Eolair smiled wearily. He was a bit wan, but looked otherwise hale. “Yes, they are certain. No one of the blows was more than a cut. Bloody, but mostly harmless.”

“Harmless? Not from that puddle of blood I saw in the forehall. A child could swim in it. You are lucky it happened here, where your wounds could be tended.”

“Beg pardon, Majesty, Count Eolair,” said Morgan, “but I have heard only a little of what happened. I’m glad to see you well, though, my lord. Are you truly well enough to ride?”

“It was only a shallow wound, praise the gods. It startled me more than anything, and the struggling had already made me light-headed. Today’s and tomorrow’s travel will be on good royal roads. I will be well.”

“What madman did this to you?”

Eolair carefully shook his head. “A Hernystirman who had been working for some time in the castle bake house. He was quiet and kept to himself. Nobody heard him say anything against me or anyone else. He was in distress, and I tried to help him. I do not even know if it was only me he wished to harm—he could not have known when I would be coming.”

“Praise God you were spared,” said Morgan. He would have liked an excuse to call off the journey, but not at the expense of a good old man like the lord steward. “Did you kill the man?”

Eolair’s laugh was rueful. “As I said, I was light-headed. It was all I could do to hold onto him and keep him from a vital blow until others heard me and came to help.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re safe and that it wasn’t worse.”

“As are we all,” said his grandfather. “Pasevalles has been trying to find out what the fellow wanted, or whether he is simply moon-mad and that’s an end on it, but without luck.”

“I cannot believe it was anything planned,” said Eolair. “Too slapdash. Just a madman, babbling about being ‘summoned.’ Perhaps he followed me here from our country with some insane grudge, perhaps he simply fixed on me because I spoke Hernystiri to him.” The count rose slowly from the chair. “With your permission, Majesty, I will leave you and the prince to say your goodbyes while I see to the last of the details.” He turned to Morgan. “When the noon bells ring, Highness?”

“I will be there.” But Morgan was worrying now. What if Eolair was too weak to command the mission? Or what if he died along the way? He was quite old, after all. Then even more responsibility would fall on Morgan’s own shoulders. And no doubt, if things went wrong, the blame would fall on him as well.

“So, lad,” said the king. “Here we are. No, here you are, about to undertake a mission for the High Throne. How does it feel?”

Morgan knew what his grandfather wanted to hear, although he felt like a Hyrka’s dancing dog for giving it to him. “It feels like a great honor, Your Majesty.”

Any idea of telling the king what he thought he had seen on Hjeldin’s Tower now sifted away like sand in an hourglass. If they did not even want him around, why would they care what he thought he saw?

King Simon smelled the insincerity, catching Morgan by surprise. “Come, would you try to peddle me a branch of the Aedon’s Execution Tree? I asked you how it felt, not what you thought you should say.”

“Very well.” Morgan didn’t like being pulled up short, even by the king. “It feels as though you want to be rid of me. Your Majesty.”

His grandfather looked at him with surprise and hurt. “Do you really think that? Merciful Rhiap, Morgan, do you truly think that?”

“Why shouldn’t I? You have done nothing but disapprove of me for longer than I can remember.” He glanced around the nearly empty throne room. “Where is the queen?”

“What?”

“Where is my grandmother? Is she too ashamed to say goodbye to me? Or is she angry because you forced her into going along with the idea?”

For a moment the king’s face reddened, and the prince, full of righteous anger himself, braced himself for the bellowing to come. Instead—and now it was Morgan’s turn to be surprised—the king forced a laugh and leaned back in his seat. “I had that coming, didn’t I? No, the queen’s not avoiding you. Your grandmother will be out to see you off. I just wanted to speak to you myself.”

“Well, then, you have. May I go?”

The king’s long face now clouded like a sky preparing to rain. “God’s Holy Tree, boy, do you really think that of me? That I dislike you so?”

“I didn’t say that, but I think it’s probably true. I said you disapproved of me, and you have said that yourself enough times. Do you take it back?”

“No, damn it! But I don’t disapprove of you, lad, I disapprove of what you’ve been doing. Tournaments, gambling, drinking, in and out of bawdy-houses, your only real friends men twice your age but half your wit! Let alone climbing around on that God-cursed tower in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea, young man, of the evil that’s buried there? Any idea at all?”

A chill squeezed Morgan’s heart at the memory of a spectral, hairless head, but he was determined not to show it. “I’ve heard all the stories, sire. Gossips’ tales, to frighten children.” He did not truly believe that after what he had seen, but admitting it in front of his grandfather would be like conceding that the old man was right about everything.

“Gossips’ tales, is it?” The king glowered. “Shall I tell you of what I saw the night I fled this castle, when I was no older than you? A man sacrificed, a high noble of this kingdom, his throat slit by White Foxes and his blood used to seal a pact between King Elias and the Storm King himself. And do you know who arranged that bargain? It was Pryrates, the man whose tower you so stupidly climbed.”

Morgan flinched. The thing was, the king was right—he had been stupid. But that didn’t make hearing it any easier. “And what should I have feared?” he demanded. “Norns crawling out of the shadows with white, clawed hands to drag me to Hell? The ghost of a mad priest? Or perhaps just a few rats? Old buildings have plenty of rats, they say, and their scratching is commonly mistaken for ghosts.”

His grandfather shook his head. “I was in that tower, boy, when Pryrates was still alive. If you had seen a quarter of what I saw, you would never dare make such a jest. Rats! If only . . . ! Blessed Elysia, please forgive this fool of a boy, because he doesn’t know any better.”

“If that’s all you have to say to me, Your Majesty, then I might as well be on my way. With your permission, of course.”

For a moment they stayed that way, Morgan on one knee but poised to rise, his grandfather leaning forward on the second-best throne, pawing at his beard in frustration. “Well, then,” the king said at last. “Be on your way. But the day will come—I pray it will, anyway—when you will look back and realize that all your grandmother and I wanted was what was best for you.”

“And on that day, I’ll thank you, I’m sure.” Morgan stood, barely able to hide the way his body was quivering with anger and sorrow and other feelings that had no names. “But now it seems to me that what you really want is me gone—gone where I can’t embarrass you any longer with my bad behavior and my dubious friends. In truth, none of you ever cared for me very much anyway. Not you, or my blessed mother, or even my father.”

His grandfather’s face twisted into an expression that Morgan felt certain was fury, but he didn’t care. Should he make the old man feel good for forcing him off on some bootless, fool’s errand?

“Has a devil got into you, boy?” The king’s hand trembled as he raised it, as if he tried to protect himself from something. “Bad enough you say such cruel things about the rest of us who have cared for you so long, but your father? By the sacred blood of the Ransomer, your poor father loved you!”

“Yes, I’m certain he did. For a time.” He bowed stiffly. “I go now at your order, Majesty.” He turned and marched toward the door, waiting for King Simon to say something else, but he had fallen silent—doubtless too enraged to speak. It did not matter: his grandfather had won the argument simply by being the more powerful.