The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (21 page)

“Not so much as you by half, that I can tell already.”

“Don’t mock me,” Raven said, fuming now.

“I wasn’t,” Goldwyn said, looking like the picture of honesty.

“Then don’t pretend to be smart enough to get inside my head.”

“I cannot get anywhere you will not let me.”

“That’s right,” Raven retorted, “so stop trying. You won’t get anything from me with your lies.”

“You seem to think that just because your family told you lies, everyone will tell you lies.”

‘Everyone will,” he said harshly. “Everyone always does – that is how you run an Empire, it is how you rule. You lie to the people so you can govern them effectively, you lie to the aristocracy to set them against each other, you lie to the other Princes so you can get more from Mother. It is all a game – a game made up of lies. If you don’t lie, you are soon left behind. If you do not lie, you cannot rule.”

“I think both you and I know that true government, true leaders, don’t
rule
at all, they inspire. It is a subtle difference, perhaps a meaningless one to many people. But not to me, and not, as I suspect, to you. True leaders don’t
make
people better, true leaders are symbols that all people
can
be better. Symbols that all people have in them nobility if they only choose to see it.”

“My Mother would disagree with you,” Raven said, discomfited.

“There is no Empire inside these walls,” Goldwyn said quietly.

“The Empire is everywhere. Someday it will be here. It is inevitable.”

“Ah,” Goldwyn said, making a sound like a sigh, the sound of built up pressure suddenly released. “There is the word that troubles you. Inevitable.”

“It’s just a word,” Raven said, dismissively, not understanding what the man saying.

“Well yes,” Goldwyn said with a wry smile, “so is “back,” and “hippo,” but I don’t think those two bother you.”

“What’s ‘hippo’?”

“Short for hippopotamus. A large, water-dwelling creature of common mythology made almost entirely of fat.”

“Sounds like it could be worrying if it sat on you.”

Goldwyn laughed, a rich, rolling baritone just like Davydd’s, but shot through with something deeper and more mature, like a vein of gold in a mountain stream.

“In that case, I suppose it would be. What I meant to say is that it needn’t worry us
now
. Lies however, those seem to be worrying you quite a lot.”

“Why are we talking about lies?”

“You brought them up, I thought you wanted to talk about them.”

“No,
you
brought them up.”

“I asked about your Mother,” Goldwyn said, arching an eyebrow, his eyes twinkling. “You diverted the conversation to lies.”

Raven realized he was right, but decided not to give the man the satisfaction of admitting it out loud.

“Why do you think you connected your Mother to lies?” Goldwyn asked, watching him carefully.

“Probably because my Mother lies,” Raven said frankly. “She has to – she’s the ruler of an entire Empire, lies are necessary, as I said.”

“So your brothers and sisters lie as well.”

“Yes, to the Commons.”

“But they didn’t just lie to those they rule – they lied to
you
.”

“Yes. Of course. I’ve lied to them.”

“Who told you the lies that trouble you the most? Which of the Children?”

“I was told lies by all of them,” Raven said quietly, remembering.

“And what lies were these?”

“The first and worst was that my life had meaning.”

As soon as he realized what he’d said he shut his mouth with a snap and clenched his jaw. He looked away and out into the soft autumn night. This man was good – he’d made Raven angry and fooled him into revealing something he hadn’t intended.

“What do you mean by that?” Goldwyn asked quietly. His voice was so calm and it
pulled
, making him want to speak.

“They told me I was a Prince and that I had a purpose in this world,” he said, almost spitting the words at the man. “They told me I had things to do that were destined by prophecy. My Mother, the Empress, told me that. Told me that I was chosen, that I was special, that I was above all others because I was closer to Her, because I was her Son.”

He stopped and breathed heavily, remembering Rikard beating these words into him throughout his early childhood.

“That was the worst lie, the one that took the most time to get over.”

“Your life has as much meaning as you wish to give it,” said Goldwyn, looking at him with a mix of disapproval and pity. It made him angry – who was this man to judge him?

“You sound like Tomaz,” he growled out, “next you’ll be telling me all about the choices I have.”

“Singing my praises are you?”

Raven jumped at the deep rumbling voice and turned to see Tomaz coming from the house with a large metal kettle and two porcelain cups.

“Tomaz!” Goldwyn called, looking pleased. “Thank you for remembering the
kaf.
Life would be quite unendurable without it.”

“It’s nice and hot too, so drink it quick,” said the giant, quite hospitably. He was a man of two extremes - unequivocally savage to his enemies and unendingly kind to his friends.
 
