The Disinherited Prince

by Guy Antibes

  King Colvin looked down at Pol, who finally felt a bit of energy returning. “I should have stopped this when I heard about it, but I wanted to see how you performed.” He leaned over and helped Pol stand. “You have shown your father and your king what honor is.”

  “I’ll take him to his rooms, My King,” Malden said.

  “You already said you would, so do so. I have King Astor to see to. If you will excuse me.”

  By the time they stood in front of Pol’s rooms, Pol felt much better. “I’m a bit hungry.”

  Malden looked in both directions as he led Pol into his rooms and closed the door. “I’m always hungry when I’ve overdone a spell.” The magician grinned, and that relieved some of the anxiety that Pol felt.

  Pol was afraid. He’d been caught out and he had no idea what the consequences were. “Magic?” He tried to look Malden in the eyes, but failed.

  “How do you think you are at one side of the armory, helpless, and Grostin has obviously been thrown across the room so hard you knocked him out? That is one impressive feat for a fourteen-year-old. I’ve never taught you how to do that.”

  Pol nodded as he shuffled to the rope and rang it twice, which meant he wanted food served. “Yes, you did. I used the same technique to move Grostin that I used to move the coin to the rug in your rooms. I just put more effort into it, since I really, really wanted to survive.”

  “So now Grostin knows,” Malden said.

  “Will he ever admit it? I’m not so sure. He might not even remember that part.”

  Malden shrugged. “Who knows, but you will need to be prepared for your talent to be revealed at some point, as raw as it is. You’ve certainly impressed me. What magic did you use when you saved your mother?”

  Pol shook his head. “I used the anticipation technique. It helps defend, but not attack. I had the benefit of a knife in my other hand. Kelso taught me how to use it.”

  The magician shook his head. “Kelso. Landon even admitted intimidating him. I don’t know how your father can permit him to run a kingdom. I would strip him of his ability to inherit. Grostin, too.”

  “That won’t happen,” Pol said. “By the time the Emperor arrives, today will only be a memory. I’ve seen such things happen before. Time softens the embarrassment of my siblings’ misbehavior.”

  “Spoken like a wise man. You’re too cynical for a young prince.”

  “I’ve been the focus of too much anger.” Pol wished he didn’t have to think so poorly of his brothers and, he had to admit, of his father. The King would forget soon enough, especially if it meant putting Landon in complete control of the Listyan throne.

  Malden snorted. “You certainly have. I do have some news that will help you out, though. The Emperor’s Procession is an excuse for Hazett III to test the men of his empire for magic. Farthia only found out this morning from a message her father sent. He is accompanying the Emperor, you know.”

  Pol did know. “So no matter what Grostin reveals, everyone will know soon enough, anyway.”

  “They might. I said you’ll need to be prepared to have everyone know, but I will see what I can do to keep you from being tested. Your life might more complicated if all know you are a budding magician.”

  Pol looked out the window from his seat on the couch. “I can’t see being treated any worse.” His mind went back to the murderous words of Grostin. He still didn’t understand why his brothers hated him so.

  ~

  Continuing to practice for the tourney didn’t appeal to Pol the next day. He dreaded talking to Kelso again, so he skipped his practice to spend more time with Siggon and Paki.

  “We saw your match with your brother,” Siggon said. “Kelso is a spineless twit. I thought he were a better man.”

  As much as Kelso disappointed Pol, he didn’t want the man disparaged. “Who knows how he was threatened. His life? The lives of his family? Imprisonment when Landon inherits? Would you stand up to Landon, Father’s heir?”

  Siggon’s gaze turned to the ground as he thought for a bit. “Maybe not. Your father defended Kelso well enough. I heard every word he said.” Siggon spit on the ground. “Your brother did something very dishonorable. He’ll find it a hard time to gather men to battle if he continues to soil his reputation.”

  “It wasn’t nice,” Pol said. “And he didn’t win in the end.”

