by Karen Miller
‘Good. I, however, do have some for you,’ said His Highness. ‘Reschedule the remainder of today’s appointments and then inform my tailor and my bootmaker that I shall want to see them here as soon as possible, for Asher’s fittings. Oh yes, and advise the palace provisioner that Asher and I will come and see her at some point this afternoon about furnishing the Tower’s Green Floor to his tastes.’
Darran nearly moaned aloud. His Highness was lodging the brute here? In the Tower? But nobody lived in here, saving His Highness. Staff lodged elsewhere, mainly the palace, and walked to work.
Lodging the ruffian here was an unprecedented mark of regard.
His Highness was staring. ‘Darran?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’
‘Naturally, you won’t refer to Asher by his new title. Yet.’
After a quick glance to make sure Willer was taking notes, Darran nodded. ‘Certainly, sir.’
The prince frowned. ‘You’ll need to inform the kitchen, too, so we all have enough to eat. And something else – oh yes.’ He stopped his headlong rush towards disaster and looked at the lout. ‘You’ve not changed your mind about Cygnet, have you? You’d not prefer another horse?’
Darran choked. A horse? On top of everything, His Highness was giving this peasant a horse? Worth an absolute fortune? Oh dear Barl preserve them.
‘No, sir,’ the lout said. ‘Cygnet’ll do me just fine.’
‘All right then,’ the prince said, nodding. ‘Darran, let Matt know he’s just lost himself a stable hand, and that Cygnet henceforth belongs to Asher. Now, is that everything? Yes, I think it is.’
‘Wages,’ said the lout, scowling.
‘Ah, yes. How could I forget that?’ Taking the pen back from Willer, His Highness found a scrap of paper, scribbled on it, folded it in half and held it out. ‘Here is Asher’s revised wage, Darran. It’s a confidential matter, you understand?’
Darran took the proffered note with numb fingers. ‘Of course, Your Highness,’ he said woodenly. ‘Your Highness, a question, if I may be so bold.’
The prince frowned. ‘Of course. Since when do you need my permission to ask a question?’
Since you foisted this uneducated braggard upon me and called him your champion! Somehow, Darran managed a deferential smile. ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that I find myself a trifle confused as to the correct etiquette involved. To be blunt, sir, does this – your – does Asher report to me? Or do I report to him?’
‘Neither,’ replied the prince. ‘You both report to me. On occasion, Asher will have cause and leave to speak with my voice. You will know when he does so. Otherwise I expect you to work together as equals with separate duties. Is that clear?’
Darran inclined his head. ‘Quite clear, sir. Thank you. And just one final point, a very small point I know, but it’s best to be clear on these things from the beginning, don’t you agree?’
The prince sighed. ‘What?’
‘Where, precisely, does Willer fit into these … new arrangements?’
‘Willer?’ His Highness said blankly. ‘He doesn’t. Willer’s your assistant. Asher’s mine. But if he should require any help, of course Willer will give it to him happily. Won’t you, Willer?’
Willer flushed. ‘Yes, Your Highness. Of course, Your Highness.’
The prince nodded. ‘Excellent. Well, we’ll leave you now to get those messengers organised. Thank you for your time, Darran.’
Darran bowed low, despite the scarlet ache in his middle. ‘Not at all, sir. My time is yours to command, as always.’
The office door closed with a thud behind the prince and his boorish companion.
Willer, choking, spewed forth a laugh laced with horror and spite and collapsed into his chair. ‘Darran, I can’t believe it. Can you believe it? His Highness has gone mad! Should I send for Pother Nix?’
Because the situation was so dire Darran decided not to flay Willer for his undisciplined outburst. In truth, it was something of a relief to know that his feelings were so perfectly shared. Heart pounding, mouth dry, he opened the slip of paper the prince had handed him and looked at the amount of money His Highness was prepared to throw away every week on the loutish ruffian he had, so incredibly, so inexplicably, taken into his employ.
Fifty trins.
Only twenty-five trins less than he earned himself after a lifetime of loyal service and immense personal sacrifice.
