The Rebel Prince

DAY ELEVEN:

AN UNDERSTANDING



WYNTER SIPPED coffee and watched the King read. It was the first time she had ever seen the man working, and she was astonished at how quickly he processed the tightly packed manuscripts, how immersed he became in their contents. He had a very particular method, which interested and intrigued her. First he would scan the document at incredible speed, reading from beginning to end, his brows furrowed. Then he would straighten the pages, tap them into alignment and work his way through again, pausing at relevant passages. He would take notes on a separate sheet. Sometimes he marked the original papers in some way, underlining sentences, ticking words, ringing whole paragraphs of the text. When he was happy that he had squeezed every jot of information from one document, Jonathon would pass it to Razi, bidding him read it and its notes, and then he would move on to the next.

During the course of this intense period of concentration, the King drank two or more pots of tar-black coffee and demolished a manchet loaf with olive oil and cheese. Razi read in frowning silence. He seemed to be absorbing information afresh, seeing all the various angles as if for the very first time, but he couldn’t add much to Jonathon’s deliberations. Indeed, the King seemed to offer the documents more for his son’s benefit than for anything else.

Occasionally the men would ask Wynter to fetch ink or food. Occasionally they would ask for her recollections of Razi and Alberon’s conversations. But mostly they ignored her, and she sat in silence observing them work. She watched as the sun moved across the canvas, she listened to the peaceful rustle of papers, she drank coffee, and she thought.

If Alberon had accepted the King’s offer to parley – and the King seemed convinced that he had – then he would be here soon. He would arrive with only a small, non-threatening entourage, and he would find himself greeted by the same. Unless both parties resorted to daggers in the back or poisoned each other’s wine, it seemed likely that father and son were finally about to sit down and talk. It seemed likely that this damaged kingdom was on the verge of some sort of repair. For the very first time, Wynter might have an opportunity to think on what her future – her personal future – could hold.

She had to confess, all that she had previously expected from life seemed somehow inappropriate now, or unpalatable to her. Her time in Albi’s camp had, once again, brought home the stifling constrictions of court life. Her time on the trail with Christopher had made her long for more than an existence dedicated solely to her craft. She watched Razi work and she realised that, like him, she had been stripped of her past. All she had left was herself, the man she loved, and the skills that God and her father had given her.

What on earth was she to do with that? Where on earth could she go with it?

‘His communications with the North,’ said the King, his quill scratching away even as he spoke, ‘how were they effected?’

Wynter dragged herself from her thoughts. She put down her coffee. ‘These most recent messages were sent via the Merron, your Majesty.’

He paused in surprise. ‘That Hadrish thief?’

‘Christopher Garron is not a thief,’ said Razi mildly, his attention focused on a sheaf of Jonathon’s notes. ‘I have told you before.’

The King and Wynter exchanged a look. Wynter went to comment, but the King stopped her with a shake of his head. ‘The Merron?’ he prompted her.

‘Noblemen of a Northland tribe, your Majesty. One of their number has accompanied us, if you wish to question him. He waits outside with Freeman Garron. But the Merron seem to know little of the Royal Princess Shirken’s intentions, your Majesty. They work for her in the hope that their efforts will save their kind from destruction . . . a futile hope, I fear.’

The King raised an eyebrow. ‘Futile indeed,’ he said dryly. ‘I am intimately aware of Marguerite’s attitude to her non-Christian subjects.’ He shuffled the papers once again, lifted a particular page. ‘This proposed marriage,’ he murmured, ‘it astounds me.’

Wynter sighed. ‘It is madness,’ she said.

‘It is genius,’ he replied. Her shock seemed to tickle him, and he smiled at her, a warmly amused smile, very like his youngest son’s. ‘Should Marguerite succeed in pushing her father aside without causing revolt – and I suspect that if anyone can do it, she can – a marital alliance between these two kingdoms would be . . .’ Jonathon shook his head. ‘It would be immense,’ he said. ‘There would need to be an agreement regarding heirs, of course. That should be easy enough to hammer out . . . perhaps a division on grounds of sex or age? Yes. Age, I think. One heir North, one South, with provision for separate succession in case of death . . . Foreign education. Padua perhaps? Hmmm. Complete autonomy of rule, of course.’ He huffed in amazement. ‘It is an entirely new method. Who would have imagined the boy capable of its proposal?’ He lost himself in thought, murmuring away to himself, making notes. ‘He would not be able to handle her, of course, poor child. He has no idea of what those people are capable, but, perhaps . . .’

