The False Prince (20 page)

S
ince Conner’s traveling group had now swelled from only himself, Mott, and Roden to a group of seven, we were informed that there would be a delay before we could be ready to leave. Tobias looked pleased and relieved, but Roden’s expression was almost murderous as he stomped away. I wasn’t sure where he was going, but knew he’d return when it was time to leave. He couldn’t risk being left behind.

After changing into riding clothes upstairs, I told Mott that I wanted to go for a ride. “This may be my last chance to be truly alone, perhaps ever,” I explained. “Let me have that time with my thoughts.”

Mott gave a permissive bow of his head. “Be careful. You’re Conner’s prize now.”

“I’m never careful,” I said, grinning. Mott didn’t smile back.

I walked past the kitchen toward the back door of Farthenwood that would lead me to the stables, and was only barely outside before someone punched me in the arm. Not a hard punch, compared to most hits I’ve taken, but an angry one.

Imogen had been standing just outside the door. She’d probably seen me in riding clothes and came out to wait for me.

“What was that for?” I asked, rubbing my arm.

She glanced around to make sure we were alone, then hissed, “How dare you, Sage? How dare you interfere with my life?”

Genuinely confused, I took her by the elbow and led her farther away from the door, beside a tall hedge where we would not be easily seen. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “What have I done?”

“You’re the prince now?”

“Looks that way.”

Tears welled in her eyes, though she was obviously trying hard to push them back. “And you’re bringing me to Drylliad with you?”

“I can get you away from here, from whoever treats you so badly.”

“And then what, Sage? What happens to me in Drylliad?”

I shrugged, unable to understand why she was so angry. “You go free. Once I’m made prince, I’ll have access to the treasury. I’ll pay off your mother’s debt to Conner and you’re free.”

She shook her head stiffly. “I won’t have your charity. Not from an orphan and certainly not from a prince.”

“It’s not charity. You’re my friend, and I want to help.”

If possible, that made her even angrier. “Do you think this is helpful? I had a place here, Sage. I understood my life.”

“You have no life here. I’m giving it back to you.”

“No, you’re not. I know what this is.”

I folded my arms as I faced her. “Oh?”

“You’re afraid to go to Drylliad, correct?”

A little anxious perhaps, but that didn’t explain her anger. “What if I am?” I replied. “You don’t understand what —”

“I understand perfectly. You played Conner’s game and won, but now that his decision is made, you’re afraid no one will believe the lies. You want help in convincing the court. You think by bringing me to Drylliad, I’ll feel obligated to lie for you.”

Strong emotions rose in me. Not exactly anger, though that’s how it sounded when I spoke. “You think that’s my plan, that I’d use you in such a way? I had no idea I was such a horrible person.”

Her face softened somewhat. “You’re not horrible, Sage. But look at what Conner’s turning you into. Don’t you see it? I’ve watched you go from this orphan boy who might’ve become my friend to Conner’s prince, who’ll never be anything but his costumed servant.”

“I’m nobody’s servant.”

“Yes, you are.” She shook her head sadly. “You gave in to him. You let Conner win. I didn’t think you would.”

“Imogen, there is so much more happening than you know.”

“And does any of it matter more than your freedom?” After a slight hesitation, she added, “I’m disappointed in you. I’d rather you had run. That would be better than this.”

“Run?” Truly angry now, I started to walk away, then turned back to her. “Then you’d condemn Tobias to death, make Roden a puppet king, and doom yourself to a life here. Conner’s held you down for so long, you’ve forgotten what it’s like to breathe free air.”

“And you’ve given your life to his control forever. You’ll never breathe free again.”

I started to answer, to say whatever was necessary to make her understand. But in the end, I hesitated too long and finally only managed to suggest she should pack her things before Conner was ready to leave.

She shook her head, then hurried back into the house. As much as I wanted to follow her, gut instinct told me that would only make things worse. She could believe whatever she wanted about me, but she was still coming to Drylliad.

There were a few stable boys tending to the horses when I arrived there a few minutes later. No sign of Cregan, who was probably now having to get ready for our journey. The longer I avoided him, the better. Cregan had wanted Roden to be chosen. He’d be furious with me for winning out at the last minute.

