The Chosen Prince

by Diane Stanley

  “No,” Pyratos says, shooting Lord Nikomedes a venomous look, “I am quite capable of doing that as well. Uncle, will you kneel?”

  Claudio does and Pyratos lays the diadem on his head. Then, giddy with relief now that he is safely on the other side of the most dangerous crisis of his life, he adds (and who can say whether he means it or not), “May the gods forgive me for my many sins. Long live King Claudio!”

  30

  CLAUDIO SITS AT THE table with Pyratos and Lord Nikomedes. They discuss, phrase by phrase, the exact wording of the document that will officially transfer the throne of Ferra from Pyratos to his uncle. As each section is agreed upon, Nikomedes writes it down.

  Pyratos leans pointedly away from the other two, as if none of this really has anything to do with him. When asked a question he nods and occasionally he speaks, but never once does he look at them.

  Aria watches, impatient. She knows what they’re doing is important, but it’s taking so long! Meanwhile, the king of Arcos is still chained to a tree. Why couldn’t they free him first and work on the document later?

  Teo appears at her side and slips an arm around her waist. She responds in kind, hugging him close and leaning her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t see you,” she says. “When did you get here?”

  “Right after Papa. I came in from the side.”

  “You were supposed to wait in the temple. Why did you come here at all?”

  “Papa had a strong foreboding that you were in danger. He told me to stay behind, but I followed him. I was worried too. What happened to your cap?”

  “Oh,” she says. “The king of Arcos pulled it off.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t say. I think he knew me for a fraud.”

  “And then there was trouble?”

  “Yes. Did you see?”

  “Some of it. More than enough—I saw it as I was coming down.”

  “What do you suppose they’ll do with Pyratos? Is it possible they’ll let him go free?”

  “I guess that’s up to Papa.”

  Nikomedes has finished the document. Claudio signs it, then hands it to Nikomedes, who turns it around to face Pyratos, giving him the pen. For a moment, Pyratos stares at the instrument, as if he can’t remember what it’s for. Then, in a single rapid movement, he scrawls his name and angrily tosses the pen aside.

  One last step remains and then they will be done. Nikomedes holds a stick of sealing wax over the lamp’s flame. When it begins to melt, he holds it over the scroll. Thick gobbets of molten wax drop onto the parchment, dark red against ivory, like dried blood. He reaches out to Pyratos as if asking for something. But Pyratos just scowls at the lord’s open hand.

  Finally Claudio leans in and whispers to his nephew and, as if in physical pain, Pyratos slides the gold signet ring from the little finger of his right hand. He looks at it for one last, bitter moment, then throws it as he had the pen. The ring bounces and is about to go flying off the table, but Claudio catches it neatly and hands it to Nikomedes, who presses the bezel into the hardening puddle of wax, imprinting the document with the royal seal of Ferra.

  Pyratos doesn’t watch; he’s turned away again. So he’s spared the sight of his uncle slipping the ring onto his own finger: the ultimate symbol of kingship, more important even than the crown.

  The men rise and Pyratos turns to go, but Claudio calls him back. Then he walks around the table and, to everyone’s surprise, offers both hands to his nephew in an unmistakable gesture of forgiveness. With amazement and relief, Pyratos takes them. However false his apology may have been, Claudio has accepted it.

  The official business now over and Aria’s patience having come to an end, she releases Teo and goes to stand beside her father. He is in conversation with Nikomedes and a few of the other nobles, so she makes herself obvious and waits. The result is pretty near immediate; the men fall silent and turn toward her.

  “The king of Arcos is still imprisoned,” she says. “Shouldn’t we go free him now?”

  “Yes, daughter, we should.”

  It’s decided that Dimitrios and Lord Nikomedes should be the first to approach the prison guards. As men of the highest rank, well-known and highly respected, they are the most likely to be believed. They also bring Vasos, who is one of them, to vouch for the truth of everything they say.

