“No, you didn’t,” Oreius agreed. “And if I were your enemy, I would take advantage of this moment to lop your head off. Fortunately for you, if you’ll remember our talk on the first day, I am not your enemy. Merely your opponent.”
“There’s a difference?” Relam muttered, loosening the rope around his ankle.
“There’s a huge difference,” Oreius replied grimly, watching Relam fumble with the knot. Finally the sword master sighed with exasperation, as Relam tried and failed yet again to loosen the noose. “You have a nice sharp sword lying next to you, you know,” he pointed out.
Relam scowled and scooped up his sword. It took him only a second to sever the rope and free his ankle. The prince stood uncertainly, shaking his leg a little to make sure he had not hurt himself.
“Again!” Oreius yelled, springing forward with his sword at the ready.
They continued running the drill for the next few hours until it was time to break for lunch. During that span, Relam was snagged by four nooses, including two that dropped dead branches uncomfortably close to him, and he tripped over half a dozen tree roots. For the grand finale, he failed to notice a thin tripwire at the base of the hill, near the river bank. Oreius stepped smartly to the side and let Relam go tumbling past, sword flying out of his hands, to splash into the river, right as a boat was rowing past upstream. Fortunately for Relam, the men on the boat were too focused on the task at hand to notice, and the fog still lingered, making it difficult to see.
On the bright side, Relam was feeling more and more confident about his abilities. He avoided two more nooses, avoided the stone bench, and held his own in the ongoing battle, though he knew Oreius was going easy on him.
“We’ll continue this tomorrow,” Oreius said finally, sheathing his sword. “And the next day, and a little way after that.”
“Until when?”
“Until nothing surprises you on the battlefield,” Oreius replied. “Until there are no small details overlooked and you sense every threat.”
“That could take a while,” Relam observed.
“Then we’ll be here a while,” Oreius countered. “Come on, it’s time for lunch. Narin will be waiting.”
Master and student trudged up to the house, Relam still dripping river water as he walked up the garden path. At the back door, Narin emerged and tossed a towel to Relam. The prince dried his hair and arms roughly, mopping up the worst of the water and river slime.
“You were expecting me to miss that one?” he asked Narin drily, returning the towel.
Narin nodded happily. “I rather hoped you would,” he admitted. “Since it was my idea.”
“Worked just like you said, commander,” Oreius grunted. “Let him chase me down to the river and I stepped over it. He didn’t see it and came charging in. Next thing you know there’s a tremendous splash and I’m alone on the bank.”
Narin howled with laughter and thumped Relam on the back cheerfully. “Ah, well, you can’t win them all, your highness,” he said sympathetically. “So, while we’re all here, tell me what’s going on at the palace these days. Anything interesting?”
Relam looked between Narin and Oreius, and decided it was time for him to have a little fun with them. “Well, on the first day of the weekend, my father tried to kill me,” he admitted, grinning as their jaws dropped open in surprise.
Chapter 31
Relam told the story of his confrontation with the king thoroughly, leaving out not a single detail from the terrible, gut-wrenching encounter. Oreius and Narin stopped their preparations for lunch and stood quietly, listening without interrupting, shaking their heads in disbelief.
When he had finished, Narin and Oreius exchanged a guilty look.
“What?” Relam asked.
“Well,” Oreius said hesitantly. “If I’d known what you’d been through this weekend I would have taken it a little easier on you today. I’m sorry you had to handle the new drill on top of . . . everything else.”
“Yes,” Narin agreed, nodding. “Fighting your father like that must have been terrible, your highness. I can only imagine what was going through your head. And you say the new guard commander did nothing to help, didn’t try to break up the fight?”
“No,” Relam agreed. “At least, he didn’t try very hard. He and Clemon were both shouting at us but neither really wanted to get in the way.”
“From what you told us, I wouldn’t have wanted to get in the way either,” Oreius muttered.
“The guard commander has a duty to intervene in such a situation though,” Narin pointed out. “If Relam and his father had wiped each other out-”
“It wouldn’t have come to that!” Relam said, horrified that Narin would even contemplate such a possibility.
“It’s impossible to know,” Narin said stubbornly. “In battle, right and wrong, good and bad get a little distorted sometimes. Especially when emotion is playing a large role in the fight, as in your case.”
“Narin is right,” Oreius agreed. “Terrible things could have happened there, much worse than what did transpire. Do you think you got through to your father?”
“Maybe,” Relam said, shrugging. “I can’t know for sure because I haven’t seen him since. He’s been locked up in his room, and I’ve been recovering.”
“I hope that you did,” Oreius murmured. “Especially if the king’s chatelain is right about the Assembly stirring again.”
“Who is the new commander?” Narin asked curiously, rummaging in the pantry.
“Eckle,” Relam grunted. “A fool if there ever was one. A patronizing, overbearing-”
“The name is not familiar to me,” Narin murmured. “He must be a fairly new hire.”
“As the commander?” Oreius asked skeptically. “That would be unusual, wouldn’t it?”
“Extremely,” Narin agreed. “Usually the commander has been in the palace guard for years, and spent some time as
