by Guy Antibes
“Who paid you to arrange for the beatings of Siggon and Paki?” Pol asked.
“I, uh, uh,” the man struggled to keep his mouth shut, but in the end said, “A South Salvan in King Astor’s employ.”
Pol wasn’t surprised, but now he had to ask the question he dreaded. “Who ordered the soldier to hire you?”
“The two other Princes.”
“Both of them?”
The stable master wrung his hands as he nodded. “That’s what he led me to think.”
Pol had to take a few steps back to lean against a worktable. It didn’t surprise him, but hearing it from someone else hurt.
Val didn’t waste any time and slipped a needle like weapon into the stable master’s chest. The man went straight down. Pol’s jaw dropped at Val’s act.
“Why did you do that?”
Val pulled the sharpened sliver of steel out of the dead man’s chest and slipped it into a sheath built into his boot. “He was no longer among the living once your friend Bibby told us of his animosity. I’m not interested in a trial. Either your brothers will talk your father into freeing the man, the most likely case, or they will order him killed, which is what the South Salvan agent would likely do. We save them all some time, and I’m under orders from the Emperor to take whatever steps are necessary.”
Pol didn’t know what to make of Val’s words. He couldn’t gather his thoughts to respond. He found his heart beginning to beat heavily and clutched his chest. “Won’t you be arrested?”
Val shook his head. “King Colvin knows who I work for.”
The stable master lay on the floor of the stable, but Pol couldn’t even see any blood on the man’s shirt.
“Is that a magic weapon?”
Val smirked. “No, but I did stop any bleeding with a spell. Can’t have too many questions. Poor man must have had a heart attack.”
Pol had to step outside. Val followed him and called out for help.
~
Kelso congratulated Val on his deductions.
“Not mine,” Val said. “Pol conducted the investigation, including seeing a gardener first to verify that the stable master had a grudge against Siggon. The pattern fit too well. When we questioned the old man, he clutched his chest and died on the spot. Probably guilt.”
Kelso curled one side of his mouth and looked at Val. “Heart attack it is, then.”
Pol had remained speechless and only responded with nods, grunts, or shakes of his head. He had to process the casual killing that Val had done. It was an execution, pure and simple. When Pol fought another man, it was like a challenge, a tourney match, each person had a chance to defend himself, but no chances existed for the stable master.
The death brought conflicting feelings into his mind. He wanted to avenge Siggon’s death and Paki’s beating, but Pol didn’t like the method. He looked at Val and felt a return to his fear of the man and uncertainty of his bodyguard’s motives.
“Our investigation is over?” Pol asked. “Can we find the South Salvan soldier?”
“Assassin,” Val said. “He could be the pea-shooter for all I know, but you are right, we are finished for now. We know enough to be aware of what happened, but to pursue the facts any further brings us peril, deadly peril.”
Pol wished he could proceed, face the peril, so he could live a freer life, but that didn’t seem to be possible since his father protected the sources at this time. To go further would endanger everyone. He thought they had made progress, and he had learned a lot, but Pol knew he couldn’t take a life as easily as Val had just done.
“So I am done for the day?” Pol said.
Val nodded. “You have enough time to meet with Mistress Farthia.”
He’d been so wrapped up in the investigation that he forgot all about his regular studies. “I’m very late! I’ll be going.”
“We’ll be going,” Val said.
~
Pol didn’t tell Farthia about their recent activities. The stable master’s killing still bothered him. He was glad that Val let him attend his studies without his presence.
Farthia rubbed her hands and looked across her desk at Pol. “Anything you’d like to talk about today?”
After running his finger along the front edge of Farthia’s desk Pol looked up. “I’d like to know more about the ethics of assassination.”
His tutor looked flustered and turned red. “You mean murder?”
Pol shook his head. “Well, you can call it political murder. How do people justify the killing of others for political reasons?”
“Did anything happen to bring this to your attention?” Farthia said.
Pol related his story of the last two days, including the killing of the three thugs and Val’s execution of the stable master. “What is the difference?”
Farthia sat back. “You have me at a disadvantage. I can’t speak of this in an objective manner. My father’s business…”
“You said Val has worked for him, right?”
Farthia looked at Pol with a sad expression and nodded.
“Do you think Val considers himself a murderer? I can’t see any remorse for what he did to the stable master. Does that make him a monster?” Pol said.
“I can’t speak for Valiso, but that aspect of my father’s work brings him no joy. It's a disagreeable part of his job. You’ve killed twice in your young life. Do you consider yourself a murderer?”
Pol stood up with his fists clutched tightly at his side. “I defended myself.”
“Doing what was right?”
He nodded.
“What about the two men you killed? Do you think they were both the embodiment of evil?”
Pol knit his eyebrows together. “No, but they were trying to take my life.”
“Did the stable master deserve to die?”
Pol suddenly understood what Farthia was getting at. “He did, and he should have been executed for his role in Siggon’s death.” He had to admit that he wouldn’t. Pol jammed his eyes shut with frustration. “Life should be simpler than this.” He didn’t want to admit to Farthia that he hated this conversation, but he knew this perspective was what he needed. It hurt him to realize that the motives that drove his siblings, his father, and Valiso weren’t as easily categorized as he had thought.