Hot thick hatred stirred. Who was he, this ruffian, this lout, this stranger, to march into all their lives and turn them topsy-turvy in such a fashion? Prince’s Champion? Champion troublemaker, more like. Champion disturber of the peace. Champion error of judgement, and if he could say so he would, save that he knew his prince well enough to recognise the signs of an unwise idea firmly rooted. Knew, to his everlasting despair and from bitter personal experience, that no amount of wisdom or sage and loving advice would breach the determined certainty of royalty bent upon indulging an intemperate whim.
‘Darran?’ said Willer.
He refolded the scrap of paper into a tiny lump with swift, furious precision. ‘What?’
‘Pother Nix. Shall I send for him?’
‘Of course not! His Highness isn’t ill, he is merely … enthusiastic. That ill-bred lout won’t last a week.’
Willer chewed his lip. ‘But what if he does? What if he lasts, I don’t know, forever?’
Darran felt his stomach lurch. ‘Nonsense. I can assure you, my dear Willer, that he won’t last anywhere near that long. You and I will see to that.’
‘We will?’ said Willer, a delighted smile lighting his pasty face. ‘Excellent!’ Then the smile collapsed. ‘Um … how?’
With a contemptuous flick of his fingers, Darran disposed of the little paper wad into the rubbish basket. ‘I don’t know, precisely. Not yet. But I’ll tell you this, my friend: if we give Asher of Restharven enough rope you can be sure that sooner or later he’ll hang himself.’
As he climbed the spiralling Tower staircase behind the prince, Asher chuckled. ‘Dathne were right. Reckon that Darran don’t care for me at all.’
The prince sighed and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Don’t take it personally. Darran doesn’t care for anybody overmuch; he was born under a disapproving star. But he’s served my family all his life and he really is very good at his job, so I bear with his foibles. You’ll just have to bear with them too.’ A sudden chuckle. ‘Do you know, I think this is going to be fun.’
Asher snorted. ‘Well, I reckon it’s goin’ to be somethin’. Don’t reckon I’d swim a long way to call it fun.’ He frowned with sudden thought. ‘Eh. What am I s’posed to call you, anyways?’
The prince swung about, walking backwards. ‘Well, in public you continue to call me “sir” or “Your Highness”. Around here, and whenever it’s just us, you’ll call me Gar, of course. Why? What did you think you’d be calling me?’
‘Mad,’ said Asher cheerfully. ‘As a gaffed fish.’
By the time the late-setting summer sun had sunk into shadow, a bewildering array of things had happened. Asher had an entire floor of the Tower to himself, acres of space, with a bedchamber and his very own privy closet and a sitting room and library – a right waste of space, that – and an office even, since Gar seemed to think he’d be up to his eyebrows in work soon enough.
More than that, each room was now filled with furniture chosen from a vast array of beds and tables and sofas and desks and cupboards and whatnots stored in an entire wing of the palace. Even as the last stick of it huffed and puffed its way upstairs on the stout backs of various servants, there were maids with dusters and polishing cloths and sheets and pillows and towels and who knew what else rushing in to make his new accommodation fit for a prince.
Or, in his case, a prince’s champion.
He grinned at the thought. Though he’d drown himself before admitting it aloud, he quite liked the sound of the title. For certain sure it’d make Da smile when he found out.
Af
ter the cheerful, crowded disorder of the stable lads’ dormitory the solitary splendour of the Green Floor was nearly too much to take in.
And that wasn’t all.
Much to his dismay the summoned tailor had arrived as bidden, breathless with excitement and rushing, with a whole school of underlings in his wake. Before Asher could open his mouth to protest they had him stripped down to his drawers and were crawling all over him with tape measures and fabric samples, cotton and lawn and brocade and wool and linen and velvet and silk and leather, most of them in colours he wasn’t exactly sure a man should wear. When he started to say this the tailor, a small man with busy fingers and a voice like the crack of a bullwhip, rapped him on the knuckles with his shears and told him to hold his tongue, what did a brawny musclebound bubblehead know about the finer points of fashion, pray?
Knuckles stinging, temper seething, he’d held his tongue.
Gar, drat him, had nearly fallen over with laughing before being diverted by a disapproving Darran to deal with a newborn crisis somewhere in the City.