  Paki ruffled Pol’s hair. He probably thought he could since he was quickly getting taller than Pol. “How did you do it? I could see your strength leaving you.”

  “It’s a secret, for now, but I’ll let you know sometime in the future,” Pol said.

  Paki frowned, obviously disappointed not to know, and shook his head. “I saw those touches. You beat him fair and square.”

  “I might not have been able to get those in if he had a blunted metal sword. Whoever built Grostin’s wooden sword made it much too heavy for Grostin to wield.”

  Siggon put a foot-long metal bar into Pol’s hand. “But he didn’t. You won up front, so remember that. No matter what happened in that armory, you beat Prince Grostin fair and square. We are through weeding for now. I want you to go into the little woods and hide this. When you return, Paki and I will try to find it.”

  “That isn’t stealth.”

  “No, but sometimes you need to hide something valuable and don’t have much time. Use your imagination.”

  But not magic, Pol told himself. He took the bar, which was about half an inch thick, and hefted it in his hand. Siggon knew the little wood intimately, so Pol had no idea where he should put it.

  He slipped into the woods after closing the gate and looked around. The first thing he would have to do is use stealth to hide it, so he wouldn’t be creating a trail for Siggon to follow. His first inclination prompted him to put the bar as far away from the entrance as he could, but then he thought about patterns and decided that might be where most people would hide it.

  He continued to walk around the entrance and closed his eyes. If he used magic principles, he would be tweaking the pattern. He could do that without magic if he could perceive a pattern that most people would use. Most people would bury it, Pol thought. So he wouldn’t do that. He looked up at the leaves and thought he could hide it overhead, but Pol didn’t have the strength to climb a tree this morning, still feeling the aftereffects of his duel the previous day.

  Pol turned around and looked at the thick hedge. He would slip the bar directly into the hedge at Siggon’s eye-level. That way if he looked straight on, he’d see the end of the bar. The leaves were thick enough to hide the bar anyway. So he carefully walked to the hedge and placed it deep in the branches. Pol made sure he could find it, so he placed a rock directly underneath where he placed the rod. He decided to create some diversions, so he quickly ran far into the little wood and picked up a few sticks about the same size as the iron rod and buried one in the leaves. He did the same thing two more times at random places and carefully walked back to the gate and opened it.

  “You took your time,” Paki said.

  “Do you want to find it, Paki?”

  His friend grinned. “Of course I do. Follow me.

  Siggon smiled at Pol and followed his son along with Pol, strolling with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Paki looked like a bloodhound, keeping his head down and kicking over the leaves. He reached one of Pol’s diversions. “Here it is.”

  Pol had made the diversion look like he had tried to cover up a bit of digging. It worked for Paki, who leaned over laughing and pulled out a stick.

  “What’s this?” His smile turned into a confused expression.

  “A stick,” Siggon said, patting his son on the back. “My turn.”

  Paki’s father roamed around a bit and found the diversion at the far end of the woods. “This must be it,” he said. “This is more skillfully hidden, Paki.” He reached down and grunted when he pulled up another stick. Siggon looked around. “I’m not up to rooting around the entire woods, so where is th
e rod?”

  “I won?” Pol grinned and looked at Paki.

  “You won.” Siggon looked up at the trees, and then peered at Pol’s clothes. “I know you didn’t climb any trees and it’s not on your body.”

  Pol led them to the hedge and stood close by. “Can you find it now?”

  Siggon looked around and spied the rock. “Here.” He bent over and peered through the hedge. “Are you playing with us?”

  Pol couldn’t contain his joy. “Look straight ahead.”

  Paki pushed his way past his father and looked into the hedge. He came away frowning.

  “Straight ahead.”

  Siggon chuckled as he looked down at the little rock and looked straight ahead at his eye level. He rooted around for a bit and then laughed, pulling out the rod.

  “Are you sure you’re only fourteen?”

  “Fifteen in the fall,” Pol said, trying to contain the giddiness that he felt from winning.

