One for the Morning Glory

by John Barnes

When Amatus went to bed, a small part of his heart hoped against all reason that the plague would turn out to be a matter of a single day, that the plague itself might turn out to be the omen rather than the disaster. No one was dead—yet—and he had managed to get to every afflicted person as far as he knew.

  But the next morning, after the running, and the practice with escrees and pismires, just as before, there was a long line of supplicants, and the morning passed in the endless sick, horrible jolts as he was carried from one sickbed to the next. Psyche went along with him this time, but there was little she could do for him; Mortis had sent brief word up from the dungeons that although she had no idea what might cure the plague, that parts of her lore indicated that above all else the Prince, though now more than old enough for it, would have to avoid the Wine of the Gods. This was unfortunate, for it had only just occurred to him that something that made him feel warmer and happier might well be the very stuff needed to speed his recovery after the cures were effected.

  As Cedric noted, the pattern this time was more pronounced and obvious. The plague did not venture back into any house where the Prince had worked a cure, and thus on the whole the visited houses this time were a trifle farther away from the castle—which was again spared completely.

  Cedric did not like the way that people were already beginning to mutter about the evident focus of the infection; it was as if a great finger had descended from the sky pointed directly at the castle.

  In the afternoon, the exhausted Prince slept in his chambers, and Cedric privately visited with Sir John Slitgizzard and Duke Wassant, finding both, as always, helpful and loyal, and more than ready to go out as escort for the Prince on the following day. "There were one hundred thirty-two cases, twenty-eight in the village and one hundred four in the city, yesterday," Cedric said. "Today there were one hundred seventy-eight total, fourteen in the village and one hundred sixty-four in the city. If we are correct that it does not return to a house where a cure has happened, then there should be no more than two cases in the village tomorrow, but there will be many more in the city."

  Sir John, who was not good at mathematics, nodded slowly, just as if he had been paying attention, and asked, "And there are many thousands of houses in the city—so we cannot hope that things will work out as they have in the village?"

  "Very little hope of that," Cedric said. "We shall just have to find a cure, or a way to ride it out, or anything that does not involve the heir to the throne becoming dreadfully ill for longer and longer parts of each day. But what I have summoned you for is a slightly different matter. I want to know what is being said in the city—and though I have a dozen sources for what the aristocrats are saying, and a dozen more for the burghers, and yet a dozen more for the ordinary working folk, and even some sources among the Hektarians and the Vulgarians, what I do not have is anyone who can tell me what the city as a whole sounds like, for few people roam it from top to bottom . . . except you gentlemen, and the Lady Calliope, but she has shut herself in—rumor has it she has decided that Amatus has broken her heart—and so I cannot ask her. Will you go out in the city, tonight, and learn what is said everywhere, and come back with what you learn? For it is truly not the plague I dread so much as the way that people are taking it and the way the fingers are pointing."

  Sir John Slitgizzard leaned back in his chair and nodded grimly. "I can tell you a bit right now, for I was about last night. It is what you have been dreading, I'm afraid—many people, noticing that our Prince has only recently begun to reform from a harsh and bitter existence and from hideous dissipations, believe he has brought a curse down upon the Royal house and that this is how it is being visited upon them."

  Wassant looked up from where he had been cleaning his fingernails with his pongee, pursed his thick lips, and added, "And I have heard much the same. Two loud-talking rebels—who seem to be in league with some foreign power, and at a guess I should say with Waldo the Usurper—were busily spreading just such ideas for a good part of last evening, until they met with dreadful accidents in alleys."

  "My thanks," Cedric said, and quietly passed a bag of gold flavins to the Duke. "And I can assume—"

  "As always, the accident seems to have been a violent quarrel between the two of them, with both fatally stabbed," the Duke said, sheathing his pongee. "But it is easy enough to control those who talk in that way because they are in the pay of a foreign power. Far more difficult—and not at all desirable—to shut up those who are loyal but merely worried."

  Cedric thought for a long time, and his hand began to stroke his beard, which he felt a certain residual longing to chew. He was on the brink of saying something when the noise from the courtyard brought him up short.

  It was a great deal more than a mere low rumble, but not as much as a clamor; it was mostly voices. Cedric and the two nobles rushed into the corridor and from there to one of the galleries overlooking the public courtyard.

  The scene below was confused, for such devices as banners and picket signs were as yet unknown, so the sides had not marked themselves out, and besides, one side had not arrived for this purpose—it was only that the vegetable sellers, cod wallopers, and cheesemakers who were allowed to use the courtyard in front of the clerihew, having inherited that right from generations of vendors, were as deeply loyal a gang of royalists as might be found anywhere, and so when the loose mob of malcontents had arrived, they had immediately assailed them.

  Nor were the malcontents any better organized. There was one faction of them which had been stirred up by Waldo's agents. There was another which was made up of various people who sincerely wanted to ask the Prince or King for help, not being sure whether or not the Royal family had concerned itself in the process yet. There were some drunkards and ruffians who joined any passing crowd, mainly in hopes of picking pockets or that matters might turn into a celebration that would allow everyone's bill to be footed.

