The Witling

Five

One of Pelio’s favorite places was his study in the North Wing of the Summerpalace. The room was an intricate melding of blackwood and quartz. It perched near the crest of the tree- and vine-shrouded ridge that ran all the way around the North Wing’s private transit lake. From one window he could see the white sands and palms surrounding that lake, while from another he could look over the ridge at the ocean below, and the strip of green that was the coast of the southern continent of the Summerkingdom. The room had been designed so that a warm breeze always floated from one window or another, and no matter what the time of day, sunlight filtered down upon his writing desk in shades of green.

There were many rooms in the palace that had better views, and there were many rooms more finely constructed and more beautifully furnished. But this room was something none of the thousands of others were: it had been designed especially for him and his … peculiarities. Pelio was eternally grateful that his father permitted him quarters that, by the standards of imperial architecture, were so grotesque. (Or perhaps the king simply realized that with this room it would be easier to keep the prince out of the public eye.) Whatever the reason, the study had been a wonderful gift: it really wasn’t a single room, but was partitioned into five separate chambers, connected by doorways—just like some peasant’s hutch in the far north, where transit pools were an uncomfortable inconvenience.

Thus the “study” was actually a bedroom, a dining room (with iceboxes that could store up to a nineday of meals), a library, and a bath. Once within his study, Pelio was independent of the servants he normally needed simply to move from one room of the palace to another. Often the prince-imperial stayed ninedays at a time here, alone except for Samadhom and the servants who brought food.

Now Pelio sat at his blackwood writing desk with its glasslike surface and engargoyled drawers, and tried to find just the right words to put across the deception he was planning. The first part of the letter came easily. It was in the antique format prescribed by royal etiquette:

Actually, Ngatheru was in the fifth tier of the peerage, but on the other hand, he did hold a direct commission from King Shozheru. Besides, it should flatter the old scoundrel to be addressed with only two names between his and the king’s.

That last title was an archaic touch, but perhaps it would give Ngatheru the idea that Pelio had been delegated the royal powers usual to an heir apparent of Pelio’s age. Hopefully, the baron-general was far enough from the gossip of the court that he did not realize just how completely Pelio was frozen out of the ruling circles.

So much for what came automatically. Pelio’s pen poised above the vellum. The sap oozing from the pen’s cut nib had almost hardened before he set the device back in its holder. He was at a loss for words; rather, he was terribly afraid his lies would be transparent to Ngatheru. The girl’s dark, elvish face rose from memory to blot out the letter before him. She had been so reserved when he talked to her on the yacht yesterday. She carried herself like one freeborn, as though she didn’t even know she was a witling. She spoke respectfully, but he almost had the feeling she thought herself superior to those around her. Both she and her immensely tall companion were strange creatures, filled with contradiction and mystery. All of which added to his resolve to keep her near—even if it meant lying, even if it meant usurping the royal prerogative.

Pelio sighed and retrieved the pen. He might as well get something down. After all, he could always redraft the thing before he sent it. Begin with the usual flattery:

That was a neat touch. Without quite saying so, he had managed to imply that his father was behind his actions. The only danger was that the baron-general might have already reported the capture. But that was unlikely. Cousin Ngatheru had a reputation for independence—some might say treasonous arrogance. He did his job well, but he liked to do it all by himself. Chances were he had planned to keep his discovery secret until he had the whole affair wrapped up in a pretty package.

Pelio wondered again who had sent him the anonymous message describing what Ngatheru’s men had found in the hills north of Bodgaru. Obviously, someone was trying to manipulate him, just as he was trying to manipulate Ngatheru. But who? If Ionina and Adgao had not been so patently alien, he would have suspected the whole affair was an intricate trap, set perhaps by his brother and mother. Pelio shook his head and returned to the letter:

How wonderfully ambiguous the royal “we”!

Threatening Ngatheru with high-treason charges should help keep his mouth shut.

Pelio finished with “Abiding affection and highest regard,” and signed his name. Actually, now that he looked at it, this draft didn’t seem too bad. He folded and refolded the triangular vellum until it was a ball less than two inches across. Then he dipped it in a reservoir of blood-warm sap at the corner of his desk and impressed the royal seal upon the bluish resin.

Samadhom slept near his feet, a golden hulk on the sun-warmed floor. The watchbear didn’t stir a hair as the prince crossed the room and pulled on the cord that emerged from a hole in the wall. Through the warm morning air came the clear sound of the bell set in the servants’ room down the hill. The ringer was something Pelio had invented himself, though he felt no pride for having done so: few people ever had use for such an invention. But without that bell and cord, he would needs be surrounded by his servants every minute.

Samadhom raised his head abruptly to look at the transit pool set in the floor at the middle of the room. Meep, he said questioningly. A second passed and a servant splashed lithely out of the water to stand at attention at the pool’s edge.

“Two tilings,” Pelio began with the casual abruptness of one who is rarely disobeved. “First, have this message sent to Baron-General Ngatheru at Atsobi.” He handed the man the ball, its resinous covering now completely dry. “Second, I wish to question the”—carefully! he thought to himself. Be properly casual—“the female prisoner brought here yesterday.”

“As you say, Your Highness.” The man disappeared into thin air, not bothering to use the transit pool. Show-off.

In a matter of minutes, his letter would be packed into the softwood hull of a message torpedo, and in a single jump teleported six leagues north, all the way to Ngatheru’s command bunker deep within the Atsobi Garrison. There, the shattered remains of the torpedo would be hacked apart and his message retrieved.

So much for the baron-general. If that message didn’t keep him quiet, nothing would. A much greater danger to Pelio’s plans lay in servants’ gossip. Fortunately, he could always rotate his household servants. The ones who served him now were from the royal lodge at Pferadgaru, way south of the Great Desert. Of course they knew he was a witling, but they didn’t know what little say he had at court. It should be many ninedays before they realized he was involved with a commoner witling, and even longer before they started gossiping outside their own group. Before that happened he would rotate them back to the marches of the Summerkingdom.

But Pelio saw that no matter how he worked it, he was running a terrible risk. It was always an embarrassment to the royal family when a prince dallied with a commoner. But if the commoner were a witling, embarrassment became scandal. And if the prince himself were a witling, then scandal became an eternal blot upon the dynasty. Should his deception be discovered, he would never be king.

And there was just one way his father could remove him from the line of succession…