Too Many Princes

by Deby Fredericks

  While the men began to work their way forward, Therula eased herself backward. This part of the ceremony would last for some time, until every vassal had renewed his vow of loyalty. By tradition, all who spoke could also offer the new king their advice, or bring forth grievances. Some of them would go on for quite a time, as Robbart of Verelay was demonstrating. Oskar's siblings would also need to pledge to him, including even Therula and Cliodora. Therula was in no hurry to speak her oath. In truth, she had no idea what she would say.

  VOICES ON THE WIND

  It had been twenty-two days since they left Harburg, and Lottres found himself wondering desperately when the journey would be over. A bitter wind came gusting from the heights as they made camp. It suited his mood perfectly.

  Twenty-two days of Brastigan's selfish strutting and cutting remarks. Twenty-two days of Pikarus pretending he didn't hear it all. Lottres couldn't believe he had once admired Brastigan, wanted to be more like him. How had he thought this journey would make them closer? The two princes might work side by side, picketing the mules as they did every day, but together? Never.

  The men had started campfires, but even in fire pits they could scarcely stay lit. Supper was eaten half raw, a taste that soon lost its novelty.

  Twenty-two days of trying to see visions in the fire. Twenty-two days of relaxation techniques that left him feeling tense and frustrated. Just before Rowbeck, Lottres had thought he finally heard something. He had been so sure he had reached a turning point! Since that tantalizing moment, Lottres had felt nothing. Nothing but his own fears.

  The wind made the whole forest shout with unrest. Loose needles and twigs drizzled down on the men. Through he rolled himself into thick woolen blankets, Lottres could feel the wind pricking at him, like cold cat claws in the darkness. The bare earth had never seemed harder for resting on.

  Lottres was exhausted, but sleep came and went. The falcon hunched in a tree near them, gripping tightly for balance. Lottres was afraid to ask its advice. In the noisy darkness, he couldn't help wondering if Brastigan was right. Maybe he had just been dreaming. Maybe he should just stop trying. Go back to being the man his brother approved of—a boring nobody.

  The very thought made Lottres grit his teeth until his jaw ached. Admit that Eben had made a mistake? Let Brastigan be right? No, he couldn't stand it. Not after twenty-two days.

  The man on watch, Aglend, turned with a snap when Lottres sat up and groped for his cloak. It flapped hard as the wind tried to jerk it from his hand. Somehow Lottres managed to wrestle the cloak around his shoulders. He tottered toward Aglend, who self-consciously took his hand from his sword hilt.

  “I can't sleep,” Lottres told him. “Go lie down. I'll take over for you.”

  Aglend hesitated, then said, “That's good of you, your highness, but I can’t leave my position. I'll watch with you, and be glad of the company.”

  “Very well,” Lottres agreed.

  If he were to use the second form, he would need a fire. Lottres chose a fire pit and sat, putting his back to the wind. He stared at the coals struggling for life in its depths and thought about what he was trying to do. After twenty-two days, he had it by heart. “Relax your body,” Eben had said. “Breathe deeply, and hear what the fire has to tell you.”

  Lottres tried to relax the way he was supposed to. He was aware of Aglend's curious gaze. Unspoken questions stung like the grit the wind blew into his eyes. All he felt was the hard ground and cold gale. Trees moaned in the wind, as if they couldn't sleep, either.

  A wave of exhaustion swept over Lottres. His head and eyelids grew heavy. He forced his trembling eyelids up, trying to focus on the fire. The glowing coals flickered as the wind blew. It was so cold, he felt numb all over.

  Or was he? Lottres suddenly felt he was floating, at peace. The wind's noise was all around him, an indistinct roar, yet the roaring had the cadence of a distant voice. Lottres listened, trying not to strain. If he tried too hard, his excitement might shatter the fragile moment. Perhaps he slept, and this was but a dream. Still, he focused on the voice, and the words came more clearly.

  “Hear me, Eben. Hear and answer.”

  It was a woman's voice, Lottres was sure. Something was moving in the fire, too, shifting forms of amber and rust. Then the blurs cleared and he saw her. It was a woman of strange, angular beauty. On her head was a shadowy headdress, like the twisting horns of a dragon.

