CHAPTER FIVE

Rupert stewed as he walked along Ashton’s streets, toward its docks. He should have been riding down the streets to the cries of a loving populace, celebrating his victory. He should have had the common folk cheering his name and throwing flowers. There should have been women along the route eager to throw themselves at him, and young men jealous that they could never be him.

Instead, there were only damp streets and people going about whatever dreary business peasants got up to when they weren’t cheering for their betters.

“Your highness, is everything all right?” Sir Quentin Mires asked. He walked as one of a dozen soldiers who had been chosen to accompany him, probably to make sure that he got to the ship without wandering off. Probably with orders to get Sebastian’s location before he left. It wasn’t even close to the same thing. It wasn’t even enough for an honor guard, not really.

“No, Sir Quentin,” Rupert said. “Everything is not all right.”

He should have been the hero in this moment. He’d single-handedly stopped the invasion, when his mother and his brother had been too cowardly to do what was needed. He’d been the prince that the kingdom had required in that moment, and what was he getting for it?

“What is it even like in the Near Colonies?” he demanded.

“I’m told that their islands vary, your highness,” Sir Quentin said. “Some are rocky, some are sandy, others have swamps.”

“Swamps,” Rupert repeated. “My mother has sent me to help rule over swamps.”

“I’m told that there is a wide variety of wildlife there,” Sir Quentin said. “Some of the kingdom’s men of the natural sciences spend years there in the hopes of making discoveries.”

“So infested swamps?” Rupert said. “You do know that you aren’t making this better, Sir Quentin?” He decided to ask the important questions, checking things off on his fingers as he went. “Are there any good gambling parlors there? Famed courtesans? Notable local drinks?”

“I’m told the wine is – ”

“Damn the wine!” Rupert snapped back, unable to help himself. Normally, he did a better job of remembering to be the golden prince that everyone expected. “Forgive me, Sir Quentin, but the quality of the wine or the plentiful wildlife will not make up for the fact that I am exiled in all but name.”

The other man bowed his head. “No, your highness, of course not. You deserve better.”

That was a statement so obvious as to be useless. Of course he deserved better. He was the elder of the princes and the rightful heir to the throne. He deserved everything that this kingdom had to offer.

“I’ve half a mind to tell my mother that I won’t go,” Rupert said. He glanced around at Ashton. He’d never thought that he would miss a stinking, squalid city like this.

“That might be… unwise, your highness,” Sir Quentin said, in that special voice he had that probably meant he was trying to avoid calling Rupert an idiot. He probably thought Rupert didn’t notice. People tended to think he was stupid, until it was too late.

“I know, I know,” Rupert said. “If I stay, I risk execution. Do you actually think that my mother would execute me?”

The pause was too long as Sir Quentin searched for the next words.

“You do. You actually think that my mother would execute her own son.”

“She does have a certain reputation for… ruthlessness,” the courtier pointed out. Honestly, was this the way men with connections in the Assembly of Nobles talked all the time? “And even if she did not actually go through with your execution, those around you might be… vulnerable.”

“Ah, so it’s your own hide that you’re worried about,” Rupert said. That made more sense to him. People, he found, mostly looked after their own interests. It was a lesson he’d learned early. “I would have thought that your contacts in the Assembly would keep you safe, especially after a victory like this.”

Sir Quentin shrugged. “In a month or two, perhaps. We have the support now. But for the moment, they are still talking about the overreach of royal power, about you acting without their consent. In the time it took for them to change their minds, a man might lose his head.”

Sir Quentin might lose his anyway if he suggested that Rupert somehow needed permission to do what he wanted. He was the man who would become king!

“And of course, even if she did not execute you, your highness, your mother might imprison you, or send you off to a worse place with guards to make sure that you arrived safely.”

Rupert gestured pointedly at the men who surrounded him, marching along in step with him and Sir Quentin.

“I thought that was what was happening already?”

Sir Quentin shook his head. “These men are among those who fought beside you against the New Army. They respect the boldness of your decision, and wanted to see that you did not leave alone, without the honor of an escort.”

So it was an honor guard. Rupert wasn’t sure that he could have taken it for one. Even so, now that he cared to look around at them, he saw that most of the men there were officers rather than common soldiers, and that most of them seemed happy to be accompanying him. It was closer to the kind of adulation that Rupert wanted, but it still wasn’t enough to offset the stupidity of what his mother had done to him.

It was a humiliation, and, knowing his mother, a calculated one.

They reached the docks. Rupert had been expecting that for this at least there would be a grand fighting ship waiting, cannon firing a salute to him in acknowledgment of his status, if nothing else.

Instead, there was nothing.

