The Disinherited Prince

by Guy Antibes

  Malden stood at Pol’s window when he opened the door.

  “Ah, again the hero has added more accomplishments to his ever-growing list,” the magician said with a twinkle in his eyes. He turned to Kolli. “Thank you for your efforts. There will be suitable compensation for your trouble. I think the Queen is waiting for you.”

  Kolli actually curtseyed wearing trousers and smiled at Pol before she turned and left Pol with his two mentors.

  “General Wellgill sent a bird with the bare minimum of information. I’d appreciate a full report, Val. Feel free to chime in, Pol.”

  Val surprised Pol by describing the destruction of their camp the night Kolli, Paki, and Pol stayed at an inn.

  “I didn’t know you were watching us so early.”

  Val snorted. “And a good thing. The timing wasn’t right to let my presence known, then.”

  “It wasn’t right when you did come to save us,” Pol said.

  “I’ll continue, if you permit, My Prince,” Val said a bit too dismissively for Pol’s taste.

  Val didn’t know about Pol’s magical blast, but he did surmise that Pol had used magic to detect locations. Most everything else was thorough enough.

  “There is one other thing,” Pol said. “I used magic to save Paki.”

  “That makes sense,” Val said. “I suspected as much, but you kept it a secret.”

  Pol’s face colored. “It incapacitated me,” he said. “I couldn’t let my friend die.”

  “And you did the right thing,” Malden said. “Val was closing in by that time, right?”

  Val nodded. “I arrived just after,” the man grinned, “but I would have liked to have seen it. The soldier suffered enough injuries to put him out of the fight, but he was sufficiently alive to tell General Wellgill all about Earl Caster’s plot.”

  “All the Earl received was a demotion,” Pol said. “It isn’t fair. I want permission to attack Grostin with Val.”

  Malden glared at Pol, but softened his look, still standing by the window. “I keep forgetting you’re not quite fifteen. Your life will end if you try to assassinate any of your siblings. Val and I have gone through such scenarios, and knowing Colvin as I do, he would take your life, and maybe your mother’s too.”

  “My mother?”

  “Guilt by association. It happens often enough in the Empire,” Malden said.

  “Can’t the Emperor stop it?” Pol looked from Malden to Val.

  Both of them shook their heads. “No,” Malden said. “He won’t go that far. It’s a light touch that has kept the Empire intact for all of these hundreds of years.”

  “What about if I abdicate? Won’t that save Mother and me?”

  Malden looked out the window and took a seat. “Probably not. In North Salvan, the king can reinstate an abdication at any time. It’s the law, and Colvin wouldn’t think of breaking it. That means you will remain a threat.”

  “What if Father disinherited me?”

  “What?” Val said.

  “A disinheritance is different from an abdication. I read all about it before we left. Since it is the king doing the disinheriting, it isn’t something he can just change on his own. That’s in the law, too.”

  Malden rubbed his chin. “It is. But if you’re disinherited, you won’t be a prince any longer. You won’t live in the castle or have any of its advantages. Abdication just means you are taken out of the line of succession.”

  “And you said abdication isn’t good enough. You want me to go to a monastery.. I’d be spending the rest of my life out of the castle anyway. I could be dead in seven years, as it is.”

  Malden looked confused, but then he understood Pol’s comment. “You mean you will die in seven years?”

  Pol nodded with a solemn face.

  “We’ve gone over this before. Not if you get decent medical treatment.” Malden pulled a paper out from his coat. “By the way, you’ve been accepted to Tesna. They have competent healers that exceed my capabilities. You won’t have to worry about dying.”

  “But everyone dismisses me because I’ll be dead. I’m weaker than everyone anyway. If I do a big tweak, I nearly faint.”

  “You faint,” Val said.

  “I’ll talk to the king, if you are truly willing to give all this up. You might not get to see your mother again.”

  That changed things. “Not see Mother? I, I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “Then let’s set the option of disinheritance aside for now,” Malden said. “Val is back to being your bodyguard.”

  Pol looked from Malden to Val. “He never left.”

  ~

  Pol and Val kept to Pol’s rooms except for more practice at throwing different kinds of knives and learning to use his magic to fight in the dark. Dark consisted of a blindfold, but Pol had to hone his magic in order to sense more than just a colored dot, so Paki did not attend these sessions. Paki was far from being able to use magic at any level.

  “You have to sense an entire body from four or five paces away,” Val said.

  Pol knew Val taught him assassination techniques, but Pol rationalized the technique as a way to fend off assassins.

  Val had Pol walk through a maze that he had set up. Pol could detect still objects well enough, but visualizing a moving person eluded him when he started. The effort drained him every time, but he recovered well enough in half a day.

  He sat drinking some fruit juice after a session when Kolli walked in followed by his mother. Pol immediately stood. He hadn’t seen his mother alone since before he had gone north.

  Val offered her a seat at the table where Pol sat. He bowed to the Queen and left with Kolli to give them privacy.

  “How have you been, my dear prince?”

  “Paki has recovered, and it looks like Kolli has, too.”

  “What about you?” she said.

  Pol pointed to the small scar on his neck. “My only wound, a splinter.”