  “Okay, Paki. What did you just learn?”

  Paki furrowed his brow and put his forefinger on his chin. “That Pol can hide the rod really well?”

  Pol knew what Siggon was getting at, even though Paki didn’t.

  “What does a person normally do when they want to hide something in the woods?”

  “Bury it.”

  “Right, but Pol didn’t do that. In fact, he set up false trails to mislead us. Those false trails kept us focused on the object being buried, right?”

  Paki nodded. Pol just kept smiling.

  “When someone struggles to climb a tree, the bark generally leaves marks on your clothes, so Pol didn’t do that. If he were a little stronger, maybe, but not this morning. So I gave up because I couldn’t get the burying out of my head. I was as stuck on burying as you were, son.”

  Paki’s eyebrows shot up. “So he did the unexpected?”

  “And did it well. He went close to the gate where you immediately ran deep into the forest, and hid the rod so I couldn’t find it by casually looking in the hedge.”

  “Eye-level and straight ahead so you could only see the end?” Paki said.

  Siggon grabbed Paki by the neck and rubbed his knuckles on Paki’s scalp. “Finally, he gets it.”

  “Did I pass?”

  “I think he should,” Paki said.

  Pol looked up at Siggon. “Like a scout or a spy?”

  Siggon grinned. “Right, like Prince Poldon, and that’s even better.”

  ~~~

  Chapter Twelve

  ~

  “YOU LOOK PROUD OF YOURSELF,” Malden said, opening the door.

  Pol nodded. “I hid something, and Siggon couldn’t find it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment.”

  Malden’s dismissal of Pol’s accomplishment punctured Pol’s mood.

  “I mean, tell me the whole story,” Malden said. The magician must have seen the disappointment on Pol’s face.

  Pol told him, and Malden brightened. “So you used the pattern concept to hide the rod?”

  Pol nodded. “Call it a non-magical tweak?”

  “It is. I think you’ve gone far with that concept. I know I told you we wouldn’t be meeting together again, but I wanted to talk to you about your future. I talked to your father and to Farthia about you. We are concerned that Grostin or Landon will be successful if they keep trying to remove you.”

  “You mean they will kill me if the pattern stays the way it is.”

  Malden walked to the window and looked out. “I’m afraid so. There’s not much your father can do about that. He’s already told them to stop, but…” Malden shrugged and turned around. Pol knew that his father wouldn’t really punish his sons. He might be angry with them, but they would be around for a long time, and Pol wouldn’t. “I’d still like to send you to a monastery and sooner than later.”

  “Leave Borstall?” Pol said. “I won’t leave my mother alone to fend on her own against my brothers and sisters.”

  Malden looked at Pol and put his hands on his shoulders. “You put her in peril while you are here as well.”

  “What does Father say to that?”

  “He doesn’t believe me. Even after Grostin’s deception, King Colvin still defends his two older boys.”

  The thought saddened Pol, but there wasn’t anything he could do other than be there to protect his mother. She had already been attacked once. If Pol left, his mother would be exposed to three vindictive stepchildren.

  “Leaving for a monastery always is an alternative, right?” Pol said. “I’d rather not think about it right now, but things may change. I’ll think about it then.”

  Malden nodded. “Don’t wait to make up your mind until it’s too late. That’s all I wanted to say. I think Mistress Farthia is waiting for you in the classroom.”

  Pol expected his tutor to also press him about going to a monastery, but Pol would give the same answer that he had given Malden.

  “Come in,” Farthia said. “I heard you had an awful experience yesterday.”

  “You weren’t there?”

  Farthia shook her head. “It’s not something a lady would attend unless she is very young or very reckless.”

  What did that make his sisters? He didn’t really care about Bythia. If she married Landon, she was a lost soul along with his brother. Pol frowned. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

  Farthia leaned back in her chair. “Pleasant! He might have killed you, so I heard.”

  “That was the look in his eye.” Pol had said enough about his duel. “What are we going to do today?”

  Farthia straightened out the front of her dress. “Monasteries. You are going to learn about monasteries.”

  “I just came from Magician Malden’s chambers, so I expected that you would try to talk me into leaving.”

