Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

To say the crowd erupted was too tame a word. Mrs. White folded her ears down against her skull. The cries to order from the heralds began, but had no immediate effect.

Aaron kept his gaze on Orin. He didn’t know what he expected to see: surprise, outrage, fear. Something.

The crown prince let the sound wash over him for a moment. Then he stood, and addressed the crowd. He did not yell. Nonetheless, his words carried. “You are guests of His Majesty’s council. Be silent, or leave.”

His calm did in moments what the heralds had been unable to accomplish: the crowd settled. He nodded to the duke.

“Continue, Duke Sung. Present your evidence.” He sat again, making no further show of things.

The duke met Orin’s eyes, and Orin met his. It was not until Sung had torn his gaze away, back to the king, that he seemed able to speak again.

“The crown prince is the doppelgänger of a dragon. By law and by reason, his life is forfeit.”

This threatened to send the room into turmoil again; a sweeping glance from the prince ended it. Aaron dodged Mabel’s kneecap as she leaned forward in her seat. John was scratching behind Mrs. White’s ears with an intensity that made the puss glance back in displeasure.

“Your evidence, Duke Sung?” Prince Orin prompted.

“Do you not deny the charge?” the duke challenged. “We stand on kirin’s bone. Deny it, and all here will believe you.”

“I deny it,” the prince replied. “But when thirteen lords assemble, it is not to hear the one they accuse speak. We both know there are ways around kirin’s bone. I ask again: present your evidence.”

“Very well.” The duke’s lips compressed down to a line. “Last spring, while serving near Salt’s Mane, Prince Orin and his unit were set upon by a dragon. During the attack, the prince was separated from his men by the beast. By your leave, my liege, I will put it indelicately: the crown prince was captured. Over a day passed before he was found. This was more than sufficient time for an injured man to have his will broken, no matter who he may be. The prince has been doppeled.”

The duke took in a breath; let it out, slowly. Continued. He was addressing the king, not the prince.

“I would that it were not so, Your Majesty, but the facts are as they are. To allow a man to live when a dragon wears his face is unthinkable; to allow the crown prince to do so would be insanity. The creature could infiltrate us at any moment it chose, and every day we wait is another that the dragon in Orin’s mind is allowed to fester. Our prince is an honorable man. Let him die while he is still a man, Liam.”

No rush of voices started up to fill the void, this time. It seemed that the council chamber held its collective breath as they waited for the king’s reply.

His Majesty did not look as ill today as when Aaron had seen him last. There was no cloak drawn over his shoulders to keep him warm, and the man’s Death was keeping a respectful distance. He was thin, and he was pale, but there was a steadiness to the way he met the duke’s gaze that made Aaron believe he could live a hundred years more, if only on willpower. But it was not the king who answered.

“I am waiting, Duke Sung,” Orin said. “Your evidence. Present it, if you have any.”

The duke glanced at him only briefly, before addressing his comments to the impartial air. “Do you deny that what I have said is true?”

“The events you relate are accurate,” Orin agreed. “Our unit received word of a dragon en route to Wave’s Crest. We responded and engaged the creature in direct combat, buying time for the village to evacuate. I used my own person to lure it farther away; and yes, I was captured.” These facts were related calmly, matter-of-factly: the prince may as well have been giving a military report.

“It is the details you leave out, Duke, that I question.” Such dangerous words were not often spoken so lightly. “I was rendered unconscious during my capture. A head wound, from which I did not wake for many days. You may recall the seriousness of the injury: as I could not be moved from the healer’s house at Salt’s Mane, my father left the capital with all haste to be at my bedside. I recall he sent you a letter at that time.” He leaned back in his chair, one hand draped lightly over the arm. “You know as well as I—as well as any in this room—that a beast cannot doppel a man’s form unless it also copies his mind; and to get the mind, there must be consciousness. It is not possible that I was made a doppelgänger.”

The prince tossed his head, sending his long red braid flicking across his back. Aaron noticed John staring at the man. He had clapped a hand over his mouth, covering a smile. Truly, though: the prince’s disdainful calm was a beauty to behold. There sat a prince, indeed.

“To be frank, Duke Sung, it surprises me that a military man such as yourself would even try to raise such a claim. Much less the general of our joint forces. Am I not alive?”

