The Misbegotten King (10 page)

Amanander slid out of the saddle slowly, his lips narrowed from the concentration required to dismount without shaking.

“Let me help.” Gartred offered her hand, and he rebuffed her with a look.

He would not have anyone’s pity. Ferad’s Magic had been sufficient to restore him to sanity, Alexander’s borrowed vigor sufficient
to restore his body to some semblance of its former self, but nothing but exercise could restore his withered limbs to what
they had been before. Before. His mind shied away from the realization of what his impatience had cost. It was his own fault
that he had taken Annandale, only to let her slip through his fingers. He should have ridden south with her, gone back to
Dlas, risked capture rather than try to withstand the siege of Minnis. This time, this time, he vowed, he would move slowly,
consider each action and its consequences before making the choice. He would not be thwarted again.

He favored Gartred with a smile. The hen simpered, her lashes fluttering grotesquely over her plump cheeks. Life in Ahga,
even in her imprisonment, had been easy for Gartred. Where once she had been pleasantly rounded, her
curves were now turning to fat. But she would suffice, he thought as he smiled at her over his shoulder. Oh, yes, she would
suffice.

He followed the Muten off the beaten path, through the low hanging branches of the trees which dripped a silvery moss.

Beneath the hanging branches of a gnarled tree, another figure waited. Amanander slung his wet cloak over his shoulder and
hooked his thumbs in his belt. He glanced at Ferad. “Well? We’ve wasted enough time.”

The figure raised his head with slow dignity. Amanander looked down into the eyes of a Muten no older than seventeen or eighteen,
who met Amanander’s stare with a guileless innocence.

“Who the hell are you?”

The corners of Ferad’s thin mouth lifted, and his secondary arms quivered. “My Prince, may I present Jamataw.”

Amanander turned again to the boy before him. He was thin, this Jama. His hair was held away from his face by a leather circlet.
The skin of his face was smooth, unmarked by the elaborate tribal tattoos which decorated the faces of every other Muten Amanander
had ever seen. The absence of the tattoos, as well as his obvious youth, emphasized his human appearance, despite the third
eye set in its wrinkled socket above and between the other two. Amanander shuddered inexplicably. There was something very
disquieting in the youth’s appearance. “I’ve met your father.” He paused, remembering a day which seemed like a very long
time ago. “And your brother.”

The boy hissed. His voice was deeper than
Amanander expected, and he pronounced the unfamiliar words carefully, his lips slowly shaping each one around his accent.
“You were there?”

Amanander nodded. “The day Roderic the Butcher forced your father’s hand to peace? Yes.” He wondered what the boy would say
if he knew whose hand had forced Roderic’s.

“You did nothing to stop him.”

It was neither a question nor challenge, only a statement of fact, and Amanander looked harder at the boy before him on the
ground. “There was nothing I could do to stop him.” Amanander frowned. He did not like the idea of justifying his actions,
past, present, or future, to this scrap of Muten flesh.

Jama’s dark eyes did not waver. “But you are ready to do something now.”

“Yes.” Amanander met the boy’s stare and wondered fleetingly if he might try just a hint of the Magic. No, he decided. Let
the boy find out later just who—and what— he dealt with. “I claim the throne of Meriga.”

“You are the heir of the Ridenau King.”

Amanander glanced at Ferad and shrugged. Were they going to waste all day exchanging meaningless titles? “Would that your
words carried weight in the Congress.”

Ferad made a noise like a curse deep in his throat. “I brought you here for a reason, my Prince. Will you listen?”

Amanander glanced over his shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to be away from these creatures, who skulked on the edges
of existence. His cousin Harland’s castle was less than a day’s ride away, and he longed for a hot bath, a soft bed, and peace
in which to consider the
implications of his newfound realizations about the Magic. But he remembered his vow to curb his impatience and so he nodded.
“Of course.”

“Will you sit?” The boy’s voice scraped over his ear like gravel.

With a little grimace, Amanander sank down on the mossy ground a few paces from Jama. A rude clay cup was placed in his hands,
and as he raised it hesitantly to his mouth, the green herbal scent made his mouth water unexpectedly. “Talk.”

