As he finished drying, he looked at his left foot as he had every day of his life. A ball of flesh, with tiny protuberances that should have been toes, extended from the base of an otherwise well-formed left leg. The foot had been the object of medicine and magic since his birth, but had resisted all attempts at healing. No less sensitive to touch and sensation as the right foot, it nevertheless was difficult for Nicholas to command; the muscles were connected incorrectly to bones the wrong size to perform the tasks nature intended. Like most people with a lifetime affliction, Nicholas had compensated to the point of rarely being aware of it. He walked with only a slight limp. He was an excellent swordsman, perhaps the equal of his father, who was counted the best in the Western Realm. The Palace Swordmaster judged him as already a better swordsman than his two elder brothers were at his age. He could dance, as required by his office – son of the ruler of the Western Realm – but the one thing that he could not compensate for was a terrible feeling that he was somehow less than he should be.
Nicholas was a soft-spoken, reflective youngster who preferred the quiet solitude of his father’s library to the more boisterous activities of most boys his age. He was an excellent swimmer, a fine horseman, and a fair archer in addition to being skilled at swordplay, but all his life he had felt deficient. A vague sense of failure, and a haunting guilt, seemed to fill him unexpectedly, and often he would find his mind seized by dark brooding. With company, he was often merry and enjoyed a joke as well as the next boy, but if left alone, Nicholas found his mind seized by worry. That had been one reason Harry had come to Krondor.
As he dressed, Nicholas shook his head in amusement. His companion for the last year, Squire Harry had provided an abrupt change to Nicholas’s solitary ways, forever dragging the Prince off on some foolish enterprise or another. Life for Nicholas had become far more exciting since the arrival of the middle son of the Earl of Ludland. Given his rank and two competitive brothers, Harry was combative and expected to be obeyed, barely observing the difference in rank between himself and Nicholas. Only a pointed order would remind Harry that Nicholas wasn’t a younger brother to command. Given Harry’s domineering ways, the Prince’s court was probably the only place his father could have sent him to have his nature tempered before he became a regular tyrant.
Nicholas brushed out his wet, neck-length hair, cut in imitation of his father’s. Alternately drying it with a towel, then brushing it, he got it to some semblance of respectability. He envied Harry his red curls, hugging his head. A quick toweling and a brush, then off he went.
Nicholas judged himself as presentable as he was likely to make himself under the circumstances, and left his room. He entered the hall to discover Harry already dressed and ready, attempting to delay another serving woman, this one several years his senior, as she was bound upon some errand or another.
Harry was dressed in the green and brown garb of a palace squire, which in theory made him part of the Royal Steward’s staff, but within weeks of his arrival he had been singled out to be Nicholas’s companion. Nicholas’s two older brothers, Borric and Erland, had been sent to the King’s court at Rillanon five years before, to prepare for the day Borric would inherit the crown of the Isles from his uncle. King Lyam’s only son had drowned fifteen years earlier, and Arutha and the King had decided that should Arutha survive his older brother, Borric would rule. Nicholas’s sister, Elena, was recently married to the eldest son of the Duke of Ran, leaving the palace fairly empty of companions of suitable rank for the young Prince before Harry was sent into service by his father.
Clearing his throat loudly, Nicholas commanded Harry’s attention long enough for the serving woman to make her getaway. She gave the Prince a courteous bow coupled with a grateful smile as she hurried off.
Nicholas watched her flee and said, ‘Harry, you’ve got to stop using your position to annoy the serving women.’
‘She wasn’t annoyed—’ began Harry.
‘That wasn’t an opinion,’ said Nicholas sternly.
He rarely used his rank to command Harry about anything, but on those rare occasions he did, Harry knew better than to argue – especially when his tone sounded like Prince Arutha’s, a sure sign that Nicholas wasn’t joking. The Squire shrugged. ‘Well, we have an hour to supper. What shall we do?’
‘Spend the time working on our story, I should think.’
Harry said, ‘What story?’
‘To give to Papa to explain why my boat is now floating across half the harbor.’
Harry looked at Nicholas with a confident smile and said, ‘I’ll think of something.’
‘You didn’t see it?’ said the Prince of Krondor as he regarded his youngest son and the Squire from Ludland. ‘How could you miss the biggest warship in the Drondorian fleet when it was less than a hundred feet away!’ Arutha, Prince of Krondor, brother to the King of the Isles, and second most powerful man in the Kingdom, regarded the two boys with a narrow, disapproving gaze they had both come to know well. A gaunt man, Arutha was a quiet, forceful leader who rarely showed his emotions, but to those close to him, old friends and family, the subtle changes in his mood were easy enough to read. And right now he wasn’t amused.
Nicholas turned to his partner in crime. Whispering, he said, ‘Good story, Harry,’ in dry tones. ‘You obviously spent a lot to time thinking about it.’
Arutha turned to his wife, his disapproval giving way to resignation. Princess Anita fixed her son with a scolding look that was mitigated by amusement. She was upset with the boys for acting foolishly, but Harry’s blatantly artless pose of innocence was entertaining. Though she was past forty years of age, there was still a girlish quality about her laughter, which she fought hard to keep reined in. Her red hair was streaked with grey, and her freckled face was lined from years of service to her nation, but her eyes were clear and bright as she regarded her youngest child with affection.
The evening’s meal was a casual one, with few court functionaries in attendance. Arutha preferred to keep his court informal when possible, quietly enduring pomp only when necessary. The long table in the family’s apartment in the palace could comfortably hold a half-dozen more people than dined tonight. While the great hall of Krondor housed most of the Western Realm’s battle trophies and banners of state, the family’s dining hall was devoid of such reminders of wars, being decorated with portraits of past rulers and landscapes of unusual beauty.
Arutha sat at the head of the table, with Anita at his right hand. Geoffrey, the Duke of Krondor and Arutha’s chief administrator, sat in his usual chair on Arutha’s left. Geoffrey was a quiet, kind man, well liked by the staff, and an able administrator. He had served for ten years in the King’s court before coming to Krondor eight years previously.
Next to him sat Prelate Graham, a bishop of the Order of Dala, Shield of the Weak, one of Arutha’s current advisers. A gentle but firm teacher, the Prelate had ensured that Nicholas, like his brothers before him, would become a man of broad education, knowing as much about art and literature, music and drama, as he did about economics, history, and warcraft. He sat beside Nicholas and Harry, and showed by his expression that he did not find the excuse remotely amusing. While the boys had been excused his tutelage while he attended the Prince’s council, he had expected them to be studying, not crashing their boat into warships in the harbor.
Opposite the boys sat Anita’s mother and Amos Trask. The Admiral and Princess Alicia had enjoyed a playful relationship for years, which court gossip claimed was far more intimate than simply flirtation. Still a handsome woman of a like age to Amos’s, Alicia positively glowed from his attention. Anita’s resemblance to her mother was clear to see, although Alicia’s once red hair was now grey and her features revealed life’s passage. But when Amos told a quiet joke to make her blush, her sparkling eyes and embarrassed laughter made her seem girlish again.
Amos squeezed Alicia’s hand while he whispered something to her, probably off-color, and the Dowager Princess laughed behind her napkin. Anita smiled at the sight, for she remembered how dreadfully her mother