Razi met Wynter’s eyes as the King, deep in thought, shuffled papers and muttered his tangled calculations. ‘This foolishness with the Midland resistance,’ said the King eventually, ‘that cannot be allowed.’

Wynter’s heart sank for Jared and Mary and their desperate hopes for reform. ‘But the Midland envoys have already been sent home, your Majesty,’ she ventured. ‘They are of the belief that they have your Majesty’s support. They greatly depend on it. The Royal Prince . . . the Royal Prince has given them copies of my father’s designs in the hope that my father’s machines will strengthen their position and help end the appalling conditions their people currently endure.’

Jonathon’s expression drew down into distress. He turned his face away, as if Wynter had attempted to show him some disgusting thing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, no. We shall smother that one.’ He carefully set two of the documents aside.

‘Mary,’ said Razi. The King and Wynter glanced expectantly at him. ‘Mary,’ he insisted. ‘The Lady Phillipe D’Arden and her child. They have sacrificed all for the Midland Reform. Are we to allow them to fail?’

Jonathon sat back. ‘Phillipe D’Arden, Razi? You have met him?’

‘I . . .’ said Razi, suddenly uncertain again. ‘I have met Mary,’ he said.

Jonathon looked to Wynter. His expression left little doubt that he thought Razi was wandering in his mind. Wynter smiled. ‘In fact, the Lady Mary was in Alberon’s camp, your Majesty. From what I understand, the Lord D’Arden fell victim to the Midland inquisition. The Lady Mary and a Presbyter named Jared came to negotiate in his place.’

‘Phillipe D’Arden is dead?’ breathed Jonathon. ‘Oh no. Oh, what a blow to mankind. Phillipe was an intelligent and wonderful man. I have many of his theses in my library. You should read them, Protector Lady, when you have the chance. An intelligent, wonderful man, much in sympathy with your father.’ Jonathon hung his head. ‘Jesu. Such waste. I will never fail to despair at the destruction so often wrought by those who purport to act for God. One wonders why He simply does not sicken of us. Why He does not simply wipe the earth clean of us, and leave it to the honesty of the lower beasts.’

‘The reformists need your help, Majesty. They need your strength.’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No. I cannot. I simply . . . this must end. We must . . . it must be made to go away.’

Wynter leaned in. She placed her hand carefully on his arm. ‘Majesty,’ she said, ‘my father was a great man – a great man. Who, I have come to understand, struggled with a horribly troubled conscience.’

Jonathon’s eyes widened with horror. Wynter did not look away.

‘You and I both know,’ she whispered, ‘that this box, having been opened, cannot again be closed. No matter what memories it may contain.’

The King withdrew his arm from beneath Wynter’s grasp. He shook his head.

‘Of what does the lady speak?’ asked Razi. His father turned to him, searching his curious face with furious concentration. Wynter tentatively replaced her hand on Jonathon’s tightly clenched fist.

‘The Lord Razi has no longer any recollection of what we discuss,’ she said. When Jonathon once again met her eyes and did not withdraw from her touch, she continued gently on. ‘Your Majesty, I understand that a good man must fling those things from him that sully his soul. It is a commendable impulse to cast from us that which we wish not to have done and to bury it so it may never be done again. But perhaps it is the burden of a great king that he face those things which damn him. That he grasp the nettle of a troubled conscience, and think of the betterment of his people. Your Majesty, all your attempts to suppress my father’s machines have only led to disaster. To deny their existence now is folly, for there was no turning back once you drew them once more into the open. You cannot allow your own past to destroy you, your Majesty. You cannot allow it to destroy this kingdom. You are a king, and you must steel yourself to carry the heavy burden of a king.’

All the danger went from Jonathon’s face. He was, for a brief moment, just a man. A desolate man, desperately haunted. ‘Nothing good has ever come of those machines, child. They have paved my way to hell.’

‘Whatever you have done, your Majesty, is done already. The future of your kingdom lies in what you choose to do next.’

Jonathon slid his gaze to the documents pertaining to the Midland Reform. Reluctantly, he moved his hand to them. ‘Perhaps the mere sight of Lorcan’s designs could be enough to strengthen the reformists’ cause? Perhaps something may be done, without recourse to actually . . .’ He placed the reform documents back with the others. His fingers lingered on them a moment. ‘Shall we see, Lorcan, what good might come of the evil we wrought?’