“My people have hidden in the hollows and the hills for generations. This you know, Prince of the Ridenaus. Your people have
hunted us, killed us, starved us… but we have held on against all odds.”

Amanander sipped from the cup. “What do you want of me that you acknowledge me to be the Prince of Meriga?”

“There is no poetry in your soul,” whispered the boy. Fear flickered in his eyes as he glanced from Amanander to Ferad and
back.

“None.” Amanander drained the mug to the dregs.

“I offer you my men. In exchange for a homeland.”

“You want a piece of Meriga?”

“A homeland… where we will not be beaten and starved and killed. Where we can grow old in peace and bear our children and
raise them to adults. Is that so much to ask?”

“Why not go to Roderic? Even if he is the Butcher, he’s the heir of Meriga. I am merely a dispossessed nobody.”

“No,” the boy’s voice was soft. “He is not.”

“What? What are you saying?”

Ferad leaned forward and his breath was soft on Amanander’s neck. “Roderic is not the heir of Meriga, for he is not the son
of the King.”

“What?”

“Abelard forced his witch to use the Magic to aid his Queen to conceive,” said Ferad. “And Roderic is indeed the son of the
Queen. But not the son of the King.”

“Who—?” Amanander paused as the answer reared up before him like a lycat on the hunt. “Phineas. A stable-hand’s son… my father
left the throne of Meriga to the get of a stablehand’s son?” He felt as though a claw of rage, black as obsidian and harder
than granite, clutched his heart. He could scarcely breathe.

There was a silence, the only sound the steady call of the birds who hunted the swamps, calling back and forth. He raised
his eyes to Ferad. “My father did this? To me?”

The Muten’s three eyes stared back. “Do you think your father was above doing anything, if he thought it would secure his
throne?”

Amanander gazed back. “No. But how do you know this? How are you so sure?”

Ferad shrugged. “As the King’s condition has weakened—shall we say—it has become easier to breach the defenses of his will.
I thought you would be particularly interested in that piece of information.”

“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

Ferad shrugged. “What use to us is this information?”

“What use?” Amanander echoed, his mind spinning through a thousand possibilities. He could confront the Congress. He could
raise an army. He could challenge
Roderic before them all. In a burst of triumph, he saw himself ride into Ithan and demand to be heard. They would listen to
him, the assembled Senadors, and Roderic would be set aside and the throne of Meriga handed to him—

“Prince,” said Ferad softly, “we have no proof. If you go to Ithan and raise your voice against Roderic, what will it profit
you? There is no one save Phineas himself who can corroborate this story, and I think that even Phineas’s honor will allow
him to lie under those circumstances. And you are the most wanted man in Meriga at this moment… who will entertain your story
while you are sent to Ahga under heavy guard? No—confrontation is not the way. Surely you understand that. You must make alliances.
And here is the offer of one.”

“Where is my father?”

“Nearby, but very close to death. It is getting harder to keep him alive. Especially in such agony.”

“I want him alive, Ferad.”

“As you say, my Prince.” The Muten leaned back and folded his hands beneath his robe. “But let us discuss that matter another
time. What say you to an alliance?”

Amanander drew a deep breath, pressed his lips close together. His emotions were swirling, his thoughts a jumble of despair,
anger, rage. How could Abelard have deliberately set him aside? What had he done to make his father hate him so? From the
beginning Abelard had refused to name him heir, even when to do so would have meant that Abelard could have kept Nydia with
him openly at Ahga rather than hiding her away in the wilds of the North Woods.

A thousand possibilities swirled through his mind, each one rejected almost as soon as it occurred to him. Not even Harland
could hear this news—for how could he say he had come by it? Only the King, only Phineas— and Phineas’s loyalty to the King
and to his unacknowledged son was bound to be absolute. An emotion beyond rage surged through his spirit, fetid as the dark
depths of the poison pit which smoked and stank just a few paces away.

And yet—in the midst of this anger, this hatred, some part of himself which seemed to stand apart, reminded him of the tremendous
energy of the emotion he experienced. These emotions existed in every being, human or Muten. He stared up at the tree behind
Jama, a vine snaking up its trunk to twine like a noose around the lower hanging branches. If such energy existed, surely
it had enormous potential to be harnessed. And if he could learn to control this energy, focus it, use it, all of Meriga would
be his for the asking. What would it matter then what he had promised these miserable Mutens?