  “Eben, you are needed. Please answer me.”

  Lottres sat still, quivering with excitement. It was really happening! He was seeing something, just as Eben said he should.

  Then the coals popped, and the image burst apart in a spray of sparks. Lottres choked back a cry. He leaned forward, trying to reclaim the experience.

  “Your highness?” Aglend called anxiously.

  “It's nothing,” Lottres said.

  “You can go lie down, if you're sleepy now,” the guard said.

  “In a moment,” Lottres murmured. He tried again to relax and listen to the wind.

  It came more quickly this time, the narrow face with stern dark eyes. It seemed she saw Lottres, too.

  “Eben?” Lottres sensed the presence clearly, as if she sat just across the fire from him.

  “No,” Lottres answered. He wasn't sure if he spoke aloud, but she seemed to hear. The woman frowned, and he felt a gathering menace. “But I know Eben,” he quickly explained.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Lottres, son of Unferth,” he began. Lottres stumbled awkwardly as he tried to understand just how he was doing this.

  “Of Crutham?” The woman finished for him. For a moment, Lottres wondered if Eben had mentioned him to her. Before he could ask, she demanded, “Where is Eben?”

  “I last saw him in Harburg,” Lottres said. He had the vivid impression of her eyes narrowing in thought.

  “You are in a dangerous place, son of Unferth,” the woman said abruptly. “For your sake, and for Crutham, come to me quickly.”

  “Mistress Yriatt?” Lottres dared to ask. “Eben said...”

  “Do not speak my name!” she answered so fiercely that her image rippled again. It steadied quickly, though Lottres had the impression that was her doing, not his. “Only hear this. You stand in the path of an avalanche. Crutham is in dire peril. An army has massed to invade. I seek to warn Eben, but he does not hear me. This I do not understand. Yet I must stand against them.”

  “Who is it?” Lottres dared to interrupt.

  “Sillets,” Yriatt replied, as if he should have known without asking. “It is always Sillets.”

  Lottres felt his stomach drop. “We have only ten men,” he protested.

  “No matter,” she answered briskly, “if they are the right ten. Make haste, son of Unferth. Follow my companion —” he sensed she meant the falcon “— and be at my side within two days.”

  Her face vanished. Lottres was left blinking. The fire was no more than a sullen glow in the darkness. As if, he thought, their brief conversation had consumed it. He closed his eyes for a moment, clinging to the incredible memories and sensation. His breath came faster; elation made his heart beat harder. Eben had been right all along. He had done it! He wanted to do it again as soon as possible.

  Fast after that came a sickening dread. Crutham stood on the threshold of destruction! It couldn't be, and yet he didn't doubt it. Lottres stretched his legs, and found himself stiff and sore. The stars had moved, and a mere glint between the branches showed where the moon had sunk behind the trees.

  There was no time to congratulate himself. Lottres had to get his party to Hawkwing House within two days, and he didn't know how he would ever convince Brastigan to go along. Still, even with the bad news, the twenty-two days of struggle were worth it.

  ***

  Brastigan slept only restlessly, waking with a start when the wind dropped a pine cone on his head. As his blurred vision came into focus, he saw Lottres at the fireside. And that was odd. He didn't think Pik
arus had assigned Lottres a watch. The slight frame was unmistakable, outlined against the faint orange glow of dying coals. His shoulders, beneath a hooded cloak, were shrugged against the punishing wind but his head was erect. There seemed something purposeful in his stillness, but Brastigan couldn't bring himself to care.

  It wasn't easy to settle back down with the wind still blustering in the treetops. When Brastigan did sleep, it was with Victory clasped in his arms. This time he dreamt of Margura. The minx sat in his lap, raising a tankard of beer from which he drank thirstily. With her other hand, she teased the soft hairs at the back of his neck.

  Even in his sleep Brastigan knew he had been away from civilization too long if he was dreaming of that wench. Then her breath came suddenly cold on his cheek, and he was blinking into wakefulness again. Brastigan tried to curl away from the chill into his warm bedroll, but a hand caught at his shoulder.

  “Brastigan,” a voice said with low urgency. “Bras, wake up.”

