Lionheart was no murderer. So perhaps Prince Foxbrush was not murdered?
It didn’t matter, Felix decided with a shrug as he attempted to loosen his collar. All around him the Eldest’s Hall was crowded with a glory of noblemen and women, holy clerics in robes of an old style, barons and dukes and kings of distant nations, all come to see the new Eldest of Southlands crowned. And really, was it any of Felix’s business whom these dragon-eaten foreigners chose to make their king? He had only to stand here, representing his nation with dignity (or boredom), as was right and proper.
Some cleric began to chant, and others joined in. A solemn procession of men and women in holy garments marched stolidly up the hall, bearing incense and starflowers according to some old custom with which Felix was unfamiliar. The various barons of Southlands marched in the wake of the holy orders, each carrying the shields of their baronies, and they were also crowned in starflowers.
Somehow, the sight of all those artificial blossoms made Felix think of Dame Imraldera. He couldn’t say why, exactly. Most things made him think of Dame Imraldera these days. She had saved his life, after all. And she was so very . . . wonderful.
His young heart sank to his stomach in a manner miserable yet not altogether unpleasant, and he lost himself momentarily in a melancholy dream. One day he would find her again. One day he would . . .
Hang on! Lord Lumé above, what was that?
Felix tried not to crane his neck too obviously as he watched the newest spectacle coming down the aisle. It was, he gathered, the soon-to-be queen, a plump, pleasant-faced woman squeezed into sumptuous garments that all but smothered her short figure. She was surrounded by ladies of the court, including the ambassador’s wife, all of whom carried great bundles of paper starflowers in their hands.
And holding up her train in the back was the tallest, gawkiest, most shuffle-footed page boy Felix had ever seen in his life.
“Lionheart!” he whispered.
Felix knew him at once. Dressed in servants’ livery several times too small for him, his head bowed and only partially hidden beneath a floppy, flower-rimmed hat, he clung to the train of the queen-to-be and did everything in his power to make himself unnoticeable. Surrounded as he was by all the grandeur of the courtly ladies, he very nearly succeeded.
But from where Felix stood, it was as though a beam of brilliant sunlight fell solely upon the head of the disinherited prince, making him impossible to miss.
Felix glanced from side to side, but no one around him seemed to have spotted the suspected murderer in their midst. Should he speak up? Should he shout some warning?
But the horns were blaring now, and the chant of the holy orders had risen to a tempestuous crescendo. The man who would be king—the Baron of Middlecrescent, whom Felix had not yet met—appeared at the end of the hall. All eyes fixed on him, all eyes, that is, except for Felix’s. He stared at Lionheart shuffling into hiding behind the baron’s wife. Hymlumé and all the starry host, did the woman actually turn and wink at her supposed page boy? Did she not know who he was? Or . . . or maybe . . .
Below the noise, skimming beneath the sounds of two hundred singing voices and great shattering horns, came a sound like silver and water flowing over smooth stone. A voice of birdsong that struck Felix’s ear and caused him to turn his head. For a moment—a moment so brief, he must have imagined it—he saw the Prince of Farthestshore standing before him. Only he was standing in midair, which was impossible. That smile on his face, his hand pointing down toward the floor below the gallery—it was all a vision brought on by the heat and fancy clothes and odd foreign foods.
The moment passed. The vision was gone.
Felix, gulping, took a step forward and looked down over the gallery railing. He saw a man-at-arms directly below, dressed in red and armed with a tapered southerner’s sword. Beyond the guard was a door, cracked open so that Felix could just see a curving stairway spiraling up.
The Baron of Middlecrescent was midway down the aisle now, moving in a stately stride, his head high, his cold, fish-like eyes staring before him as though daring anyone in that company to question his right to kingdom and crown. His wife smiled and clasped her hands at the sight of him, and behind her the disgraced prince crouched and watched and waited.