“Did you just learn something unpleasant?” Farthia said.
Pol glared at her as his mind filled with confusion and angry thoughts. He couldn’t stand talking about this anymore and ran from the classroom. His feet clattered on the corridors as he fled from Mistress Farthia and quickly sought out the Royal Garden as a refuge from the complicated truth that he had just learned.
He found a secluded spot that had a curved bench. Pol had worked in the garden in this little section. It felt like he was alone, even though the castle grounds surrounded him.
He leaned over and put his head in his hands. His breathing and heart both labored to keep up, and that allowed Pol to lose his tortured thoughts in the rhythms of his body calming down. Pol didn’t know how he could continue to live. His friends were killed or beaten, his mother attacked, and yet, when Val took the role of an executioner, something seemed to snap inside.
He shook his head, still cradled by his hands and moaned in emotional pain. The patterns of behavior and motivation of all around him seemed to crumble and fall apart in his mind. His breathing became labored again. Pol gasped and put his hand to his neck, fighting for breath.
Amidst his distress, Pol heard footsteps in the gravel.
“Poldon, my Poldon,” Molissa, the queen mother, said. “Farthia said you were very upset.”
He looked up at his mother, feeling lost and afraid. She sat down beside him and pulled his head down onto her lap, stroking his hair.
Pol made an attempt to sit up, but his mother held him down. “Just relax, my son. Sometimes I feel the way you probably do now. Life isn’t fair. It never was. We exist in our own little cocoons and ignore most of the disagreeable parts, if we can. Your siblings dislike
your existence because it intrudes on their cocoons, if you will.”
His mother’s hand on his head felt reassuring, even though her words weren’t, not really.
She continued, “You dislike their treatment of you, and it is unfair. It is grossly unfair, but you represent a challenge they would just as soon not face. Your investigation with Val—”
Pol rose, feeling more calm and in control. “You know about that?”
She nodded and gave Pol the saddest smile he had ever seen on her face. “I asked Malden to keep me informed a few times a day since your friend Paki was attacked.”
“We’ve hardly seen Malden.”
“He’s been around more than you think,” his mother said. “Malden is one of the few in the castle who is exactly as you see.”
At this point, Pol couldn’t really trust anyone, even his mother. “Did he tell you who has died?”
“The attackers and the stable master?”
Pol nodded, shocked that Malden would give such unpleasant news to his mother. But then, if Malden were as open as his mother said, he would tell her if she asked him…maybe.
“I killed one of them. Did he tell you that, too?”
His mother looked across the garden, and then turned her head to him. Pol struggled to keep her gaze. “He did. You might question everybody and every motive, but you three, including the cobbler, saved each other.”
Pol didn’t know how much saving he had done, but he couldn’t help feeling bad for the stable master’s quick death. “I don’t agree with the stable master’s assassination.”
Molissa gave her son a hard look, so hard that Pol shrank back. “It was not an assassination, and I think that perception is what has my son so upset. Valiso Gasibli has dispensation from the Emperor himself to take the life of those who threaten the Empire. Knowing how you loved Siggon and how you regard Paki, I would think you would support the death of one of those responsible.”
“But he’s just following orders from someone who is probably paying him well,” Pol said, not wanting to pursue the thread of money all the way to his brothers in front of his mother.
“And we know who that someone is. Would you do the same?”
Pol shook his head. “Why do you think I’m out here, all upset? Of course not. I wouldn’t, but just about everyone else would. Would you have killed the stable master?”
His mother didn’t answer, but looked away. Why did Pol feel so alone in protesting the stable master’s casual killing? Was it just the cold-blooded way it was done?
Her hands running through his hair calmed Pol down. After a while, he gritted his teeth and stood, frustrated that her ministrations could calm his distress so easily. “Thank you for being here. I’m much calmer now.”
“But you still feel the way you did when you came down here?” She looked up at the castle in the background, and then at him.
“I do, but I’m not…not emotional, now. I’ll have to think about everything.” Pol knew he faced the dreaded task of rebuilding the patterns of motivation of all those he knew in his mind, although doing so could result in learning something that would continue to make him uncomfortable.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Five
~
“HONNA AND GROSTIN,” MALDEN SAID, “Val told me not to tell you, but I thought you should know. There is no evidence of Landon’s involvement.”
Pol sat in the magician’s chambers, pressing his lips together. He had expected another lecture on patterns, but Malden had answered a question that had been eating at him for the past week. He hadn’t had a session with Malden since before Paki’s beating.
“Val can’t execute them, though, can he?”
Malden shook his head. “Not those in direct line of succession. That requires a specific directive from the Emperor and with Hazett III, that is very, very unlikely. You knew your siblings were behind Siggon and Paki’s assaults anyway.” Malden said it as a statement, but Pol nodded. “Does confirmation change anything?”
Pol played with a paperweight on the table for a bit before looking at Malden. “Not really, I guess. I’m having trouble with making new patterns, though.”