“Where is the ship?” Rupert demanded, looking around. As far as he could see, the docks were merely bustling with the usual selection of ships, merchants getting back to their trade after the retreat of the New Army. He’d have thought that they, at least, would thank him for his efforts, but they seemed too busy trying to earn their coin.

“I believe the ship is there, your highness,” Sir Quentin said, pointing.

“No,” Rupert said, following the line of the other man’s pointing finger. “No.”

The boat was a tub, suitable for a merchant’s journey, perhaps, and already partly loaded with goods for the journey back to the Near Colonies. It was anything but suitable to carry a prince.

“It is a little less than grand,” Sir Quentin said. “But I believe Her Majesty thought that traveling without attention would lower the chances of danger along the way.”

Rupert doubted that his mother had been thinking about pirates. She’d been thinking about what would make him the least comfortable, and she’d done a good job of judging it.

Still,” Sir Quentin said, with a sigh, “at least you will not be alone in this.”

Rupert stopped at that, staring at the other man.

“Forgive me, Sir Quentin,” Rupert said, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache, “but why exactly are you here?”

Sir Quentin turned to him. “I’m sorry, your highness, I should have said. My own position has become… somewhat precarious at the moment.”

“Meaning that you’re scared of my mother’s anger if I’m not around?” Rupert said.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Sir Quentin asked, breaking free from the carefully considered phrases of the politician for a moment. “The way I see it, I can wait around for her to find an excuse to execute me, or I can pursue my family’s business interests in the Near Colonies for a while.”

He made it sound so simple: go to the Near Colonies, release Sebastian, wait for the furor to subside, and come back again looking suitably chastened. The trouble with that was simple: Rupert couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He couldn’t pretend to be sorry for something that had clearly been the right decision. He couldn’t release his brother to take what was his. His brother didn’t deserve to be free when he’d all but executed a coup against Rupert, using some ruse or trick with their mother to persuade her to give him the throne.

“I can’t do it,” Rupert said. “I won’t do it.”

“Your highness,” Sir Quentin said, in that stupidly reasonable tone he had. “Your mother will have sent word to the governor of the Near Colonies. He will be expecting your arrival, and will send back word if you are not there. Even if you were to run, your mother will send soldiers, not least to find out where Prince Sebastian is.”

Rupert barely, barely, restrained himself from hitting the other man. It wasn’t a good idea to strike your allies, at least while they were still useful.

And Rupert had thought of a way that Sir Quentin could be very useful. He looked around the accompanying group of officers until he found one with blond hair who seemed to be around the right size.

“You, what is your name?”

“Aubry Chomley, your highness,” the man said. His uniform had a captain’s insignia.

“Well, Chomley,” Rupert said, “how loyal are you?”

“Completely,” the other man said. “I saw what you did against the New Army. You saved our kingdom, and you are the rightful heir to the throne.”

“Good man,” Rupert said. “Your loyalty does you credit, but now, I have a test of that loyalty.”

“Name it,” the other man said.

“I need you to swap clothes with me.”

“Your highness?” The soldier and Sir Quentin managed to say it almost in unison.

Rupert managed not to sigh. “It’s simple. Chomley here will go with you to the boat. He will pretend to be me, and go with you to the Near Colonies.”

The soldier looked as nervous at that as if Rupert had commanded him to charge a horde of the enemy.

“Won’t… won’t people notice?” the man said. “Won’t the governor notice?”

“Why would he?” Rupert asked. “I’ve never met the man, and Sir Quentin here will vouch for you. Won’t you, Sir Quentin?”

Sir Quentin looked back and forth from Rupert to the soldier, obviously trying to calculate the course of action most likely to keep him his head.

This time, Rupert did sigh. “Look, it’s simple. You go to the Near Colonies. You vouch for Chomley as me. Since I’m still here, that gives us a chance to get together the support we need. Support that could bring you back far quicker than if you start waiting for my mother to forget a slight.”

That part seemed to catch the other man’s attention. He nodded. “Very well,” Sir Quentin said. “I’ll do it.”

“And you, Captain?” Rupert asked. “Or should I say General?”

It took a moment for that to sink in. He saw Chomley swallow.

“Anything you require, your highness,” the man said.

It took a matter of minutes to find an empty building among the warehouses and the boat sheds, changing clothes with the captain so that now Chomley looked… well, frankly, nothing like a prince of the realm, but with Sir Quentin’s recommendation it should be enough.

“Go,” Rupert commanded them, and they went, accompanied by about half of the soldiers to make it seem more authentic. He looked around at the others, considering what he would do next.

There was no question of leaving Ashton, but he would have to move carefully now until he was ready. Sebastian was safe enough where he was for the time being. The palace was big enough that he would be able to keep away from his mother for a while at least. He knew he had support. It was time to find out how much, and how much power it could buy him.

“Come on,” he told the others. “It’s time to work out how we take what should be mine.”