The Eyes of a King (3 page)

I was surprised. He could not have been more than three years old when she used to tell us those stories. “And the prince went there,” Stirling went on. “The prince was sent to England.”

“Prince Cassius, who would have been Cassius the Third,” I said. “You remember the stories too?”

“Yes, of course. Only I don’t think they were stories.”

“How do you mean?”

“I think the country is real.”

“Real?” I said. He nodded. “How can it be real?”

“A lot of people think it is,” he told me. “I’m not the only one.”

“You are the only one these days, Stirling.”

“No, I’m not,” he insisted. “And I’ve thought about it a lot, and it makes sense, England being real.”

As we walked on I watched him carefully, still startled that
he could remember these things. “Why?” I said. “Why does it make sense?”

He thought for a moment. “The prince was sent there, for one thing. And the prince was real.”

“Most people think that the prince was killed,” I told him.

“I don’t.”

I smiled at his certainty. “Is that all?”

“No,” he said. “The poem that Grandmother’s brother wrote said the prince would go there, not die.”

“The prophecy written by the great Aldebaran.” Aldebaran was our great-uncle, but we kept quiet about it. Harold North as our father was enough. “No one pays attention to those old prophecies these days,” I told him.

“They should,” he said. “It isn’t old—it’s sixteen years. Besides, they are usually right.”

“Perhaps. What do you know of prophecies?”

“Not a lot. But all the real ones that I have heard of have come true. If the great ones who make them can actually see into the future, then they must be true.”

“Well, perhaps this was not a real one.”

“It was a real one,” he said. “That means England is real.”

“All right then,” I said. “It may be that England is real.” But I did not really believe it, now that I said it out loud.

“Speaking of the prophecy …,” he began.

“What?”

“I wanted to ask you—but …” We were nearing the school gates, and we always reduced our talk to harmless chatter when we got to this point in the road. It was understood, though we never said it—this point opposite the newspaper stand, on the corner of Paradise Way. “Later,” he said.

There was no queue, so I bought a newspaper. “What’s the headline?” Stirling asked.

“ ‘Deadlock.’”

“What’s that?”

“When a situation is going nowhere.”

“The war, then. What does the rest say?”

“Too much to tell you now,” I said.

“Will you read it to me when we get home?”

“All right.” I folded it and put it into my pocket. “You know, you need to learn to read. You’re eight years old.”

“I can read, almost. Anyway, you can get clever without reading.”

“I know. You think a lot.”

“Yes,” he said. “Mostly in class. And in church. Do you think that is bad?”

“No,” I said. “Grandmother might, though.”

Our grandmother took Stirling to Mass with her every day. His First Communion would be in July—July the twenty-first; the date was already set. I had never made my First Communion, and now that I was fifteen, Grandmother had given up suggesting it. And I refused to go to church except on Sundays. I think that it had as much to do with hating to be told what to do as with not being especially religious, though both were true.

“Yes.” He laughed. “Grandmother might. Would God think that it was bad?”

“I doubt he even notices.”

“He does. He notices everything. The sparrows and everything. So he’d notice for sure if people didn’t listen in church sometimes. If it was bad.”

“All right, all right,” I told him. “Don’t preach. And you know I don’t like to be asked these religious questions.”

“Why not? I’m only asking what you think.”

“Stirling, leave it.”

“Sorry.”

He said it so humbly that I went on, more gently, “I’m sure he doesn’t think it’s bad. Anyway, I am the one going to hell, because I
never
listen in church.” He laughed. “Come on,” I said. “We’re late.”

The last boys were stumbling past us through the gate and rushing through the slushy snow in the yard to line up. Sergeant Markey, Stirling’s teacher and the worst in the school, was surveying them with his usual expression, which was hard to identify as any emotion. It changed to contempt when he saw Stirling and me. He hated us and made no secret of it.

I glared back and gave Stirling the look I gave him every morning—a look of patient endurance, like a criminal resigned to his execution—and we turned to the gate. The look annoyed Sergeant Markey. “Boys, for God’s sake, get in here now!” he spat. He must have been about the only person in Malonia who had no qualms about taking the name of the Lord in vain. I saw Stirling frown as he said it.

Sergeant Markey saw the frown too. We went in, but we didn’t hurry. I made a point of dragging my heels, to annoy him. Sergeant Markey glared, but Stirling walked in so meekly that he could say nothing.

The snow was freezing hard as we walked home from school; it was treacherous. The streets were in shadow and bitterly cold. “So, do you think I could be right?” Stirling asked me again as
we skittered down Paradise Way. “Do you think the land of England could be real?”

“It could,” I said. “There is no way to prove it.”

“But the prophecy—”

“All it said was that the prince would be exiled. It never said to where. And even though everyone thought it was England, where Aldebaran was sent, it wasn’t necessarily.”

“But it was another world.”

“If he was exiled at all. If he was not killed. You know, death’s another world. You cannot trust the words people use, sometimes.”

“I don’t think they would have killed him. They would have known there was a prophecy.”

It was true that Aldebaran’s prophecy had been respected once, and perhaps Lucien’s men would have been reluctant to kill the boy because of it. The prophecy had definitely said that no one could harm the prince. It said that he would not be killed but exiled.

The snow made the yellow brick of the houses look filthy. I wondered if the clouds gliding together over the city were snow clouds or rain. The largest one, just above the church far below in the square, looked exactly like a stretching hand. It was so close to the cross on the building’s top that I imagined it could reach out and touch it. But the movement was just the wind.

“So, it could be real,” Stirling persisted.

“What?” He had been talking, but I had not heard.

“England could be real.”