  Somewhere in the middle there were five passionate republicans, none of whom agreed with each other about anything except that it was the monarchy's fault.

  By the time Cedric arrived on the balcony, those with complaints had gotten thoroughly intermingled with the stallholders, hangers-on, and shoppers; an occasional punch was being thrown; many more people were busy trying to make peace between their immediate neighbors; and everyone was convinced that everyone else needed an immediate explanation. The situation was not exactly a meelee, nor yet quite a riot, but it was well beyond a hubbub and rapidly moving toward being an uproar.

  King Boniface was out of the castle, fortunately, having gone fishing for the day at Cedric's strong urging, for he knew full well that things like this were apt to happen and that the King's nerves were on edge, so that he had wanted to get him out of the way before any trouble might begin. Amatus, naturally, was sleeping off the effect of the morning's healing, and the first thought in Cedric's mind was that this assemblage of louts might wake him.

  He was not the only person with that thought, for opposite where he stood, from the clerihew doors, Psyche and the Twisted Man burst forth. It appeared that their plan was that Psyche would ask for quiet and calm, and the Twisted Man would make sure that she got it. But the confusion was far too great for most of the crowd to notice them, and the Twisted Man—thank the gods—was refraining from real violence.

  Cedric cleared his throat and attempted to address the crowd, but, farther away than Psyche or the Twisted Man, he had even less success. Sir John Slitgizzard quietly drew a pismire and gestured to Cedric, indicating that he could discharge it into the air to get their attention; reluctantly, Cedric indicated he should put it away, for some of the crowd might be armed, and the shot might lead to bloodshed.

  The mob rumbled and stirred like a jellyfish pulling back from a splinter. They all turned to face the gallery directly under Cedric. Someone was descending from the gallery; from the way the Twisted Man, Psyche at his heels, rushed toward that side of the courtyard, Cedric judged that it could only be Amatu
s.

  He descended the stairs and stood in an open space in the silenced crowd. The Twisted Man and Psyche flanked him, and a moment later Roderick and a dozen burly troopers had lined up behind them, creating an appearance of public order—as Cedric well knew, the beginning of actually restoring it.

  Prince Amatus stepped forward. Though he had just risen from his bed, and apparently thrown on his formal clothing on his way down the stairs, his appearance was immaculate from the sparkling gold and gems of his half-crown to the polished tips of his boots. His smile was warm, and yet not familiar; at once you felt that he liked you, and wanted to speak to you particularly, and yet that this was a matter of business. "Thank you all for coming," he said, and in an instant the crowd—excepting only Waldo's agents and the five republicans—felt as if they had come here to bring weighty matters to the Prince's attention, and had forgotten the anger or fear of the moment before.

  What a king he will make, Cedric thought. Next to him, Sir John Slitgizzard was thinking, There's a courage and a presence to him. Duke Wassant did not think in words at all, but instead felt in his bowels that he would be the Prince's man until he died.

  The Prince went on. "I know of your fear of the plague, and your thanks for the healing that I have been able to work—though that has been little enough, I fear, and we cannot say whether at some future time my strength may be exceeded." He looked around at them. "And so you come to ask what else may be done. I promise you—we will find the cause of this. As you all know, it began with a dark omen whose meaning and source we have yet to find, and that omen was within the castle. Such things are often buried crimes or buried sorrows.

  "I pledge you this. We will find out what it is, and we will do justice, no matter who or what the cause turns out to be. And though I will pledge no more than that, my promise is absolute."

  Everyone in the crowd murmured or whispered to everyone else. Some spoke softly to their neighbors because they were satisfied, and after all hadn't everyone said that the Prince was a reasonable, perceptive young man who was bound to do the right thing?

  Others, with more perception, realized he had just given binding word without knowing the facts of the case, or what might be turned up, and strongly wished that he had not done so, because they had read or heard enough stories to know how badly such things often turned out.

  In any case, the wind was thoroughly out of the sails of any sort of uprising. The drunkards wandered off, knowing that there would be little chance of cadging free drinks; the ruffians followed, having collected a few purses and wallets and slit a few pockets; and Waldo's agents followed. The rest of the crowd talked with each other politely for few moments, agreeing that it had been a productive gathering but they must all get back to their work and their families, and drifted off amiably enough. Last to go were the five republicans, split among the two who felt that Amatus's sincere response to a public outcry was a demonstration of how well self-government could work in practice (and favored carrying out the transition by electing him), the two who felt that all this was a royalist sham to discredit the movement, and the one who just wanted to point out to everyone that although things had turned out rather well this time the business of government was far too important to leave hanging upon the accident of having a capable person inherit the throne.

  "You need not spend any time canvassing that particular sentiment," Cedric said to Sir John and the Duke.

  "We wouldn't dream of it, sir," Slitgizzard said.

  4

  Things Needless to Say, Things Neglected, and a Puzzling Conversation

  It was needless to say that the Prince was as good as his word. In fact the only reason Cedric ever wrote such a thing in his Chronicle—or the King in his never-finished notes toward his autobiography, or Sir John in letters to his son many years later, for they all did write "The Prince was as good as his word"—was because it seemed de rigueur in a fairy tale. It spared a long description of the Prince going forth in his litter to work healings every morning, and studying in the Royal Library and Royal Alchemical Laboratory far into every night, eliminating one cause after another, following up little threads of history and every stray observation made by every shrewd commoner. Besides, it furnished a way to get into the next part of the tale.