  “From an arrow striking your shield. Kolli gave me all of the details. I hesitated visiting you until after the shock of your return settled down in the castle. I had confidence that you would come back.”

  “You planned this with Grostin, didn’t you?”

  Queen Molissa pursed her lips and played with the cup of fruit juice that Val had given her before he left with Kolli. “We talked about getting you out of the castle by going north, but not the assassination attempt. Please believe me when I say I would never condone such a thing. Kolli also told me of her conversation with you about me.”

  Pol couldn’t help but blush. “I, I—”

  She put her index finger over her son’s lips. “Don’t say a thing. It is fine that you know. I wanted Grostin to think his success was easy and assured. Malden and I talked about what might happen, so he sent Valiso Gasibli, the one-man army.” She smiled and took a sip of the cup.

  “Has no one told me the truth?” Pol said, getting a little angry with all of the plotting behind his back.

  “What would you have done if you had known?”

  Pol looked away and thought about her questions. “I would have acted differently.”

  “And let your adversary know that you expected an attack? Earl Caster would have sent three times more men, but just the three of you lured him. If you were healthier, I think you would have had a good chance of fending them off, even without Gasibli,” she said. “As it was, Valiso showed up in time to reduce the attacker’s numbers before they even closed with you. His job was to make sure that you survived and prevailed.”

  “Four arrows hit my shield. Without it, I wouldn’t be returning.” Pol wondered if she had been told about his magic. He took a deep breath and decided to tell her. “I can do magic.” He looked into her eyes for the surprise that was certain to come.

  “I know, dearest one,” his mother said without surprise. “Another reason why a stronger Pol could have prevailed. As it was, you turned the tide with the skills that Malden and Gasibli have taught you. Your knife throwing
and magic killed or incapacitated five of the nine. That was you, Pol, not Val.”

  Pol opened his mouth to protest, but his mother’s finger found its way to Pol’s lips.

  “Accept what you are, but you must get stronger, and that is why you have to go to a monastery. They can increase your power and, hopefully, extend your life.”

  “But I need to protect you,” Pol said.

  “Malden and Kolli are here to do that,” she said. “Malden told me of your fears about leaving the castle. Set them aside. King Colvin loves me, and while he does, the children are no threat.”

  “But they attacked you on the streets of Borstall.” Pol obviously feared more for her life than she did.

  Molissa shook her head. “They attacked you, Pol. I was never in danger. Grostin quite enjoyed telling me all about what he had planned.”

  “But what if I hadn’t prevailed?” Pol said.

  “Then the fates would have spoken differently. However, I believe, quite strongly, that you have a destiny to succeed many times during a long life.”

  Pol shook his head to straighten out his confusion. His mother had more faith in Pol’s ability to survive than he did. “I could have been killed any number of times since spring.”

  “You weren’t. I see my son, Poldon Fairfield, sitting in front of me. You have a few scars to remind you that the dangers have all been real. Don’t condition your life to please me or protect me. You will lose strength if it becomes an obsession, blinding you to good, common sense decisions. I am dealing enough with your father’s ever-growing mania about Landon sitting on the Listyan throne. He only gets worse, and I think King Astor adds to it.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you,” Pol said, thinking about being disinherited.

  “You won’t lose me. I am always a part of you. That is something a mother passes along to her children.”

  “And Father?”

  “At the present, he doesn’t care about you like I do. You understand that, don’t you? Colvin’s regard for your safety has largely diminished.”

  Pol finished off his juice and rolled the cup between his hands. “It has diminished to nothing. I understand that, painfully so.”

  His mother took a deep breath and pulled out a necklace. A large amulet hung from it.

  “What is that?”

  “Your real legacy,” his mother said. “You aren’t entirely human, Pol.”

  “I’m not. I’m a sick human.”

  “No. You have within you the remnants of a race that arrived on Phairoon from the sky and settled in northern Volia. Your blood has been diluted over the centuries, but—” his mother looked around the room, “your real father is not King Colvin, but a countryman that I met in Listya. He looked so much like you, and he had the whitish hair that you and I share. From the two of us, you probably possess more of your alien ancestors’ blood than any in generations.”

  Pol sat back in his chair, amazed. “Does King Colvin know this?”

  Queen Molissa shook her head. “He does not. I was careful to hide the possibility of paternity from him.”

  “What happened to my real father?”

  “Died. He had a heart not much better than yours and I received word that he died in Finster not long before you were born. He told me a bad heart was a defect that the ancients somehow passed on to the human males they bred with.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The weakness didn’t pass on to me, but you inherited his. The full story is lost. This, however, is made of an unknown material.” She dangled the amulet in front of Pol.

  He looked at the silvery object. It looked more like a star than anything else.

  “Are you going to give this to me?”

  She put it in his palm and closed his fingers around it. The metal felt cold to the touch and didn’t seem to warm up while he held it. “He gave this to me and said he would take it when his health recovered to go to north Volia to find where our ancient ancestors lived and thrived. He never made it.”

  “And I might not either,” Pol said.

