The Chosen Prince (22 page)

A frog croaks in the forest, then croaks twice more—and it's the worst possible time. Alexos isn't ready. He doesn't know what to do. But Peles is already giving the signal that all is safe. And then come the soft, careful steps of someone approaching, quiet but just barely audible if you're listening hard, which he is.

Suliman rolls over, as he did the night before, opening up a space beside the king. The boy sits as noiselessly as he crept into camp.

“It's all right,” he whispers. “The others have agreed. If you're ready, we can go tonight.”

“Wait. First I have some questions.”

“Then make it quick. We'll have to circle around to avoid the guards and Pyratos' camp. It'll take a lot
longer that way and I want to get you hidden before first light.”

“I understand. But there are things I need to know. It's important.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Are there trees on this island that reach down their branches and offer their fruit? And winds that sing like a choir of heavenly voices?”

“How did you know about that? The wind has fallen silent since you came; and there are no fruit trees in this clearing.”

“I dreamed it, a long time ago. I thought it was the Underworld. Perhaps it is and I'm already dead.” He lays a warm hand—the one that isn't shackled—on Aria's arm. “You don't feel like a ghost,” he says.

“That's because I'm not.”

“Tell me, then: among your people, is there a family, a brother and a sister? He is dark, like me; she is older, with hair that shines like gold.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I dreamed them, too. There is also a kindly father—a bearded man, quite devoted to his children. Do you know such a family?”

“I might.”

“You said there were only a few people here. Surely you must know them all.”

“I'm not free to discuss them.”

“But they are well?—you can tell me that much. Is the boy grown, healthy and happy? And the girl, she must be a woman now.”

“They're both very well indeed. You will meet them soon. But we'd best go now while we can.”

“And the boy,” he says. “Has he also lived on this island all his life?”

“No,” she says slowly, plainly growing uneasy. “He was four years old or thereabouts when he came to us.”

Alexos catches his breath. “How? How did he come?”

“In a boat. Athene brought him here to safety.”

“And he's been happy ever since? Content?”

“I told you before: yes.”

Alexos swallows hard, tries desperately to control his voice. “And what is he called, the boy? Do you know his name?”

“We'd better go,” she says.

“Just tell me his name. That's all I ask. Please.”

Their heads are already close together as they speak in whispers. Now she leans closer still, her lips almost touching his ear. Her breath smells like clover. “His name is Teo,” she says.

There's no hiding his feelings now. He pulls away
and covers his face with his free hand. He's weeping, making too much noise. Peles and Leander lean in, anxious. Suliman sits up. Aria doesn't know what to do.

“I lost a brother,” Alexos finally says when he has recovered himself. “He was only four, and he looked very like the boy in the dream. That's all. It upset me.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry too, because I cannot come with you.”

“But why? Last night you said—”

He tears off the blanket. His tunic rides up in the process and, by the light of a few dancing fireflies, his leg in its metal brace is revealed. “This is why. I can't walk without a cane, nor move with any speed. I would give you away with the noise I made.”

“But, Alexos,” Peles whispers, “we can—”

“Hush,” the king snaps, determined to make this his excuse—and as humiliating as possible, too, because the scab is off and it's a fresh, new wound again.

“I'll come back tomorrow when you're more yourself,” Aria says, making to rise.

“Wait. One more thing, please.”

“What is it?”

“Come closer.”

She does, and in an instant his hand is touching her cap, pulling it off. Her hair comes tumbling down.

It's hard to say which of them gasps—all of them, probably. And the sound of it, coming as it does after all Alexos' weeping and the rising of their whispers, has woken the guard. But they are so caught up in this revelation that they don't see Vasos coming till he has Aria by the arm.

PYRATOS EMERGES FROM HIS
tent, thoroughly annoyed: his men have disturbed his sleep with their loud conversation, and there's no excuse for such stupidity! They know which tent is the king's, yet they stand right outside it, practically shouting. What in Hades were the blasted fools thinking, anyway?