  So the Prince was as good as his word, and though his youth and strength bore him up, all the same he grew tireder every day. The plague seemed to settle to about two hundred fresh cases every morning, and by now every house near the castle had been visited—just once. The plague continued to spread away from the castle in a widening ring, like a ripple in a pond, never taking more than its two hundred or so, but never fewer, and slowly and deliberately moving outwards.

  Now, Prince Amatus, because of his grief after Golias's death and his horrible misbehavior after, had many fences to mend and little time to mend them, so he necessarily neglected things and at the same time felt badly about the neglect. As a result, he seemed to be everywhere at once. He would be pawing through some dusty record in the library, then you would see him hand it off to some apprentice scribe with strict instructions to report anything that seemed even remotely relevant, and race down the twisted spiral of stone steps to the Royal Alchemical Laboratory, where he would be conducting some experiment on the blood or urine of a sufferer (only to find out that all that could be said was that the sufferers generally had less blood than, and about as much urine as, they ought to), and then he would be down in the Royal Witch's workshop to talk to Mortis, because he would realize it had been a full day since he had even said hello.

  "This dungeon is too deep and dark for you," he told her. "Let us move you back up into the light and air, where you can breathe freely and see for a long way."

  She shook her head decisively, and he noticed that she did not seem entirely well. "Have you suffered from the plague?" he asked her.

  "Not directly." She sat heavily upon her chair. "Prince, I have no suggestions for you."

  "What do you mean by 'not directly'?"

  "We are all affected, Prince."

  He sat down next to her. Her once purely white hair was showing little traces of yellow and gray; the sky blue of her skin was becoming more of a slate color; and her new scales were coming in larger and more irregular, so that her skin was losing its iridescence and becoming coarse and messy. There was a distinctly yellow tinge on her once-white fangs.

  "We all age in some way or other, Highness," she said, and he realized that she had been reading his thoughts.

  "I had not realized that," Amatus said. "Just the other day, it seems, Psyche was telling me the opposite. Or rather—I had asked her why she did not age—"

  "Oh, but she does. Faster than the rest of us, in fact. But not in her appearance. The last day you ever see her, she will look much the same as ever. The Twisted Man, too, is not what he was when we first came here; that might, perhaps, show, if you were ever to see any more of him than his hands, eyelids, or jaw."

  Amatus waited a long time, but at last he broke the silence. "There is much I don't understand."

  "That will never change," Mortis said decisively. "Except that what you don't understand will change." She sighed. "The sun is almost down. You should not be down in this part of the castle after dark, Prince."

  "Why not?"

  "That's one of those things you will understand eventually."

  As the Prince stood, he saw that in the half hour of their conversation, Mortis had grown visibly older.

  "It draws quickly now, Highness. Things are moving. You want your plague ended, do you not?" Her expression had always been cold, but now the line of her mouth was perfectly flat. She seemed to have no feelings about what she was saying. "I will tell you what I can. Do not be here after dark; this is no longer a good place for you."

  "Because of what may happen, or because of what I may do?"

  "Because of what you may see and what you may become. Three questions, then, Highness—Are you sure that all your friends are
your friends? Is it possible that you were helped to drink the Wine of the Gods when you were young, but that the help was not to your benefit? And—listen closely to this question—what does it all seem like, whatever you may be told it is?"

  The Prince nodded, committing the questions to his memory quickly, for he knew that these were the sorts of things of which portents are made, particularly when one is speaking to a witch. The first one seemed clear enough but was the sort of thing he did not wish to think about; the second seemed to be deliberately ambiguous, so he assumed it was; and the third was the kind of question that normally showed up only in riddles. He therefore decided to postpone any consideration of any of them. Events would propel him back to them soon enough. But even many years later, when he wrote his Memoirs and recorded the questions, he still had little idea what she had meant.

  The Royal Witch stood up quickly, and swayed. "The sun is almost down, Prince. Get up to your tower. Go now."

  There might have been urgency, or fear, or desire in her voice, but the strain was unmistakable, and so Amatus raced up the stairs before he had thought about it. As he went he could feel ice around his heart and a desire to sit down and weep forever; his feet stumbled and slammed on the slippery stones, and he continued directly up into the tower, bursting out onto the High Terrace just as the last rays of sunlight touched it. He stretched his hand into the sun, and what he felt then was like the shock when he took the plague from a sufferer—but in reverse. It was as if something huge, cold, gray, slimy, and ill had burst out through his arm, leaving his body. Feeling better than he had in days, he stayed to see the first star come out.

  5

  What It Was

  The next day, when the Prince went forth in his litter to heal the sick, he gave Duke Wassant, who was to head his escort that day, strict orders that after each healing, if the sun was out, he was to be carried out into the broad daylight. The Duke swept a low bow, his heavy body surprisingly graceful (or it was a surprise to anyone who had not seen him use his pongee), and asked no questions.