“Why not?” said the king. “No reason everybody’s day should be wasted because our grandson doesn’t have the good sense to—”

“Yes, go, Pasevalles,” Miri told him, interrupting her husband. “Say a prayer for his speedy recovery, please.”

“I will light a candle this evening at mansa.”

Tiamak and his wife and Brother Etan had all joined Morgan’s blanket-progress back to his bed upstairs. After Pasevalles had left the chapel, only the servants, Father Nulles, and the chapel folk remained. Nulles offered his sincere sorrow at what had happened, and Miri did her best to be gracious, but what she really wanted to do was go and tend her grandson. Even Simon’s anger seemed beside the point to her. The accident had already happened. There was no sense stewing over it, fuming and cursing. But when she told Simon they should go to see that the prince was comfortable in his rooms, he balked.

“You go if you want. I can’t even look at him just now.”

Miri felt a flare of anger. “You did worse when you were his age.”

“That’s different, Miri. I was not the heir to the throne. I wasn’t a prince, I was just a kitchen boy. Nobody would have cared if I lived or died.”

“Some would,” she said, softened by a memory. “I always thought you looked interesting.”

“Hah.” Simon loosened enough to laugh a little. “Interesting. Yes, I’m sure you looked at a gawky, red-haired scullion tripping over his own feet and thought, ‘I’d like to have a long chat with that likely fellow.”

“No, that isn’t what I thought.” She could suddenly recall the very day she had first seen Simon running across the Inner Keep like a clumsy young colt trying its first gallop, limbs going everywhere except where they should. “I thought, ‘He looks so free! Like he hasn’t a care in the world. I wonder what that feels like?’ That’s what I thought.”

“Well, at least you don’t pretend you were caught by my handsome face.”

“I spent my life among handsome faces, first in Meremund, then here,” she said. “But I’d never seen anyone who looked less like he cared what other people were thinking than you did.”

Now Simon laughed again, this time finding something more like his natural humor. “It wasn’t that I didn’t care at all about what people thought, I just kept forgetting, my dear one. Rachel always said that—‘It’s not that you’re purely foolish, boy, it’s that you don’t remember to be clever unless you’re trying to get out of a punishment.’”

“I know you miss her,” Miri said. “But she scared me. Always glaring at me like she knew I’d left a mess somewhere that she’d have to clean up.”

“Rachel the Dragon—the chambermaid who glared at messy princesses.” Simon nodded. “Yes, that’s how she would have liked to be remembered.”

“Are you going to come with me to see Morgan?”

Simon shook his head. “I’ve seen him. I’ll let you treat with him for a bit. But you and I are going to have a talk about this—you do know that, don’t you?”

Miriamele sighed. “Yes, I do, and I agree he deserves punishment, but I won’t let you bully him.”

“It’s not punishment he needs, Miri. It’s something different. He has to start acting like a man, not a child.”

“Don’t scowl like that. It makes you look like a child yourself. No, it makes you look like Morgan.” It was true, she realized—except for the hair color and the prince’s lack of freckles, the resemblance was quite remarkable, especially when she remembered Simon at the same age. No wonder she had trouble staying angry at their feckless grandson.

They parted in front of the royal chapel, the king to return to scheduling the assizes with Count Eolair. Before she left, Simon squeezed her hand to reassure her, a little message between the two of them, a way to be alone together even when the whole court surrounded them.

The guards and servants had carried Morgan out of the chapel and across the courtyard to reach the wider set of stairs, because Morgan had already complained several times about the pain of being jostled, but even on the wider steps it was difficult for the men at the top end of the blanket to walk upstairs backward while lifting the weight of the man-sized prince.

As Pasevalles watched, a pair of prisoners emerged from the guardroom near the base of the stairs, two men in irons accompanied by several Erkynguards. When they saw the fuss on the stairs, the two prisoners pushed their way toward it, ignoring the complaints from their guards, who seemed rather half-hearted about the exercise of their duty. The Lord Chancellor understood a moment later when he recognized the prisoners.

“Ho, there!” he called to the sergeant of the guards. “I see you have our friends Sir Astrian and Sir Olveris.”

“And hello to you, Lord Pasevalles!” Astrian called out cheerfully. “Yes, we have been taken up for the terrible crime of enjoying a few drinks, and now we’re on our way to listen to Lord Zakiel scold us.”

“But first we wanted to give the prince our best wishes for a swift recovery,” said Olveris. With his dour, serious voice, he almost made it sound true.

“Did you hear, fellows? I fell off Hjeldin’s Tower!” called Morgan from the depth of the carrying-blanket. “Thumped my jaw, cracked all my ribs! I’m in terrible pain!” But he was laughing a little breathlessly, as if it truly did hurt. “Tell Porto I shall be as feeble as he is after this.”

The prisoners shouted cheerfully after him as he was carried up the next set of stairs and then through a door into the Residence.

“All right, you,” said the sergeant. “You’ve paid your respects to the prince. What do you say we get moving?”

“Just a moment, Sergeant,” said Pasevalles.

“Yes, Lord Chancellor?” The guardsman looked down at himself quickly, perhaps checking for splotches of food or anything else that Pasevalles might deem an offense against his position.

“I will take these men. I have business with them.”

“But Lord Zakiel wants them brought to him.”

“I understand. Tell Zakiel I will release this pair of criminals to his justice when I’ve finished, but first I have a pressing matter to discuss with them both.”

The guard captain hesitated, plainly unhappy about relinquishing his prisoners, but even more unhappy with the idea of flouting the lord chancellor, one of the kingdom’s most powerful men. Self-preservation won out over strict application of the rules. “Very well, my lord. If it’s you who’s taking responsibility, my lord.”

“I am. And you may tell Zakiel I said so. If he needs me to give him my seal on it, send someone over to my office in the Chancelry and my secretary Wibert will give it. I will make sure the prisoners are returned to your leader just as they are now—still a bit drunk and very stupid—and he may do what he likes then. Hang them if he pleases.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll hang, my lord.”

“No, probably not, more’s the pity.”

“Are you going to give us a treat, then?” Astrian demanded. “Take us to the market and buy us each a meat pie?”

“You will be lucky if I do not have you both made into meat pies,” said Pasevalles as the guard captain handed over his charges. “Now, march to the Chancelry. And don’t dawdle.”

“Aren’t you going to take these fetters off?” asked Astrian.

“You must be jesting,” said Pasevalles. “I wish they were heavier.”

•   •   •

In the Chancelry, Pasevalles banished Father Wibert and his other secretaries and clerics to the outer chambers so he could be alone with the two soldiers. He had known Astrian for a long time, since his days in Nabban, and had known Olveris almost as long. He had seen them at their best and worst. He had never been so angry at either.

“What in the name of Saint Cornellis and all the other saints do you think you were doing?” He could barely keep his voice low to avoid sharing his anger with everyone in the great Chancelry building. “You know you are not to leave Morgan alone, and especially not when he’s getting into this kind of madness. He could have been killed! It is only by the grace of God that he was not!”