“It was a little box containing akses, which was placed under my bed. The box was flimsy enough that the very action of lying on the bed would break the box and release the akses. And of course you all know how long I would have remained alive after that, since they are drawn to body heat.”
“But how did you defeat them?” someone asked.
“I didn’t,” said Rigg. “I avoided them. As far as I know, they’re still there. I would advise sealing the door to the room and leaving them alone. They’re bound to starve to death within a few weeks, especially if the room is kept warm. It’s very tricky trying to dispose of them any other way. There are gases that will immobilize them—but it takes time for such gases to act, and in the meantime whoever brings the gas near them runs the risk of one of the akses taking a flying leap and winning the engagement preemptively.”
“And such creatures were left in your room?” Flacommo said, incredulous. “How did you detect them?”
“Having been warned that there are those who still hate the royal family, one of them having made an attempt on my life during the voyage here, I’ve become cautious. I look under beds.” Rigg hoped that no one questioned Long, since he knew perfectly well that Rigg had not even entered the room, let alone bent down to peer under the bed.
“Thank the Wandering Saint for that!” said Flacommo, and many at the table agreed.
Rigg turned to his mother, who did not seem alarmed at all, but merely regarded him between bites of her breakfast porridge—for she ate much simpler fare than any of the others at table. “Lady Mother,” he said, “I’m not sure how to take this incident. I’m really quite certain that I was not sentenced to such a death merely because I’m a royal—after all, the assassins could have killed any royal in the house, and yet they targeted only me.”
She took another bite.
“I can think of two reasons why I would be singled out. One is that my presence destabilizes the arrangement under which you and my sister have lived under the protection of such flunkies of the Revolutionary Council as our gracious host Flacommo. In which case it might be the Council itself, or some faction of it, that wants me dead. On the other hand, I’m a male, and ever since my great-grandmother killed all the males of the royal family and made it a law that only females of the family could rule, there have been those who have eagerly awaited the birth of a male heir, hoping he would live long enough to strike down that old decree and reestablish an emperor rather than an empress.”
“If there are any such people,” Mother said mildly, “I doubt they’d try to kill you.”
“Probably not,” said Rigg. “Ever since I learned of my true identity, or at least the possibility of it, I have
wondered who it was that kidnapped me and carried me away from my mother and father and sister. One possibility was that I was taken by members of the faction that wants a male heir restored to the throne. But if that’s so, why wasn’t I trained and indoctrinated to fulfil that role? Why wasn’t I raised to be a king? Because I can assure you, I never had a breath of a hint that I had any connection with royalty, or any great destiny to fulfil. So I have to conclude that the man who raised me was not of that faction.”
Mother said nothing, but smiled slightly.
“Still, you never know what people so insane they would seek the restoration of the royal house might do—surely the ones who want to restore the male line are the craziest of them all.”
“There are so many crazy people in the world,” said Mother. “Some who are crazy and remain silent, and some who in their madness keep talking and talking, annoying everybody.”
“I understand your rebuke, Mother, but I really am trying to learn how things stand, so I can guess where danger might come from.”
“It can come from anywhere,” she said sweetly. “It can come from everywhere at once.”
“I simply wondered if the attempt to kill me came from the faction that supports the restoration of the female line, and regards the existence of the male heir as a great danger. That faction would have been waiting all these years for me to surface again, so I could be killed, in obedience to great-grandmother Aptica Sessamin’s edict.”
“That law was rescinded by the Revolutionary Council,” said Flacommo. “Most people have forgotten it ever existed.”
“But since the law was never rescinded by the Tent of Light,” said Rigg, “there are people insane enough to think that it’s still the law, and that killing me would be a noble act. I say this because the man who tried to kill me on my way here was exactly that kind of madman.”
“Your words dance around like those of the carefulest courtier,” said Mother. “It’s hard to believe you weren’t raised with royalty in mind.”
“The man I called Father taught me to think skeptically and curiously, that’s all. And to say what I think. And he always said, ‘If you want to know something, then ask somebody who already knows it.’ So I ask you, Mother, two questions. First, did you and my real father send me away as an infant in order to protect me from such enemies? Or was I stolen away by somebody else who thought I needed to be protected from you?”
Dead silence in the room. Mother stopped moving, her hand hovering in midair as oat porridge dripped in clumps from her tilted spoon.
Rigg was quite aware of the impression he had made, and pushed it further. “Let me make the question even simpler. Mother, is it your desire that I die? Because if it is, I’ll stop trying to save myself and let the next attempt on my life succeed. I have no desire to make you unhappy by coming home to you after all these years.”
She moved again, setting the spoon back into her bowl. “I am grieved that you could ask such a question.”
“And I am grieved,” said Rigg, “that you decline to answer it.”
“I will answer it, though the question itself torments me. I had nothing to do with your being spirited away. I believed you had been stolen by those who wanted you dead, and assumed they had killed you. I grieved for you every day for the first few years, and as often as I thought of you since then—which was often. I have shed thousands of tears for you. And when I learned that you might be alive I scarcely dared believe that you would be allowed to come to me. Even when you arrived, I tried to behave in such a way as to keep anyone from becoming alarmed at the strength and depth of my rejoicing. I’m glad that you recognize that you are in grave danger; I’m grateful that you were raised to be careful enough not to fall into the trap laid for you. But I’m bitterly disappointed that you would think I might have been behind the laying of it.”
“I don’t know you, Mother,” said Rigg. “I know only what is said of the royal family, and you can imagine that little of it is kind. I was well taught in history, and I know of the hundreds of times that members of various ruling houses slaughtered each other in pursuit of power, or out of fear of assassination or civil war. But hearing your words and seeing your face as you said them, and knowing something of the constraints under which you live here, I am satisfied that you are my loving mother indeed. Please forgive me for asking, for you know I had no choice but to ask. And thank you for answering at all, and even more for answering as you did.”
Rigg rose from his seat and knelt beside his mother’s chair, as she turned to face him. There was consternation from many of the onlookers, for it was illegal to bow to a royal, and Mother herself began to remonstrate with him. But he spoke loudly, letting his voice fly out like a whip, commanding silence. “I kneel to this woman as a son kneels to his mother. The humblest shepherd may kneel like this before his mother. Am I, because my ancestors were royals, forbidden to show my mother the respect that she deserves from me? Hold your tongues—I would rather die than let fear stop me from showing her how much I honor her and love her!”
Those who had risen sat back down. And now as Rigg bent his forehead to touch his mother’s lap, she reached out and stroked his hair, then raised him up a little and embraced him, and wept into his hair, and kissed him, and called him her baby, her little boy, and thanked the Wandering Saint for bringing him back to her from his long sojourn in the wilderness.