“I was deceived and kept from making my claim at the rightful time.” Maximilian paused. “The wrong man sits the throne.”
“He made a good claim,” the Manteceros justified.
“Nevertheless,” Maximilian said, refusing to back down, “he is the wrong man.”
The Manteceros pursed its lips, remembering what Garth had told him. “I have heard tell you think yourself a changeling,” it challenged.
“It was a lie to keep me chained and silent. I am true-blooded and bred, and I am first-born.” Maximilian’s tone hardened. “The throne is mine.”
Now the Manteceros’ tail swished and the skin along its back twitched. It snorted. “You know I shall have to administer the ordeal.”
Maximilian held the beast’s eyes, but did not speak.
“You are very confident,” the Manteceros observed, and a strange light filled its eyes. “But are you confident enough to dare the ordeal? Do you have the strength and fortitude to see you through?”
“I have no choice,” Maximilian replied. He paused, wondering at the expression in the Manteceros’ eyes. “Will you accept my claim?”
“I have no choice,” the Manteceros said tersely.
“And the ordeal? When will you administer that?”
The Manteceros stared at the man. “Cavor sits the throne. When you challenge him with your claim, then will I administer the ordeal.”
Then, in a flash of blue light so bright that Maximilian was forced to close his eyes and step back, the Manteceros vanished.
“Too late!” Cavor hissed as he pulled his horse to an abrupt halt on the road eastwards. “I lingered in that black sinkhole too long!”
“Sire?” Egalion mumbled, confused. Behind them the column of soldiers were milling to a halt.
Cavor turned furious eyes on his commander. “Take three squads and ride for the forests, Egalion. Seek any who might harbour the escapee. I…” his voice dropped and Egalion had to lean close to hear him, “I shall ride for Ruen. Home. Guard the throne. Wait. He must appear eventually.”
Guard the throne? Egalion wondered, but he did not voice his question. “As you wish, sire,” and, shouting orders, he formed three squads behind him.
TWENTY FOUR
CAPTURE!
They stayed that afternoon and the next day in the stone hut, Maximilian silent and introspective, the others waiting for some sign of what he wanted to do.
On the evening of the day after he had claimed, Maximilian raised his eyes from the fire, glanced at the four sitting quiet about him, and said one word, “Ruen.”
They left the next morning, the forest still and secretive about them. Even the bird calls were muted, yet none, all caught to some extent by Maximilian’s introspection, thought to question why.
Garth and Joseph led the small column, riding the horses. Some fifteen or twenty paces behind them stepped Ravenna, wrapped in mysteriousness as thick as her cloak, and some further eight or nine paces behind her came Maximilian and Vorstus. Maximilian had abandoned the clothes he wore to claim, and was now dressed in drab woodsman’s clothes—but Garth thought that even in their rough weave he exuded both dignity and destiny. None seeing him could ignore him.
Maximilian and Vorstus conversed in low tones, discussing the safest route to Ruen (through the forests for as long as they could, then across the plains by the stealth of night) and the knottier problem of what they should do when they got there. If Maximilian needed to challenge Cavor’s right to sit the throne he would undoubtedly have to get into the palace. How best to do that? Vorstus took Maximilian’s arm and his tone sank even lower.
The morning was clear and, as far as Garth could see through the interlacing branches of the forest, relatively bright. He relaxed on his horse, refusing to worry until they were closer to Ruen. Joseph glanced at him, sharing a smile with his son, then turned his eyes back to the path; light dappled prettily across the leaf-strewn ground and Joseph wondered at the sense of peace that enveloped the forest.
There was a slight noise to the right, and Joseph turned his head slightly, expecting to see a badger snuffling through the undergrowth.
Instead he saw a glint of steel.
And the peace of the forest shattered.
Scouts had reported movement ahead of them ten minutes before and Egalion, experienced campaigner that he was, had no trouble setting the trap well before the two riders emerged from a pool of particularly shadowed forest light. Having been at court when Joseph Baxtor had treated Cavor almost two weeks previously, Egalion recognised them instantly.
He also knew them to be the prime suspects in the escape.
Egalion gave a smooth, economical hand signal and the attack was launched—neither the physician nor his son had a chance. Within heartbeats they were ringed with steel, their faces pale with shock, their horses’ heads tossing in alarm.
Too late Egalion realised that there were several other people on foot some distance behind the Baxtors.
There was a girl—he saw her first—and saw her wheel about to place restraining hands on the chest of a tall, dark-haired man who had stepped forward the instant he saw the riders encircled.
The man’s face was pale, his eyes wide pools of blue anger, and he opened his mouth to shout something.
Another man, older and tonsured like a monk, had grasped the man’s arms from behind and, like the girl, was similarly restraining him.
Egalion spurred his horse past the milling soldiers about the Baxtors, intent on seizing the man before he could escape. He must be the prisoner—who else would the Baxtors attempt to secrete in these woods?—and the capture of the Baxtors would be incidental if the prisoner were to escape.
Egalion was not worried about either the girl or the monk; the girl was slight and the monk too old to seriously perturb an armoured man on horseback. None were armed.
Yet even as he hefted his sword in his hand something made Egalion hesitate.
The man’s face—the prisoner’s face—seemed familiar, and Egalion did not understand it. The prisoner’s bearing and his startling anger when he should have been afraid gave him the demeanour of a noble, not a man who by rights should have scuttled to cower in the shadows at the first sign of trouble.
Egalion was a man several years past fifty, and he remembered the past king well.
He also remembered—and why this memory now?—the young prince, lost in this very forest.
“Maximilian!” the girl screamed, and wrapped her arms about him. “No!”
Tendrils of mist appeared from nowhere and wrapped themselves about the monk and the girl, both still struggling to keep the prisoner from rushing down the forest path to rescue the Baxtors.
Maximilian? Egalion’s confusion grew.
His horse, sensing his hesitation, faltered in its rush, and gave Ravenna the vital seconds she needed to get Maximilian away from the trap. She hugged Maximilian to her, enveloping both him and Vorstus in rapidly thickening mist, and dragging them through to the dream world with every last ounce of power that she had.
Behind him Egalion could hear horsemen spurring to his aid, but it was too late…far too late. One moment the three figures had been struggling in the middle of the shadowed path before him, all three—even the girl now—staring at him with a mixture of anger and defiance, then strange mist had enveloped them and, in enveloping them, spirited them away in a manner that was beyond Egalion’s understanding.
In the next instant his horse strode through and beyond the spot where they had stood, and Egalion reined him back and wheeled him about, his eyes frantically searching the shrubbery and trees.
But neither his eyes nor the efforts of his men could flush anything out of the surrounding forest save a dozen birds and a scuttling lizard, and Egalion was forced to ride for Ruen with only the Baxtors to assuage Cavor’s need for satisfaction.
And as they rode, Egalion thought only one thing.
Maximilian? Maximilian?
The Chamber of Justice was cold, and Joseph thought that the coldness emanated not only from the stone walls and flagging, but also from the fear and retribution that had been meted out in the chamber through the centuries.
He had been here on several occasions, twice to observe a trial, once to give evidence, but never had he thought to sit in the prisoners’ dock himself.
Despite the warning growl from one of the guards behind the dock, Joseph risked a glance to Garth, sitting still and tense beside him.
The youth’s face was pale but composed, and Joseph turned his eyes back to the chamber before him. He would cheerfully give his own life if it meant saving his son’s, but he did not think Cavor would let either of them live.
From the forest Egalion had hastened them with all haste due south to Ruen. Although closely guarded, they were not treated with any measure of harshness, and both Garth and Joseph wondered sometimes at the strange looks Egalion threw their way.