night and of the King’s decision that I should be allowed to sleep late—and as soon as she heard me moving about she brought me a breakfast of ground oats, savory seeds, and crushed nuts, all roasted dry and bound together with honey from the King’s beehives. I was in no mood to eat, however—nor, for that matter, to be courteous or civil—and so I finished dressing and stormed out without acknowledging either her or the food she had prepared for me. I had a momentary twinge of guilt over my ill manners as I ran down the stairs from my quarters, but I thrust it aside easily, consoling myself with the thought that I had every right to be self-concerned today, since no one else appeared to have been truly concerned for me prior to the day before. Had anyone really cared about my welfare, I told myself, they would have told me the truth about myself much earlier and not left me to go blithely on my way, filled with foolish thoughts of belonging here.
By the time I reached the outer yard, having scowled my displeasure at everyone I met between my sleeping chamber and there, I had worked myself into a truly unpleasant frame of mind filled with self-pity, bafflement, hurt feelings, and shapeless, threatening fears—all of them completely without justification. I reached the gates to the outer bastion, but then I broke into a run and swung directly to my left to head toward the stables, although I had no idea what I might do there, and as I reached the dark entryway, I almost ran full tilt into a figure emerging from the darkness. It was Clodio, the strange but loyal man who had been Ban’s lifelong friend and had consistently refused all advancement except his current and permanent post as Commander of the Castle Guard. He reached out and grasped me by the right shoulder, digging his fingers in hard and bringing me up short, almost in midstep.
“Ah, there you are! I’ve been looking for you. Where are you running to, so fast? Is someone chasing you?”
He sounded quite pleasant and not at all put out by our near collision, but I was in no frame of mind to tolerate pleasantness, especially from one of the group who had conspired to keep me in ignorance of my real identity. I pulled myself loose from his grasp and thrust his arm away from me.
“Leave me alone. And stand out of my way.”
Clodio’s head jerked in shock and his eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “Stand out of your way?” His face quirked in what almost became a smile. “Since when did you start ordering your father’s officers around?”
“Since I found out he’s not my father and he has been deceiving me—and you’re no better than he is, because you knew, too. My father was a real king, and you know it, and I’m his son. So stand aside and let me pass.”
I knew that what I had said went beyond insolence and far beyond ingratitude to King Ban, but even as I spoke the words I took a malicious satisfaction in mouthing such things. Clodio, however, merely stood looking at me, his eyes narrowed in concentration, and then, after what seemed like a long time to me, he nodded, once, abruptly.
“I heard you. But are you really sure you want me to step aside?”
“Yes, I—” But he had already held up a warning palm.
“Before you answer, consider this, my young kingling. If I step aside, at your command, it will only be to give myself purchase to swing my boot properly at your kingly little arse as you pass by me, and I’ll kick it so far up toward your shoulders that you’ll be a hunchback for the rest of your life … . Now, I’ll ask you again. Are you sure you want me to step aside?”
There was not a trace of humor in his eyes or in his voice, and so I knew I had to draw his fangs. I pulled myself up to my full height and put all the disdain I could muster into my tone.
“You will stand aside, and you will not dare to lay hands on me. I am the son—the firstborn son—of a king.”
Clodio turned his back on me, his hands on his hips, and slowly completed a full turn, his head tilted back to look at the sky and his feet taking high but tiny steps, almost marching in place but turning very slowly and incrementally until he faced me again, and as he did so I heard him blow air loudly and rhythmically from his lips, in time with his footsteps. As he came back face-to-face with me, however, he grasped my tunic in both hands, on either side of my chest, and hoisted me effortlessly into the air, to where he could stare directly at me, eye to eye, from a distance of less than a handspan, and when he spoke next, even though he spoke very quietly, I felt the flutter of his breath against my face.
“You are the orphaned son of a dead and landless king who was once a fine man and much loved by everyone who knew him. But he is gone now, long since dead, and the lands he ruled are hundreds of miles from here, governed now by the man who killed him and usurped his title and his holdings. You are still a boy—a mere child, ten years old—and you have nothing … no prospects, no wealth, no hopes at all, other than those for which you are beholden to King Ban. Do you hear what I am saying, boy? I knew your father, and I was proud to know him. I knew your mother, too, although no more than by sight, but she was the most beautiful lady I ever saw, more beautiful even than her sister, the Lady Vivienne.” He shook me gently, tilting me from side to side and never taking his eyes off me. “I thought to have known you now, for years, but what I’m hearing spilling from your lips today is unlike anything I would ever have believed you capable of saying.”
He paused, then brought me even closer to his face, so that I could see the individual hairs on his cheeks and the scar at the end of his nose where he had once been bitten in a fight. “Do you know how far your feet are off the ground as I hold you here, Clothar son of Childebertus? I could throw you like a pebble, and leave you lying where you fell. But here is a promise I will make to you freely. If I ever, ever hear you speaking of your uncle Ban like that again, I’ll strip off your breeches and flog you with my belt until you bleed. Is that clear?” He shook me again, a single, violent jerk. “Is it?”