The Chosen Prince Part 21

THE SOFT GRAY OF dawn has given way to the cool light of early morning, but inside the temple it is dark, lit only by the small, flickering lamp at the feet of Athene. Teo is just a shape tucked in close to the wall. He looks strangely small and childlike curled up that way, his long legs drawn against his chest, his long arms wrapped around them, his head bent over to complete the circle.

Aria is sick with disappointment. Teo was supposed to wait for her. They'd talk, and comfort each other, and then decide together what to do next, how to recapture the perfect life they'd had before all those wretched people came and ruined everything.

Instead, he's turned his back on her and gone to sleep.

She crawls over and lies beside him, curled up too, her back against his. She feels the warmth of his body, feels the slight movement as he breathes. It almost helps, but it's not nearly enough. She wants him to wake and talk to her. She wants her father to come back and make everything all right. She wants things to be as they were. She wants, and wants, and wants. But Teo doesn't move, Claudio doesn't come, and she is left alone with her grief and her anger-and maybe also a touch of shame. After a while she crawls back to her own pallet and pulls the blanket over her head.

How long it is before Claudio returns, Aria doesn't know. She's asleep when he comes in. He brushes against her knee as he sits down, waking her. She peers out from behind the blanket.

He has lit the other lamp. Now he leans against the wall, drags in a deep breath, and lets it out in a rush. It's the sound of total exhaustion. He looks at Aria with sober eyes, his head tipped down, his expression unreadable.

"You smell of smoke," she says.

"I know. Is Teo asleep?"

"It's hard to tell."

He shoots her an odd look. "How long has he been like that?"

"The whole time."

Claudio leans over and gives Teo's shoulder a gentle shake. "Son? I need you to sit up now and talk to me."

Teo curls up tighter.

"Teo!" Claudio's manner strikes Aria as uncommonly lacking in tenderness. But then, she's had no experience with firmness. "That's enough. Sit up now."

Teo also hears the edge in his father's voice. Slowly he unwraps himself and settles into a sitting position. He looks awful. He looks like an old person inhabiting the body of a child. In the lamplight his eyes are enormous and sad.

"I can only imagine how hard that was for you," Claudio begins. "It was painful just to watch it. But there is more to this matter than you could possibly know. And now we must discuss it."

"I already know," he says, covering his mouth with his hand, his eyes wide with terror.

"I don't think you do."

"I heard. Oh, Papa, I didn't mean to do it. I was just . . ."

"Teo, child-stop! What did you hear? What do you think you have done?"

"I killed him!"

"No."

"Yes. I heard you say it, that he was dead."

"Then you misunderstood. It had nothing to do with you at all."

"Who was it then?" Aria asks. "Who died, if not Alexos?" She had reached the same conclusion.

"While we were in the prison camp, the men held a hasty trial and found Pyratos guilty. They killed him on the spot . . . all of them, together, a wound from every man. It was a dreadful thing to behold." He shudders, lets out a ragged breath. "We burned his body this morning. That's the smoke you smelled."

"But why were you so angry? I never heard you like that before. You were screaming!"

"He was a man, Aria, not much over thirty years of age. And now he is nothing but ashes, and bone, and blood on the gra.s.s. Don't you find that disturbing?"

"He tried to kill you."

"Yes. And tonight he was exposed and publicly humiliated, ridiculed by his men, and his crown was taken from him. I thought that was sufficient. I'm not a tyrant. I didn't want his blood on my hands. So I forgave him. You and everyone else who was there saw me do it. My intention was perfectly clear. I hoped to make a new beginning."

"Pyratos was a monster, Papa!"

"Yes. But think, daughter: he tries to kill me, then his men kill him. Am I now to kill those men for killing him? Where will it end?"

Aria looks down and studies her fingernails.

"What about Alexos?" Teo asks.

"He is bruised and battered, but very much alive."

Teo droops with relief. "I'm glad," he says.

Claudio sits in silence for a long while, thinking. He seems very far away. "Do you remember the story of Arcoferra, how it fell from grace and was punished by the G.o.ds?"