By the time the tailor and his scurrying minions were done there were plans for some twelve different changes of clothes, plus extra shirts, weskits and trews and two sets of riding leathers. Even as he stood there being poked and prodded and stuck with careless pins, three of the sweating underlings had set up two treadle sewing machines and a portable cutting table, rolled out bolts of brown and black and blue and green and dull bronze fabrics and, following some quick sketches by their employer, somehow produced three shirts and two pairs of britches for him to be going on with.
When they were done, Asher dressed himself in blue and black and gazed at his unfamiliar reflection in the mirror, shocked to silence. Such fine clothes! He looked practically posh. If his brothers could see him now, they’d puke. He grinned. Well, see him they would in a year’s time. He’d make sure to wear the fanciest weskit he still had left, just for the pleasure of their slum guzzled faces.
While the tailor and his underlings were making their last-minute adjustments the bootmaker arrived. More measuring. A servant was sent to his shop with instructions to bring back some on-hand boots and shoes that would do, at a pinch, until the made-to-measure items were ready. Asher, slipping his feet into butter-soft dark blue leather, couldn’t imagine any boot could be finer. But the grimacing bootmaker said that while such journeyman items might be fine for an Olken off the street, for a personage as grand as – as – the prince’s assistant, well, they were barely up to snuff.
Asher stared. It was his first inkling that perhaps his life was going to change in a lot more ways than he’d bargained for.
Eventually the last bowing and scraping body left and he was alone in his grand new apartments. A message was delivered from the prince: family matters would keep him at the palace that evening; he should feel free to dine whenever he felt hungry.
‘Ha,’ said Asher, staring at the hastily scrawled note. Now what was he supposed to do with himself? In reply his stomach grumbled demandingly, so he went down to the kitchen for his dinner. There, the scandalised cook sent him away with a scolding lecture about the dire consequences of important personages running their own errands.
Suitably chastened and thoroughly educated on the uses of Tower lackeys, he went back upstairs and amused himself by rearranging furniture until his supper arrived.
After his meal, a delectable chicken casserole with baked leeks, and a raspberry fool for dessert, he sat back in his solitary sitting room and sipped the last of the crisp white wine that had accompanied his dinner. Some bright spark had left a pile of books on his bedside table – Gar, most like, being funny – but he couldn’t begin to care about Olken Law as it Pertains to Equal Weights and Measures in Commerce tonight … or, possibly, ever.
Adrift, chartless and lost in unsailed waters, he headed for a familiar port.
As he’d hoped, he found Matt doing the rounds of his stable yard, quietly checking each horse, making sure no rugs had slipped, no bellies were colicking, no legs had filled with heat and swelling unnoticed. Hearing the crunch of boots on gravel, Matt turned. The flickering lamplight from outside each stable shadowed the look on his broad face into a mystery.
‘Cygnet’s a fine animal,’ he said. ‘He’ll take good care of you.’
‘Aye,’ said Asher, and headed for his new mount’s stable. The horse, a shimmering silver grey with eyes like blue glass, shifted in the straw and poked a cautious nose over the stable door. Rippled velvet-soft nostrils and nickered, a flirty little sound inviting apples.
Matt reached into his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, and tossed Asher half a Golden Dewdrop. Catching it one-handed, Asher let Cygnet lip it from his fingers. Inhaled the rich scent of horse and crushed apple, and for the first time thought that perhaps he hadn’t made such a blundering great mistake after all.
‘I keep thinkin’ I’m dreamin’,’ he said, tickling his horse under the chin. Cygnet’s lower lip drooped, wobbling, and his eyelids half closed in simple pleasure. ‘One minute I’m muckin’ out stables and the next …’ Baffled, almost afraid, he shook his head. ‘And I still don’t see how I’m s’posed to make a success of it.’
There was an upturned bucket outside Ballodair’s stable. Matt eased his way over to it and sat down, elbows braced on his knees, fingers laced to cradle his chin. The prince’s stallion came to investigate. Blew in Matt’s close-cropped hair, lost interest, and returned to eating hay.
‘I think,’ Matt said, slowly, ‘by being the prince’s friend.’