“Yes,” I said wearily. “Cannot you stop talking about it now? I should never have brought up the subject; since first I
mentioned it, you have not stopped. And we are never going to find out.”

“No,” he said. “But the prophecy …”

“What about it?”

“If it came true, then we would find out whether England was real or not. Because the prince would come back, and—”

“Stirling,” I interrupted. “The prophecy—you were going to tell me something about it. Remember? This morning, you said you’d tell me later.”

“Oh yes …” He glanced around. “All right.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. We had stopped still now in the silent street.

A woman appeared suddenly round the corner and hurried past us, clutching a coughing baby wrapped tightly against the cold. Stirling waited until she had passed, then bent his head close to mine. “Remember when Grandmother burned Father’s books?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “I remember.”

“You don’t have to speak in that way.”

“What way?”

“Like that. It wasn’t her fault.”

“He told me to look after them while he was gone. She made me break my promise, and—”

“About the prophecy …,” Stirling interrupted. We’d had that conversation several times before. “When Grandmother burned them, I took one. I still have it now; I found it again last week. And I worked out what it says on the cover.”

“You read the cover?” I said. He nodded. “So what did it say?”

“It said this: ‘A prophecy of the lord Aldebaran, written in the sixth year of the reign of Cassius the Second.’ ”

“That is the very same one,” I said. “It must be.”

“I thought so. And I wanted to ask you to read it to me. It took me an hour at least to read the cover, and you read fast, Leo.”

I stared at him. “That is a very rare book. And I never even knew you had it.” He grinned at that.

We resumed our careful walk. “If Grandmother knew, she’d kill you,” I remarked. “You know that book is on the Highly Restricted list. You could get three months just for having it.”

“Three months? Three months of what?”

“Three months in jail! It is a serious offense. Grandmother would be very angry if she ever found out.”

“Yes, I know. Shh.” He looked around anxiously. “Don’t tell her, please.”

“All right, I won’t.” I’d never intended to. I just wanted to caution Stirling. “And I can read it to you if you want.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Leo.”

“You still should not have it.”

“I’m not the only one who’s hiding books,” he said, grinning.

“What?”

“You’ve got that one Father signed for you—
The Golden Reign.
”

“How did you know about that?”

“You used to look at it all the time, when I was really small. When you thought no one was watching you. You used to—”

“Yes. Well,” I said, cutting him off. “That’s different.
The Golden Reign
is only Restricted. That prophecy is on the Highly Restricted list, which is serious. And besides, that book was mine. I didn’t steal it. You took that—”

I stopped short. Reaching a meeting of the roads, we almost
careered into the middle of a group of soldiers on horseback. We stumbled upon them as they broke into abruptly raucous laughter. The nearest horse skittered sideways and the rider reined it into the circle again. We hurried on past the next block of houses. The snow on the ground quieted everything strangely, and we had not heard them.

W
e walked quietly, not looking at each other. “Do you think they heard us?” whispered Stirling when he seemed to judge that we were out of earshot.

“Of course not,” I told him. “And it is no matter if they did.” And I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart beating as loud as I could. The sound of it angered me. I was not scared of the soldiers. It was just coming upon them suddenly that had startled me.

“Stirling, watch this,” I told him. I pointed my finger at a deep snowdrift and sent a spray of orange sparks into it. Another trick. The snow leapt upward, leaving steaming pockmarks like bullet wounds where the sparks had landed. There was a loud bang, and I heard one of the soldiers’ horses whinny, perhaps in surprise. They were not so far off as I had thought. But maybe it was just chance. They were used to gunshots, after all.

“Don’t do that, Leo,” Stirling whispered fiercely. “Stop showing off.”

“Why are you so worried?” I demanded. “Are you scared of the soldiers or what?”

“You’re the one that’s scared, trying to pretend you’re not,” he retorted quickly. “It’s true.”

I turned away, quickening my pace. It was only a moment
before Stirling caught up with me and grabbed my arm. He had to reach up to do it. “Leo?” I ignored him. “Leo? Sorry I said you were scared of the soldiers. I know you weren’t really.” I still didn’t speak.

Stirling hated it when anyone was angry with him. “Leo, that trick was good really,” he said. “It’s just because of the soldiers. I don’t want them to put you in prison for doing magic….” I gave in, and slowed my pace to let him catch up. “You know what, Leo?” I didn’t answer. “I think,” he continued, “I think you could be like Aldebaran one day.”

I was pleased in spite of myself. “Really?”

“Yes, really. It runs in the family, doesn’t it? Someone’s got to have powers after him, and no one has yet.”

“But they’re just stupid tricks,” I said. “Not real magic.”

“Well, if you practiced, I think you could be really good. You could train in magic and be named a great one, the lord Leo. When you grow up, I mean.”

“Stirling, I am grown-up. And I’m going to be a soldier.”

He looked at me for a moment, frowning so that the freckles on his nose slid together. “But you don’t want to be a soldier.”

“I know.”

He went on frowning as we walked. “Couldn’t you train in magic instead? Aldebaran did.”

“That was a long time ago. Before King Lucien. You know how it is with children who have powers these days. High-security schools, and they teach them a lot of rubbish. They are scared that if there was a revolution, those children could fight against the government; that’s what I think.”

“What’s a revolution?” he asked. I could have sworn that he
knew all this. But I liked telling him things that I knew and he didn’t, so I tried to explain.

We walked in silence after that. We were nearing home now. As we got closer to it, the castle rose over the white sky, high on its rock above the city. Flags were flying from every tower and battlement, and even from this distance below, I could make out the lion and the dove in the Kalitz family crest. That washed-out blue always made me think of school, because the flags were everywhere there too.