The Rebel Prince (46 page)

The lieutenant opened his mouth, but the door was pulled back before he could reply, and the captain stepped out again, his face tight with anxiety. ‘My Lord Razi,’ he said formally, ‘Protector Lady Moorehawke. The King bids you enter.’

He stood aside, leaving the door clear, and Wynter hesitated.

Razi, her noble friend, looked solemnly down on her from his great height. He radiated all his usual kindness, an indomitable source of strength; but Wynter knew he was depending on her. She knew
everything
was depending on her. Alberon, the King, the very kingdom itself: it all rested on her shoulders. Without thinking, she turned to Christopher. Wordless, her heart fluttering in her chest, she gazed at him. He gazed silently back.

I can’t do this, love. What do I say?

‘Protector Lady?’ said the captain.

What do I say?

‘The King awaits, Protector Lady!’

‘In the end, you can only tell him the truth,’ murmured Christopher. ‘How he reacts is up to him.’

He was right, of course. Anxiously, she clutched Alberon’s folder and stepped back. She felt on the point of being overwhelmed; still, her voice was steady when she said, ‘Wait here, Freeman Garron, Lord Sólmundr. Please keep the dog in check.’ They bowed, and Wynter turned to go.

Christopher said, ‘Protector Lady.’ She turned back. He leaned in to speak warmly in her ear. ‘We’ll be all right, lass, you and me, no matter what. Just do your best, it’s all anyone can do.’

She tilted her head just for a moment, so that her cheek touched his, then pulled back. He smiled at her – that shamelessly blatant, lopsided smile – and Wynter felt the familiar warm surge of affection for him. ‘This will be done soon,’ she said. ‘And then we shall decide where it is we most want to go, and what it is we shall do with our lives.’

‘That would be nice,’ he said. He glanced up at Razi. ‘Don’t worry, Doctor.’ He tapped his temple. ‘You don’t need anything more than what you’ve got up there already.’

Razi squeezed Christopher’s hand for a moment. The captain coughed pointedly. Wynter nodded. And she and Razi turned and headed for the door.

The King had just begun to rise when they ducked into the tent, but at the sight of Razi, he paused in mid action, his face slack with shock. The captain made as if to follow them inside, and the King whispered for him to get out. For the briefest moment, the captain hesitated in the doorway; then he nodded, stepped outside and pulled the tent-flap shut behind him.

The King stayed where he was, staring at his son.

Razi moved cautiously into the tent. He looked the King up and down, and Wynter could see him trying to reconcile his memory of the small, dark Victor St James with the hugely imposing, blond man who was actually his father.

‘Your Majesty?’ he asked.

‘Razi?’ whispered the King. ‘Son.’

Jonathon pushed himself upright and Wynter’s heart sank as she realised that he was, once again, quite drunk. ‘Son!’ he cried and shoved out from behind his table, toppling a folding chair in his haste.

The King descended upon them. Razi flinched, lifting his hands as if to ward off a blow. But Jonathon just grabbed him and pulled him into a rough embrace, causing Razi to stagger under his unsteady weight. Clenching his fist in Razi’s dark curls, the King buried his face in his son’s shoulder.

‘You live,’ he said. ‘You live.’

Razi, his hands held out from his sides, submitted with alarmed confusion. His eyes met Wynter’s across the top of his father’s head, and she lifted Alberon’s folder, nodding encouragingly that he should speak. ‘We have . . .’ he said uncertainly. ‘That is, the lady and I have . . .’

At Razi’s mention of her, the King turned to Wynter. ‘Child,’ he said, ‘I am sorry. Poor Lorcan. There was nothing I could do.’

Wynter made a tiny sound of grief, but that was all she could manage. Her throat was suddenly too small to allow words. She had not realised that she had been clinging to a last slim fragment of hope; that she had cherished, secret even to herself, the belief that there had been a mistake. But that last slim hope was gone. There had been no mistake. Lorcan was dead.

Why was she still standing, when the world had stopped? How was it that she did not fall down? How was it she did not scream? All the terrible questions rose up inside her:
Did he die alone? Did he suffer at the end? Did he call for me in vain?
And she was drowned by them. She was struck motionless and senseless and dumb.

