Beyond the Hanging Wall (20 page)

Joseph’s own eyes swam with tears. The man before him was the boy he remembered grown into his true heritage. Who could doubt that he was a prince true-blooded and bred?

The soup finished, Maximilian put the bowl down on the hearth and turned to face the three men and the young marsh woman. “Will you listen if I talk?” he asked, and they nodded.

Maximilian shifted about on his stool a little, making himself comfortable. “The hound, Boroleas, that I’d been given for my fourteenth birthday,” he began, his eyes distant, “was a false gift.” His eyes shifted to the window, as if the path that had led him to his fate still stretched within sight. “He’d been trained to answer a whistle, and on the day appointed followed the whistle to lead me deep into the forest and into a glade peopled with traitors. They had planned well, and probably for over a year to have trained Boroleas for the purpose.”

His mouth quirked, and he looked down at his hands. “And they knew me. Knew that I would not be able to resist the thrill of cornering the hart by myself.” Pain flickered briefly across his face. “There were, oh, perhaps twenty or twenty-five of them in that glade. Faceless, featureless, and voiceless but for two.”

“Did you recognise their voices?” Vorstus asked softly.

Maximilian looked up, surprised but not angered by the interruption. “No. The leader had an unusual brogue, probably from one of the eastern kingdoms.” He winced in memory. “He was roughly spoken, and harsh of spirit.”

“A mercenary,” Ravenna said in a flat, angry voice. “Hired for the occasion.”

Maximilian stared at her for a moment. “Likely, lovely lady. Likely.”

“And the other voice?” Vorstus asked.

“Belonged to a man named Furst,” Maximilian said. “They…they had a fire going behind one of the trees—stoked by Furst. They dragged me there…and while the irons heated to their satisfaction—”

“You do not have to go on with this, Maximilian,” Joseph said, concerned for the naked pain he could see in the prince’s eyes.

“I must, Joseph,” the prince replied. “I must.” He took a deep breath. “While the irons heated to their satisfaction, as they laughed and passed about a jug of wine, the leader told me that I was a changeling.” He breathed deep again, but more raggedly this time. “He laughed, and said that my mother had birthed a stillborn son so small and featureless he looked like a skinned lizard. In desperation, she caused her maid to search Ruen for a new-born boy of blue-eyed parents, tall and dark.”

Maximilian stopped for a moment, and when he continued his voice was flat and featureless. “I was the son of a blacksmith, he told me, and my rightful future lay shackled to an anvil, not a throne. I believed him.”

“Why?” Garth asked. Compassion radiated out from his eyes and voice.

“Why?” Maximilian shook his head slightly. “I can’t explain it fully. I was scared…
terrified
. Perhaps I thought that if I believed it they might let me go. It was all such a nightmare…if they’d told me I was a toad dressed in a princeling’s clothes I think I would have believed them utterly. And then, lost in the darkness, I continued to believe them.”

“Do you believe them
now
?” Vorstus asked, his face expressionless in the firelight.

Maximilian met his eyes steadily. “No, Vorstus. Now I choose
not
to believe them. When Garth healed my arm Ravenna told us both to believe.
To believe.
When the mark was restored, so was my belief.” His voice deepened with inner strength. “Vorstus, I
know
who I am…and I am no changeling.”

Vorstus inclined his head, pleased. Relieved.

Maximilian dropped his eyes and passed a hand briefly over his face. “When…when the irons were hot enough, they decided they’d taunted me sufficiently.” His hand crept to his arm, his fingers running softly, absently, over the mark of the Manteceros. “Then…then the nightmare truly began.”

There was silence between them for a very long time. Eventually Ravenna stood up and poured each of them a glass of wine, pausing briefly by Maximilian as she handed him his, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. He smiled at her, and pressed her hand gratefully.

As she sat back down, Maximilian continued. “I remember little of the next week or so. The burn
festered—the flesh above the elbow puckered and wept evil fluids. The pain…” his voice drifted off, then he roused himself. “Eventually my tormentors laughed and drank some more, then threw me in a great iron cage on wheels and fixed my ankles to its floor.”

Garth shuddered, remembering the loathsome transport carts he’d seen on the road between Ruen and Myrna.

