At this, Foxbrush let go of the end of the scroll he’d been trying and failing to pull from Redman’s grasp. He fell back upon the pile of skins, too dizzy to remain upright. Fur stuck to his skin and he groaned.
Redman, unimpressed, stood—or stood as much as he could in that low chamber. “I think,” he said, “you need your rest. My daughter’s salve will cure those stings soon enough, but you’d best not move too much in the meanwhile. Perhaps this evening you will be well enough to be brought before the Eldest. She will decide then what is to be done with you.”
With a last look at it and a shrug, Redman tossed the scroll to land beside Foxbrush on his makeshift bed. He shook his head, puffed behind his mustache, then drew his daughter after him out of the room, saying to her in the language of the girl’s mother, which did not come naturally to him:
“It’s all right, child. The man is a little mad from the wasps, I think. You’ve cleaned him up well, though; your mother will be proud. Let him sleep now and we will see about him later.”
“I like him, Da,” the girl said. “He’s funny. Even if he doesn’t talk right.”
“He’s certainly something,” Redman agreed, allowing the reed curtain to swing over the doorway as they exited. He looked back over his shoulder, eyeing that curtain as though he could see through it to the occupant of the chamber beyond. It had been many long years since he’d heard his native tongue, the language of the North Country, spoken by anyone beyond his small family. However thick this stranger’s accent, the language itself was unmistakable. But how?
He must leave it for now; some mysteries could bear a wait before solving.
Foxbrush, however, lay panting in the near darkness. Birds in the thatching above him screamed noisily, and their voices were echoes of his own crazed mind. He reached out and, trembling, snatched up Leo’s scroll.
“I’ve got to get out of here!”
Then he turned to the wall, grimacing but determined. After all, it was only made of mud.
15
PRINCE FELIX OF PARUMVIR WAS BORED.
The advantage to this was that a bored face could easily be mistaken for an expression of solemn dignity. So he told himself he must look extraordinarily solemn and dignified now as he stood with the Parumvir ambassador to Southlands on one side and the Duke of Gaheris on the other, crammed into a high gallery in the newly rebuilt Great Hall of the Eldest’s House.
Felix had been pleased enough when his father sent him as emissary from Parumvir to the coronation of the new Eldest. He’d never been to Southlands before. Indeed, he’d never been farther south on the Continent than Beauclair. And Parumvir, in recent history, had become rather . . . well, he hated to say, but it had somehow become a little small.
A lad cannot travel deep into the Wood Between and the worlds beyond without finding his former world tight about the seams upon his return. An adventure down south was just what he needed, both he and his father, King Fidel, had agreed.
So here he was now, stuffed into a suit of peacock hues and a stiff collar dripping with jewels, far too hot for this southern clime, slowly melting away into a puddle of former princeliness. All for the sake of crowning some fellow who, rumor had it, was nothing short of a usurper.
“What happened to Lionheart?” Felix had asked Sir Palinurus, the ambassador at whose sumptuous house in the Eldest’s City the prince was being hosted. “Was he not Eldest Hawkeye’s heir? I heard some rumor about him.”
Felix had heard more than rumor; he had actually met Lionheart in strange worlds beyond the borders of the mortal realm. But he’d never quite managed to talk to him or discover more than a few hints of his story. So he listened with interest as Sir Palinurus explained Prince Lionheart’s disinheritance and his cousin Foxbrush’s subsequent rise to power.
“All right. But then this Foxbrush fellow, he ran away?” Felix persisted. Rumor traveled swiftly across the Continent, yet Felix wasn’t much of a gossip hound and found himself woefully lacking in details.
“Oh indeed, my prince!” Sir Palinurus agreed with almost as much vigor as a fishmonger’s wife sharing a juicy tidbit. “On his very wedding day, he and the lady in question both vanished! It is rumored the former Prince Lionheart was seen upon the grounds that day, and some say that he abducted and murdered them both out of vengeance.”
Felix, standing in the gallery now, mulled over this piece of information. He didn’t think he believed it. Lionheart was a scamp and scoundrel who’d caused more than a little trouble in Parumvir, and Felix hadn’t a great deal of love in his heart for the former prince, but . . .
But he had seen Lionheart lying dead upon a dark stone, stabbed through the heart by a unicorn’s horn. And he had seen him return to life and stand in the presence of the Prince of Farthestshore.
These weren’t memories Felix dared to share with any of those around him. No one would believe him, not even after all the recent doings with dragons and myths come to life. But he knew what he had seen.