Seeing her distress, Jonathon’s eyes filled with tears, and he stretched out his hand as if to pull her into an embrace. His sympathy threatened to undo her entirely, and, to save herself, Wynter thrust Alberon’s folder out like a shield and cried, ‘We have brought these, your Majesty. They are from the Royal Prince.’

Jonathon dropped his eyes to the folder, then raised them again to her face. He did not seem to understand.

‘From the Royal Prince Alberon, your Majesty. For you.’

The King stepped back as though she had threatened him. Still clinging to Razi, he looked from Wynter to his son’s dark face and back. ‘What treachery is this?’ he whispered.

‘No treachery. Just messages from your heir, begging that you understand him. There is no coup, your Majesty. There never has been. The Prince plans no treason. He—’

But the King had spun from her and turned on Razi. Gripping his son’s shoulders, he scanned his face and whispered, ‘
He
has sent you?’ At Razi’s carefully neutral expression, the King’s horror turned to rage. ‘Where have you
been
?’ he screamed, shaking Razi hard. ‘You poisonous child! While I mourned you and thought you dead, where have you been? What have you
done
?’

Startled at this abrupt turn to violence, Razi flung his arms up and broke easily from his father’s grasp. Stepping back, he lifted his fists in silent warning. The King’s face darkened in that frightening, lethal way of his and he hunched his shoulders.

‘You would fight me, boy?’ he said. ‘You think to best me?’

His fists still raised, Razi watched the King and said nothing.

‘Your Majesty,’ cried Wynter ‘If you would but listen . . .’

She tried to step between them, anticipating a return of the King’s terrible, violent treatment of his son. But Jonathon deflated suddenly. Right before her eyes, he seemed to crumple in defeat. He seemed to shrink and age. He turned from Razi as if in a daze and wandered across to sit heavily into his chair.

‘So, he has sent you,’ he said, ‘and I am undone. How cruel is it, Razi, to have mourned your death only to find betrayal in your longed-for resurrection. It is God’s punishment, I suppose, and well I deserve it. What, after all, did I expect? God help you, despite all my dreams for you both, how could I have hoped that you would escape your Godcursed heritage? As I took my kingdom, so shall it be taken.’ He trailed into silence for a moment. Wynter opened her mouth, but Jonathon went on in a whisper, speaking to himself: ‘At least my sons are not their father’s type of coward. At least they thwart me like men, and do not slither about as poisoning, devious . . . Oh, God.’ He clutched his head suddenly and moaned. It was such a deep, heartfelt expression of pain that Wynter, despite her own distress, felt pity for him. ‘Oh, God,’ he whispered again. ‘I have shaped my kingdom’s fall.’

‘Majesty?’ she ventured. ‘Will you please hear me?’

Jonathon glared up at her from between his fists and snarled, ‘It is the worst kind of mistress that lays herself down for a Prince and expects his power in return. If the Lord Razi has messages to convey, then don’t have him convey them through
you
, woman. However poisonous their content, let him not do me the discourtesy, nor himself the dishonour, of transferring them through his whore.’

Razi’s sudden roar made them both leap. ‘How dare you!’ he cried. ‘How
dare
you speak to her like that? Retract your slander immediately! It is the lowest thing in the world to dismiss a woman on terms of her virtue! How simple for you! How neat!’

‘Razi,’ hissed Wynter, ‘this is the
King
.’

‘He is a
nobleman
,’ snapped Razi. ‘He should act like one!’

The King frowned at him, his usually circumspect, hitherto unfailingly political son, now scarlet and raging at nothing more serious than a petty slight to a woman. Wynter saw Jonathon register the strangeness of this, and she saw that sharpness in him that her father had so loved; that famous Kingsson intelligence, not yet completely destroyed by distress and wine.

‘What is wrong with you, boy?’ he said. ‘Do you take offence because of your mother?’

‘Majesty,’ she said, ‘my Lord Razi is not himself. Please. I beg you. Let me explain?’

Jonathon glared and did not give his permission for her to speak. Still Wynter approached, and placed the folder on the table by his clenched fist. ‘Your Majesty, these are from your heir. The Royal Prince bid his brother take them to you. He bid him explain that his intention was never to usurp you as King. The Royal Prince’s only wish is to present to you his plans for the future.’