“From there all became blackness. Blackness and pain for an eternity, until,” he lifted his eyes and flashed his extraordinary smile at Garth, “came the light of your presence and your words, Garth. ‘What are you doing here, Maximilian?’ you asked. ‘You belong beyond the hanging wall.’”

“And so you do,” Garth said emphatically.

Maximilian grinned at his tone. “And so I
do
,” he said.

Then the light died from his eyes. “Joseph. Memories have flooded back, memories from before my incarceration in the Veins. My time there seems only a hellish blur. How long…look at me. I am a man grown, yet I
know
that when I was thrown into the darkness I was but a beardless youth. And you, Joseph. You look almost as old as I remember your father. Joseph?” Maximilian’s voice almost broke, although his face remained stoic. “How long was I down there?”

Joseph rose from his seat and squatted by Maximilian’s side. “You were gone seventeen years, Maximilian. Seventeen years.”

Maximilian stared at Joseph uncomprehendingly, then his face cracked. “
Seventeen years?
I have lost
seventeen years
?”

Joseph nodded, tears running down his face, then he leaned forward and wrapped the prince in strong arms. “But you are back now, Max. You are back now.”

Maximilian finally broke down and wept, clinging to Joseph as the last remaining remnant of the life he had lost.

He sat fifty paces away from the rock-walled hut, gazing at it with thoughtful eyes. The trail had been faint, but traceable, and it had made him frown and then follow it. One or two from that most secretive of orders, perhaps, for he had seen them here previously. But others accompanied them. Two horses, a youth, and a man crippled by some debilitating injury. And a woman, as light as a fairy child on her feet—so light, he’d only realised she was with the group after a full hour of tracking.

Who did the order bring beneath the shade, when it was death for any layman simply to step beneath the treeline?

He smiled, thinking of this cleverly hidden hut. But not so cleverly that he hadn’t found it—and five years ago, now. The moment he’d spotted the trail this morning he knew where they’d be heading.

His smile died. What were they doing, that’s what he’d like to know. What were they doing so secretive like? Who had the order brought to this hidey-hole?

And why hadn’t
he
left before now to seek help and report the intrusion?

Unconsciously, his hand crept to the small pocket in his breeches.

“My parents?” Maximilian asked after a long time.

“Your father died eighteen months after your disappearance, Maximilian,” Joseph said gently. “Your mother three weeks after him.”

Maximilian nodded and took a deep breath, bringing his emotions under tight control. It had been so long…he hadn’t truly believed they’d still be alive. “The throne,” he said suddenly as the thought occurred to him. “Who sits on the throne?”

Everyone else eyed him silently, and Maximilian narrowed his eyes at their reaction. “
Who?
”

“Cavor,” Vorstus replied calmly. “As abbot of the order I marked him myself, and watched through his claim.”

Maximilian was very still for a moment, then he nodded. “Of course. Cavor. He would have been closest in line.” He smiled, shocking the others. “I like Cavor. He was kind to me as a child, and I was always envious of his skill at arms and his flamboyance.” His smile turned into an easy grin. “He sometimes seemed more the prince than I.”

“No doubt
he
thought so, too,” Joseph muttered under his breath. Over the past few days the four had compared thoughts and suspicions as Maximilian had slept by the camp fire; all believed that Cavor’s hand was evident in Maximilian’s disappearance and incarceration in the Veins—why else appoint Fennon Furst as overseer? Why else the massive effort to recapture a single escapee?

Maximilian looked at the four of them. “What?” he asked softly but with the utmost authority. “What is it?”

Vorstus answered for the others. “Maximilian, we believe that Cavor was involved in your kidnap and incarceration.”

“No!” Maximilian shot to his feet and turned to the fire, hiding his features from them. “No! I will
not
believe it!”

“Maximilian,” Vorstus said firmly. “For many years the Order of Persimius mourned you dead. But then I was called to the deathbed of,” he hesitated, then decided it was no longer necessary to keep the man’s identity secret, “Baron Norinum of the estates east of Harton.”

Maximilian turned back to them, his face flat and expressionless. “I know…knew him.”

“Yes,” Vorstus continued. “Norinum asked for the abbot of the order to confess him, because the sin that weighed his soul affected us most. Maximilian, Norinum was one of those featureless, anonymous men who circled you that day so long ago.”

