Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

They’d stuck a crown on Prince Connor. A little one; no jewels or anything so gaudy, and nothing near the regalness of the king’s. Just a thin band of gold, worked into the semblance of two dragons coiling over each other. Aaron wondered if it would fit the boy’s twin better, if and when it became Rose’s turn to be next in the succession. If they’d let her be. Or would King Connor have only regents, rather than heirs?

That crown didn’t much suit the boy, was the thing. Connor looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than formally greeting a visiting noble in his brother’s receiving room. A room, Aaron noted, that King Orin himself had not yet had time to use. At least it was a small space. At least no one had tried to stick the thirteen-year-old on a throne.

“Your Highness,” Adelaide said, with a low enough bow. It rather lacked the bent knee she’d granted the Lord of Seasons, which Aaron found a sensible ordering of her priorities. For himself, Aaron gave the same deference to each, and remained exactly as he was. Which was possibly less sensible. But given how tightly the prince held his clasped hands while he waited for her to rise again, Aaron thought the boy rather appreciated the slight.

“Your arrival was unexpected,” Prince Connor said. Followed by the briefest of glances to his various advisors, to make sure he was saying his lines right.

Aaron had first seen this boy when he’d been reading the militia’s oath off his own cheating hand, so. Saying things correctly was probably a concern for him.

“Pardon my rudeness, Your Highness,” Adelaide replied. “It was a late decision to accompany my brother, and no letter would have traveled faster than two riding as messengers.”

“Do you have one, then?” Connor asked. “A message?”

“Yes,” she said. “For the investigation committee.”

“I see,” the prince said, and admirably limited his disappointment to a slight drooping of shoulders.

Aaron could have mentioned his own papers, two of which were indeed letters for the prince from his siblings, but he’d rather just knock on the kid’s door later. The various councilors and tutors who’d arranged themselves around the boy didn’t need to know of his private correspondence. Or of the other paper Aaron carried, awaiting the crown prince’s signature.

Adelaide had paused, as if waiting for something. She spoke again now, a gentle push. “May I have your permission to speak with them?”

“Of course,” the prince said, with a magnanimous nod, before he could notice his own tutor’s open mouth. The man closed it, with all the discretion such an action could be done with. The prince had already spoken, and disagreement on so minor a point would not look good for him. Would the prince’s tutor have a permanent place on the council, should things go poorly in King Orin’s future trial? He was certainly sitting there, in the half-circle of chairs the rest of the councilors had claimed. Connor was at their center, of course. Only the Lady and the Captain of the Guard were absent. The Lady, for obvious reasons: she was out doing her job. The captain, presumably for the same. Had a few more redcoats gone bleeding over Twokins while they’d been gone?

Adelaide took in a measured breath. It was a sign she was about to say something that shouldn’t be half so casual as she’d make it. He wondered when he’d started recognizing that, in her.

“May I also have your permission to see Duke Sung?” she asked.

She did not call the man father, as if the distance in phrasing would take the word from any of their minds.

This time, the prince did not reply before his councilors could start signaling him, with rather pointed looks.

“There have been rumors among our people as to his condition,” Adelaide said, levelly. Our people, she said, in a way that could mean the prince and her, and not her and her father. Her own tutor must be proud. “I seek only to allay them.”

The prince could deny her. The southern lords already in the castle got to peek in on the Duke regularly, as part of the unstated terms ensuring their good behavior. And they were permitted to write letters home about it, even if those letters had other eyes on them before they were sealed. Adelaide Sung’s further confirmation of the duke’s health was not strictly required. Nor was it strictly advisable, to allow the man time to speak with his heir.

But the prince was clearly unsure of what the fallout could be, and of his own power here. Or lack thereof. And though his self-appointed advisors clearly had much to say, none of it was the sort of thing to voice in front of the one it was about.

“Perhaps His Highness would like time to consider the matter,” the tutor said delicately. “He can give you his decision on the morrow.”

“I could go with her,” Aaron offered, before Connor could accept the obvious out. “I’ve words for the man, too.” Ones not so concerned with his health. “They’d be stupid to talk any treason in front of me, given how he got in there.”

Which was a blunter stating of the advisors’ fears than any of them would have said here, but what were uncultured little brothers and/or reluctantly appointed councilors for?

Connor was visibly relieved, in a way a prince probably ought not to be. “Take the Captain of the Guard with you, too,” he said, naming the only councilor who was neither on the other side of the country nor hovering about him. “He’ll have the key you need. And it will allay any suspicions. From you both being the duke’s children, and all.”

A prince probably ought not say things like that, either, no matter how loudly the rest of the room might be thinking it. The boy’s tutor let out a slow breath. In a less dignified man, it might have been a sigh.