Aria can't imagine why he's bringing that up now. The children always found it a particularly unpleasant story: Zeus tormenting generation after generation of innocent people for a crime committed so long ago that n.o.body even remembers what it was. They did like the part about Athene, though, and how she promised to send a champion to deliver them someday.

"Well, that story is true. You will recall that Zeus split the country into two warring states. Alexos is the king of Arcos. I am now the king of Ferra. Technically, that makes us enemies."

Ah, she thinks. I see where he's going.

"I would not relish going home to pursue a war against Teo's brother. But I don't think I shall have to; because I finally understand why Athene put us in danger after so many years of tender care, why she brought Pyratos and Alexos here. This is the long-awaited moment. The G.o.ddess has fulfilled her promise and chosen her champion. Actually, it seems she has chosen three."

"Do you know who they are?"

"I do. Alexos was the first."

Teo sucks in breath.

"That shocks you, I know, considering what he did. But Athene is subtle in her ways. We must accept that she is wiser than any mortal and always has her reasons."

"What about the other two?"

"I am getting to that. Aria, on the day you were born I took you to the great temple of Athene in Ferra and did your augury myself. It was a strange thing to do; the tradition has always been that the champion would be a prince-and not just any prince, but the heir to one of the two thrones. You were neither prince nor heir, and a girl besides. But I had such a strong compulsion to do it, I thought it must be the will of Athene. And I was right: you were revealed to be the chosen one."

Aria cannot speak. She tries, but nothing comes out.

"I didn't know about Alexos then. I only heard this morning."

"Heard how?"

"Suliman told me, the physician. And now I see the pattern. The G.o.ddess didn't bring us to this beautiful island only to save our lives. This sweet place, this paradise, is where she wanted her champion to grow and learn. But there's more.

"Then you came, Teo. And that night, after Aria had gone back to bed, I carried you here to the temple. I laid you, sleeping, on the floor-right there, at the feet of Athene-and performed your augury. I didn't have any proper amulets, so I used common stones. I did this, as with Aria before you, because I felt compelled to do it.

"Teo-you, too, grasped the amulet for greatness. You are both her champions, on which she rests her hopes for the future of the poor, suffering mortals over whom she has watched these many years."

They look at each other, then turn as one to stare at their father.

"By choosing her champions, she has committed herself. It means that Zeus and the whole pantheon of G.o.ds have consented to hear our plea. Now you must play your parts."

"What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know, but Athene does, and she will leave nothing to chance. a.s.sume from now on that everything that happens is part of her plan. And on that note, the court physician of Arcos is waiting outside to speak with Teo."

"He's been waiting all this time?"

"He's a very patient man. And as I said, a.s.suming that nothing happens by chance, there must be a reason he is here. Shall we let him in?"

Suliman ducks under the low doorway as he comes into the temple. He's a striking figure-exotic, regal, dark.

"May I sit?" He addresses Teo, who nods.

"Thank you." Suliman arranges himself on the floor, making sure that the hem of his long robe covers his feet. He takes particular care with this, as if it was something learned in childhood, an important matter of courtesy. In his hand he holds a wreath of spring-green vines, but he sets it in his lap for now and makes no reference to it.

"Prince Matteo," he begins, "I want to a.s.sure you that your brother did not send me here to ask your forgiveness. He knows that is not possible. But there is something he wants me to tell you, because he thinks it might ease your mind. Equally important, he wishes to right a grievous wrong. That is why I've come. Will you hear me?"

"I've seen you before," Teo says, squinting at the physician as he tries to remember. "Before you came to the island, I mean. Back in my old life."

"Yes, we've met before."

"You went in and out of a room. Someone inside was very ill."

"Alexos had the summer sickness, a very dread disease. I was taking care of him. You waited outside his room every afternoon for weeks. You hid behind a chest."

"And a beautiful lady talked to me. She seemed to think I was a mouse."

Suliman almost smiles. "Yes. We pretended not to see you. But it raised our spirits that you came every day. You were such a sweet child-I expect you still are. There was no one in the palace who did not love you."