“New patterns?” Malden furrowed his brow.
“I constructed patterns of how people think, and some of them fell apart during and after the investigation,” Pol said. He sighed and clutched one of his fists tightly to maintain control.
“Such as?”
“Val killing the stable master.”
Malden nodded and pressed his lips together. “You’ve grown to like Valiso?”
“I try to like my tutors,” Pol said. “I learn better from someone I know and trust.”
“He disappointed you? More than disappointed you, he shattered the placement of your values over his.”
Pol sat up straighter. “Is that what I did?”
“Explain what you might have done, My Prince,” Malden said.
“I…I might have done what you said.” Pol looked away and focused on the paperweight as he scrambled for an answer in his mind.
Malden broke Pol’s train of thought with laughter. “Don’t take me wrong. We look for those who agree with us, but people aren’t exact matches. Everyone is different. That you see people as patterns is an encouraging sign.”
“How can that be encouraging?”
“Creating patterns is a process. Generally, a training magician doesn’t confront these problems until they are more advanced, but if you can quickly develop a pattern of someone, that can help you interpret their actions. Bear in mind that it is easy to introduce bias into the pattern, and that is what you have done.”
“Bias? Oh,” Pol said. He remembered a previous conversation that he had had with Malden and another with Val. Pol had fallen into the very trap of applying his own bias to a situation.
“Overlaying your pattern on someone else. Everyone is not the same, so if you don’t change the pattern to match what you observe, there will be a discontinuity.”
“Discontinuity?” Pol thought he knew the word, but he didn’t understand how it applied here.
“The pattern in your mind doesn’t match reality, and when the person you are patterning does something outside what you would do that should be consistent with that person’s pattern, you get a discontinuity. It doesn’t match. Val’s quick execution of the stable master was a huge discontinuity. You would have never thought of doing that, and that invalidated the pattern of Val that you constructed. Rather than using the information to evaluate Val’s true pattern, you went into a kind of shock. I’d put it down to deep disappointment,” Malden said looking intently at Pol.
Pol had difficulty making eye contact with the magician. “You talked to my mother, too?”
Malden smiled. “I did. I constantly update the patterns I’ve made on people, so I needed to know how you reacted.”
“That’s not magic,” Pol said. He felt a touch insulted by Malden’s words.
“It isn’t meant to be. You create patterns of things. I told you that all good magicians do. Patterns aren’t just for magic, although if a person can’t fabricate a pattern, they won’t be able to tweak very effectively.”
“Does that mean that I have to change who I am?” Pol could see this as an extension of that older discussion. Why did this pattern business have to be so convoluted? When he first thought of patterns, the concept seemed so simple.
Malden shook his head. “Not at all. You just have to learn to be a bit more flexible in your establishment of patterns. Allow for deviations…no, expect deviations and accept them. Do you think your behavior is always acceptable to your siblings?”
Pol took the paperweight and tossed it from hand to hand. “No. They don’t like me.”
“Are they wrong not to like you?”
Malden’s comment got through to Pol. “I see. I need to look at the pattern from different directions.”
Malden nodded. “Right. Another word might be looking at the pattern from differ
ent perspectives. It’s like looking at a forest from one position. Every tree could hide something unexpected, but if you change your vantage point and look from behind and from the sides, you can get a better feel for what is there—”
“Or what is not,” Pol said. That way of thinking wasn’t entirely foreign to him, since Siggon had talked about tracking in the forest and said something similar, but Pol had never thought to put the concept into anything other than hiding and tracking and definitely had not applied it to the practice of creating patterns.
“You seem to understand what I’ve been talking about,” Malden said.
“How do I apply it to magic?” Pol felt like he might have to start his magic training all over again. He sighed as he said it.
Malden rose and looked out the window that overlooked the castle town of Borstall. “The more accurate the pattern, the more powerful the magic. It takes years of practice. That is why a monastery is still the best place for you.”
Pol tried to evaluate the pattern that Malden had let him a glimpse. “So you can remove me from behind a tree here in the castle and send me away? Are you truly a friend?”
The magician turned, the window’s light held his face in bold relief, and Malden seemed stronger than Pol had ever seen him. “I am. You learn so well, Pol. You are wasted as the last heir, but there is nothing we can do. Yes, you stand a chance to survive longer if you go. You are still younger than what the monks of Tesna accept. Another year, at least. They generally won’t accept a boy of fourteen.”
“I’m almost fifteen,” Pol said, but he didn’t know why he tried to defend his age. Pol dreaded leaving Borstall and his mother and Paki.
“We’ve talked of this before, and I’ve written for permission to enroll you early, but it will still be weeks before the letter arrives. They have to make a decision and send back word,” Malden said. “Until then, we can still work on patterns.”
“Will I be able to tweak them?”
Malden nodded. “Just little things. You’ve already demonstrated the ability to levitate, but you’ve just touched the surface of what there is to learn.”
~
Before dawn, Pol felt a hand grip his arm. He sat up in bed and looked directly into Val’s face. “What do you want?”