“Thank you, my prince,” Adelaide said, with another bow. She did those a lot. All the royals did, like it was a courtesy, instead of a thing with meaning. “On behalf of the Sungs and the south, allow me to assure you that our loyalty remains with you.”

It was a you that could have meant the O’Sheas, rather than just Connor. Could have. Aaron suspected the boy would appreciate a living family more than loyalty, but Adelaide was certainly not the one to talk to about that.

“Thank you,” the crown prince said instead, with an incredibly diplomatic smile.

* * *

They did not waste any time before meeting with the investigation committee, who did not waste any time greeting Adelaide warmly. The reason for this was simple: the king-aligned nobles were all at the dragon front right now. With their southern counterparts still obliged to accept the crown’s hospitality, a meeting with the committee was really a meeting with her own vassal lords. No wonder the prince’s tutor had tried to intervene.

Aaron himself was greeted pleasantly enough, if by entirely the wrong name. It was not unusual, it seemed, for Markus to simply stand in his sister’s shadow and leave the conversations to her. And to sit by her side, when they got down to business. Adelaide hadn’t corrected them one-on-one, either, though her smiles had been growing more strained. She’d the air of someone biding her time, for a conversation she only wished to have once.

“My father is innocent of the king’s death,” she said, when they were all seated. “Aaron can testify to it.”

Well. That was an interesting exercise in turning a truth into an assumption. He could testify. It was, as any kirin living or dead could attest, physically possible.

“I think if Markus were willing to testify, he wouldn’t have—” began one man, in a tone skeptical enough for Aaron’s own taste.

“This is not Markus,” Adelaide interrupted. “It’s Aaron. My father and I are going to be having a talk, and not just about politics.”

The assembled peerage stared at him like they were weighing lambs for market. Aaron resisted the urge to put his feet up on their meeting table. He gave a jaunty wave, instead. Didn’t even open his mouth, which was just as well, since pleasure to meet you was impossible to say with her sword so close. His sister’s side-eye told him she did not appreciate this demonstration of self-restraint.

“To be fair to your father,” said a woman, looking Aaron up and down, “it would appear his indiscretions occurred around the same time.”

“Thank you for that astute observation, countess,” said his sister.

“And Markus?” asked another.

Adelaide let out a measured breath. “My brother did not survive his trip to the capital last autumn. I am still verifying the details.”

By which she likely meant that she didn’t want to believe her own mother had done it. Or didn’t want to tell everyone about that, so soon after learning it herself.

“Murder or misfortune?” one asked.

“It appears to have been a case of mistaken identity,” she said diplomatically.

The nobles stared at Aaron harder. He put his feet on the table. Adelaide, with years of sibling instinct he could not match, kicked his chair so hard that he could either put them back down or fall over. Above the table, her neutral expression never wavered.

“So it was this one that sabotaged Duke Sung’s escape, not your real brother?” asked the same man who’d protested Aaron’s willingness to testify.

“This one certainly did his part,” Aaron said. “And you’ve a point about my testifying. That seems a thing we should have discussed on the road, sister.”

He could have that pleasant neutrality too, if he wanted.

“It’s the truth,” his sister said, like this was an argument in itself. Like maybe that would have been an argument with Markus, and she was still having trouble seeing past their too-similar face. “You know it is.”

“And who’s to say I didn’t eat the fox’s tongue?” Aaron replied. “You certainly thought I had. I could be over here saying anything; there’s nothing to prove otherwise.”

Her mouth tightened. “Then between you and my—our father both stating his innocence, the truth will be clear. There was only the one tongue, and the two of you.”

This probably shouldn’t be as fun as it was. But she probably shouldn’t have sprung this on him, either. “Couldn’t we have divvied it up between us? Hypothetically. The fox was powerful; who’s to say splitting the tongue would dull its effect? Or maybe we had a bite for each member of our family. If you ask me,” he said, with a pointed glance to her sword’s hilt, “it looks like you’re trying too hard to be taken as the truthful sort.”

“Everyone here can testify—”

“That you said I said a thing,” Aaron finished.

“But it’s the truth.”

“Yeah,” he said, and agreed to his core, but that didn’t stop him from breaking to her a truth he’d learned when he was little taller than this table. “No one cares. If you think testifying on kirin’s bone is going to make me come off as honest, we’ve not talked near enough.”

“If King Orin is a dragon—” she said.

“Which is a separate issue entirely,” Aaron said.

“—Then my father is our best choice for Prince Connor’s regent. The one the late king wanted. He has the experience we need, particularly if the dragons are turning this into a proper war again. You weren’t even alive for the first one—”

“You can blame my father for that,” Aaron said.

