Pran digested this in silence, his knuckles white, jaw muscles bunching. Eventually, he said quietly, ‘I will speak to Ralph. I will ask him to create something that might aid us, to this end. But-’ he made a curt gesture as the Thane was about to interrupt, ‘I will not have this burden placed upon his shoulders, at least not with his knowledge.’ To the Thane’s surprised and doubtful countenance, Pran said, ‘He must be allowed to exercise his own free will in this matter, else self-doubt might mar his judgement, causing him to fail. At least, in any event, let him be blameless, especially in his own eyes. Were we to tell him of the stakes involved, and were he to try his utmost and fail . . . we do not have the right to do that to him.’
The Thane acquiesced, with the greatest reluctance. ‘Perhaps you are right in this,’ he said, ‘that, like the King’s madness, the greatest danger lies in the fear of failure. The King, you see,’ he said confidingly, ‘never learned that he could trust in life. The balance between fear and trust is a knife-edge most of us walk daily with impunity. It is something we take for granted. Denied that, who can say how long any of us would last in the face of even one small doubt, magnified beyond endurance by the lack of such balance.