I chose a quarterhorse named Poco for the ride. The stable boy seemed reluctant to let me have it without direct orders from Conner, so I began preparing the saddle myself. Finally, he said he’d do it before I ruined my clothes and got us both in trouble.

Riding Poco through the open field was refreshing. I’d found spots of time alone over the past two weeks, but nothing of freedom. Poco was an excellent horse, instinctively obedient and eager to be tested. It wasn’t long before Farthenwood was lost behind a wooded hill, and all was silent except for the gentle river nearby with birds chirping overhead. A slight breeze rustled the leaves of the tall trees over my head. I lifted my face to the sky and let the wind and the sun caress my skin. This was freedom.

As much as I’d ever know again, anyway. If Imogen had been right about anything she accused me of back at the house, this was it.

I slid off Poco’s back and walked him to the edge of the river. This wasn’t far from where Windstorm had left me several days ago, and the memory forced a smile to my face. I wished for a friend or a father I could tell the story to and make them laugh. Either with me or at me, I didn’t care. Several smooth rocks lay along the bank of the river. I grabbed a fistful and flung them one by one into the water, watching them skip a time or two before disappearing. One rock I kept for myself.

It was little surprise only a few minutes later when another horse snorted in the background. Mott had come, no doubt. I’d seen him watching me from a distance when I was in the stables. And by the time I reached the arch of the eastern hill, Mott was in the stables. It must have killed him to wait this long before finally approaching me.

“Do you mind a little company?” he asked.

“Yes.”

It didn’t matter. He dismounted and walked over to me. We stood side by side for a long while, watching the river.

Eventually, Mott asked, “Did you know he’d pick you, because of that trick you can do with the coin?”

“I don’t think anyone can predict what Conner will do. It’s what makes him so dangerous.”

“But you must have guessed it, or else you would have escaped this morning. Using the passages, it would have been an easy thing to run.”

“Look what happened to Latamer when he tried to run.”

That brought on an uncomfortable silence. Finally, Mott said, “Conner wants you to know that we’re ready to leave soon. Errol is waiting to help you change into traveling clothes.”

“You’d think they’d make traveling clothes more comfortable,” I muttered. “I believe when I’m king, my first order will be to let everyone wear whatever clothes they want.”

Mott chuckled. “Fashion. What a mighty beginning that will be for your reign.” After another pause, he added, “What kind of king will you be, Sage? Tyrannical and fierce, like Veldergrath would be? Complacent and indifferent, like your father?”

I turned to him. “Like Eckbert, you mean?”

“Of course.” With a cough, Mott added, “Get used to it. If you are Jaron, then Eckbert is your father.”

I let that pass. “If I’m the prince, then you have a higher loyalty to me than to Conner, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me this, did Conner kill my family?”

“I can’t answer that, Sage.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“You haven’t been declared the prince yet.”

I held out my arms to Mott. “Who do you see now, Sage or Jaron?”

Mott studied me for a long time before answering. “The bigger question may be, who do you see?”

“I don’t know. It’s not easy to be one type of person when you’ve worked so hard to be a very different type of person.”

Mott’s reply came so fast I wondered if he’d been waiting for just that type of opening. “And tell me, Sage, which person have you worked so hard to be? The orphan or the prince?”

He walked to his horse and untied a bundle on its back, unwrapping it as he carried it to me. Then he set the imitation of Prince Jaron’s sword in my hands. My thumb rubbed over the rubies in the pommel.

“Thinking of how much you could get for them at market?” Mott asked.

“No.” I held the sword out to him. “I don’t understand.”

“I thought you must want it. You stole it before, didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. We both knew the truth. “Which means you must have controlled that foul mare Cregan gave you long enough to get to and from the sword arena without being seen.”

“I wouldn’t say I ever controlled her,” I admitted with a grin. “I was so worn out at the end, she really did dump me into the river.”

Mott smiled and tapped the sword. “I figured you must want it back now, before we leave for Drylliad.”

“Are you giving it to me? Is it mine now?”

Mott nodded. Without giving it a second glance, I hurled it into the deepest bend of the river.