He raised his head and met the eyes of the young Muten. In the inscrutable depths was no sympathy, no pity, only an even resolve.
“I accept.” He allowed his eyes to focus unblinking on the Muten who sat unmoving before him. “Aid me in this and all of the
Estate of Nourk will be yours.”

He saw surprise flicker in the Muten’s eyes, and the impenetrable gaze registered shock. Nourk was a rich plum, defended by
the mountains and the sea, a separate principality governed by his fat brother, Phillip, who never bestirred himself to either
aid or hinder. Let him
learn the cost of neutrality, thought Amanander. He looked at Ferad and rose, gathering the folds of his cloak around him.
“Come.” He gestured to his old tutor. “We ride to Harland of Missiluse.”

“Where will we meet again, lord?” asked Jama as Amanander turned his back to stalk away.

“You will hear from me,” replied Amanander. “Do nothing until you hear.” The boy opened his mouth to protest, and Amanander
glanced at Ferad. “Practice patience. Your people have waited five hundred years or more for a homeland. What’s another month
or two?”

“B-But, lord-” For the first time Jama sounded like he might be close to the age he looked. “We have already attacked. My
men, aided by the Brotherhood, have destroyed three hundred of their troops.”

Gartred gasped from her perch on the saddle. Amanander paused with his foot in the stirrup. He deliberately set his foot down
and turned to face Jama. “You’ve done what?” He looked at Ferad. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

Ferad shrugged. “It seemed unnecessary. I didn’t think—”

“No.” Amanander narrowed his eyes. “That much is obvious. You counsel me to have patience. I suggest you hearken to your own
advice.” Jama had risen to his feet, but even standing, Amanander topped him by nearly a foot. “Did anyone survive this attack?”

“We—we don’t know. But over a thousand of my warriors attacked a force of less than three hundred. I doubt anyone could have
escaped.”

Amanander frowned. “How old are you, boy?”

“Eighteen.” Jama gasped as Amanander closed the distance between them and twisted the front of his tunic in his fist. The
other Mutens growled and muttered, drawing in close, but Ferad held up his hand and they halted.

“Eighteen. Still have the taste of your mammy’s milk on your tongue. You listen to me, boy. If you want this alliance, you
will do as I say, when I say it, and not before.” Amanander spoke with narrowed eyes and clenched jaw. He was gratified to
see that flick of fear in Jama’s eyes again. So the whelp was afraid of him. Good. Now, if only he could discover a way to
turn that fear to his own uses. “How did the Brotherhood aid in this attack? Did they use Magic?” He bore down into the three
dark eyes, unflinching.

“Yes,” whispered Jama.

“You’d better pray that there were no survivors, or the hope of the Children will be short-lived. We don’t want that upstart
pretender to think that there’s anything more afoot than he already suspects.” He released Jama abruptly, and the youth stumbled
back against the vine-covered trunk. “Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, Lord Prince.”

He raked the whole company of Mutens with a look of utter contempt. “Fools,” he muttered. “Your first order is to wipe out
those who remain at the College.”

“But—but, lord—”

Amanander leaned so close he could see the quivering lashes which rimmed the Muten’s third eye. “The College of Elders is
our greatest threat. You know they have ever counseled caution. They have stood in the way
of your people claiming what is rightfully yours. They walk the path of peace, to the exclusion of all others. They prefer
to hide their Magic when it could have been used to help you more times that you can begin to count. They blind and mutilate
themselves, and the rest of you starve to death in your hovels.”

Amanander stood back with a satisfied air at the horror he read in Jama’s face. “Leave the humans to me. But sooner or later,
especially now that you’ve attacked Roderic’s forces using the Magic, Roderic is going to ally with the College, and we don’t
want that to happen. Do you know where the College is now?”

Jama bit his lip and gave a short shake of his head. “N-no, Lord Prince,” he said sullenly.

“Then I suggest you find it. And quickly.” He snapped his fingers at Ferad. “Come.” He swung into the saddle and rode away
without a backward glance.