“There are those who feel differently,” she murmured.
“Not I,” he said. “Not while I’m pinioned here!”
“Are you?” she asked, suddenly interested despite herself. “By what?”
Her obvious interest caught him by surprise, and he became expansive. “Tradition, madam. And the force of law. I am coerced in many divers ways, by suasion horrible to contemplate, by threats against the comforts of my kin, of whom, despite my boredom, I am fond. My mother’s life is hostage ‘gainst my own, and so my sister’s—who, in happier times, was very dear to me.”
“You did have happier times, then?”
He snorted. “I had four brothers older than myself, all four of whom aspired to mount this seat. Efficiently they entered on the task of murdering each other, leaving me to sit upon a throne I much despised.”
“So much so you ran away from it.”
He flushed. “I planned escape, achieved it! Ah, but then I was dragged back to duty as bad boys are driven to their books by masters’ canes. Like them, I swot and grimace and complain … ”
She gnawed at the inside of her cheek, a habit that gave her the look of some ponderous ruminant.
“Would you be more sympathetic if I could arrange for your … release?”
The king actually smiled. “Oh, madam, how my sympathy would wax, like moons grown fat on light. Away from here, my lips, most eloquent, would speak your cause.”
“My cause, as you put it, is simply to stop your assassins, Majesty. My ultimate cause may be something else again, but for the nonce, it’s only that. The Famber lineage must not be worried by threats of assassination, not, at least, until we’ve found what we need concerning Bernesohn Famber.”
The king regarded his fingernails with gravity. “From all that lengthy tale you bored me with, it seems rather too late to look for him.”
“For Bernesohn, yes. For whatever information he had, possibly not. We pray not.”
“How would you think to get me out of this?” He gestured widely, including his kingdom, the planet, all the clutter and cumber of the monarchy of a dying world.
Poracious Luv shook her head. “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think on it, perhaps seek some advice. We have excellent counselors. Sometimes they can be quite Machiavellian. Assuming we can think of something that will work, you’ll give me the writ?”
“Oh, Madam Luv, I’d carry it myself.”
She brightened with sudden inspiration. “Would you, now? Then, sir, that may be the answer you are seeking! Consider. It is likely the assassins will be turned aside only by you, true? It may be no one can save our desperate inquiry except yourself? It may be, therefore, that the saving of humanity is in your hands? Including the lives of all those upon Kamir? All the mamas and sisters and children of your ministers, for example?”
He stared at her from beneath swollen lids, startled once again from his ennui. “That would be true if ministers had kin. Reason declares that such men come from eggs abandoned by the deadly cockatrice, that they hatch forth among the desert sands, the word tradition peeping from their beaks e’en as they crack their shells. Myth has it that they strike their prey to stone, and that is true. This world will be but stone when they are through.”
She regarded him quizzically. “Your Majesty exaggerates slightly. When humans use up a world, there are usually some bacteria left, even some hardy plants. In any case, your ministers are not free agents. They are responsible to a larger constituency—to all the people of Kamir who lust for life, who have encumbrances of kindred and friendship. Such people will not willingly accept extinction, no matter how traditional it might be.”
“So much is true. I’ve heard that even weighty governors are wary of the people they abuse.”
“So! Use your people to gain your freedom! That is, if you’re truly resolved not to return to kingship. Our Procurator says the same man who will hail a leader in time of crisis will kill him once the crisis is over.”
“Again, true,” said the king with appreciation. “For though he’ll play at resolution when death hangs upon a hair, once danger’s passed, all his anxieties, like vicious fleas, do burrow bloodily. An itchy man is prey to discontent; he’ll suage his flea bites with the blood of kings.”