Mott started forward, as if to rescue it, then turned back to me. “What did you do that for?”

I arched my head to look at him. “The prince of Carthya will never wear a cheap copy of a sword at his side. That sword is an insult to him.”

“Is that why you stole it?” He didn’t wait for an answer, which was good because I couldn’t admit that aloud. “It would have helped you look more authentic.”

“Do you really think I needed
that
, Mott, to help me?”

Mott nodded, very slowly. Not in response to my question but as if he had finally settled something in his mind. “No, you will not need that sword, Your Highness.”

“Then you think I can convince them that I’m the prince?”

After a deep breath, Mott lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head. “What I think, if you forgive me of my blindness before, is that I never was looking at Sage the orphan. I kneel before the living prince of Carthya. You are Prince Jaron.”

J
aron Artolius Eckbert III of Carthya was the second son of Eckbert and Erin, King and Queen of Carthya. All of the regents agreed it would have been better if this child had been a daughter rather than a son. A daughter could have married into the kingdom of Gelyn, as a measure of preserving peace.

Nor was the young prince particularly impressive as a royal. He was smaller in stature than his brother had been, had a talent for causing trouble, and appeared to favor his left hand, a quality frowned upon for Carthyan royalty.

Privately, Erin cherished her second son. The older child, Darius, was already being trained as a future king. He had belonged to the state from the moment of his birth, and fit the role well. He was decisive, controlled, and detached, at least to his mother. But less was expected of Jaron, and he could always be a little bit more hers.

Erin never had felt comfortable as queen of Carthya. It required her to hide much of her true spirit and zest for adventure. Indeed, engaging in a secret romance with young Eckbert had been the greatest adventure in her youth. She hadn’t paused to consider the consequences until it was too late and she was in love.

Erin had served drinks in a small tavern at Pyrth for a year, working off the debts her father had acquired after becoming seriously ill while at sea. It was humiliating work. Until then, their family had enjoyed a fair social status and she had enough education to know how far they had sunk. But Erin endured it, and eventually the tavern began to prosper under her guidance.

Eckbert spotted her one night when he and his attendants traveled through Pyrth. He returned the second night in disguise, enchanted by her beauty, charm, and loyalty to her family. By the third night, Erin had figured out who Eckbert really was. He begged her to keep his secret, only so that he could continue to see her again.

At the end of a week, Eckbert paid off her father’s debts, with extra to the tavern owner on a royal command that he must never reveal Erin’s humble origins. He brought Erin back with him to Drylliad and made her his queen.

In marriage, Eckbert and Erin were happy, but as king and queen they disagreed on how to rule Carthya. Erin saw enemies in the faces of those Eckbert sought to appease with favorable trade laws and by ignoring clear violations of treaties. Their older son, Darius, would one day have to bear the consequences of Eckbert’s fear of conflict. Jaron would be given more freedom to pursue his own desires. And Erin loved him for that.

Jaron was still very young when it became clear that he was his mother’s child more than his father’s. The fire he set in the throne room was not malicious. He had taken a bet from a friend, a castle page, that tapestries could burn. He intended to prove it by burning only a hidden corner of the tapestry. Over three hundred years of threaded history went up in flames before servants were able to put the fire out.

Commoners also loved the story of Jaron, at age ten, challenging the king of Mendenwal to a duel. None of them knew that Jaron had overheard the king accuse Queen Erin of not being a true royal. They only laughed at the image of a ten-year-old boy facing off with a king four times his age. The Mendenwal king humorously obliged Jaron and undoubtedly restrained himself during the duel. Although the king easily won the match, Jaron satisfied himself that he did give the king a nasty cut on the thigh. And he practiced his sword fighting twice as hard from then on.