The answer to his question is simple: they were thinking that Pyratos would be furious if they waited till morning to tell him about this interesting new development. On the other hand, he would also be furious if they woke him up. So this had been their ruse, and it had worked.

Now the king of Ferra looks around the camp with fire in his eyes. He takes in the assembled soldiers, the prisoner's guard, the sentries. Then he sees the
girl and his expression suddenly changes. “Well, what have we here?” he says with a predatory smile. The men move aside to let him pass.

“I found her in the prison camp, Your Majesty,” Vasos says. He has a firm hold on Aria's arm, more out of nervousness than any ill intent. All the same, she'll have a bruise there by morning.

Pyratos looks her up and down, studying her in a dispassionate way, as if she were for sale in the agora and he's deciding whether or not he wants to buy. He registers approval of her face and hair, disgust at her shabby clothes and bare feet. Then he makes a little snuffling sound, as if laughing through his nose.

At the same time Aria is staring back at Pyratos, and is shocked to see the unmistakable family resemblance. His hair is pale gold, as hers is, as her father's was before it turned white. He has the same noble brow, the same long face. Even the eyes are the same color, pale green.

“You are certainly familiar!” Pyratos snaps. And at first, Aria thinks he means she looks like family. But then the sentry grabs the back of her head and tilts her face down to a more seemly angle. Apparently she is not permitted to look directly at the king, though he is free to look at her all he likes.

“She claims to live alone on the island,” Vasos says.
“No villages, no other people. She eats fruits and nuts and lives in a cave.”

“She's lying, of course.”

Aria sighs, rather too loudly. Vasos grips her tighter in warning.

Pyratos cocks his head, as if to see her better. “Now I wonder: What
shall
I do with you?” He's apparently decided to buy.

“You could let me go. I am perfectly harmless.”

“I could do that, yes. But I think I'd rather clean you up and let you amuse me with stories about your adventures on the island. I don't suppose you dance? Play the lyre?”

She blinks, a little confused. “No thank you,” she says.

The men laugh.

“You'd rather live alone in a cave than enjoy my company? Really, my dear, there are many who would leap at the chance.”

It just slips out: “I'd rather die.”

“
Excuse
me?”

“I'd rather die.”

“And why is that?” He's leaning in too close. She feels his hot breath on her face.

“Because you are a monster with blood on your hands. You killed both my parents. And were it not
for the merciful Athene you would have killed me t—”

He slaps her hard across the face. Then he slaps her again. But she's past fear now and well into righteous anger. She can't stop herself.

“Do you really not recognize me,
cousin
? I am your uncle Claudio's child. Surely you remember him. You took his fortune, put him under arrest, allowed his wife to die untended, then sent him off in a ship, believing he was banished—”

Before she can finish, his arm is around her neck. He presses hard against her throat until she gags. She flails wildly with her arms till he pins one of them down, but she goes on punching him with the other. With her heel she kicks his shin. She knows she's not really hurting him, only making things worse. Probably he'll kill her in his rage. She doesn't care.

Instead, he freezes in surprise as the glade is suddenly filled with music—rich, majestic, and uncommonly loud: horns blasting over the sound of strings and flutes. The wind has never made that kind of music before. This has the quality of a fanfare.

“What is that?” Pyratos says.

Everyone looks around, alarmed.

Now the fog thickens and shimmers with light, and within that light a vision slowly forms. At first it's just ambiguous shapes and random flashes of color. But soon they begin to fuse and meld into a recognizable
scene. They see a room, a throne, a king sitting on the throne—Pyratos, in fact, as he'd been when he was younger. Standing before him, cap in hand, is a disreputable-looking creature. The sort of person you might expect to pick your pocket.

Pyratos has released his grip in his astonishment. Aria darts away and returns to Vasos, who takes her arm again, but more gently now. The figures in the air begin to speak.

