“FitzChivalry is here, Your Majesty,” Wallace announced me.
The King started as if poked, then shifted his gaze to me. I moved to stand before him.
“FitzChivalry,” the King acknowledged me.
There was no force behind the words, no presence at all.
My bitterness was still strong in me, but it could not drown the pain I felt to see him so. He was still my king.
“My king, I have come as you ordered,” I said formally. I tried to cling to my coldness.
He looked at me wearily. He turned his head aside, coughed once into his shoulder. “So I see. Good.” He stared at me for a moment. He took a deep breath that whispered into his lungs. “A messenger arrived from Duke Brawndy of Beams last night. He brought the harvest reports and such, mostly news for Regal. But Brawndy’s daughter Celerity also sent this scroll. For you.”
He held it out to me. A small scroll, bound with a yellow ribbon and sealed with a blob of green wax. Reluctantly I stepped forward to take it.
“Brawndy’s messenger will be returning to Beams this afternoon. I am sure that by that time you will have created an appropriate reply.” His tone did not make this a request. He coughed again. The roil of conflicting emotions I felt for him soured in my stomach.
“If I may,” I requested, and when the King did not object, I broke the seal on the scroll and untied the ribbon. I unwound it to discover a second scroll coiled inside it. I glanced over the first one. Celerity wrote with a clear, firm hand. I unrolled the second one and considered it briefly. I looked up to find Shrewd’s eyes on me. I met them without emotion. “She writes to wish me well, and to send me a copy of a scroll she found in the Ripplekeep libraries. Or, properly, a copy of what was still legible. From the wrapping, she believed it pertained to Elderlings. She had noted my interest in them during my visit to Ripplekeep. It looks to me as if the writing was actually philosophy, or perhaps poetry.”