  His mother leaned over and held the hand that clutched the amulet. “I knew nothing other than I had unique ancestors. Cissert, your father, had studied the amulet.” She shrugged. “That’s all I know. Your father had magical talent, too, but kept it secret from the Emperor. He was unschooled, but had taught himself something of the patterns and performed little tricks for me.”

  “That’s what attracted him to me when I was a teenage princess in Listya.” She sighed with the memory. “I love the King, though,” she said. “Don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t,” Pol said, more confused by her words than comforted by them.

  She rose. “This is a secret between you and me. Don’t ever tell anyone, and that includes Malden or Val.”

  Pol nodded. “I won’t.”

  ~~~

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ~

  CISSERT. WHAT KIND OF A NAME WAS THAT? Pol thought a few days later as he perused the texts in his classroom waiting for Mistress Farthia to appear. He found a similar last name of a historical ruler of a country in Volia, but Pol figured he’d have to travel to that continent to ever find out.

  He couldn’t help but sigh. Such a trek would probably never happen. Pol knew that, despite all reassurances, that he expected to live only six or seven more years, and then he would die, just like his real father. The notion depressed him.

  So King Colvin wasn’t his real father, and if the King knew, then no wonder he let his own children go unpunished. He realized that no matter who his father was, Pol was still a prince just by being born to his mother, the Queen. Farthia had thoroughly taught him the rules of succession. He wondered what would have drawn his mother to another man? The answer exceeded his ability to answer. There were some things that were too far beyond the grasp of a fourteen-year-old, and that was one of them.

  Pol pulled out the amulet. The metal looked different than any he had seen. It was bright and hard, but it had a different finish. It looked like a cross between silver and steel. The necklace was made of the same material, and Pol had never seen such intricate links. Even the device on the amulet was strange.

  The door opened, and Pol quickly jammed the amulet in his pocket just before Mistress Farthia entered and opened the book on religions that sat before him.

  “What have you been doing?” she said. “Your face looks like you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t.”

  Pol looked away from his tutor. “I, uh, just opened the book when you entered the room. Do I really have to read the whole thing?”

  She narrowed her eyes and put fists on her hips. “How far have you gone?”

  Pol looked down to find the bookmark. “I’m most of the way through.” He used the bookmark to go to the last page he had read.

  “You’ve been taking notes?”

  He nodded and went to a bookshelf and pulled out a thick portfolio filled with his scribbles, including the doodles he made when the book got too boring. He really didn’t want Farthia to look at the latest notes.

  “Then finish up with the rest of the religions in the Empire, and you are done,” Farthia said. “I don’t have anything more for you today, other than to see your smiling face, although it wasn’t smiling when I walked in.” She looked at Pol with an expression that concerned him. There were too many thoughts behind that expression in his opinion. “Val is waiting outside.”

  Pol slammed the book shut and gave Farthia a little bow before he quickly made it through the door.

  “Why are you in a hurry?” Val said.

  “Mistress Farthia caught me daydreaming. I guess I looked guilty.”

  The bodyguard nodded. “You generally look guilty of something. Paki doesn’t ever look like he’s guilty, and he generally is, of something or other. Are you up for a field trip?”

  “I thought I wasn’t to leave the castle.”

  “We’ll take a couple of guards with us. I made sure they were good cooks,” Val said, the ch
aracteristic smirk returning to his face. “I even had a volunteer, a guard that you saved. Name’s Darrol Netherfield. I’ve met Darrol before.”

  Pol vaguely remembered the guard when he met him right after the attack on his mother. No, Pol corrected in his mind, the attack on him.

  “When are we leaving?”

  Val nodded. “I suppose that means you agree. Right after the midday meal. You have enough time to gather some clothes. Not court clothes. Consider it a testing of what you’ve learned so far.”

  Pol grinned. He liked this kind of test. “I suppose you don’t want me to tell anyone.”

  “Not a good idea. The guards think they are escorting one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting to her home village,” Val said. “I would expect word to get to Grostin, but we will also be covering our tracks. Still, it’s always good to be prepared for anything.”

  At this point, Pol expected attacks at any time. He might as well have some fun waiting for the inevitable. He wouldn’t mind some time sitting in a saddle, thinking about what his mother had told him.

  ~

  Leaves on some of the trees had begun to turn, as summer seemed to have lost a bit of its power. Pol looked out at the ripe fields and orchards and wondered what his fourteenth birthday would be like. His life in the castle had never been fully comfortable, and now Pol felt like he was constantly under siege.

  He still entertained thoughts of petitioning King Colvin for disinheritance. He’d have to give up his rights to the Listyan throne, as well as North Salvan. With his limited life span, he wouldn’t be allowed to rule no matter what happened, and no matter what his mother said, Pol thought the pressure would be off both of them.

  Pol looked ahead and saw Val reach up and grab an apple from a tree just off the side of the road. Paki tried to do the same, but lacked the reach.

  “You want one, My Prince?” Darrol Netherfield said, as he rode just behind Pol.

  “I would. Get one for yourself.”

  “My pleasure.” Darrol stopped his horse, but Pol walked his on. “Here,” Darrol said, offering a big apple to Pol.