  “I'd rather not,” he mumbled, but he rolled back over and squinted up at a sky just turning creamy with dawn. Black branches bristled against the lightening sky. From somewhere nearby, the harsh croak of a raven rang in the still air. A far-off echo answered it.

  The lingering stars were blocked by his brother's anxious face. Beside it was the falcon's fierce profile—an unwelcome sight, indeed.

  “Come on, get up.” Lottres pulled at his shoulder.

  Brastigan ignored his brother and stared at the bird. “Don't do this to me,” he groaned.

  The falcon didn't deign to reply, but Lottres insisted, “You have to get up, Brastigan. We're not safe here.”

  “Why?”

  Lottres ducked closer to him. “Something is coming. I heard a voice. We have to get out of here.”

  “You heard what?” Brastigan's voice came overly loud in the pre-dawn stillness, but he didn't care. Even half asleep, he knew Lottres didn't just mean he heard someone talking in the woods.

  “A voice,” his brother repeated.

  Brastigan sighed loudly, irritably. “If you don't stop staring at that fire, you're going to burn your wits, Pup.”

  Lottres ducked his head for a moment, his features reflecting controlled annoyance. Chin set, he answered, “It wasn't the fire. It was the wind.”

  The wind? Brastigan rolled clear of his blankets at last. “Wait a minute,” he groaned. “Wait.”

  The morning air was brisk indeed, so much that it didn't matter if the wind had finally stopped. A few paces from the fire pits, a little stream ran gurgling down the mountainside. Kneeling beside this, Brastigan splashed his face with water cold enough to burn his skin. Thus washed, he tottered back to slump on his bedroll, shaking the last icy droplets from his hands, his hair.

  Shivering slightly, he wrapped his blankets around his shoulders, craving their scratchy woolen warmth. “Okay. Tell me again.”

  Lottres winced from his scathing tone, but though his face was pale, the gaze of his red-rimmed eyes held steady. “I heard a voice in the wind.”

  “Oogh.” Brastigan flopped down on his back and his head struck a partially buried rock.

  Lottres hurried on, “I know you don't like it, but we have to move. There's an army. We're not safe here.” While he spoke, Lottres looked over his shoulder as if expecting an attacker in the dim light.

  Brastigan sat up again, scowling as he rubbed the back of his head. “We're supposed to run with our tails between our legs because of the wind?”

  “Yes,” his brother answered defiantly. “I'm not mad, Bras. We're in danger, real danger.”

  “You're a danger to your own mind,” Brastigan retorted.

  The falcon on Lottres's shoulder rustled its wings impatiently.

  “Sillets is on the move,” the creature announced in its strange, small voice.

  Nearby there came a rustling, and Pikarus sat up from his bedroll. He must have slept in his harness, for he was fully armed except for his helmet. A sword rested in the crook of his arms. While Brastigan was taking this in, Javes rolled over, too.

  “Help me out, here,” he said to them. “My brother has lost his wits.”

  “I have not,” Lottres protested. “It's the truth!”

  To Brastigan's chagrin, the soldiers seemed to take the falcon as seriously as Lottres did.

  “I'm not sure of that, your highness,” Pikarus answered. “We have feared such an event.”

  “Who's we?” Brastigan asked through gritted teeth. He hugged his blankets around himself and found they did nothing to warm the chill in his heart.

  Pikarus didn't answer directly. “Our commands have come from the falcon, since it is our link to the Lady of Hawkwing House. Since Prince Lottres also agrees, I believe we should give heed to its counsel.”

  Javes put in, “A force this size can't hold off an army. If your brother is right, shouldn't we move?”

  Lottres said nothing to that, but looked smug. All this while, the falcon looked upon Brastigan with inscrutable amber eyes.

  The dark prince lay back again—carefully, this time—and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Green and yellow lights played against the darkness behind his eyelids. He didn't want to consider too deeply what it meant that Lottres was hearing things. He'd said he was listening to the fire, but Brastigan had hoped it was just some fireside fancy. If it wasn't... If some spell had snared his brother...

  Aloud, he mumbled, “How long will it take us to reach Glawern?” Once there, perhaps the men could be persuaded to delay departing.