As Jaron grew, Eckbert became increasingly angry and embarrassed by his son’s antics. Instead of compressing himself into a model royal, as his father wished, Jaron rebelled further. He snuck out of his bedroom window at night, as often as the weather permitted and on too many occasions when the bad weather should have discouraged him. Heights never bothered Jaron, not even after the time he fell more than ten feet from a tower and had his life saved by an acroterion at the edge of the gable. He learned to scale the exterior rock walls with his bare hands and feet. Few people ever knew of that, because the only person to ever catch Jaron was his older brother. Jaron never understood why Darius kept his many offenses quiet. Perhaps because Darius knew he’d one day be king and hoped Jaron wouldn’t embarrass him as well. Or because Darius wanted to spare his father the rumors that would swell throughout Carthya and abroad over how a king who couldn’t control his own son could possibly control a kingdom. It never occurred to Jaron that Darius loved him. Protected him so that he could have the life Darius never could.

In fact, Jaron never fully understood that anyone in his family, other than his mother, truly loved him. Until it was too late and they were all dead.

Shortly before his eleventh birthday, Jaron’s parents called him for a private council. Both Gelyn and Avenia pressed at Carthya’s borders, threatening war. The regents were in an uproar, threatening to depose Eckbert if he didn’t push their enemies back. Jaron was a distraction for the country and something had to be done. Eckbert had found a school up north in the country of Bymar for Jaron to attend. It would give him an excellent education and teach him proper decorum for a prince.

Jaron angrily protested. He swore to his father that if he tried to send him to Bymar, he would run away and never be found again. Eckbert retaliated, telling Jaron that if he did not go, it could mean the end for Carthya. He had to prove to both his own country and to the enemies at his border that he could be decisive. He would send his own son away and end the embarrassment.

Erin pled with Jaron to accept Eckbert’s decision. To do it for Carthya. To do it for her.

“I will do it for you, Mother,” Jaron had said. “I’ll leave you for your own sake. But you will never see me again.”

He hadn’t meant those words. He was angry and felt horrible even as the threat tumbled from his mouth. But he also hurt in a way he couldn’t describe. Enemies weren’t at Carthyan borders because of him. They were there because his father had looked the other way for too long. Perhaps there were Carthyans who laughed at the prince’s latest antics, but they would stand by their king when he called them.

Jaron left the very next day, rather quietly. There was no farewell supper, no grand entourage to accompany him to the docks at Isel. Only a few officers would journey with him to Avenia, then across the Eranbole Sea to the gates of Bymar.

Jaron got onboard the ship and immediately complained of rolling seasickness, despite the fact that the ship had not even left the harbor. A calming medicine was offered to him, and it was recommended that Jaron go to his room belowdecks to rest.

Jaron never took the medicine, and it was no easy matter for him to slip out the small porthole of his room. Still, he had a smaller build than most ten-year-old boys, and after he worked his shoulders free, the rest was simple. Unaware that Jaron had left, the ship set sail without him. The ship was attacked by pirates late that afternoon.

When news of the piracy returned to Carthya, a search was made for any survivors. There were none, all of them killed in fighting the pirates or drowned at sea. Because Jaron’s body was never found, a search was made throughout Avenia and Carthya for any hope of his survival. Before long, most people believed he had joined dozens of others in the ship at the bottom of the sea.

Safely on land, Jaron quickly found he had skills that enabled him to blend in with Avenians. He was good with accents and had studied enough of foreign cultures to move amongst them like a native. He pickpocketed for spare coins or worked odd jobs wherever he found them.

Still, he went hungry most days and spent his nights huddled in the shadows, hoping to go unnoticed by the street thugs who patrolled the darkness.

It was Darius who found Jaron first. Jaron had dropped a coin in an offerings dish at a church. The priest there recognized the young prince and sent word to Darius, who was known to be searching for his brother in a nearby town. To stall for time, the priest kindly told Jaron he had some extra food, and if Jaron agreed to wash the church steps, he could stay the night. Darius arrived early the next morning, alone. Over a small breakfast with Jaron, Darius described the suffering of their parents, who had tortured themselves over having lost their son.

Jaron dissolved into tears and said he would gladly return home if his parents would allow him to come. Darius told him to stay at the church and he would ask their father what should be done.

Darius left Jaron in his room, thanked the priest for his services but informed him that, sadly, the young boy was not the lost prince of Carthya. However, he expressed his pity for the boy and paid the priest to continue to watch over him for another week.

One week later, Jaron would finally begin to understand his role in the future of Carthya.