His shift in gaze was subtle. Almost by accident, it seemed, his dark green eyes swept the crowd. Many found themselves eye-to-eye with their prince, who did not implore them: he merely stated fact.

“Dragons are too jealous to leave their doppels alive; they don’t well tolerate men wearing faces they have claimed as their own. If you wanted to make such a claim, you would have better said that I was a fox’s doppel, or a griffin’s; even a rat’s. If the dragon had copied me, it would have killed me. I,” he repeated, “am alive. And I quite intend to stay that way, if it pleases your lordship.”

The twitch on his lips would have been a grin on any other man. It sent a ripple of surprised laughter through the room—surprised, nervous, relieved.

His Majesty stirred; just a raising of hand to his cheek, and a tilt of head so mild it could only be a threat. “It is a serious petition you bring before me, cousin. The burden of proof lies with you.”

Aaron shifted his eyes back to Markus’ father. John leaned forward in his seat, until Mrs. White head-butted his chest in reminder that he was her seat, and she was not to be squished.

“Well that’s a cornered stag, then,” Mabel quipped with hearty satisfaction. “What’d ‘e think, that no one else was there? I’ll testify m’self. Three days ‘e was laid out sleepin’, and the healer chasin’ off all of us tryin’ to sneak in for a peek at ‘im, the heartless old harpy.”

John whistled something determined between his teeth. He speaks our language, Aaron thought it was.

The duke took in a breath. Let it out. “Prince Orin is an honest man, and he would make a king to whom I would readily pledge. It was to me that you gave his mentorship during his first springs on the border, and I will never forget the honor I felt in helping to instruct so fine a boy; so fine an heir to humanity’s throne.” For the first time since the petition had begun, he willingly sought the prince’s eyes, and spoke directly to him. “We stand on kirin’s bone, my Lord Prince, and I trust you. Therefore, I do not believe you to be lying. But I believe you have been kept sheltered from certain facts, so that you could stand on kirin’s bone and speak with such authority. You were awake when your people found you. I do not doubt that the severity of your wound erased the memory of this, but the fact stands: you were awake.”

“Who claims this?” the king asked. “Present your witness.”

“Witnesses are scarce, Your Majesty,” the duke replied.

“None of my men spoke to me of this,” the prince said. For the first time, an edge of anger crept into his voice. “And they were the only ones present. Unless you are claiming the dragon as your witness, Duke?”

The duke met his gaze. “None of your men spoke to you of this, because they are dead. I am sorry, my Prince; I thought you knew. I should have known you for a better man than that.”

For the first time, the prince had nothing to say.

It was to the crowd that the duke next addressed himself. “There were eight under the prince’s command. One was killed that day, trying to rescue his liege: his was an honorable death on which I cast no doubts. May his soul not wander.

“Another woman was injured during the rescue, and quite gravely. She was brought to the same healing house as the prince. On the night His Majesty’s party arrived, the woman passed away. Of her death, I am willing to think the best; that she merely died of her wounds. May her soul not wander.”

And some in the crowd repeated, caught in the cadence of his speech and the familiarity of the words: May her soul not wander.

“The third man died a week later, in a dispute over a woman. Run through with a sword by a townsman that was never found, though he himself was a master of the blade. And here my doubts begin. May his soul not wander.”

And more repeated, because he had them now: May his soul not wander.

“The fourth and fifth died after spring had passed; attacked as they journeyed home, their bodies found stripped of coin and left in a ditch to be savaged by animals. The thieves were not caught, nor did they prey on anyone else who came that way. May their souls not wander.”

And John said it, too; quiet, under his breath, his hand still idly stroking Mrs. White’s head: “May their souls not wander.”

Mabel gave the enclave boy’s head a very deliberate knock of her knee, hissing something that Aaron wasn’t listening to.

“The sixth came down with a wasting illness upon her arrival home, and she shut herself up in her house, and sent her husband back to his parents; and the only thing she would say through her door was, Do not come near me, for the plague I have can spread through hearing. They found her dead inside with her sword laid out in front of her, newly polished, and a note bidding that it be brought to the prince with all haste. May her soul not wander.”

May her soul not wander.

The prince’s hand grew white over the hilt of his blade. It was a very plain sword for a prince, though well cared for.

