“It isn’t easy, remaining patient, seeing your children starving!” mumbled one man, his eyes on a thin little boy, clinging to his father’s leg. He reached out a hand, fondled the small head. “We asked them only for food and water.”
‘Asked them at spear point,” the prince said, but his face softened in compassion, took the sting from his words. “Raef, don’t you think I understand? I held the body of my father in my arms. I—” He lowered his head, put his hands to his eyes.
The man in the black robes said something to him and the prince, nodding, looked up again. “The battle, too, is past and done. We cannot undo it. I take the blame. I should have kept the people together, but I thought it best to send you on while I stayed behind to prepare my father’s corpse. I will carry our apologies to our brethren. I am certain they will be understanding.”
To judge by the low growl among the crowd, the prince’s certainty was not shared by his people. The old woman burst into tears. Hastening forward, she clasped her feeble hands on the prince’s arm, begged him, as he loved them, not to go.
“What would you have me do, Marta?” the prince asked, gently patting the gnarled hand.
She looked up at him, suddenly fierce. “I would have you fight, like a man! Take back from them what they stole from us!”
The low growl increased in volume, spear clashed against shield. The prince climbed on a boulder, so that he could see and be seen by all the crowd gathered in the cave. His back was to Haplo and Alfred, but Haplo could tell by the rigid stance and the squared shoulders that the man had been pushed almost past endurance.
“My father, your king, is dead. Do you accept me for your ruler?” The edge in his voice sliced through the noise like the whistle of a sword’s sharp blade. “Or is there one of you that means to challenge me? If so, step forward! We will have the contest here and now!”
The prince tossed aside his fur cloak, revealing a body young and strong and well muscled. By his movements, he was lithe and obviously skilled in the use of the sword he wore on his hip. For all his anger, he was cool and kept his wits about him. Haplo would have thought twice about confronting this man. No one among the crowd took the prince up on his offer. They appeared ashamed, and all of them lifted their voices in a shout of support that might have been heard in the far-distant city. Again, spear clashed against shield, but it was in homage, not in defiance.
The man in black robes came forward, speaking aloud for the first time. “No one challenges you, Edmund. You are our prince”— another shout—”and we will follow you as we followed your father. It is natural, however, that we fear for your safety. If we lose you, who will we turn to?”
The prince clasped the man’s hand, looked around at his people and, when he spoke, his emotion could be heard plainly in his voice. “Now it is I who am ashamed. I lost my temper. I am nothing special, except that I have the honor to be my father’s son. Any one of you could lead our people. All of you are worthy.”
Many of his people wept. Tears flowed freely down Alfred’s face. Haplo, who had never supposed he could feel pity or compassion for anyone outside his own people, looked at these people, noted their shabby clothing, their wan faces, their pitiful children, and he was forced to remind himself sternly that these were Sartan, these were the enemy.
“We should proceed with the ceremony,” said the man in black robes, and the prince agreed. He stepped down from his boulder and took his own place among his people.
The man in black robes walked among the corpses. Lifting both hands, he began to make strange designs in the air and, at the same time, he started to chant words in a loud, singsong voice. Moving among the dead, passing up and down the silent rows, he drew a sigil above each one. The eerie singing grew louder, more insistent.