The King regarded the folio with a kind of numbness. His big hand slid a little on the surface of the table, as if he wished to touch the leather folder, but he did not. Wynter took a chance on leaning in a little and softening slightly the courtly tone of her voice: ‘Your Majesty,’ she said, ‘whatever your differences, the Royal Prince does not wish to grasp the throne. With respect, your Majesty, he wishes only to strengthen your kingdom.’

The King met her eye. ‘He has done a poor job of that,’ he said.

He was close enough for Wynter to smell the wine from his breath. She could smell camp fire from his clothes. ‘May I suggest that there were two of you involved in that particular misadventure, your Majesty?’

Rage flared again in the King’s face. ‘Do not mistake yourself for your father, girl. Lorcan was the one person in this life who ever talked thus to me. No one shall take his place, whether they carry his name or not.’

Despite the prickle of fear in her belly, Wynter held the King’s eye and whispered, ‘I cannot help but feel that had you allowed your heir to speak thus to you, much of this kingdom’s recent problems may have been forestalled. It seems that a little more talk and a little less rage may well have calmed this storm before it even began.’

‘My
heir
has stolen and broadcast that which I wished suppressed. He has machinated behind my back, twisting deals with my enemies. His actions have poisoned court against his brother and divided my men. What is it you would like me to do about that, girl? Shrug in defeat and hand him my crown?’

The stark truth of this twisted like a knife in Wynter’s heart, the enormity of Jonathon’s problem suddenly horribly clear. In the face of Alberon’s very public defiance, what choice did Jonathon really have? Either he was King or he was not. Either his heir bowed to his will or he did not. It was how kingdoms worked. It was the way of the world. Alberon wished the country run one way, Jonathon wished it run another. Their visions were irreconcilable, and one of them must bow or one of them must die. That was the black and white of it. Wynter drew back, lost for words, and Jonathon nodded.

‘So I am undone,’ he said.

‘But you will speak with your heir now?’ asked Razi.

‘Have I a choice?’ muttered the King. ‘Now that he has sniffed me out.’

Razi frowned across at Wynter.
What could that mean?

The King tutted at him. ‘Stop hovering like a God-cursed chambermaid, boy.’ He gestured bitterly to the folder. ‘Come here and summarise your brother’s terms. I assume he’s only hours behind you, and I shan’t sit here reading this pap while his men advance upon me.’

‘But, your Majesty,’ said Wynter, ‘the Prince’s men do not advance. Alberon travels with only—’

‘Oh,
enough
, girl!
Jesu Christi
, you are like a crow cawing incessantly in my ear! I asked the
boy
, dammit! Razi, get over here and detail me your brother’s terms before I lose my patience entirely and greet him with your head on a pike.’

At Razi’s hesitation, the King glared up from under his brows. Razi swallowed hard at the warning in his face. ‘I . . . I cannot detail the documents, Majesty. I do not know what they contain.’

‘You pledged your support to your brother without discussing his aims?’ growled the King. ‘
You?
’ Razi flickered a glance at Wynter, and the King turned his head to stare at her in disbelief. ‘Once again, I am directed to you, Protector Lady?’

Wynter thought her lips might crack from fear when she opened them to speak. ‘My Lord Razi is unwell, your Majesty,’ she said. ‘We were attacked on our way here. His horse tumbled down a hill, taking him with her. He awoke with little memory of who he is, or what has passed between him and his brother.’

There was a stark, crackling silence.

‘I remember that I am a doctor,’ ventured Razi.

The King’s face so darkened that Wynter only barely restrained herself from stepping back.

‘This is the lowest of tricks,’ hissed the King. ‘The cheapest of manipulations! You hope to distil my hopes into one heir, do you? With this ridiculous fabrication, you hope to remove yourself from the picture? You think yourself so important, little man, that first you fake your own death and then you feign madness, all to fling me into Alberon’s arms? Are you such a
coward
, boy? Have you no spine?’ Jonathon slammed his fist into the table, tears in his eyes. ‘I would rather you came at me with a halberd,’ he cried. ‘I would rather you drew your God-cursed
sword
, than insult me with this!’