“—You’ve no conception of how bad it got. We don’t have inland defenses anymore. We haven’t for centuries. This is no time to have a child king.”

“So maybe don’t kill the king you have,” Aaron said. The nobles were watching this back-and-forth like a sport, but he didn’t much feel like having his feet anywhere but solidly on the ground.

“If he’s a dragon himself—” she started again.

“You keep acting as if that’s a problem for me,” Aaron replied. And then they had a few wonderful heartbeats of silence, wherein one could hope that certain siblings were reconsidering their choices.

“Where was he raised?” the tactless countess asked.

“Guess,” Adelaide said, in approximately the same tone Aaron had been about to.

“Point is,” Aaron said, “you’re going to have to give me a good reason why our father should be free. Apparently our brother wanted him dead. Who’s to say that wasn’t a word of advice, from one bastard to another?”

“Why do you hate him?” Adelaide asked.

Because he’d meet him three times. Been disowned on the second, had his wrist broken on the third. The first hadn’t been so bad: just a hallway conversation, in which the duke had, in retrospect, clearly thought he’d been up to something, and had been trying not to interfere. Interesting bit of parenting, that.

“I’ve got more restraint in killing things I hate than you seem to give me credit for,” he replied. And less hate for people he barely knew than she’d believe. He really hadn’t thought much about his father, after the man had been shoved in his cell. “This isn’t about how I feel. This is, I think we can all agree, about who’s to be king.”

“First and last,” one of the lords muttered. “He’s Markus’ brother, all right. You’re certain we’re safe from them meeting?”

That neatly redirected his sister’s glare, and gave Aaron the space to keep talking. The others seemed, at least, morbidly fascinated by what he might say next.

“Shall we to business, then?” Aaron said. “At least one of those people that my supposedly innocent father told you was dead is rather alive, and I’d like to find out what else he didn’t tell you. And people write down what’s said in trials, right? Or whatever it was called, when the duke called Orin out. I want to see that record. I assume an investigation committee as distinguished as yourselves would have a copy?”

“If the king’s a doppel, it doesn’t matter what Duke Sung said,” one of the lords replied. “We still can’t let him live.”

Funny, how they didn’t seem to think that sentiment could apply to them, as well. There’d been a lot of blood shed, as the O’Shea line replaced less agreeable leaders during humanity’s flight to their island. It wasn’t Aaron’s fault if these uptowners were out of practice.

* * *

The Captain of the Guard was down in Twokins until tomorrow. There had, indeed, been more guards killed. In lieu of visiting the Duke, Aaron ran errands. His last was to the kitchen.

“No cloak this time?” John Baker asked, by way of both greeting and dismissal.

“No dead skins in the kitchen,” Aaron said. “Or so I’ve been told.”

John pointedly turned his back, and checked on things in the oven too doughy to need checking. Right. Aaron cleared his throat.

“I know we’re not much of friends anymore, and can’t be,” he said. “But the king’s going north, and I’ll be soon, too. Regularly, I think. Do you want me to carry letters for you?”

“All enclave letters must pass through the proper authorities,” John said, his back as stiff as his tone.

“No proper authorities have ever told this humble messenger that,” Aaron said. “Alas, my ignorance.”

The boy looked at him, finally, his eyes narrowed. Aaron had met hunting birds with less judgmental stares.

“I’ll have one for you tomorrow,” John said, “if you can wait.”

“I can,” Aaron confirmed. He’d already figured on the delay: with Mabel away, the boy would need to find a new scribe. Hopefully one who’d write letters as discreetly as Aaron intended to deliver them. But that was a problem for John, not for him.

Back in his room, still up in the royal wing, he spread the records from the duke’s petition out on his bed, and sat cross-legged before them. “Petition” was, it seemed, the polite word for asking for Orin’s head. He still couldn’t read well. But he’d known his numbers for long enough, and it didn’t take much reading to scan for his father’s dramatic counting off of the deaths in Orin’s squad. There’d been a thing bothering him, since they talked with Jeshinkra’s husband.

He sounded the words out, stumbling, but getting enough meaning to make this literacy thing seem worth it. Being able to read a person’s exact words, months after they’d said it; that was a power as strange as any Let Forget.

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.

Jessica’s husband had said there’d been three of her squad coming to visit her; three that never arrived. But the only deaths together were these two, and the ones that had most closely preceded her own supposed end. Two dead, not three; and the rest of the squad accounted for by the end, as neatly as Jeshinkra herself had been. Aaron squared the pages back together, and set them aside.

In the morning, he went to see his father.