EVENTUALLY PROVED TO BE NEARLY a week. That was how long it took for Corwin to regain some measure of strength—and to deal with all the other business pressing for his attention. Governor Prewitt had been in to see him at least twice each day, always with an air of sincere concern over his welfare. Corwin knew better; the governor was just eager for him to depart. Corwin was, too.
There’d been no news on the Gregors. In the weeks since the attack on the freeholding, no one had seen or heard a word about the entire family. Officially, they’d been declared dead. Corwin didn’t doubt it, given the utter destruction of their home. It had also been confirmed that wilder magic was responsible for the fire and other damage. The two magists who’d examined the body of the dead Andrean miner finally identified the magic that killed him as a form of spirit magic. Their authority on such matters was absolute. One was a white robe, whose order dealt in the high arts, those spells too complex for everyday application. The other a gold robe, the order in charge of detecting wilder magic and the running of the Inquisition. The confirmation made Corwin uneasy, especially given Dal’s speculation that the two attacks were connected. At a minimum the Rising was gaining in power.
“Do you think wilders could have created these daydrakes somehow?” Corwin had asked the magists. “Like how they were supposed to have unleashed the nightdrakes upon us?”
The gold robe made an exaggerated motion with his hand. “Anything is possible with wild magic, your highness. All the more reason it must be eradicated.”
Such was the mantra of every magist. Corwin didn’t know what to make of it, except to feel certain that if there were answers, they lay in Andreas. Despite his brother’s command, he planned to head there before returning to Norgard. Dal had already commissioned an artist to draw the miner’s face so they might learn his identity.
But first Corwin had to talk to Kate. It felt a little like preparing for battle. He forced food down his gullet as often as he could and took to walking up and down every flight of stairs in the governor’s mansion. When he was finally able to make it all the way to the top floor without feeling faint, he declared himself ready—despite his lingering certainty that he would never be ready.
The next morning, Corwin and Dal headed for the Relay house. Although he wanted to go without escort, Governor Prewitt insisted on sending four guards with them. Corwin reluctantly agreed but ordered them not to carry the royal banner—and no trumpeters either. The royal tour was over, after all.
Not that it made a difference. Everyone still recognized him. Even though he’d dressed in a plain tunic, forgoing the royal sigil anywhere, his likeness had been posted in every newspaper across Rime far too often of late for anonymity. What with his disappearance and sudden return, he was a mystery that kept the press in print. Doubtless, some of the servants in the governor’s household had been paid handsomely to provide notice of the high prince’s movements as well. The moment Corwin appeared on the street, the crowds converged.
It made for slow going, the four guards a weak force to part the crowd. Halfway there a woman dressed in rags and smelling like a tavern privy managed to get past the guards and race up to Corwin’s borrowed horse. The mare shied away, snorting, but the woman grabbed onto the reins.
“Mercy, your highness!” she shrieked, unmindful of getting trampled. “Mercy!” The guards seized her at once and started to haul her away. “Mercy for my husband! He’s been banished!”
Corwin gritted his teeth, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Banishment was the cruelest of sentences handed down by local judges. Execution was arguably kinder than the uncertainty of being sent outside the city walls without protection. By nightfall, the condemned would become drake fodder. Corwin wished he could just ignore the woman, but there were too many eyes on him, including Dal, who watched with a mouth half opened in dismay.
“Stop,” Corwin commanded the guards. “Let her speak. What is your husband’s crime?”
The woman dropped her head in some semblance of a bow. “They say he killed a man, your highness, but my Joe couldn’t have done. He’s a good man, your highness. A kind man. Mercy!”
Corwin took in her tear-streaked face and the brittle, hopeful look in her eyes. Pity swelled inside him, and he wished for the power to end her suffering.
“Her husband was a drunk, your highness,” one of the Farhold guards said. “He killed a man in a tavern brawl.”
Corwin sighed. It was a common enough story, and he knew without asking that banishment was always the sentence for such a crime in Farhold, same as it was in many of the cities of Rime. Violence could not be tolerated. Life behind these cities’ walls was too confining to allow the possibility for panic or mayhem. Punishment must be swift. But it should also be absolute, Corwin’s father insisted, which was why banishment was not employed in Norgard. Loved ones of the condemned needed the closure of a certain death so that they would not spend the rest of their lives in futile hope that their relative had survived and might one day return.
If only Norgard laws were Rimish laws.
“When was the man’s punishment carried out?” Corwin asked the guard who’d spoken.
“Nigh on a week ago, your highness.”
And there it was, although Corwin knew there would be no convincing this distraught woman of the truth. Instead he relied on the advice Edwin had drilled into him before he’d come on this tour: to avoid any political entanglements. “I’m truly sorry, but the high king is not above the law. What the judges of Farhold have decreed must stand.”
The woman’s mournful tears turned to anger, and she spat at him. “Coward. Coward! What good’s a high king who won’t rule and do right? What good? What—” The guards covered her mouth, silencing her as they hauled her away.
Relief swept over Corwin once it was over, but the woman’s words continued to echo inside his head. What good, indeed. A prince without power. That’s who I am. If only the rest of the world would finally come to accept it. Although he would never wish his father dead, he wanted it to be over, for Edwin to be named heir and for him to be free of the expectation at last.
When they arrived at the Relay house, the Relay master welcomed them in with palpable enthusiasm, an expression exaggerated by the way his eyes seemed to protrude from his head. “Please come in. The grooms will see to your horses.”
“Thank you,” Corwin replied, handing over his horse’s reins to one of the stable boys who approached them. “We are here to see Miss Kate Brighton.”
The Relay master seemed to deflate a little. “Miss Brighton? Oh, yes, she is here, but I’m afraid she’s due to run a trial any moment. We’re holding qualifications today, you see. Our current riders have to requalify, and the new hopefuls will be tested this afternoon.”
“A trial?” Dal arched his head, sounding delighted. “I’m sure his highness would like to see that, if we may.”
Corwin nodded, and again the Relay master looked disappointed. Rubbing his hands together, he gave an awkward little bow, his foppish white curls bouncing. “As you wish.”
The man led them through the stable yard to the training fields situated in the back of the complex. A grandstand resided at the side of the field, more than half the seats occupied. “The trials always draw spectators,” the Relay master explained over his shoulder.
For a moment, Corwin hoped the crowd would allow him to blend in and go unnoticed, but as always, the gods were working against him where Kate was concerned. Astride a stocky chestnut with a white blaze running down his nose, she was facing the fence that ran in front of the stands when he arrived. As if by some magnetic force, her gaze caught his at once. The color blanched from her face, and she jerked her head to the side, steering the horse away from the stands. Corwin winced, hoping that his presence wouldn’t interfere with her trial.