Reuth looked over at him sorrowfully. ‘I worry that we’ve been searching for so long that we just want this to be him so badly that we’ve convinced ourselves it is so. Eat your oats, you two, they should be cool enough now,’ she said, pointing to the faintly steaming bowls in which porridge had begun to set. ‘Your father will pour the milk in, the jug’s too heavy for you.’
They’d had food for the children sent up. They would eat downstairs in the dining room. Clovis trickled the creamy milk into two small bowls and the children greedily tucked into their first meal of the day.
‘Slowly,’ Reuth cautioned their son. ‘Or you’ll spill it.’ He’d obviously heard the same cautions so many times before that he neither looked up nor slowed down; the words had become a meaningless mantra, Clovis could see.
‘Listen to me, Reuth,’ he said, once the children were ignoring anything but their bellies. ‘I could feel his fear. The boy is Piven.’
‘Well, unless we’ve been dancing to a different tune all these anni, Clovis, I could swear that the child we seek is mute, lost in his mind, even mad, some say. You yourself have told me he couldn’t speak, communicate, showed no emotion…acted like a moving statue, you once told me.’
Clovis nodded, trying not to interrupt her but knowing his senses contradicted everything he knew to be true. ‘I did. And that is how he was.’
‘And now you accept that he talks, is able, is fully healthy and as normal as our own son?’ she demanded.
Clovis shooshed her silently with a gesture of his hands. ‘I know how it sounds. I know how incomprehensible it is. But do you deny me that you too felt something when you met Lark?’
She turned away. ‘You know I can’t.’
‘Tell me again.’
Reuth turned back to him, and he watched her quell her exasperation. ‘I had a vision. Fast, gone in a blink. Doom surrounds him.’
‘Think, Reuth. Interpret that doom for me.’
She looked lost. ‘I can’t,’ she said helplessly. ‘It didn’t just spell doom for him, though. I got the impression that it was foreboding for all of us. Where Jon Lark treads, he will bring darkness to the world.’
Clovis shook his head, and walked over to the tiny window that overlooked the main street of Minton Woodlet. A young woman was leading a cow past the inn. Beyond her, vineyards stretched into the distance. She stopped to talk to an older woman, stroking the patient beast and pointing back up the hill. She had a pretty smile even though she herself was quite plain. At last she nodded, gave a small wave as the pair of them parted and then continued along at the ponderous pace of the black and white cow. He watched her disappear from the limited view the small window afforded him.
‘What are you thinking?’ Reuth prompted from behind him.
‘I want you and the children to return to Medhaven.’
‘We’re not splitting up, Clovis.’
‘You saw foreboding. I divined that we were closer yesterday to what we seek than we have been in the last ten anni. I sensed Jon Lark was lying. Now I don’t know who or what he is. Neither do I care. I believe that he loves his son. I think both of us could tell he was protecting the boy, not just being belligerent. But I do think the child he loves is the orphan Piven. I can’t explain Lark’s claim that the boy talks. I can’t comprehend why Innkeeper Junes should confirm the fact that the boy known as Petor is a run-of-the-mill youth. But, Reuth, you and I accept magic as easily as we breathe. We should be able to accept that some sorcery has occurred, something of an enchanted nature has affected this child.’
‘If he’s Piven,’ his wife reiterated.
‘If he’s Piven,’ Clovis repeated with resignation.
‘And we can’t be sure he is.’
‘Which is why I want you to return to our home with our children and wait for word.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To find Kirin. He has a different sort of skill. Perhaps together…’ Clovis shrugged.
‘You’re walking back into the palace?’ Reuth exclaimed. ‘It’s your own death warrant you’re agreeing to.’
Clovis shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I shall dye my hair, shave off my beard. You agree I am only half the man I was when we met and I’m ten anni older. Different clothes, different look, different attitude. I can be someone different. And I doubt the emperor gives a fig about a man who disappeared so long ago.’
‘No, but his evil general might. Remember how he vowed to track down every Vested in the land?’
‘He will not know I’m Vested. No one will know. I will take a different name.’
‘What if they ask for papers?’
‘I’ll have some forged.’
Reuth looked pained, but remained silent.
Clovis guessed her concern. ‘Our savings will be put to good use, I promise. Besides, Freath can probably—’
‘I don’t care about money, Clovis. You are risking your life.’
‘Reuth,’ he began firmly. ‘I was a coward all those years ago. Kirin wasn’t. I have existed with the shame of my fleeing from Brighthelm to your arms. I gave my promise I would find Piven for Freath, and now that I believe I have, I intend to deliver on that promise. The least I can do is tell Freath—our only ally alongside Kirin at the palace.’
‘If that’s him!’ Reuth said, her voice almost in agony.
‘It’s him,’ Clovis said.
‘And then what will you do? Hunt him down yourself?’
‘If I must.’
She shook her head with a combination of vexation and anxiety and turned away. He put his long arms around her, and kissed her head, knowing she needed his tenderness. Finding Piven had been the only contentious part of their marriage. She had never fully understood his private crusade, although she had helped him constantly in his mission.
‘Please, my love,’ he said, turning her now to face him. ‘Please understand. I do this not for personal redemption but for all of us. Your vision frightens me. I have lost one child, one wife. I refuse to lose this family and if what you see should be allowed to occur all of us will be under threat—once again.’
Reuth’s forehead crinkled. ‘It’s a different sort of threat this time, Clovis.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t really know what I mean. I haven’t seen anything other than what I’ve told you but what I felt when I had that vision was cold. Loethar was ruthless and did take his crown with a bloodied hand, but he has not laid waste to our land. The initial slaughter aside, he has performed somewhat magnanimously as an emperor.’
‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ Clovis said, shocked.
Reuth shook her head. ‘Believe me, if what I sensed does come true, this new menace will make the memories of Loethar’s overthrow pale. I hope I’m wrong but I believe what’s coming at us lacks a soul. No ordinary man will be able to stop this.’
They