“Because this substantial sum was given to me on the understanding that there would be no more coming. Which means that as of this moment, you are detaining my little frost-princess there without pecuniary return to me, and occupying one of my expensive beds as well.” She put her hands on her hips, grinning broadly. “Neither did your benefactors pay for breakfast, so get on with you, Your Highness. Up you go and out.”
“But you’ve been paid!” Which made no sense. Why would his grandparents do such a thing when they were angry with him? “Why are you brawling and shouting at my door when the sun is barely in the sky?”
“Barely touching noon, you mean. Up, up, young princeling, or I will have to get the Ox brothers to help you out of bed.” She waddled to the side of the bed and poked at him with the spoon she often carried. “Your family has paid your debt, for which I give all thanks to a merciful God—and so should you, because you had all but bought this place if it had waited any longer—but it was with the understanding I reject your custom from here forward. Consider your custom rejected, Highness, but of course with my many thanks for your patronage.” Buttercup smiled. Through the throbbing of his head, Morgan thought she looked a bit spiteful. “Up with you. Or have you suddenly become shy?”
He pulled on his breeks slowly and then went looking for the rest of his clothes, trying to make sense of what had just happened, while Mistress Buttercup helped him out by pointing with her spoon. “Over there, I think I detect a sleeve. Under Svana, yes. And your shoes, I see them peeking from under the bed like a pair of frightened puppies. Ah, and there is your jerkin, noble Highness, hanging from the window shutter. How did it get there?”
Dressed at last, and with a trailing ceremonial procession made up of Buttercup, the two thick-headed Ox brothers, and pale Svana still wrapped in the coverlet they had shared, he let his squire Melkin lead him out the door and into the hideous, scalding light of the sun.
“On behalf of my girls and my purse, Prince Morgan, I thank you!” called Buttercup. “I cannot say come again, because I have law from the High Throne itself saying I may not, so I will not. But I can say, ‘Good journey!’”
“Good journey? It is scarcely a moment’s walk back to the Hayholt,” Morgan grumbled to Melkin. “What in the name of all the saints is going on today?”
“I couldn’t guess, Your Highness,” Melkin said, but Morgan thought his squire looked a bit shifty around the eyes. He couldn’t consider it too deeply, though, because it took all his concentration simply to wade through the blazing sunshine.
Miriamele thought that summoning Morgan to the throne room was a bit much, but she had promised to let Simon do what he thought best.
The queen was among the few that had good memories of the lofty chamber. As a small child she had watched her grandfather enthroned here beneath the centuried banners, dispensing justice from the Dragonbone Chair. Later she had watched her father playing the same role in this same hall, although the good days had not lasted long that time. The hall had always reminded her of a great cave, the banners of the king’s subject countries and peoples hanging down like dripstones, and at the center of the mock-cavern, the dragon itself. Of course, this dragon was only bones, a skeleton throne the color of yellow ocher which neither she nor Simon wanted to use.
“Morgan, prince of the land and heir to the High Throne, you have been chosen for a great task,” Simon said, using his Important Things To Say voice that Miriamele found slightly annoying.
The prince looked as though he had come from a rough night. Miriamele would have felt more sorry for him as he blinked and shrugged and shook his head if he had managed to wash and dress himself first. Instead, he looked as though he had been dragged straight in from some Erchester gutter. Many of the courtiers present, and there were more than a few, whispered behind their hands at his condition, but they knew better than to openly mock the prince in front of his grandparents. She wished her husband had chosen to speak to the prince in private, but Simon had lost his patience over the hours it had taken to find him, and no longer seemed interested in sparing Morgan’s feelings.
As Simon explained the nature of the great task, a vital mission to the court of the Sithi coupled with the need to get the poisoned Sithi envoy back to her own healers, Morgan only listened with mouth open. When Simon announced that Count Eolair and Morgan himself would be the ambassadors, the prince stared at him with a look of such incomprehension that Miriamele momentarily lost all her sympathy and in fact wanted to slap him.
“Me? Why should I go?” Morgan demanded.
Simon was cold. Too cold, Miriamele thought, but still she kept her promise and held her tongue. “The first and best reason, young man, is because your king and your queen have told you to do so. There are other reasons which I will gladly share with you in private.”
“But I don’t know anything about the Sithi!”
“And they know nothing about you. Let us hope they don’t regret the loss of that innocence after they meet you.” Simon looked like a thunderstorm, but he was struggling to find gentler words, Miriamele could see. “You will be traveling with Count Eolair. The lord steward knows them as well as almost any man alive. But what is more important, you are traveling to see them as a prince of the High Ward, and as the heir to the throne. That is something important, boy, very important. Do you see that? Tell me you do, I pray you.”
Morgan only stared sullenly, so Simon took a breath, then laid out the rest of the charge he and Miriamele were putting upon them. Mounted knights and a foot troop of Erkynguard would accompany the envoys, and the trolls would ride with them until the groups went their separate way and Binabik’s family continued back to Yiqanuc.
The prince listened for a while, then stirred. “And who can I take with me to fill the long days? Melkin is a rather poor conversationalist.” He stared at his squire, who tried to make himself look even smaller.
“If you do not think that Eolair and Binabik, two of the cleverest, wisest men in all of Osten Ard are company enough,” Simon said with a sour face, “I suppose we can permit you to take one of your companions—I’m not certain I would call them friends—with you on the journey.”
“Praise the saints and angels,” said Morgan, for the first time showing something other than resentment. “I shall hate to leave the others behind, but Astrian is a good man with a jest as well as a sword—”
“Ho, lad, ho!” said Simon. “I didn’t say you could pick one of your friends, I said you could take one of your friends. You may bring Sir Porto. He has carried a sword on behalf of the throne, at least, and proved himself a good man, even if that was long ago. We plan to surround you with wisdom and experience, Morgan—not accomplices.”
“Porto! But he is a hundred years old! A thousand!” Morgan stood up now, his face white and his hands shaking from the prior night’s indulgence as much as from anger. “This is all meant to punish me, isn’t it? All because I won’t do what you want from me. You hope they will lose me in the forest or in the eastern mountains somewhere and I will never embarrass you again.”
“By merciful Rhiap!” Simon hunched forward, his beard spreading against his breastbone, and for a moment Miriamele saw something in her so-familiar husband that looked more like one of the ancient prophets than the kind man she knew. “Do you think that I would risk a mission this important, risk my best counselors and soldiers, just to punish you? Boy, you make me angry indeed. Very angry.”
“Majesty . . . husband . . .” Miriamele said, putting aside her resolve for a moment. “Let us remember what we do here.”
Simon darted her a cross look, but saw that Binabik and Count Eolair were watching him worriedly as well. He took a moment to recover his calm before speaking again. “I will tell you once more, Prince, that this is a task very close to my heart, and to your grandmother’s heart as well. We send you, not to see you punished, but to see you succeed. We send you because we need you to do good for the throne. That throne will be yours someday.” He looked at Morgan, who had folded his arms across his chest and was clearly not going to kneel again. “You may go and see to your preparations now. St. Callistan’s Day is in three days, and you will leave then.”
Morgan’s face was wan with outrage, and he clearly considered further argument, but for the first time he looked to his grandmother. She shook her head, slowly but firmly. Some of his color returned. He bowed his head.
“As Your Majesties wish,” was all he said, then bowed with careful correctness, turned, and walked out of the throne hall. His squire scuttled after him, trying to keep up without turning his back on the king and queen, something that made him walk an uneven, awkward path.