  But the guards are already prepared for astonishing news. There’s been enough going on this past hour, between the fanfare, and the glowing lights, and the shouts of angry men, to make them conclude that something momentous has occurred.

  Nikomedes takes the lead, explaining in a simple way what happened. Then as proof of Pyratos’ abdication, he unrolls the document and presents it to the guards for their inspection. They lean in and study it with interest, though none but the officer can read (and even he can’t make out the writing in the darkness of early morning). But it certainly looks official. One of them touches the seal with his finger and nods, satisfied.

  Then their new king is brought forward. This turns out to be a lovely moment, for one of the guards remembers Claudio from the old days. He exclaims and falls to his knees, then laughs aloud. If there were any remaining doubts, they have been dispelled.

  The guards are glad to set their prisoner free. But the key to the manacles is on a ring which is on the officer’s belt, so first he must undo the buckle and take off the belt. Aria can’t wait another second. She worms her way through the knot of jabbering men and streaks across the clearing to the tree.

  “You will not believe—” she gasps breathlessly.

  “We heard,” Leander says with a dazzling smile.

  “Oh, but they are so very slow! I cannot bear it.”

  The officer finally arrives and shoos everyone aside so he can get down beside the king to unlock the iron cuff. When it’s done and the officer has stepped back again, Aria takes his place beside Alexos. Gently, she touches the raw place on his wrist where the manacle has worried the skin. But he doesn’t look down to examine the damage. He only looks at her.

  “Aria,” he says—oh so solemnly. His voice is whispery, shaking.

  “How did you know my name?”

  “I dreamed it. But listen, please.” He seems absolutely terrified; she can’t imagine why. “Before I get up from here, before we go anywhere and things are said and done, I want you to know how grateful I am for what you tried to do. You put yourself in terrible danger; I was frantic with fear when they took you.”

  “It was nothing worse than a slap and some ugly words. And now you are free, Pyratos has gotten what he deserved, and everything’s right with the world. Please, let me help you rise.”

  “I’m too heavy for you to manage. My friends are well accustomed to doing it.”

  She sees that this is true. Peles and Leander slide in, one on either side of the king, each gripping him under the arm and lifting him with ease. Now the physician hands him the cane and for a moment they remain as they are, making sure Alexos is steady.

  “You’ve been immobile for a long time,” the physician says quietly. “You’ll be stiff and the pain will be worse than usual. Take care you don’t fall.”

  Alexos doesn’t look at him. He just gazes down at the grass, his thoughts somewhere else. He is breathing hard and there are tears welling in his eyes. But he nods to say that he’s all right, he can manage on his own. Then, as grave as a prisoner going to his execution, Alexos advances haltingly toward Claudio and the other officials.

  Aria watches him with a strange mixture of pity and awe: the roll of his shoulder as he leans on the cane, the way he swings the imprisoned leg forward and carefully settles his weight upon it. And somehow he is all the more beautiful to her because part of him is damaged and because he has accepted it with such ease and grace.

  Halfway across the clearing, Alexos stops. Teo has just emerged from behind the tall brush that grows along the path. Both stand frozen, staring at each other in silence, and everyone feels the charge of tension in the
air. The moment expands unbearably until finally Alexos speaks, his voice clouded with emotion.

  “Teo?”

  And Teo says, “You!”

  “Leander, help me,” the king whispers, harsh and urgent. “Peles, slide the latch so I can kneel.”

  But Leander doesn’t move. He just stares, openmouthed, at Teo. Beside him, the physician sways slightly, as if knocked off balance. Only Peles does as he is bid.

  “Oh, Teo!” Alexos cries, his voice rough with pain.

  Aria looks from her brother to the king of Arcos, then back again. Something momentous is happening here, something she doesn’t understand. (She ought to; she’s been given plenty of clues: all that talk of dreams and a lost brother, the questions about Teo and whether he was happy, and how very alike they are.) But she hasn’t made the connection yet. All she knows is that Alexos is distraught, kneeling in the grass, and her brother is angry.