  His tutor looked a little abashed, and then she pursed her lips. “It’s still a place where you should go for awhile. I’d hate to see you permanently damaged by your brothers.”

  “And sisters,” Pol said.

  She nodded. “Let’s not talk about them. What do you know about a monastery?”

  “It is a place of learning and developing certain skills. The teachers are called monks, and the students are called acolytes. Few acolytes become monks, so people come and go. It is more concentrated learning than in a university, and you live in the monastery.”

  “Right, a place of total dedication for a time. Monasteries are safe havens. They are like churches in many countries.”

  Pol had read about that enough in the last weeks. “Sanctuary.”

  “There are few incidents of non-sanctioned violence inside a monastery’s walls, if you will. Do you know what I mean?”

  “If someone does violence in a monastery, they won’t leave the grounds without severe punishment and might even be subject to death.”

  “You’ve been doing some reading on your own?”

  Pol stood up and walked to the bookcase. He pulled out a book. “Here. This is all about monasteries.”

  “Why are you letting me teach you about them, if you know what a monastery is?”

  “Because I want you to understand that I’m not going to one as long as my mother is exposed to danger in the castle.”

  Farthia’s mouth made an ‘O’. “That is why you look so sad?”

  “It is,” Pol said. “I know it would be a good place for me to learn without feeling I’m liable to be attacked at any moment, but I can’t leave Borstall.”

  “I understand, and monasteries don’t typically admit women. They go to nunneries that do much the same thing, at least in most countries of the Baccusol Empire.”

  Pol knew that in some countries, especially outside of the Empire, nunneries were more likely to be a religious order than an educational one.

  “Let’s keep the option open. Monasteries accept men of any age, although generally not as young as you.”

  “But since I’m a prince…”

  “Since you are King Colvin’s
son, allowances can be made. If you were exceptionally gifted, you might as well.”

  “Magician Malden said the Tesna…” Pol stopped. He didn’t know if Farthia knew about his magical ability.

  Farthia gave him a sideways glance. It looked like she knew, but she let the comment go. She took a deep breath. “For now, bury yourself in the religion text. I think there won’t be time for anything once the Emperor arrives.”

  “So, it is definitely tomorrow?”

  She shook her head and waved a small parchment letter at him. “My father sent me this along with a few other messages from the Emperor early this morning. His arrival has just been put off for another week. I think we are done, for now.”

  Pol rose and bowed to his tutor before he left.

  He paced back and forth in his sitting room and wondered what he should do. The religion text had lost all appeal, and Pol needed a diversion of some sort from thinking about the tourney. After his match with Grostin yesterday, he didn’t know if he should return to the armory, so he found the wooden sword that Kelso had lent weeks ago and cleared out a practice area in his sitting room.

  Pol stood in the middle of the room, trying to make sense of the last day while he proceeded through the patterns that Kelso had taught him. He laid his sword down and sat on the couch. He questioned why he needed to participate in the tourney anyway. What benefit did he get from doing so? He really didn’t care how his father perceived him, since King Colvin was anxious to steal away the throne that rightfully belonged to Pol. Not that Pol wanted to rule, but Landon would be a disaster ruling wherever he went. His non-participation wouldn’t matter to his mother. Pol knew that. So why did he need to compete?

  He rolled around various reasons and only came up with one good one. It was his duty as a prince. Pol didn’t care about what his siblings thought. He didn’t care about what King Astor of South Salvan thought, and he didn’t even care what Emperor Hazett thought. He would participate because he was a Prince of North Salvan, and the people would want him to win.

  Would Grostin or Landon do something to stop him in the next week, now, before the tourney started? Pol thought it likely since Grostin probably chose the timing of the duel to push him out of the tourney, but he now had another week to come up with something, and that made Pol restless.