  “We can't go to Glawern!” Lottres sounded shocked at the idea. “We'd be trapped there.”

  Brastigan propped himself up with elbows behind him and glared at his brother. “Do you hate me now? All I want is a hot bath!”

  Lottres's face flushed a red that didn't blend well with the ruddy brown of his beard. “Just because you don't understand something, do you have to...”

  “You don't know what you're playing at...”

  “I know what I'm doing...”

  Words tumbled over each other, as fighting dogs roll in the dirt.

  “You're going to get yourself killed!”

  “I'm trying to live!” Lottres exploded, momentarily silencing his brother. “And you keep standing in my way. Everything always has to be your idea, your way. You can't keep holding me back!”

  As Brastigan sat blinking at him, stunned by the ferocious accusation, Javes cleared his throat. “If there is an enemy nearby, they're sure to hear the two of you.”

  It was almost a relief to turn from Lottres's angry eyes to sneer at the soldier. “And you two are no help, playing along with his fancies like this.”

  “Your highness,” Pikarus began in a distant, formal tone Brastigan had never heard him use before.

  “It isn't a fancy!” Lottres hissed. “Don't mock me. I know what I heard.”

  Ignoring them, Brastigan appealed again to the falcon. “Can't you talk some sense into him?” he asked with dramatic despair.

  “Sillets is on the move,” it answered solemnly.

  “How do you know that?” Brastigan demanded.

  The creature regarded him with no pity. “My mistress has seen such creatures as will only heed that command. It can be no other.”

  Brastigan's back was aching from how he sat. He straightened, rubbing his neck with one hand. Lottres's face, seen in profile, was stormy and unforgiving. Brastigan had the feeling he was supposed to apologize, but the words stuck in his throat.

  Meanwhile, eyes were open all over camp. The men, awakened by the shouting, lay staring uncertainly. Javes and Pikarus waited, too, for some clear command. Brastigan felt suddenly helpless with his brother and both officers arrayed against him. As the silence lengthened, he realized he did have power, of a sort. Pikarus wouldn't leave a man alone in these mountains, even if he did believe Lottres. They would follow, if Brastigan insisted, to Glawern or anywhere else.

  Of course, Lottres would never forgive him.
Brastigan found that his nerve quailed from outright refusing what his brother was so set on. Lottres was caught, even as a fish on a line, and reason alone would not sway him. All Brastigan could do was stay close and try to save him. Or bury him, maybe.

  Brastigan forced a laugh. “Well, we're commanded to Hawkwing House. As long as we end up there, one road is as good as another, I guess.”

  The words sounded strained, but Lottres let go a harsh breath. “All right, then.” The younger prince rose swiftly enough to make the falcon beat its wings for balance.

  Pikarus stood, too. “Let's go.”

  Though he spoke softly, his voice carried over the camp. Lottres's agitation was catching. Within moments, the area was full of movement and noise. By the dull dawn light, men got into armor, rolled up their gear, loaded the mules in anxious haste. Lottres was in the thick of it, lending a hand wherever needed. The men, oddly enough, seemed to regard him with a new respect. Brastigan, watching, thought he no longer seemed such a gawky pup. And when, he wondered, had this transformation taken place?

  For the first time in weeks, Brastigan was left to get into his gear without assistance. He took his time in combing out his hair, doing up the braids with bits of black leather, dragging on his hauberk over the leather gambeson. By this time the men were mostly in the saddle and Brastigan was aware of irritated glances from his brother. He deliberately worked more slowly as he rolled up his bedding, laid it over his shoulder, and sauntered toward the waiting riders.

  The mule Brastigan rode was tethered at the head of the line, as usual. He tied his baggage on and casually led the beast back down the line. Just in front of Javes, he swung his long legs over the saddle. Lottres was left conspicuously alone at the head of the column.

  There was a resounding silence before Pikarus said, “Your highness?”

  “Don't look at me,” Brastigan drawled scornfully. “This was his idea. He can lead off.”

  Lottres turned sharply to glare at him. As their eyes met, Brastigan awarded his brother a mocking salute. No one could accuse him, now, of standing in Lottres's way. The younger man regarded him warily, as if reluctant to let go of his anger. Then he looked pleased.