movement afoot to depose your uncle, we are going to have to investigate it very carefully. They may only be interested in putting a puppet on the throne.'
'And r-right now th-that's all I'd b-be,' Kestrel replied without bitterness. 'Th-there's some other th-things you should kn-know. My f-father. He w-wasn't a n-nice man. He p-put m-me and m-mother away in the D-Dowager P- Palace, and j-just tr-trotted us out on s-special oc-casions. Th-that's why she d-d-died. Sh-she c-caught s- something, and he d-didn't bother sending a d-doctor until it was t-too l-late.'
'So-what are you getting at?' Talaysen asked.
'I d-don't kn-know, really,' Kestrel said frankly. 'J-just that I d-don't f-feel like g-going after my uncle f-for r- revenge, I g-guess. I hardly ever s-saw my f-father. I m-mean, I kn-knew who h-he w-was, and he g-gave m-me p- presents wh-when it s-suited him, b-but th-that was all. I s-saw him d-die by accident. B-but it w-was j-just s- someone I kn-knew d-dying, n-not m-my father. R-revenge w-would b-be p-pretty s-stupid.'
He shrugged, and Talaysen read in that gesture that the young man was confused on any number of subjects, but that on this one he was certain: he was not interested in heroic vendettas.
'Most young men your age with your background would be champing at the bit, hardly able to wait to get their uncle at the point of a sword and give the big speech about 'You, scum, killed my noble, sainted Father! Now you die by the son's blade!' I was all ready to try and calm you down-'
'M-most p-princes h-haven't s-spent th-the last f-four y-years s-sweeping f-floors and t-tending g-goats,' Kestrel interrupted, with that disarming matter-of-factness. 'I d-don't know, I'm p-pretty c-confused. I j-just w-want t-to s-see what's g-g-going on. And I really w-want p-people t-to stop t-trying t-to k-kill me!'
'Fine,' Talaysen replied. 'We'll take it from there, and see where it leads.'
'Good,' Kestrel replied, nodding vigorously.
The young man's reaction gave Talaysen a great deal of food for thought, as they waited for darkness to fall so that they could sneak away. That reaction was, as he had told Sional, not what he had expected. It was a great deal more practical than he had anticipated.
It might be wise to see if there was a rebellion brewing; the rebels might be able to protect Sional better than they could. But then again-they might already have their figurehead for revolt, and they might not welcome the intrusion of the 'rightful King' into their plans.
There was a possibility that they could stage Sional's 'death' convincingly, enough to get the hounds called off. That was another plan to be discussed and plotted out.
Gwyna slowly coaxed a few more of his memories out of him over the course of the day. Talaysen slowly built a picture up in his mind of the boy Sional had been, some eight years ago.
A lonely boy; packed away in what was apparently a drafty, damp 'palace' in constant need of repair, with a single, half-deaf servant and his tutor, Master Darian. That surprised him; Guild Bards-and Darian had been a Guild Bard, his credentials were impeccable-were not normally employed as tutors for boys, not even when they were princes. Although he could not be certain, Talaysen framed the notion that Master Darian had been a great friend and admirer of the unhappy Queen, and had volunteered his services in the capacity of tutor when the lady died.
The obvious romantic notion-that Darian was really Sional's father, and that Queen and prince had been mewed up out of sight because of the scandal-Talaysen discarded after only a few moments of consideration. If it had been true, the King would have gotten rid of the erring spouse and unfortunate offspring-either directly, or discreetly. There were a dozen routes he could have taken, and a dozen princesses who would have brought a great deal of advantage to Birnam as new brides. No, it seemed that Master Darian's relationship with the Queen was the same as Tonno's with Rune: friend and mentor.
So why had the Queen been put away?
Most likely was that the King disliked her intensely, but that she was too circumspect to give him a reason to be rid of her.
But then, why had the prince been discarded with her? In the hopes that he, too, would die, and leave his father free to seek a spouse more to his taste, with the urgency of the succession giving him a reason to urge the wife he wanted on his Councilors?
It wouldn't have been the first time that particular ploy had been used, particularly not when the first wife was one chosen for the King by his own father.
Sional, as he had said, had seen very little of his father. He had been in the Crown Palace completely by accident the night that his father had been murdered.
It would have been comic if the circumstances had not been so dire. He had discovered on a previous visit that there was a greenhouse full of fruit-trees that were forced to bloom and bear out of season. He got very little in the way of luxurious food; it seemed that he, Darian, and the servant were brought whatever was left from meals at the Crown Palace after the servants had taken their shares. He never saw out-of-season fruit, and boy-like, had decided to filch himself a treat. The greenhouse was just under the King's private chambers, and the way into it-if you were an adventurous child-was through the air vents in the glassed-over roof.
Not only had it been a marvelous adventure, it had been an unrivaled opportunity to spy on his mysterious and aloof father. Double the guilty pleasure for a single act.
Even better had been to discover that his father was not alone. Master Darian had described the goings-on between men and women in a singularly detached fashion that had left him wondering why anyone bothered. Now he saw why they bothered-and he stayed and stayed-
So he had been looking in the windows when the assassins surprised his father-and the lady-in bed, just about ready to finish their evening's exertions. The men sent to kill the King had not been expert, and in a panic at the lady's screams, they had also butchered her.
Terror-stricken, sick, and in shock, he had run straight to Master Darian, his only friend and protector.
Poor old man, Talaysen thought pityingly. No wonder we thought him half-mad. How did he do it? How did he smuggle a child out of a place crawling with killers, get the boy away, and smuggle him out of the country? He was no hero-he wasn't even young. He was an old, tired man with his best days behind him. One day I am going to have to write a song about him. Bravery and intelligence like that are all too rare . . . and we never even recognized them while he was alive.
Sional must have been in shock for some time, shock that made him terribly vulnerable to illness. Small wonder he took marsh fever crossing the fens at the Birnam-Rayden border. But that must have been a blessing to Master Darian, for during the boy's illness, he managed to convince him that he was someone else entirely-the boy named 'Jonny Brede.' And that made it easier to hide him.
The rest, Talaysen knew-except for one small detail. The reason why Jonny Brede had been unable to hold a job, anywhere.
The killers, the mysterious murderers, who would appear out of nowhere and try to take his life.
They'd made their first attempt right after Master Darian had died. He'd had three close calls, not counting the attempt last night, and on numerous occasions he had learned they were looking for him just in time to flee. Small wonder he'd been starving. The place Talaysen had offered must have seemed God-given-for surely if he moved about every few days, no mysterious killer was going to be able to find him!
Talaysen could hardly imagine the hellish life the boy must have endured. Having no friends for more than a few months, constantly hungry, cold, lonely-with people out of a nightmare one step behind him, and never knowing the reason why.
Now he knew one difference in Kestrel's demeanor: relief. Now Sional knew why the killers were after him. There was a logical reason. He no longer lived in an irrational nightmare.
Now he lives in a rational one.
Somehow, that made him angrier than anything else. Talaysen made himself a small promise. If and when they found Sional's uncle in a position of vulnerability, he was going to give the man a little taste of what he'd been dealing out to Sional all these years. Just a little.
But it would be a very sharp taste. . . .
They moved out by night, with Gypsies spread all over the downs on either side of the road to make sure they weren't spied upon, in company with three other wagons of the same general shape and size. The other three turned back at moonrise; Gwyna kept the ponies moving on, to the north. Across the downs and past the fens on the other side was the border with Birnam. It could be crossed two ways-by the causeway, or, if you were desperate, through the fens on paths only the march-dwellers knew. Talaysen guessed that the latter was the way
