‘Didn’t it occur to you to cover your head while you were in Rendor?’ Kurik asked sourly from the doorway. The burly squire held a robe and a rough towel. ‘When a man starts talking to himself, it’s a sure sign that he’s been out in the sun too long.’
‘Just musing, Kurik. I’ve been a long time away from home, and it’s going to take a while to get used to it again.’
‘You may not have a while. Did anyone recognize you when you rode in?’
Sparhawk remembered the fop in the square and nodded. ‘One of Harparin’s toadies saw me in the square near the west gate.’
‘That’s it, then. You’re going to have to present yourself at the palace tomorrow, or Lycheas will have Cimmura taken apart stone by stone searching for you.’
‘Lycheas?’
‘The Prince Regent – bastard son to Princess Arissa and whatever drunken sailor or unhanged pickpocket got him on her.’
Sparhawk sat up quickly, his eyes hardening. ‘I think you’d better explain a few things, Kurik,’ he said. ‘Ehlana’s the Queen. Why does her kingdom need a Prince Regent?’
‘Where have you been, Sparhawk? On the moon? Ehlana fell ill a month ago.’
‘Not dead?’ Sparhawk demanded with a sudden sinking in his stomach and a wrench of unbearable loss at the memory of the pale, beautiful girl-child with the grave, serious grey eyes whom he had watched throughout her childhood and whom, in a peculiar way, he had come to love, though she had been but eight years old when King Aldreas had sent him into his exile in Rendor.
‘No,’ Kurik replied, ‘not dead, though she might as well be.’ He picked up the large, rough towel. ‘Come out of the tub,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll tell you about it while you eat.’
Sparhawk nodded and stood up. Kurik roughly towelled him off and then draped the soft robe about him. The table in the other room was laid with a platter of steaming slices of meat swimming in gravy, a half-loaf of rough, dark peasant bread, a wedge of cheese, and a pitcher of chilled milk. ‘Eat,’ Kurik said.
‘What’s been going on here?’ Sparhawk demanded as he seated himself at the table and started to eat. He was surprised to find that he was suddenly ravenous. ‘Start at the beginning.’
‘All right,’ Kurik agreed, drawing his dagger and starting to carve thick slices of bread from the loaf. ‘You knew that the Pandions were confined to the motherhouse at Demos after you left, didn’t you?’
Sparhawk nodded. ‘I heard about it. King Aldreas was never really very fond of us.’
‘That was your father’s fault, Sparhawk. Aldreas was very fond of his sister, and then your father forced him to marry someone else. That sort of soured his attitude towards the Pandion Order.’
‘Kurik,’ Sparhawk said, ‘it’s not proper to talk about the king that way.’
Kurik shrugged. ‘He’s dead now, so it doesn’t hurt him, and the way he felt about his sister was common knowledge anyway The palace pages used to take money from anyone who wanted to watch Arissa walk mother-naked through the upper halls to her brother’s bedchamber. Aldreas was a weak king, Sparhawk. He was totally under the control of Arissa and the Primate Annias. With the Pandions confined at Demos, Annias and his underlings had things pretty much the way they wanted them. You were lucky not to have been here during those years.’
‘Perhaps,’ Sparhawk murmured. ‘What did Aldreas die from?’
‘They say that it was the falling-sickness. My guess would be that the whores Annias used to slip into the palace for him after his wife died finally wore him out.’
‘Kurik, you gossip worse than an old woman.’
‘I know,’ Kurik admitted blandly ‘It’s a vice I have.’
‘And then Ehlana was crowned Queen?’
‘Right. And then things started to change. Annias was certain that he’d be able to control her the same way that he’d been able to control Aldreas, but she brought him up short. She summoned Preceptor Vanion from the motherhouse at Demos and made him her personal advisor Then she told Annias to make preparations to retire to a monastery to meditate on the virtues proper to a churchman. Annias was livid, of course, and he started to scheme immediately The messengers were as thick as flies on the road between here and the cloister where the Princess Arissa has been confined. They’re old friends, and they had certain common interests. At any rate, Annias suggested that Ehlana should marry her bastard cousin, Lycheas, but she laughed in his face.’
‘That sounds fairly characteristic,’ Sparhawk smiled. ‘I raised her myself and I taught her what was appropriate. What is this illness of hers?’
‘It appears to be the same one that killed her father. She had a seizure and never regained consciousness. The court physicians all maintained that she wouldn’t live out the week, but then Vanion took steps. He appeared at court with Sephrenia and eleven other Pandions – all in full armour and with their visors down. They dismissed the Queen’s attendants, took her from her bed, clothed her in her state robes and put the crown on her head. Then they carried her to the great hall and set her on the throne and locked the door Nobody knows what they did in there, but when they opened the door again, Ehlana sat on her throne encased in crystal.’
‘What?’ Sparhawk exclaimed.
‘It’s as clear as glass. You can see every freckle on the Queen’s nose, but you can’t get near her. The crystal’s harder than diamond. Annias had workmen hammering on it for five days, and they couldn’t even chip it.’ Kurik looked at Sparhawk. ‘Could you do something like that?’ he asked curiously
‘Me? Kurik, I wouldn’t even know where to start. Sephrenia taught us the basics, but we’re like babies compared to her.’
‘Well, whatever it was that she did, it’s keeping the Queen alive You can hear her heart beating. It echoes through the throne room like a drum. For the first week or so, people were flocking in there just to listen to it. There was even talk that it was some kind of miracle and that the throne room ought to be made a shrine. But Annias locked the door and summoned Lycheas the bastard to Cimmura and set him up as Prince Regent. That was about two weeks ago. Since then Annias has had the church soldiers rounding up all his enemies. The dungeons under the cathedral are bulging with them. That’s where things stand right now You picked a good time to come back.’ He paused, looking directly into his lord’s face. ‘What happened in Cippria, Sparhawk?’ he asked. ‘The news we got here was pretty sketchy.’