“I countermand both your order and your judgement, Cavor,” said a clear voice from several paces back in the crowd, “and I challenge your right to wear those robes and that crown in the first instance.”
The crowd parted and a man dressed in the rough clothes of a woodsman stepped forth.
Cavor, his hand still suspended above his head, his horse skittering nervously underneath him, stared unbelievingly into the face of Maximilian Persimius.
As the soldiers had seized Garth and Joseph, Ravenna had apologised silently to Drava for their intrusion, then spirited Maximilian and Vorstus into the dream world, expending more power in the extremity of her fear than she’d ever done previously.
As the mists closed about them Maximilian had rounded on her furiously. “What have you done? They need my help!”
Too exhausted to reply herself, Ravenna had let Vorstus speak. “And what would you do against sixty men, Prince? You don’t even have the ceremonial sword with you.”
Maximilian had turned on him with equal fury.
“I—”
Vorstus did not let him finish. “They would take you too, Maximilian, and this time Cavor would make sure that you were condemned to such a darkness that it would be impossible to escape from. We must trust that Egalion will not harm either of the Baxtors until he gets them to Ruen. And from there…well, perhaps from there we will have a chance.”
Grieving for the capture of the Baxtors, but accepting Vorstus’ reasoning, Maximilian had allowed Ravenna to lead them through the paths of the dream world until, with some direction from Vorstus, they eventually emerged into a mystical underground chamber of the Ruen headquarters of the Order of Persimius the same day that Egalion had delivered Garth and Joseph to Cavor.
There, with as many of the order as were in Ruen, together with Alaine and several of his closest and most trusted confidantes, they had planned.
Deep into the night before Garth and Joseph’s trial, Maximilian had raised his face and stared at those about the room. “I am ready,” he said quietly.
“But—”
Maximilian had turned his deep blue eyes on Vorstus. “I will never be ready enough to suit your caution, Vorstus, but I will never again have the chance that tomorrow’s spectacle provides. If I cannot succeed tomorrow, then I will never succeed, anywhere.”
Cavor, his face pale with shock, slowly lowered his hand. His heart was thudding painfully in his chest, but somehow the actual sight of the man who threatened to tear down all he had built over the past seventeen years managed to calm and focus his mind.
His nemesis was here, and all he had to do was to confront it.
“Seize him,” he ordered Egalion.
Maximilian turned his head and looked steadily at Egalion.
His mind suddenly very clear, Egalion’s eyes flickered to Cavor, then back to Maximilian. “Perhaps you might like to state your business,” he said to Maximilian, and Cavor’s face twitched in shock at the man’s insubordination.
“I ordered you to—” he began, his voice tight with anger, but Maximilian interrupted.
“My business?” He raised his head, aware that every eye and every ear was strained his way. The square was stunningly quiet. He looked Cavor directly in the eye. “My name is Maximilian Persimius, Prince of Escator…and rightful king.”
His voice was clear and true, and the crowd took a single, gasping breath of shock.
“My business?” Maximilian said again, raising a quizzical eyebrow. Behind him two cloaked figures moved quietly out of the crowd to stand at his back. “I am here to challenge you for the throne, Cavor, and to accuse you of my kidnap and wrongful incarceration. If you claimed and sat the throne, Cavor, then you did so through lies and deceptions.” He paused. “Will you stand aside for me, Cavor? Will you vacate what you have so deceitfully claimed?”
Garth, watching from the block and with a clear view of both Maximilian and Cavor, had to admire the king’s reaction.
Cavor leaned back in the saddle and laughed, the sound apparently genuine and unforced. “Vacate the throne for you, Prince-of-wishing? I admire your determination, but I deplore your misguided sense of justice and truth.” Again he stood high in the saddle and addressed the crowd; now, as far as Garth could determine, so tense that a single shout could have sent them into a black riot.
But in whose favour, Garth could not tell.
