Chapter 208 The Wheelchair

A first King's Birth-Feast. In the great hall of the Supreme Hall, two long tables ringed with the royal kin and kinfolk. At the men's table, where the King sat at the head, Prince Ambrose had the seat at the King's left — and no sooner did he see Lora rise from the women's table and turn toward the Dowager Lady Elena than he rose too. Leon caught Lora's rising from the corner of his eye, and was mildly puzzled by it; then Ambrose rose, and Leon quietly laid down his knife. Where Leon went in caution, the King went in cold: one level glance at Ambrose. Of late, again and again, Voss had dropped hints in his ear — that Ambrose kept company with Wyse, captain of the Right Guard. He had stripped Leon of his title at the year's opening on a suspicion of rebellion; he had no wish to fall on the eighth at year's end with the same charge in his mouth. But the Eighth had become a thorn run into his heart, and there it stayed. "Your Majesty — the sixth begs leave to withdraw a moment, to the privy. With the legs as they are, every matter must go through other hands—" Leon wasn't half through before the King waved him off. His eyes were still on Ambrose; he had no leisure for Leon. Ambrose had never seen the glance. Since Leon was stripped of rank, the King's brothers were come down to himself and Prince Ian. Ian was mad for the alchemist's art — shut up all day with his alchemists — and Ambrose himself had settled into the capital's finished playboy-prince. So it stood to reason, in his own arithmetic, that the chasing of women and his wine-flushed life were one and the same entry. But this once, for the Book's sake, he had stretched out his hand too fast — and put the King out of countenance: You have designs on Lora? The Household reports that Prince Jasper has only just entered the girl on his roll. She has only just saved Truffle for the Queen Mother — saved my face for me. And you mean to climb straight up that pole — go cozening a girl new-come to the capital, who knows nothing of the world. You may be sure I will not have it so. Three brothers, each with his own mind in his breast — and, by one of those chances that are no chance, all three minds bearing on the same woman: Lora von Odenheim. At the head of the women's table sat the Queen Mother, the Dowager Ladies Theodora and Elena to right and left of her. The Dowager Lady Elena had beckoned Lora to her side, and Ambrose arrived at the same moment: "Mother — your chill is scarce off you. Let the wine be." He pointed at the cup before the Dowager Lady. She smiled: "Had I known you were coming over, I'd never have called Lora." Lora, arrived, dropped her curtsy: "What would Your Grace of me?" "I was out at the Pure-Thought Hall watching the polo. Bring me the green glass cup the King gave me — it lies there. My maid has gone for my medicine, and there's no one else I'd trust with it. Would you run that errand for me?" The Dowager Lady finished, glanced at Ambrose, and added: "And since Rowan is here — go along with Lora. The road's duller with two." Lora gave one look at Ambrose's smiling face and nearly lost her supper over the floor: Mother and son — that little play of yours could not be more bare! She shot a glance at the Queen Mother. But for this moment, the Dowager Lady's sending Lora off for the glass cup truly stood at no fault. The Dowager Lady lodged at the Serene Palace, where her hall ran thick with company, and a maid might bring only the one. In that hall, princesses excepted, Lora was the youngest soul present — and sending her to fetch back, for a honored elder, the cup the King's own hand had given, was no slight. It was a favor, if you liked — a thing to be thankful for. The Queen Mother said nothing, so the errand was Lora's to carry. She swept her eyes across the far table — and seemed not to find Leon in it. Out of the Supreme Hall, Ambrose fell to talking at once: "Your cousin hasn't even congratulated you to your face yet. Never knew you had medicine in you." "I wasn't the one whelped the pups — what's to congratulate? If congratulations are owing, they're owing to the Queen Mother. And medicine's nothing to do with me either — I stood at the vets' elbows and cheered, no more." Ambrose laughed: "And here I'd thought you didn't like talking to me. So it isn't so." Lora let that one go by. "There's no end of lively places in the capital — and the little cousin hasn't seen one of them. Whatever place you'd like, your cousin can take you there. And yesterday's bargain stands — you're to be made known to my sisters. Today was all hurry and confusion; when we go