Mark Lawrence - Prince of Fools

Some dim awareness of motion penetrated my misery. I knew my heels were dragging over stone floors, and somewhere behind them Snorri was trailing along, engaging in cheerful banter with the people towing me.

“A misunderstanding, I expect.” And he chuckled. Chuckled! It’s in the code-when one man is wounded so ignominiously, all men must wince and show sympathy, not chuckle. “They probably do things differently down south. .”

“Losing my touch.” I managed to gasp the words.

“I think you probably touched too much, knowing you, Jal! Didn’t you see the black armband? The girl’s in mourning!” Another chuckle. “Might have given him a proper beating if she hadn’t been! She’s got spirit, that one. Saw it the moment she arrived. Norse blood probably.”

I just groaned and let them haul me to my chamber.

“Damned if I’m going to see the sister. She’ll be a monster.” They lifted me onto my bed.

“Gently, lads,” Snorri said. “Gently!” Though he still sounded far too good-humoured about the whole thing.

“Damnable Scorron bitch. Ahh!” Another wave of pain shut me off. “Countries have gone to war for less!”

“Technically you are at war, aren’t you?” The chair creaked as Snorri lowered himself into it. “I mean, those men you heroed over at this Aral Pass, they were Scorrons, weren’t they?”

He had me there. “I wish I’d killed fifty more of them!”

“Anyway, the sister’s even prettier.”

“How the hell would you know?” I tried to roll over and gave up.

“Saw them both on a balcony yesterday.”

“Yes?” I managed to roll. It didn’t help. “Well, she can go hang.” I gave him the dirtiest look that would fit through my squint.

Snorri shrugged and bit into the pear he’d stolen off my side table. “Dangerous way to talk about the queen if you ask me.” All through a full mouth.

“Queen?” I rolled back to face the wall. “Ah shit.”

I hobbled behind Stann as he led the way to Queen Sareth’s personal chambers. I wondered that the meeting had been arranged for her rooms but didn’t doubt that her virtue would be well guarded.

It struck me as peculiar that our path led through the underbelly of the castle, down steps and into a long corridor where kitchen stores lay stacked ceiling-high in stockrooms right and left, but I had told Stann to lead me by the shortest route owing to the delicacy with which I needed to walk. We ascended by a narrow stair, surely a servants’ passage for the delivery of meals to the royal quarters.

“The queen asks that you be discreet if questioned about any visits,” Stann said, holding the lantern high in a long windowless passage.

“Do you know what discreet means, boy?”

“No, sir.”

I harrumphed at that, not certain whether he was displaying ignorance or discretion.

Stann tapped at a narrow door, a key turned in a heavy lock, and we entered. It took a moment to realize that the queen herself had unlocked the door. I thought at first it must be a lady-in-waiting, but when she turned back to watch me emerge there could be no mistaking her. A lady-in-waiting would never have worn so fine a gown, and Sareth shared too many of Katherine’s looks to be anyone but her sister. I judged her to be in the midst of her twenties, a touch shorter than her sister, her face softer and more classically beautiful: full lips, waves of deepest red hair. She had green eyes too but without the peculiar inner light of her sister’s.

The other thing to notice about Queen Sareth, a fact that no gown short of a pavilion would be able to disguise, was that she had either recently swallowed a piglet, or she was quite pregnant.

“You may show Prince Jalan to his chair and pour his wine, Stann, then scuttle off.” She made a shooing action with her hands.

The lad plumped a cushion for me in a large chair acceptably far from the queen’s, which is to say in the opposite corner. In truth a properly acceptable distance would be one that put me out in the corridor, for no queen should be alone with a strange man in her private chambers, especially if that strange man is me.

I walked carefully to the chair, moved the cushion, and lowered myself onto it.

“Are you well, Prince Jalan?” A look of genuine concern furrowed the smoothness of her brow.

“Ah, just. .” I settled. “Just an old war wound, my queen. It plays up from time to time. Especially if I’ve been too long without a good fight.”

Beside me Stann pressed his lips tight together and filled the silver goblet on the service table from a tall ewer of wine. His job done, he retreated through the servant door and the patter of his feet diminished into the distance. It occurred to me that if I were found here, unattended, then my life might well depend upon whatever story the queen decided to tell. It seemed unlikely that she would admit to extending an invitation, and I’m sure her vicious younger sister would paint an unflattering picture of my earlier advances if the whole matter were brought before Olidan. I resolved to extricate myself from the situation at the first opportunity.

“And how are you enjoying Ancrath, Prince Jalan?” Sareth’s accent kept more of the Teuton edge than her sister’s and recalled to mind the cries of the Scorron patrolmen who had tried to ride me down in the Aral Pass. It did little to calm my nerves.

“It’s a lovely country,” I said. “And Crath City is very impressive. Celebrations were in full swing when we arrived.”

She frowned at that, pursing her lips. Evidently, I’d struck a sour note. Pregnant or not, she was very pretty. “Scorron is a more beautiful land, and the Eisenschloss a finer fortress.” She didn’t seem aware that we men of Red March counted the Scorrons as our mortal enemies. No matter-I’ve long been a proponent of love, not war, though they often make close bedfellows. “But you are right, Prince Jalan, Ancrath has much to recommend it.”

“Indeed. I fear though, my queen, that I’m somewhat at a loss here. I think perhaps it would be more seemly if we discussed these matters this afternoon at court? Your beauty is talked of far and wide, and people might mistake my intentions if it were known that. .” Normally I would be happy to cuckold any man foolish enough to leave a woman like Sareth wanting more. . but Olidan Ancrath? No. And besides, her pregnancy and my present invalid status both helped to lessen my interest in the opportunity.

Sareth’s face crumpled in dismay, her bottom lip wobbled, and, hefting herself from her chair, she hastened across to kneel beside mine. “Forgive me, Prince Jalan!” She took my dark and callused hands in her slim white ones. “It’s just-just-we’ve all had such a shock what with the arrival of this dreadful boy.”

“Boy?” I’d had very little sleep for two nights now and none of this was making sense.

“Jorg, Olidan’s son.”

“Ah, the lost prince,” I said, enjoying her hands around mine.

“Better he had stayed lost.” And I glimpsed some steel behind her tear-stained prettiness.

Suddenly even my sleep-deprived mind couldn’t refuse to see the problem any longer. This returned prince couldn’t be Sareth’s son, she wasn’t old enough for that. . A second wife, then, busy producing what she had thought would be an heir of her own?

“Ah.” I leaned forwards, my glance falling to her belly. “I can see his return might be a problem for you.” Her face contorted in misery again. “There, there, don’t cry, my queen.” And I pawed her a bit, the bluff hero comforting a damsel in distress, and perhaps running his hands through that wonderful hair.

“Why couldn’t the boy stay lost and wandering?” She turned those wet-lashed eyes on me.