‘His friend?’ Asher stared. ‘Me? Why? He’s got hisself scores of friends, ain’t he?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Matt’s expression was sober, his voice melancholy. ‘He has … hangers-on. Toadies. Opportunists who see in him their own advancement and royal favour. But friends? No.’
‘Why not?’
Matt looked at him. ‘You know why not.’
‘Asher tugged gently on Cygnet’s forelock, frowning. Yes, he knew. ‘How’d he get hisself born without magic anyways?’
In the flickering lamplight Matt’s expression echoed the sorrow in his voice. ‘Nobody’s sure. It just happens. Not often, though, and never before in the royal family.’
‘Still, it ain’t his fault. And he ain’t contagious.’
‘No. But he reminds the other Doranen that they and their magic are not invulnerable, or invincible. And they hate him for it.’
‘Hate?’ said Asher, startled. ‘But he’s the king’s son.’
Matt lifted one shoulder. ‘Which is why their enmity is subtle, Asher. A handshake released too quickly. A smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes. Nothing a body could point to and say, see? But it’s there, and he knows it. He’s no fool, Prince Gar. He knows it.’ He shook his head. ‘You watch your step, my friend. Like it or not you’re in their world now … and there’s more than one kind of shark swimming in the sea.’
Asher snorted. ‘I grew up with sharks, Matt, and six brangling brothers besides. Reckon I can take care of m’self.’
‘Yes,’ said Matt, and once again his face was shadowed. ‘Yes, you probably can. Now I’d best say goodnight, for I’ve more stables to check and other work besides.’
‘I’ll help,’ said Asher promptly. ‘I may be important now, Barl save me, with folk bowin’ and scrapin’ and fallin’ over ’emselves to put a smile on m’face, but I ain’t too pretty or proud to lend a hand.’
‘No, there’s no need, you shouldn’t—’ Matt began. Then he stopped. Looked to be making a decision. ‘All right then,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Can’t say I won’t appreciate the company. Thanks.’
Asher grinned. ‘That be thanks, sir, I reckon,’ he said. And laughed as Matt threw an apple at him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘So,’ said Dana, Queen of Lur, as her gathered family shared the evening meal, ‘was I imagining things, Gar, or did I hear one of the maids say that you’d hired a young Olken man to replace Darran?’
Her husband’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. ‘What? You’ve pensioned off Darran?’ King Borne demanded. ‘Barl’s nightcap. He’ll be heartbroken!’
‘I do wish you wouldn’t swear,’ Dana complained gently. ‘At least not at the dinner table. And not in front of Fane.’
‘Oh, Mama,’ Fane protested. ‘Honestly. That’s not swearing. Swearing is—’
‘Inappropriate for the heir presumptive,’ said Durm. ‘Exercise a little self-control, madam.’ The Master Magician’s fleshy face, carved with deep lines of ex perience and the trials of containing strong magics, reflected his displeasure. Beneath sparse grey eyebrows his eyes snapped and sparked, seething power never far from the surface of his skin.
But Fane was not afraid of power. ‘Well, if it’s in appropriate for me, why is it all right for Papa? Papa swears all the time, and he’s the king!’
A lively debate erupted. Gar sighed, sat back in his chair with his goblet of red wine and waited for the storm to pass. Once, just once, it would be nice to dine with his family without some trivial matter starting a battle royal. No pun intended. But Fane had been born under a quarrelsome star and it seemed a day could not go by without her living up to that birthright with a vengeance. Pity the poor fool who ended up marrying her.
After some five minutes of his sister’s vigorous opinionatedness it was their mother, as usual, who held sway.
‘Well, I don’t care if Barl herself rushed about the countryside shrieking rot my toenails, I won’t have that kind of language at the dinner table!’ she declared. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
Borne took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. ‘As crystal, my love.’ His expression rearranged itself into sombre contrition. ‘We are duly chastised.’
‘Ha!’ said Dana, and tugged his beard. ‘If only I thought you were!’
Gar hid his grin in his goblet. Fane groaned. ‘Oh, must you? Flirting at the dinner table is—’
‘The prerogative of your parents,’ said Borne, affectionately severe. ‘Stop being tiresome, brat.’ As Fane subsided, pouting, he considered Gar and added, ‘Well? Have you?’