back—" The light came up in Lora's eyes — but not from anything Ambrose was saying. She had caught sight of Leon, waiting alone by the way. She went forward at speed: "Cousin — why are you out here alone? Where's the guard who pushes your chair?" Leon smiled at her: "It cooled off out here — he's gone back for my cloak. And where is the little cousin bound?" "To the Pure-Thought Hall — an errand for the Dowager Lady." "Oh? Ours is the same road. Or — little cousin, would you push me? I can't do it myself." The two of them fell to talking back and forth as if Ambrose were so much roadside scenery. Ambrose, holding his breath in a bag, stepped up too: "Brother — let me push you." His hand had not yet touched the chair when, out of the reed tube at the very edge of the backrest, there shot a stream of black water — square into his face. Ambrose gave a shriek. The story had gone round, that Leon, crippled and fearing harm, had rigged his chair through with engines — and what if this black water was some burning poison? Then my face— It was all Lora could do in the world to hold her laugh down. She snatched up the cloth Leon kept inside the chair for wiping the wheels, and set to scrubbing him with it, every which way: "Ah — how does it come to squirt ink? Look at your face, your clothes, the whole of you covered — what's to be done about the breach of manners..." Ink? Well — thank heaven. No scarring, then. Wait — what? His engine squirts ink? Leon turned his face to the wrecked Ambrose and laughed: "Before the chair came into the palace it went in for inspection, and every engine on it was taken off. The City Watch poured ink into the tubes, to be sure there was no poison in them — and I'd guess they never poured it back out. Brother — count your blessings. Had it been the original poison, you'd be going one-eyed out of this." "Th-that vicious..." Ambrose had swallowed a dumb loss, his heart pumping fright for nothing. Lora's rag had smeared the ink across half his face, and his robe was past saving. Nothing for it but to go change — he could only salute: "My lord — Lora — I'm off to change my clothes." "Go, go." Leon called after him: "I'll make you good with a robe of the same cloth — don't take it to heart." Corbin Tate, commander of the City Watch, who had been following some way behind, turned in haste and went back to the Supreme Hall. He bent to the King's ear, and there was fear in what he said: "Your Majesty — the ink in that chair: it was we who poured it in, at the inspection of the engines, to make sure there was no poison in them. If His Highness Prince Ambrose comes hunting trouble with the City Watch—" The King had been holding his forehead and laughing for a good while. He straightened his face by main strength, and waved it off: "No matter, no matter — you were executing my own orders; he won't dare touch you. Go — ask the sixth whether he's another of these chairs to spare. Get me one too. The next one who won't hear reason — I'll squirt him in the face!" Ambrose gone, Lora pushed Leon slowly along the edge of the ball grounds. Between the Supreme Hall and the Pure-Thought Hall lay a great sweep of open ground — room and to spare for football or polo. The October sun had lost its heat, but it gilded everything it touched, and laid a kind of high, thin ease over the day — clouds far, sky rinsed clean. "Did you know Ambrose would come round behind your chair?" "I didn't. There's a tube in the back crosspiece too. Lyle said it would serve to give people a fright." Leon smiled, lightly. "Only I'm afraid, after one showing-off like this, the chair itself won't survive." "Then what? Without the chair, aren't you stuck?" Lora's brows knotted. "And what matter if the chair doesn't survive — so long as I keep you." Leon lifted his hand and laid it over Lora's small one on the chair's handle. And went on: "Today's play is about to open. Because of the chair — I've changed my plan, and on the spot." "Changed it? The goods are already swapped — how can it still change?" Lora couldn't follow it. The two of them had come before the Pure-Thought Hall, and Linn came up at the run, a hooded cloak over his arm. "You go in for the thing — Linn goes in with you." Leon had no mind to spend the time on those steps. And this was the palace besides — go in as they might, what were the two of them going to do in there? What he needed now was to set the whole of what followed back into order. If the chair took the King's fancy — then he, for his part, had got himself a reason to stand up... And a door to stand through.

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