'She has been failing lately,' Vindax said. 'I think she was distressed at the thought of my journey. She may have thought that I would fall in with questionable characters.'
The duke ignored the barb. His voice had a rough, country sound to it; the prince's carried the softer lilt of Ramo, but the two were one voice.
'And His Majesty?'
'Well, thank you, when we left. You have never met my father?'
'No,' the duke said. 'I never had the honor.'
There was the obvious moment to extend the king's invitation to court, but it did not come. Instead Vindax suddenly snapped, 'We are strangely alike, you and I!' Tension raised his voice above its normal pitch.
The duke laughed. 'So I was informed by the royal courier,
'He did not inform your daughter; she was very astonished.'
That shaft struck; certainly the duke would have dragged all the details out of Tuy Rorin. He colored.
'I repeat, Highness, that she has romantic notions. You are most welcome to my home. You will be quite safe--as prince and as relative. Our hospitality is genuine and heartfelt, although conditions will be more humble than you are used to.'
There was a pause, and then Vindax obviously came to a decision--anger was useless, and the situation must be resolved with at least a public display of fellowship.
'So humble that you and I must share a dressing room, Your Grace?'
Foan blinked. 'Certainly not, Highness. Why?'
'We could save on a shaving mirror,' Vindax said.
And so Crown Prince Vindax flew on to Ninar Foan, a bleak and forbidding castle looming over a drab town, its rough stone walls swept by the chill winds of the Rand and lit by a reluctant red sun.
The proprieties were observed--there were formal presentations and a dinner in the great hall. The participants went through their paces like puppets, royal party and castle dwellers alike. It was unfair! Even an unusually close resemblance could have been tactfully ignored in public and passed off with a wink in private but not this twinlike identity. There were eighteen in the royal party. They would not all remain silent; they could not all be put to death. There had been others; thinking back, Shadow could remember looks of shock and disbelief from some of the gentry they had visited, the near or far neighbors who knew the Keeper. Already the word must be working its way back along the Rand like an infection, heading for the court.
The scandal made his job harder, now and in the future. If Jarkadon did not already have a faction of his own, then he certainly would soon, whether he wanted it or not. He would. The death of Vindax might seem like a very logical and desirable solution to many people: the duke, the queen, the king, Jarkadon, the duchess, Elosa...the list ballooned in his mind. Surely none of those was capable of murder, but the thought must be there, and there were always fanatics and overeager supporters.
Three days of festivities were three days of vigilance. In one sense, Shadow had an easier time than the rest, for his attention had to remain fixedly on the problem of safety and he had no time for brooding about politics, no need to edge around verbal precipices.
There was a reception for the local gentry, who stared aghast at this younger reflection of their duke.
There were discussions of crops and taxes, of justice and order, and those were safe subjects.
There was a tour of the aerie to examine the celebrated Ninar Foan silvers. The duke was gracious over the problem of NailBiter's illicit seduction; he had more serious problems than that to worry about.
'She made an understandable choice,' he said. 'Your bronze is a big, handsome fellow. The silvers need an outcross, anyway, to restore the vigor of the line. Elosa must console herself, and I most happily give IceFire to you, Highness, as a memento of your visit.'
'You are very generous, Cousin,' Vindax said. 'I shall accept on behalf of my father, who is the enthusiast in our family. He will be overjoyed; and I am sure that he will send you the firstborn, as is usual in such cases.'
'Your father is a great expert,' the keeper said. 'The priests uncovered much relevant material in the sacred texts for him. As you know, he can talk on the subject for hours. The progeny will all be bronzes, but breed one of those bronzes back to the silvers and...'
They were at the precipice again.
'And the recesssive characteristics reappear,' Vindax snapped. 'I have heard my father lecture. I always have a problem knowing which features are recessive.'
The duke's face flushed equally red, and they exchanged identical furious glares.
But how, Shadow wondered, did the duke know that the king would lecture for hours?
Late on the third day, close to two bells, the duke and his royal guest sat and drank mulled wine by a roaring fire in the duke's study, a shaggy, incoherent room full of trophy heads and faded frescoes and mismatched furniture. It was a friendly, informal place, reflecting the varied tastes of generations of dukes, all of whom seemed to have added and none subtracted.
Perhaps Vindax thought he could drink his host into indiscretion, but the two of them seemed to share the same remarkable capacity for alcohol as they shared so much else. Ukarres fidgeted on a chair between them, while Shadow sat beside and a little to the back of Vindax, sipping sparingly and bone-weary from the continuous tension. WindStriker was overdue for a kill, and Vindax suggested a hunt.
The duke agreed with enthusiasm and promised good sport--he kept a couple of peaks as his own reserve, he said.
'Not Eagle Dome, though?' Vindax asked.
Earlier that day they had peered out at the distant shape of the great massif which broke the normal slope of the Rand and marked the boundary between Rantorra and the lost realm of Allaban. Sun-bright and faint, more like a cloud than a rock, it had obviously tantalized Vindax.
The duke laughed. 'Hardly! Shadow would not approve.'
'No-man's-land,' Ukarres said, 'but not no-bird-land!' It had earned its name in remote ages, he said, from the number of wilds inhabiting it, and now the wilds had taken it again. Its slopes were too steep for cultivation but were well watered and therefore rich in game. The eagles of Eagle Dome had become peacekeepers between human factions, for to attempt a flight around that great jutting mountain was certain suicide.
'Whose side are they defending?' Vindax asked, amused.
'Both, I suppose,' the keeper said. 'I scouted that way about a kiloday ago, I think it was. They flocked by the dozen--I fled faster than I ever have in my life. Allaban was never an integral part of Rantorra, as you know. In theory it was a vassal kingdom, but in practice it was always more or less autonomous, with its own royal family. Had it not been for the rebels, then your dear...your honored mother would be reigning there now.'
They could never stay away from the precipice for long.
'Eagle Dome has always been something of a barrier,' he concluded weakly.
'The rebel, Karaman,' the prince said. 'Have you ever met him?'
'No,' the duke said, 'but Ukarres has.'
The old man looked up from his forward-hunch position and smiled, revealing his scattered teeth. 'He's an interesting character, Your Highness--if he's still alive, of course. A religious fanatic, but with a certain charm. He was what you might call a low-key fanatic, I suppose...underpowering? On normal subjects he came across as a quiet, rather earthy man. But not to be underestimated. And a fantastic trainer of birds.'
'So the eagles of Eagle Dome stand guard,' Vindax said thoughtfully. 'To retake Allaban, we should have to fight our way past them first and then take on the rebels.'
The keeper frowned. 'Are you considering such an attempt, Your Highness?'
'Not seriously at present,' Vindax said. 'Maybe someday. After all, I am heir to Allaban...also.'
The precipice again.
At last Vindax declared himself ready for bed; the duke had drunk him to a draw. Neither man seemed more than tipsy, although they had each downed enough to have laid Shadow on the carpet. The prince hardly wavered as he headed to his room.
There he flopped on a chair, folded his arms, and glared blearily at Shadow. 'What would he say, do you suppose, if I asked for his daughter's hand in marriage?'
'He might say yes,' Shadow said, wishing Vindax would go off to bed and end the day. 'Would you like