Teo resists the obvious reply.

Suliman notes this and says it again. "No one, Teo, from the sweepers to the chancellor himself. But none loved you half so much as your brother did. And he wants you to know that never for a moment did he stop loving you. What he did was unspeakable; it was an act of madness, born of despair. And when he came to himself and understood that he'd sent you to your death, he wanted to join you there. Indeed, he tried very hard to die."

"Why didn't he, then?"

"Athene wouldn't allow it. He belongs to her, you see."

"Her champion."

"Yes. And since living was more painful than a merciful death, he embraced it as a penance. But I have not come here to plead your brother's case. I will say no more about it. I will only relay his message: that you did not deserve what he did to you. You didn't provoke it or cause it in any way. And even in his moment of madness, Alexos never stopped loving you; he never wished you harm. He believes you to be the finest creature the G.o.ds ever made."

Teo stares at Suliman as if feeding off his words. Aria finds it terribly unnerving; she reaches out to touch him, but Claudio stops her.

"I remember," Teo says.

"Now, here is the second thing. At the time this all happened, Alexos had just recovered from his illness. As you saw this morning, it resulted in the paralysis of his legs. He would never again be the boy he was, the runner with wings on his heels. It was only after great effort that he regained the strength to walk as he does now-haltingly, with the help of a brace and a cane. And your father, King Ektor, already displeased with him for having failed to win an important race, though Alexos was severely ill at the time-"

"I remember that too," Teo says, as if in a trance, the memories flowing back one after the other. "The race for the laurel crown. It was horrible. I thought for a moment he was going to die; everyone did."

"Just so. And Ektor, stung by his son's conspicuous and public failure, and holding certain opinions on the subject of what a king should be-that is to say, a warrior-decided that Alexos was no longer fit to rule. So he changed the terms of succession in your favor. You were meant to inherit the throne upon his death."

Now he picks up the wreath but doesn't yet hand it to Teo.

"Your brother has worn a kingly crown only once in his life, on the day of his coronation. Since then it has been kept in the treasury. As he doesn't have it with him, he can't give it to you now. So Peles made this for him; it's a symbol of that which is yet to come. In this way Alexos formally acknowledges that you are the king of Arcos."

Teo takes the wreath and studies it with a faraway expression.

"Alexos will affirm this publicly, in the presence of everyone on the island, and upon your return to Arcos, to all who need to hear it. Then he will leave the royal city and live in seclusion elsewhere. You will never have to see him again.

"I'm sure it is overwhelming for you, becoming king at such a tender age. But there are wise counselors in Arcos, the same ones who helped Alexos after Ektor died. They are good men, Teo. They will be at your side to advise you for as long as you need them. If I can be of any help, you have only to ask."

He is finished now. He folds his hands and waits.

Teo fiddles with the wreath, tugging at a leaf, accidentally pulling it off. "But how could he do what he did if he loved me?"

"He was broken. That's the best answer I can give."

"What broke him?"

"A lifetime of impossible expectations, rejection by his father, loneliness, failure, humiliation, sickness, the ruin of his body, the loss of his life's purpose-all by the time he was twelve." He pauses, considering whether to say more, then goes ahead. "On that same terrible day, Alexos heard his father speaking with his chancellor. Ektor said that it would have been better if Alexos had died than to be as he is now."

Teo shivers, feeling it.

"He's cobbled himself back together because duty demanded it-though I'm not sure he could have done it if Athene hadn't sent him dreams of you, of Claudio and Aria, here on this beautiful island. He took it for a blessed afterlife and it comforted him enough that he was able to go on. But he is still broken."

There is silence now.

"Tell me again," Teo says to Suliman after a while.

"Which part?"

"About the breaking."

"Well, there is an old saying in my country, about camels. You will not have seen one, but they are remarkable creatures, taller than a horse with great humps on their backs. They are strong, able to carry tremendous loads, and they can go on carrying them for days and days over the scorching desert sands without eating or drinking anything at all. But there's a limit even to what a camel can bear. So we say, 'one straw too many will break his back.'"

"And the one straw too many?"