After laying down his burden, he left, giving Raven a small smile of encouragement as he did. A smile that said the giant knew what was he was going through.

Not only has he gone through this,
Raven realized,
he
told
me about it.

He thought back to when the giant had told him he’d spent his first years of Exile lost in the bottom of a bottle. And then Goldwyn had come to him, despite threats of violence, and somehow taken the hulking mess of a BladeMaster and turned him into Tomaz. The details of what Goldwyn had said had never become known to Raven – the details, for once, had seemed unimportant.

Who is this man?

He looked up once more at Goldwyn, feeling again his calm, effortless life. The man sat across the fire, gazing into the flames, not looking at Raven, giving him a moment of privacy it seemed. The chill night air was quickly going from bracing to biting as true night began to settle and clouds began to roll in over the looming silhouettes of the surrounding mountain tops. The cold didn’t bother Raven as much as it might have once; he had become accustom to living rough and had spent many nights trying to find sleep in worse conditions than this. Still, he was glad of the fire.

It was Goldwyn who broke the silence, sipping his steaming cup of black
kaf
as he slid the second toward Raven.

“Why are you here?” he asked. Raven hesitated and then answered with the only thing that came to mind.

“I am here because you invited me to stay,” he said.

The Elder smiled and nodded his head.

“That’s a good place to start I suppose. Why did you accept my invitation?”

“Where I come from it is customary to remain behind if the host requests it. It usually means that the host has …
delicate
, matters he wishes to discuss.”

“Ah yes,” he responded, “Imperial manners, of course. Do you still do a lot of things the way you were taught to by the Visigony?”

“They are to be called Imperial Scholars,” Raven said, suddenly petulant, and not knowing why. Why was he defending the Visigony? He’d never held any affection for them whatsoever.

“As you wish,” Goldwyn said, bowing his head in acquiescence. “Do you still do most things the way the Imperial Scholars taught you?”

“They were not primarily in charge of my lessons in manners,” Raven responded, evading the question.

“So your family taught you.”

“The other Children, yes.”

“The other Children – who are your family. Correct?”

“Yes,” Raven said. He realized he was holding tension throughout his entire body; his shoulders were tight and his hands were gripping the cup of
kaf
so hard he felt like he might break it.

“So the Children, your brothers and sisters, they taught you manners?”

“Among other things.”

“You are now part of the Exiled Kindred though, or so I have been told. Why not give them up? We are much less formal here.”

“Lessons taught by the Children are not easily forgotten,” Raven said harshly, so viciously in fact that he found himself once more snarling at the man. He could feel his upper lip twitching in contempt. What did this man know about it? What did he know about
anything
?

“Why is that?”

“Because they make you fear forgetting the lesson!”

“And why did you love them even as you feared them?”

“Because I had to,” Raven said, anger and frustration pushing his voice lower into a growl as the shameful admission was pulled out of him. And then, to get the conversation off of him, he retorted angrily: “Why do
you
love your family? They aren’t even your blood!”

“I love them because they’re good and noble,” Goldwyn responded without hesitation, softly, kindly. “And because I know that someday either they or I will die. I know that every moment here may be my last, every moment here may be
your
last, or my daughter’s last or my son’s last. Every moment is a little death. And so, I love them, as hard and as much as I can, in the brief time we have together. Why do you love your Mother?”

“It’s impossible
not
to love the Empress,” Raven said, telling himself the man’s answer hadn’t touched him, trying hard to make himself as unfeeling as a stone. “You’ve never been near her … never been her Child. You can’t help but believe in Her divinity when you stand next to Her. She’s been alive for a thousand years, and in all that time has gained power and beauty … She is the embodiment of perfection.”

“I decided long ago not to believe in gods,” Goldwyn said abruptly, looking away as if the conversation had suddenly become less interesting.

“You only say that because you have never seen Her. She has such power as you cannot imagine – She is terrifying beyond belief, and can reweave the very fabric of reality.”

“No, that’s not why I say it,” Goldwyn said, completely unimpressed. “I say it because I have two very clear choices before me: I can believe that this Immortal Empress, this strange being clothed in terrible might and power, this
Mother
that uses men and women for her own ends, is sent by the Gods to rule over me and my children, or, I can believe that a misguided woman, granted terrible might and power long ago, has been driven insane by a world that, for all her effort, she cannot truly control. Which seems more likely to you?”

What seemed most likely to Raven at that moment was that the two of them would be struck dead on the spot. Having lived so long with men and women that revered the name of the Empress and glorified everything and everyone She touched, he felt certain that the very sky above them would come crashing down at the utterance of such blasphemy, at the idea that the Empress might just be a woman.