“The seventh was good friends with the others. On hearing of their deaths, he took his own life. But not before he had sent a letter to the eighth: If this letter finds you well, then I trust that it was my turn, instead. May his soul not wander.”

“May his soul not wander,” Aaron whispered with the rest, earning a sharp knee strike of his own.

“The eighth fled to the south. He had heard, as so many of you, that we still follow the old traditions. He begged asylum at Three Havens, for we share our border with all kingdoms of the isle, and so are policed by none but ourselves. He showed me the letter that the seventh had sent him, and relayed the circumstances of the others’ deaths. And this he told me: The prince was awake when the dragon held him. He is a doppel, and he has ordered our deaths.”

“What became of him?” the crown prince demanded. “Why is he not here now?”

“It seems he was too frightened to present his case before the court, my Lord Prince,” the duke said, his voice even. “Two days after he arrived, he could not be found. He, nor any trace of him. Nor the letter he carried, even though he had given that up to my possession and it had been inside a locked box in my own apartments, and the man no master thief.”

The duke met his gaze, and it was the prince who looked away.

“May his soul not wander,” Orin whispered, hoarsely.

“May his soul not wander,” the duke agreed, and he let the silence between them do its work on the crowd.

“My son,” the king asked into that silence. “Did you order the deaths of those men?”

The horror on the crown prince’s face would have spoken the truth, even if he’d said no more. “No, father, I did not. I knew of Jessie’s death,” and here, he touched his sword, “but not of the others. We do not well keep in touch outside of the spring season.”

Liam turned to each of his advisors in turn. Those of them that were commanders, in any case. “And what of you?”

“The royal guard had no knowledge of this,” the Captain of the Guard attested.

“The militia knew that the men had died. But men die from battle wounds, thieves, and plague. It was not remarked.” The Iron Captain’s jaw was set.

“The Late Wake never ordered such a thing,” the Lady said.

“And yet the men are dead,” the duke said, quietly.

“And yet they are,” His Majesty agreed. “Duke Sung. Who is the next in line for the throne, should I disinherit Orin?”

The question took the duke aback. “Prince Connor, Your Majesty.”

“Is Connor old enough to rule?” Liam persisted.

“No, Your Majesty. It is five years yet until the age of his majority.”

“Who would serve as my regent?” the king asked. When the duke did not answer, all in the court sensed where His Majesty aimed. “The crown prince, my heir, yearly risks his life at our border. As we all must; as it is a noble’s privilege to do. When I thought he lay dying, when I knew that I was dying, I wrote you a letter from his bedside in Salt’s Mane. Do you recall it?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Who, then, would serve as my regent, if Orin were to die?”

The duke straightened his back, and squared his shoulders. “I would be so honored with that duty, Your Majesty.”

The king let that sink in. A moment; no longer.

“And if Connor should die, and Rose—who is the next in line for the throne?”

“I am, Your Majesty.”

“Did you hear of the attempt on my children’s lives?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Are you aware of what occurred last night, after your party was settled for the evening?”

Mabel leaned eagerly forward, hitting them both in the head. Aaron sat frozen.

“No, Your Majesty.”

“Our four tails was murdered in his forest. His tongue was cut out. I trust you understand what that means.”

At this, the crowd really did go wild; cheers, hoots. People stood up and hugged each other, reached around others to slap friends on the back. As if they’d had something to do with it, as if this was a victory they could claim.

Aaron sat frozen as a dream.

The duke made no move. Neither did the king. Slowly, the crowd returned to themselves, and quieted.

“It means, Your Majesty,” Duke Sung said stiffly, “that all the kirin’s bone in the kingdom is worthless. If a man’s eaten that beast’s tongue, then it’s a fox’s own tongue he’ll speak with. Such a man could stand here and say whatever lies he chose.”

The duke’s eyes flicked to the prince as he said it, but if the prince saw, he did not react. There was no lie in the grief still written on Orin’s face.

“I do not imply anything by this, Niall,” the king said. “I speak before the council, and all assembled here: you are a man who does what he thinks is best for the kingdom. I only say that there are more to stories than what we see, and what is true in part may not be the whole of it.”

The king settled back in his chair. “The council has heard the petition of Duke Sung and his party. We will debate the merits of his argument. You have our leave.”

They were dismissed; the crowd, the duke, all of them.