“I believe I've got it, Yer Majesty,” the disreputable fellow says. “Clear as clear. The duke goes off on his voyage, lugging all his books and whatnot along with him, 'cause he thinks he's being banished. Then when we're well out to sea, another boat will meet us and we'll all go over to that one and row away.”

There are gasps from the men. Pyratos waves his arms. “Stop that thing!” he bellows to no one in particular.

But it doesn't stop.

“And?” the young Pyratos says in the vision.

“We never, ever,
ever
speaks of it to no one.”

“And?”

“We never, ever,
ever
comes back neither, 'cause we're supposed to of drownded along with the duke. And some other fella, that enemy king, is supposed to of done it.”

“Good. We understand each other. Now, I am
paying you all handsomely to do this, more money than you could ever hope to see in your lives. So if any one of you so much as breathes a word, or decides to come back to visit his mother, then I promise that man a long and very painful death. Do you understand?”

“I do, Yer Majesty. I do indeed.”

“Then you sail tomorrow. And may I never look upon your poxy face again.”

“That you will not, Yer Majesty. I guarantees it.”

The vision fades, the last few words having been drowned out by a rumble of angry voices. The men move away from Pyratos, as they would from a leper.

The second vision comes up more quickly. Now they see two ships at sea, a large one and a smaller one. The duke, a younger Claudio, holding the infant Aria in one of his arms, is pulling at the sleeve of a sailor with the other.

“Surely you cannot mean to leave us here to die.”

“Surely we can. For we've been hired to do it, y'see, and by someone very important—very,
very
important, if you catch my meaning, such as you don't say
no
to lest you wants to lose your head. 'Tis a pity, though. He never said there'd be a child.”

The men leave the ship and row away. The storm rises. Claudio shields his baby daughter with the hem of his cloak. The sound of wailing winds and
hammering rain fills the island camp.

King Pyratos, who is not an unintelligent man, senses the rising fury of his men and he is wise enough to be afraid. “Stop that thing!” he cries again. And this time the scene pauses. But it doesn't go away. Claudio still stands on the deck of that empty ship holding his innocent child to his breast as heavy clouds loom overhead and raindrops, frozen in motion, wait to strike them.

“For shame!” comes a voice from behind him. Pyratos spins around, as if fearing a knife at his back.

“Is it true?” comes another.

“No!” Pyratos cries. “I don't know what that is, but it's a brazen lie. No one in Ferra mourned my uncle's death more than I did. He withdrew from his responsibilities at court after his wife died, and I respected that. But he returned to my service and agreed to go on a secret diplomatic mission. We hoped to reach an agreement with the king of Arcos to lessen the carnage on the borderlands. Claudio was on his way to discuss the terms when that swine King Ektor, in collusion with his swinish son Alexos, sent warships to attack our peaceful party, though the duke's vessel plainly flew the flag of truce.”

“Liar!”

“Any man who touches me dies a traitor's death.”

“And who would arrest us?”

Pyratos looks to his captain of the guard, who stands behind him.

“Dimitrios!” he says. “Do something.”

“I regret, Your Majesty, that I no longer choose to serve you.”

“Nor I,” cries a voice from the crowd.

“Nor I!”

“Nor I!”

Pyratos takes a deep breath and clenches his hands into fists. He is rallying now, fully aware that if he doesn't seize this moment, soon it will be too late. He climbs onto one of the benches so everyone can see him and thrusts his right hand into the air. The bright image behind him remains unchanged, the duke and his child still in peril. The men fall silent.

“I know I haven't always been a good king. My uncle gave me wise advice and I didn't heed it. Like any young man thrust into power before he's ready, I made mistakes. But I would have grown under my uncle's tutelage had his life not been so cruelly cut short. Instead, I became wild with rage over his murder. I pursued the war against Arcos with a passion that consumed me.”

There is more grumbling from the men.