stood him on the smooth stone paving of the garden courtyard. “My beautiful boy,” she said, standing back a little and looking him up and down.
“I’ve been prettier,” he said, because it seemed odd to be called beautiful. Nobody had ever called him beautiful or even good looking. In O it had been his clothes and his money that were admired.
She reached out and gathered him into her arms and held him. “I see you with the eyes of a mother who long thought you were dead.”
“Did you, Mother?” asked Rigg softly. “Did you think I was dead?”
This was not just a personal question-it was a political and historical one as well. If she thought he was dead then it meant she hadn’t arranged for him to be carried away to safety. It also meant that he hadn’t been kidnapped-for if he had been abducted, she might as easily suppose him to be alive as someone else groomed him for the kingship. For her to think he was dead, then either the kidnappers must have misled her-a cruel note, animal blood smeared around, some other kind of evidence-or she herself had sent him away with the intent of having him assassinated.
There were precedents in the family, after all. Mothers in this family were not always kind to their boychildren.
“Don’t be indiscreet,” she murmured into his hair.
Her message was clear enough: This was not a private meeting, but a public one. Whatever she said would be governed, not by simple truth, but by whatever she needed onlookers to overhear and believe. Therefore, he would learn nothing about his own past or hers, but instead would learn about what was going on in the present.
Since his own future was also at stake, he didn’t really need the warning to be careful. At the same time, he had little idea what she would consider to be indiscreet. So perhaps she was asking him to say nothing.
Rigg could wait. Meanwhile, he couldn’t help but feel a flash of pity for her, a woman who, even in greeting her long-lost son, still had to watch every word she said, every gesture, every action, every decision.
A kind of prisoner because of the crimes of her ancestors, she thought like an inmate who lived in dread of her guards; everyone was an informant.
And where was his sister? Why had no one mentioned her? He did not ask, not now, not yet.
Rigg pulled away when she relaxed her embrace. Now he looked around and saw that there were at least a score of people in the courtyard, and probably more behind him. This was a state occasion, of course. The empress Hagia Sessamin had decided to affirm his identity as prince of the house royal even before having a chance to see him by daylight-that was a political decision that she probably made after hearing the report of General Citizen’s messengers. If Citizen was a friend of the royal house, that would explain Rigg’s solitary imprisonment and the hobble and manacles that bound him during his hooded journey from the boat into the city. There had to be a great show of how harshly Citizen had dealt with the newfound royal son. Just as Hagia Sessamin had to make a show of giving him a warm embrace-even if the secret wish of her heart was to have him killed as soon as it was safe to do so, in order to preserve the female-line inheritance law of her grandmother Aptica.
“How complicated I’m making your life, Mother,” he said with a smile.
He watched closely her reaction to these words. She showed a flash of anger; was it tinged with fear? Yes, it was. She might be afraid he planned to be indiscreet after all, and that some word from him would jeopardize everything. But how else could he signal to her that he understood the dilemma she was in-regardless of what her plan for him might be? If he had merely played along, saying nothing, she would wonder what game he was playing, how well he had been coached and trained, and by whom. Instead, he was letting her see that he planned to act the part of someone who had not been coached or trained, but was merely being himself. He was playing the naif. If she was wise, she would let him continue so-because the more clueless he seemed to be, the less he would be feared by the anti-royals, and the less likely the pro-male-heir faction would decide to strike her down so he could become the new king-in-name-only.
It was not his mother who answered. “It’s my life that you’re making complicated, my lad,” said a man.
Rigg looked at him-a tall, stout man with severely understated clothing that was, nevertheless, of the richest fabric and most perfect cut. A suit of clothes designed to communicate money and modesty at the same time.
“Are you my mother’s kind host?” asked Rigg. “Is this your house?”
The man bowed deeply.
It had been an easy guess-between his words and what Rigg had been told about the way the royals lived, he could have been no one else. And Rigg supposed something else, though he did not say it: that this man was also a trusted agent of the Revolutionary Council, for why would the council let the royals live in the house of someone who was not completely in their pocket?
Of course, the possibility remained that he only seemed to be the Council’s man, and that in fact he was a royalist of one stripe or another. But as Father told him several times, a man who is trusted by both sides can be trusted by neither. If you pretend to be a double agent serving both factions, then how can either of them tell which side you’re lying to? Usually both. One thing was certain, though: Whatever the man’s real allegiance might be, if any, he would be no friend of Rigg’s.
“I would like to say that I could pay my own way,” said Rigg. “But if Hagia Sessamin is correct in recognizing me as her son, then all my previous goods are confiscated and I have no choice but to throw myself on your mercy.”
“You will find me your true friend in all things, as I have been to your mother.”
“Then you are a brave man indeed,” said Rigg, “for there must be many who disapprove of your sheltering the cursed tyrant family that oppressed the World Within the Walls for so many generations. There must be many who are not pleased to have a male added to the royal family when none was looked for.”
There were several sharply indrawn breaths-though Rigg was pleased to see that his mother was not one of those who so nakedly revealed emotion.
He turned to the onlookers-who, for all he knew, might be servants, courtiers, hostile citizens, or the Revolutionary Council themselves-and said, “Do you think I’m going to pretend not to know what everyone knows? I used to be ignorant-the man who raised me kept me that way, so I didn’t have a hint until a few weeks ago that I might have any connection with the royal family. But much has been explained to me, and I know that my existence is inconvenient to everyone. Including myself.”
“Inconvenient or not,” said Mother, “your existence brings me only joy.”
“I have wished for a mother all my life,” said Rigg to her. “But, raised as a good citizen of the Republic, I never wished for a queen. I hope you will forgive me if it is the mother whose love I hope to earn, while I pay no attention to the empress-who-might-have-been.”
“Well put,” said the host. “For of course the notion of ‘royalty’ is merely a matter of genealogy-in all this city there is not a soul that is not grateful to be ruled by the Revolutionary Council instead of the accidental offspring of a particular household.”
Rigg marveled at the man’s oiliness. This speech of smarmy sucking-up to the Revolutionary Council was designed either to reassure his masters of his loyalty, or to disguise his true loyalty under a layer of lies. Either way, it was so egregiously overplayed that Rigg assumed that the man intended no one to believe him.
Or else-always a possibility-he was an idiot and had no idea how his words sounded.
“Look at his hair,” said one of the onlookers.
“And his rich clothes,” said another.
Rigg turned to face the one who spoke of clothes. “These are some of the fine clothes I bought when I thought the money my father left me was mine to spend. These were confiscated by General Citizen when I was arrested, and he allowed me to dress in these only because they fit me, and I needed to be clean to ride in the sedan chair in which I was carried into the city. But if you have need of them, friend, I will happily give them up and wear whatever someone might lend to me out of decency.”
A few low murmurs.
“Don’t tell us you weren’t trained to play this part,” said an older man.
“I was trained by my father-for so I thought he was-to play many parts.”
“An actor?” said the old man caustically.
“Yes, and of the lowest order,” said Rigg. “A politician.”
Now the gasps were loud and led to a few suppressed titters of laughter.
