himself lucky. Droffo had suffered a badly broken arm as well as a puncturing of the membrane in one ear, leaving him permanently half-deaf. The doctors reckoned his arm could be made whole again; they had an embarrassment of experience with every form of human injury in the infirmaries of the Settlement.
Oramen had been fairly surrounded by doctors for too much of the time. At one stage he’d thought a group of Sarl doctors was going to come to blows with another clutch of Deldeyn medics over some abstruse point regarding how to treat extensive bruising. He wondered if they were just keen to be able to say they had once treated a prince.
General Foise had been to see him. He had wished him well politely enough, though Oramen had the distinct impression the fellow was looking at him as he might at a piece of malfunctioning military equipment he was thinking about having junked. Poatas had sent his regards by note, thankfully, claiming great and urgent busyness occasioned in no small part by the necessary re-excavation of the chamber partially collapsed by the explosion.
Oramen dismissed the nurse — a prim, middle-aged woman of some formidability — and, with much grunting and wincing, let Neguste alone help him complete dressing.
When they were about done, and Oramen, dressed formally, was ready to make his first public appearance since the explosion three days earlier, he drew his ceremonial sword and asked Neguste to inspect its tip, holding it out level with the fellow’s eyes, almost at his nose. The effort of it hurt Oramen’s arm.
Neguste looked puzzled. A little comical, too, with his eyes crossed, focusing on the sword’s tip so close to his face. “What do I look for, sir?”
“That is my question, Neguste,” Oramen said quietly. “What do you look for?”
“Sir?” Neguste looked mightily confused. He started to put his right hand up to touch the tip of the sword.
“Leave it be,” Oramen said sharply. Neguste let his hand fall back. “Are you really so sicked by riding in the air, Neguste?”
“Sir?” Neguste’s brows were furrowed like a field; sufficiently deep, Oramen thought, to cast shadows.
“That was a canny absence you had there, fellow, just when all closest to me were marked to die.”
“Sir?” Neguste said again, looking like he was about to start crying.
“Stop saying ‘Sir?’,” Oramen told him gently, “or I swear I’ll stick this point through either one of your idiot eyes. Now answer me.”
“Sir! I lose my latest meal near on sight of an air-beast! I swear! Ask anyone! I’d not wish you harm, sir! Not me! You don’t think I had any part in this, do you? Sir?” Neguste sounded horrified, shocked. His face drained of colour and his eyes filled with tears. “Oh!” he said faintly, and crumpled, his back sliding down the wall, his backside thumping heavily down on the floor of the carriage, his knees splayed on either side. Oramen let the tip of the sword follow him down so that it was still angled at his nose. “Oh, sir!” he said, and put his face in his hands. He started sobbing. “Oh, sir! Sir, kill me if it pleases you; I’d rather you did that and found me innocent later than live apart from you, accused, even just in your heart, a free man. A limb to a hair, sir; I swore that to Mr Fanthile when he instructed me I was to be your last sticking shield as well as your most faithful servant. I’d lose arm or leg than see a hair on your littlest toe unkindly plucked!”
Oramen looked down at the crying youth. The Prince Regent’s face was set, his expression neutral, as he listened — through the ringing — to the fellow’s hand-muffled sobs.
He sheathed the sword — that hurt too, a little — then leant down to grasp Neguste’s hand, slippery and hot with tears, and pulled the lad to his feet. He smiled at him. Neguste’s face had some blood in it now, all reddened with crying, his eyes already puffed. He wiped his nose on one sleeve, sniffing strenuously, and when he blinked tiny beads of moisture arced from his eyelids.
“Calm yourself, Neguste,” Oramen said, clapping him gently on his shoulder. “You are my shield, and my conscience too in this. I’m poisoned by this too-slow-seen conspiracy against me. I’m late inoculated against it and suffering a fever of suspicion that makes every face around me look mean and every hand, even those that would help, seem turned against. But here; take mine. I offer apology. Ascribe my wronging you as your share of my injury. We infect those closest in the very act of caring for us, but mean them no harm.”
Neguste gulped and sniffed again, then wiped his hand on his britches and took Oramen’s offered hand.
“Sir, I swear—”
“Hush, Neguste,” Oramen told him. “No more’s to say. Indulge me in silence. Believe me, I long for it.” He drew himself up, his very bones protesting at the movement, and gritted his teeth. “Now, tell me. How do I look?”
Neguste sniffed and a small smile broke across his face. “Very well, sir. Most smart, I’d say.”
“Come then, I’ve my poor face to show to the people.”
Vollird too had started down the adit, carbine drawn, then turned back. He’d been challenged by some surface official, shot and killed the fellow then made off into the dark landscape of the under-plaza, followed by, or taking with him — reports varied — the diggings’ blasting marshal. This man was found later a short way off, also shot.
Only a handful of men had survived the blast and subsequent fire in the chamber at the bottom of the adit, which had been badly damaged and had partially collapsed. The excavations on that black cube — mercifully itself probably undamaged — had been set back many days. Poatas seemed to regard this as Oramen’s fault entirely.
Oramen was holding court in the greatest marquee available. He’d summoned everybody he could think of. Poatas was there, fretting and vexed at this forced absence from the diggings but commanded to attend with the rest and obviously judging it unwise to resist the authority of a prince who had so recently escaped murder.
“Understand that I do not accuse tyl Loesp,” Oramen told the assembly, coming towards the end of his address. “I do accuse those who have his ear and think they have his interest at heart. If Mertis tyl Loesp is guilty of anything it may only be failing to see that some around him are less honourable and devoted to the rule of law and good of all than he is himself. I have been most unjustly preyed upon, and have had to kill not one but three men merely to protect my own existence, and while I have been lucky, or blessed, in escaping the fate these wretches have desired for me, many around me have suffered in my stead through no fault of their own.”
Oramen paused and looked down. He took a couple of deep breaths and bit his lip before looking up again. If those present chose to interpret this as emotion close to tears, then so be it. “A season ago I lost my best friend in the sunshine of a courtyard in Pourl. This company lost fifty good men in the darkness of a pit in the under-plaza not four days ago. I ask the forgiveness of their shades and survivors for allowing my youthfulness to blind me to the hatefulness that threatened me.”
Oramen raised his voice. He felt weary and sore and his ears still rang, but he was determined not to let this show. “All I can offer in return for their hoped-for forgiveness is the vow that I shall not let my guard down again and so endanger those close to me.” He paused and looked around the whole gathering. He could see General Foise and the other people tyl Loesp had put in charge of the Settlement’s security and organisation looking distinctly worried at how this was going. “So it is that I ask you all to be my sentinels. I shall constitute a formal watch of some of the most trusted veterans here amongst you to protect me most closely from harm and to preserve the rightful continuance of our heritage, but I ask you all to play whatever part you can in the proper security of my being and our purpose. I have, also, sent a messenger to Field Marshal Werreber informing him of the attack upon me here and requesting both a pledge of his continuing and undoubted loyalty and a contingent of his finest troops to protect us all.
“You are engaged in great works here. I have come late to this mighty undertaking but it has become part of who I am as it has become part of who you are, and I well know I am privileged to be here when the unbaring of the City approaches its zenith. I would not think to tell you how to do what you do; Jerfin Poatas knows better than I what needs be done and you yourselves know better than anybody how to do it. All I ask is that you remain vigilant as you go about your works, for the betterment of all of us. By the WorldGod, I swear we do labour here the like of which will never be seen again in the whole history of Sursamen!”