  “You!” Teo says again, moving toward the king now, his cheeks burning. “You were my brother!”

  Alexos rocks back as if struck by the word: were. “Yes,” he says.

  “And I was in a little boat on the edge of a river. There was no fog in that place—”

  “Arcos.”

  “I climbed into the boat because I wanted to please you. I thought we would—”

  “—go fishing.”

  “Because you were sad and I wanted to make you happy again. You’d been away for a long time and I missed you. I was so glad we were together again. I was also frightened because you seemed so changed. But I never expected . . .”

  Alexos hangs his head. Teo comes nearer. He is standing directly in front of his brother now, staring down at the dark, curling hair, so very like his own.

  “You untied the line from the post and flung it over the bow; but you didn’t get into the boat. You pushed it away, looking at me the whole time with this face I didn’t recognize. You pushed me out into the current that carried me down the river and out to sea. And I was just a little boy; I was scared and I was alone—and so very wounded that you, of all people, would do that to me!”

  There is stunned silence. Alexos has raised his head and looks directly into his brother’s face. “Yes,” he says, as if the words were being ripped out of him. “All of that is true!”

  Teo comes closer. He is heaving with emotion and there aren’t any words to express it, only the movement of his hands, pushing his brother away, as Alexos had once pushed him. Alexos sways to the side but regains his balance, so Teo shoves him again. This time he falls hard. His head strikes the ground with a loud thunk, like a gourd that has dropped and split.

  The sound is horrible, but it only stokes the fire of Teo’s rage. Screaming and sobbing, he kicks at his brother—two, three, four times, aiming most especially at his legs. And there’s no telling what else he might have done had Claudio not grasped him from behind and pulled him away.

  “Stop,” Claudio says, gripping his son with all his strength. But the boy continues to struggle. “Stop! I mean it, Teo. You’ve done enough.”

  “I hate you!” Teo shouts to his brother, who lies unmoving now. “Papa, let me go! Let me go! I can’t be here anymore!”

  “Will you go directly back to the temple?”

  “Yes.” Teo is heaving great, wrenching sobs now, pulling hard to get away. “Please, Papa, please!”

  Claudio turns his son away from the damage he has done, points him toward the path, and releases him. “Quickly, then,” he says. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  Aria watches Teo as he runs away, sobbing, watches her father watching him, then turns back to the king of Arcos and takes in the scene, the consequence of what has just been revealed. The physician is kneeling beside Alexos, examining his scalp for wounds. Leander has stepped back, as if recoiling from something loathsome, his handsome face contorted with horror and disgust. Peles just looks stunned.

  And all this while Aria’s rage has been building. What she felt before was nothing to this. Pyratos was just a worm. But this is evil beyond all imagining. Now she advances on the sad little scene, her eyes wild with anger.

  “It was you?” she demands, standing over Alexos. “You were the one we’ve been wondering about all these years, the one who sent Teo off alone in that little boat, knowing he would almost surely die? His brother?”

  “Yes!” Alexos shouts.

  “Then you are vile! Worse even than Pyratos! How can you bear to live with yourself?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Good. I hope you die. And I hope it’s painful and terrifying, because—”

  Once again Claudio intercedes. “Daughter, don’t. There’s enough hurt here already. Go comfort your brother. I will follow.”

  She looks defiantly up at him, then turns back to Alexos and spits at his face. It isn’t well aimed and lands on his knee instead, but she sees how it wounds him and is glad. She jerks away from her father then and, without another word, dashes away.

  She is running flat out, desperate to catch up with Teo. She can hear the pounding of her feet on the grass, the rhythmic rush of blood in her ears. She is weeping and sick with anger and disgust—all the more because she’d half convinced herself she loved that man. She’d admired him, pitied him, and had been so eager to set him free—when all the while, beneath that beautiful guise, there lurked a vile, ugly, foul, disgusting, monstrous beast!

  She is so sick she stops to vomit. And it’s as though more than bile comes out: something slick, dark, and bitter. For a moment her head is spinning and she’s afraid she will fall, so she drops onto the path and sits until she’s recovered herself.