Wynter looked at his troubled, heavy face. The evil we wrought. The King closed his eyes and wearily ran his hand through his shining curls. Would she ever know the truth? Now is not the time to ask, she told herself.

Razi’s deep voice cut into her thoughts. ‘You have reconsidered your heir’s proposals?’

The King’s lips twitched. He kept his head propped in his hand, and with one finger traced the neat rows of Alberon’s rounded script. ‘With modifications,’ he said, ‘some portions of it may well be effected. This marriage, for example. An astounding innovation. He did not trust me with it, of course. The usurpation of a king, he felt, would be too much. Indeed, he was probably right . . . coupled with the threat of Lorcan’s machines. Had the boy only spoken more. Had I only listened . . .’ He trailed again to thoughtful silence.

How little we know of what is in his head, thought Wynter. How he must have missed my father all these years. The one friend to whom he could confide without fear of seeming weak.

‘You will speak to your heir?’ she asked gently.

‘Certainly, it is a better prospect than that which lay before me this morning,’ whispered Jonathon, gazing at the documents. His eyes wandered to Wynter. He regarded her for a moment, scanning her hair, her eyes. Then he sighed, sat back, scrubbed his face and seemed to shake himself free of his heavy melancholy. He cleared his throat and straightened in his chair; a king once more.

‘How did he find me in the end?’ he asked, briskly gathering the papers.

He mistook their silence for reluctance and looked at them from under his brows. ‘How did he know to send you here?’ he asked, tapping the sheaves into order. ‘Come now!’ he said. ‘I shall need to know. Who was it that betrayed me?’

Razi glanced at Wynter in utter confusion.

‘Did your Majesty not arrange to meet the Royal Prince?’ she asked.

The King’s hands froze in the act of tying the folder. ‘You said he sent you,’ he said darkly.

‘He did,’ said Wynter, ‘with these. But . . . Majesty, did you not arrange to meet his Highness?’

‘You said he sent you here!’ roared the King, surging to his feet in panic.

‘No, Majesty! We were headed for the palace, but on the trail we met a messenger who told us you were camped here. We diverted our course and came to deliver his Highness’s messages.’

‘A messenger? One of Alberon’s men?’

‘Yes, Majesty. He was in much haste to reach him. He seemed to believe you wished to ambush the Prince. Do not fear, though, it is unlikely that he has managed to divert his Highness. I suspect the Prince will have left camp before the man arrived – whatever your arrangements are, I have no doubt they still stand.’

‘Then Alberon is . . . ? No!’ the King pushed the table back.

Wynter and Razi leapt from their chairs and ran after him as he tore his way through the tent door.

‘François!’ he yelled. ‘François!’ The captain came running. The soldiers all stood to attention. ‘My horse!’ shouted the King. ‘Hurry! I must forestall him!’

The captain gestured to a man who ran to get the King’s horse. Then he stepped close to Jonathon, his voice low. ‘You have changed your mind, Majesty?’

The King grabbed him by his shoulders. ‘Most strongly, friend. Pray God for me that I am not too late.’

Hope flared in the captain’s eyes and he squeezed the top of the King’s arm. ‘Thank God!’ he cried. ‘I shall get my horse.’

‘No. Keep these innocents here. They must never see, you understand?’

The captain nodded. ‘I swear it.’

A soldier led the King’s horse through the milling crowd. Jonathon grabbed the reins from him and swung into the saddle, scattering men in all directions. ‘Stay here!’ he cried as some of the soldiers ran for the highline. ‘You will stay here!’

‘Christopher!’ yelled Wynter. ‘Get the horses! We must accompany the King!’

Christopher and Sól began to push their way through the reluctant soldiers. The King turned in the saddle, staring down at Wynter, and she glared stubbornly back. He nodded.

‘Release the Lord Razi’s men,’ he called to the captain. ‘Give them their weapons and their mounts.’ At the captain’s uncertainty, the King’s face drew down in sorrow. ‘They know all there is to know, François. God help them. They are already part of our poisoned circle. Give them their weapons, leave them join me. But keep these others here!’ Jerking his horse around, the King thundered away through the long grass, his last order trailing behind him on pollen and dust.

Wynter, Razi, Christopher and Sól were soon hard upon his heels.