“Hear me,” Cavor called, his voice as calm and as true as Maximilian’s had been. “Before me stands a man who claims to be Maximilian Persimius, son of the late king and queen. See, he even appears to have the Persimius’ darkness of hair and blueness of eyes. But, my people,” Cavor’s voice assumed an inexpressible sadness, “it hurts me to have to relate to you the truth. The dead queen, may the gods have mercy on her fragile femininity, could not bear an heir, and the single fruit of her womb slipped dead from her body. In despair—for what else could have prompted her actions?—she swapped the dead babe for the newborn son of a blacksmith who, despite his low birth, had the visage and colouring that could fool even the most discriminating of observers. Then—”
“I am true-born and blooded, Cavor,” Maximilian shouted, “and these good people do not have to listen to any more of your lies. Let the gods decide between us! Come, will you accept my challenge?”
Garth could see that Cavor’s words had affected many in the crowd, but Maximilian, even in his woodsman’s clothes, stood proud and straight before Cavor. No doubt showed in his face—and who could doubt, staring into that face, its noble ancestry?
Cavor dropped his eyes from the crowd. “A duel to the death, pretender? Is that what you wish?”
Maximilian smiled, the movement cold and thin. “I am not afraid of you, Cavor.”
“I think you should know, Cavor,” and one of the figures behind Maximilian cast aside his cloak, “that the Order of Persimius stands behind Maximilian on this issue.”
Cavor hissed, momentarily nonplussed. Vorstus stood before him, now clad in his robes of office as Grand Abbot of the Order of Persimius. Cavor sneered. “What has the Pretender offered you, Vorstus, that you desert the truth so readily? You backed my claim, you marked my arm. Why turn against me now?”
“Because now Maximilian Persimius has returned from his unnatural grave, Cavor and, unlike the majority of the good people in this square, I know who put him there!”
Cavor stared at Vorstus a moment longer, then turned withering eyes back to Maximilian. “I can see that a duel to the death is what it will take to consign your lies forever to the grave, pretender,” Cavor said very low, but clearly enough so that most could hear him in the preternatural silence. “Come, stand forth.”
“Oh,” an indescribably sad voice said, drifting over the crowd, “I’m not so sure about that.”
For the first time fear rippled swiftly across Cavor’s face, and was just as swiftly concealed again. He had known that Maximilian had made his claim in the Pavilion, had felt him trace through the mark, and he should have by rights expected this. But the actual appearance of the Manteceros unnerved him as nothing else had.
This was going to go to an ordeal, and suddenly Cavor was very, very afraid. Just for a moment he thought he heard ghostly echoes of the fourteen-year-old Maximilian’s screams reverberate about this square as they had once rung about the forest glade.
The Manteceros had appeared in the very centre of the crowd, although how he had displaced none in his sudden appearance no-one knew.
The crowd rippled and murmured in startlement, if not surprise. This had been a day when beliefs and loyalties had been turned on their heads, and the appearance of the legendary Manteceros only underscored the feeling of unreality and enchantment hanging over the square. As the ungainly blue beast stepped forward, the crowd parted before it.
Cavor bowed low in his saddle as the Manteceros approached. “I greet you well, Manteceros, if in some surprise. Has this pretender deceived you as well?”
The Manteceros came to a halt, its mournful face resolute. “He has claimed, Cavor, and that I must respect. Now he has challenged your right to the throne. That also I must respect. I might wish he had done neither, but his claim might be justified, and so I judge neither right nor left until the ordeal has been decided.”
“And the ordeal?” Cavor asked, his voice tight with nervous anticipation. “What form will it take? Will you administer it to the victor of the challenge, or to us both?”
The Manteceros sighed. “No, no, Cavor. I think you both misunderstand the nature of the challenge. Maximilian only needed to speak the challenge for me to appear and administer the ordeal—and that in itself will threaten no-one’s health. There is no need for a clashing of swords and a spilling of blood.”