Maximilian’s shoulders slumped. “No!”

“He told us little,” Vorstus continued remorselessly. “But he told us enough. The man who’d hired—or blackmailed him—into helping was of noble birth. So noble that even on his deathbed Norinum feared naming him. And you know as well as I that Norinum and Cavor were ever close.”

“Cavor has been troubled by his mark for many years,” Joseph took up the thread smoothly. “Sorely troubled. As Garth and the Order of Persimius crept closer to your discovery, his mark festered anew.” He shrugged. “Perhaps coincidence, perhaps not.”

“And who
else
would assign Fennon Furst to the Veins, Prince?” Garth argued, leaning forward. “
Why
else?”

“I will not believe it,” Maximilian said stubbornly. “Cavor was my friend.”

“And will he continue to be your friend when you step into his throne room, Maximilian Persimius?” asked Ravenna quietly. “Will he welcome your return? Your claim?”

Maximilian stared at her, then turned back to the fire. “I will
not
believe it,” he repeated.

Silence. Then: “But you
will
claim,” Vorstus said, and it was not a question.

A longer silence, save for the crackle of the uncaring fire.

“Your father is dead,” Joseph said, enunciating each word carefully and clearly. “You
are
the rightful king of Escator.”

“Damn you!” Maximilian shouted, swinging back to face them. “You are hounds from the netherworlds to so bark at my heels! Yes! Yes,
damn it
! I
will
claim. Are you satisfied?”

“Good,” Vorstus said evenly, as if Maximilian had not just shouted into the room. “Then the order will back your claim, and those in this room will witness.”

His temper gone as suddenly as it had erupted, Maximilian sat down on his stool. A small and somewhat embarrassed smile flitted across his face. “I apologise for calling you hounds,” he said. “I owe you my life, and more.”

“Forgiven,” Joseph smiled, and Garth grinned good-naturedly to take the sting out of his words.

“You’ve done nothing but shout at me ever since I found you.”

Maximilian’s embarrassment deepened. “Then my father would chide me for my ill manners, my friends,
for no king can afford to shout at those who so demonstrably prove their loyalty and friendship.”

He glanced at Ravenna, and she inclined her head gravely. “You have never shouted at
me
, Maximilian Persimius.”

“Nor would I ever want to, Ravenna,” he replied, equally as gravely, then he looked back at Vorstus.

“But how can I claim, Abbot Vorstus, when,” he waggled the ringless fingers of his right hand at the monk, “the ring of my father and of his forefathers has been lost? They tore it from my hand that day, and tossed it aside. You know, as do I, that my claim will crumble into uselessness without it.”

Disturbed, for he had never thought to question the ring’s absence, Vorstus opened his mouth to say something, but the words never came, for a terrible thundering at the door shattered the peace of the room.

“Open this door, fugitives!
Now!
”

Each one of them leaped to their feet. Garth grabbed Ravenna and hauled her to the back of the room, protecting her with his body. Joseph and Vorstus took an uncertain step forward, then an even more uncertain step back, as if partaking in a half-remembered dance. Maximilian’s hand slid to his hip as if he expected to find a sword there, then he looked at his hand in amazement at its long memory.

“Open,
now
!” and a great crack splintered down the centre of the door. Whoever was out there had a weapon and was prepared to use it.

“I hear only one voice,” Vorstus whispered urgently. “And we are five. Surely—”

The door cracked wide open and a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped into the room, an axe swinging at the end of one well-muscled arm. He wore the rough clothes of an outdoors man, but his eyes were bright with keen intelligence clouded now by grave suspicion—and although he was grey-whiskered with old age he moved with the grace of a champion swordsman.

For several heartbeats everyone stared, then Vorstus took a hesitant step forwards. “Woodsman? I…we must apologise for disturbing the peace of your forest. But as a member of the Order of Persimius I have every right to be here, and—”

The woodsman did not let him finish; he had not taken his eyes from Maximilian. “I have no quarrel with you, monk, ’tis your friends here who have mistaken their way, methinks.” He narrowed his eyes even further. “And I can’t help wondering if one of them is the reason King Cavor has laid martial law so tight across northern Escator even cats are questioned for walking the streets at night.”