  Then she’s up and running again—through the main camp, past a knot of astonished, silent men, then up the overgrown trail toward the temple. There are rocks here now, and creeping vines; she trips over them in her haste and falls. But always she rises and goes on, pushing herself to the very edge of her endurance, her legs aching from the rapid climb.

  At last, completely out of breath, she stops, leans over, and heaves to pull air into her lungs. And from far below, she hears her father’s voice as she’s never heard it before. It rises like a whirlwind in the air: a cry of rage, horror, lamentation.

  “By all the gods in heaven—no! He did not have to die!”

  31

  THE SOFT GRAY OF dawn has given way to the cool light of early morning, but inside the temple it is dark, lit only by the small, flickering lamp at the feet of Athene. Teo is just a shape tucked in close to the wall. He looks strangely small and childlike curled up that way, his long legs drawn against his chest, his long arms wrapped around them, his head bent over to complete the circle.

  Aria is sick with disappointment. Teo was supposed to wait for her. They’d talk, and comfort each other, and then decide together what to do next, how to recapture the perfect life they’d had before all those wretched people came and ruined everything.

  Instead, he’s turned his back on her and gone to sleep.

  She crawls over and lies beside him, curled up too, her back against his. She feels the warmth of his body, feels the slight movement as he breathes. It almost helps, but it’s not nearly enough. She wants him to wake and talk to her. She wants her father to come back and make everything all right. She wants things to be as they were. She wants, and wants, and wants. But Teo doesn’t move, Claudio doesn’t come, and she is left alone with her grief and her anger—and maybe also a touch of shame. After a while she crawls back to her own pallet and pulls the blanket over her head.

  How long it is before Claudio returns, Aria doesn’t know. She’s asleep when he comes in. He brushes against her knee as he sits down, waking her. She peers out from behind the blanket.

  He has lit the other lamp. Now he leans against the wall, drags in a deep breath, and lets it out in a rush. It’s the sound of total exhaustion. He looks at Aria with sober eyes, his head tipped down, his expression unreadable.

  “You smell of smoke,” she says.

  �
��I know. Is Teo asleep?”

  “It’s hard to tell.”

  He shoots her an odd look. “How long has he been like that?”

  “The whole time.”

  Claudio leans over and gives Teo’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Son? I need you to sit up now and talk to me.”

  Teo curls up tighter.

  “Teo!” Claudio’s manner strikes Aria as uncommonly lacking in tenderness. But then, she’s had no experience with firmness. “That’s enough. Sit up now.”

  Teo also hears the edge in his father’s voice. Slowly he unwraps himself and settles into a sitting position. He looks awful. He looks like an old person inhabiting the body of a child. In the lamplight his eyes are enormous and sad.

  “I can only imagine how hard that was for you,” Claudio begins. “It was painful just to watch it. But there is more to this matter than you could possibly know. And now we must discuss it.”

  “I already know,” he says, covering his mouth with his hand, his eyes wide with terror.

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “I heard. Oh, Papa, I didn’t mean to do it. I was just . . .”

  “Teo, child—stop! What did you hear? What do you think you have done?”

  “I killed him!”

  “No.”

  “Yes. I heard you say it, that he was dead.”

  “Then you misunderstood. It had nothing to do with you at all.”

  “Who was it then?” Aria asks. “Who died, if not Alexos?” She had reached the same conclusion.

  “While we were in the prison camp, the men held a hasty trial and found Pyratos guilty. They killed him on the spot . . . all of them, together, a wound from every man. It was a dreadful thing to behold.” He shudders, lets out a ragged breath. “We burned his body this morning. That’s the smoke you smelled.”

  “But why were you so angry? I never heard you like that before. You were screaming!”

  “He was a man, Aria, not much over thirty years of age. And now he is nothing but ashes, and bone, and blood on the grass. Don’t you find that disturbing?”

  “He tried to kill you.”