“Here, highness,” the captain called out before I reached the top stair.
I turned. The man was indicating a plaque set in the outer wall, amid a host of others, markers for lords and generals of yesteryear, some weathered beyond reading. I re-trod my path, outrage building. The royal family were always laid to rest inside the church, our tombs crowding the margins of the aisles to either side of the nave, princes and princesses of the realm buried beneath black slabs of marble set into the floor, more renowned figures in their own sepulchres beneath their likenesses idealized in alabaster. For kings and queens they found space in the chancel. The slow tide of years moved forgotten royals down into the catacombs, freeing space for more recent departures . . . but even the most lowly prince got to have the church roof keep the rain off his title. My plaque was set between two other newish ones, on the left General Ullamere Contaph, Hero of Ameroth Keep, 17–97 year of Interregnum, on the right Lord Quentin DeVeer, 38–98 year of Interregnum. I set a hand to my own.
“In memoriam: Jalan Kendeth, third son of Cardinal Reymond, 76–98 year of Interregnum.” I read the words aloud. “That’s it? Cardinal’s third son?” No prince? No hero of Aral Pass? Bastards. “I’ll see the cardinal now. If he’s sober and not abed with some choirboy.” I found my hand resting on my knife, palm to pommel. “Now!”
The guardsmen snapped erect at that last barked command. The captain, standing to attention, gestured at the church doors with his eyes.
“I very much doubt I’ll find him in there, captain!” But I returned up the steps in any case and set both hands to the left door, pushing through with a measure of violence.
For a while I stood blind, waiting for my eyes to adjust from the brilliance of the day to the softness of candles and the muted spectrum of stained glass. Dim shapes resolved and I stepped in. Three old ladies kneeling at the pews, an ancient bent over the bank of votive candles, and a stooped grey figure standing facing the wall about halfway along the north aisle. I hadn’t really expected to find my father among them. At the far end beneath the mandala window a black-frocked priest stood turning a page at the lectern. I took another step forward. There wouldn’t be any point asking if Father was hidden away in the transepts, but even so something drew me in. Perhaps just the coolness. The day outside was starting to get hellish hot. Maybe my time in Norseheim had lowered my tolerance for Red March summers because it proved a blessed relief to get out of the glare for a moment.
It wasn’t until I made my way along the north aisle that I realized the stooping man was facing my mother’s stone—a plaque bearing her name and lineage, and behind it, buried in the thickness of the walls, her remains. And—as I now remembered and perhaps no one else knew—those of my unborn sister.
“Prince Jalan?” The man looked up at me, grey and old before his time, lined with pain. He took a step toward me, hobbling, his right leg ruined. For some reason I matched his advance with a step back.
“Robbin?” One of my father’s retainers, though at first I hadn’t been sure of it in the gloom. He stood with his head bathed in green light. It streamed down through the serpent in the high window where Saint George battled the dragon. Now though I saw past his stoop and his old man’s hair, I looked beyond one decade and half of another. “Robbin?” Once more, for a moment, I couldn’t see him properly—damned incense in these churches stings your eyes something rotten. I squeezed my eyes against the tears and saw Robbin as he’d been fifteen years before, battling Edris Dean, putting himself between the assassin and Mother and me. The wound that crippled him he took in my service. I pressed fingers to my eyes to clear them, wondering how many times I’d mocked or cursed him for his slowness over the years as he hobbled about on errands for my father.
“Yes, highness.” He started struggling to go down on one knee like men do before the throne. “Th-they said you were dead.”
I grabbed him and hauled him up before he fell on his face or did something more embarrassing. “I don’t feel dead.” I let him go and took a step back. “Now, unless my father is lurking in here I’ll go off and look for him somewhere he’s likely to be. Our good cardinal should be able to settle the matter of whether I’m dead or not once and for all.”
I straightened the front of Robbin’s jerkin where I’d grabbed it to pull him to his feet, and with a curt nod I left him standing there, still half-stunned. My footsteps echoed loud among the pillars and the old widows amid the pews watched my departure, judgement written in every wrinkle.
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