The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier Page A

sun lending the room a warmth and comfort that was at odds with the general mood, which was dark and rather grim.
    Both the Bastard and the captain looked at Marcos. “How, then?” the captain asked.
    The mage said obliquely, “A woman—or a man, for that matter—can feel guilt when no other would think to lay it at her feet.”
    “What?” said the captain blankly.
    “Oh, come, Galef. Suppose you went to some man’s house somewhere in the City, anyone’s house, and knocked on his door, and told him when he opened it,
I know what you did.
What would he think, this man, a man, we shall say, who has done nothing in particular to warrant your attention? How would he feel?”
    “He would feel guilty,” acknowledged the captain. He looked thoughtful. “Hmmm.”
    “I did not think to accuse the Queen until I saw that she accused herself,” argued the Bastard.
    “Yes, and when you saw in her face that she accused herself, Neill, you with your discerning eyes, you frightened her. But I doubt that she accuses herself of direct guilt. No. Her son went out riding, and did not return. If she had kept him closer, would he not be safe? Her husband left her sitting alone in her private rooms and went to his, and vanished. Is she not at fault? If she had only loved them more, held them more tightly—”
    The Bastard moved a hand. “Enough.”
    “You see,” said Marcos comfortably.
    “I see it could be true.”
    “When the Prince is found, she will forgive herself, and thus you.”
    “
If
he is found.” The Bastard shifted restlessly in his chair. “Where is he?”
    “I have looked into the eyes of every falcon and every wolf and every stag from here to the very edges of the Kingdom,” the mage said drily, “but I have never yet found the Prince looking back at me. Trevennen has looked through every mirror and every window and every fall of light, from the first gray glimmer of dawn to the last soft moments of dusk, but he has found nothing. Russe has looked—”
    “I know all this.”
    “—through every dream and slow reverie of the great trees of the forest, and the little flickering half-felt dreams of the young trees of the hills, and she has found nothing.”
    “He is outside the Kingdom,” Galef said abruptly.
    Marcos looked at him in surprise. “Oh, I hardly think that is likely.”
    “If the Prince were within the Kingdom,” said the captain doggedly, “then the heart of the Kingdom would not be lost. We would only not know where it was.
He
was. Is. If he were dead, the Kingdom would grieve, but it would recover and go on and find some other heart. So the Prince is not dead, but he is not within the Kingdom.”
    The mage steepled his thick fingers and regarded the captain over them, narrow-eyed. “Hmm.”
    The Bastard smiled slowly, and Marcos threw up his hands. “Well, all right, then. It’s possible. The reasoning is sound.”
    “The City in the Lake,” the Bastard suggested.
    “No. The City in the Lake . . . is in some ways the heart of the Kingdom itself. If the Prince were there, he would not be lost, as Galef so cogently put it. Even if no one knew he was there.”
    “Then where?”
    “I don’t quite know,” Marcos answered, and frowned. “It should not be possible to take the heart of the Kingdom out of the Kingdom.”
    The Bastard, regarding him, said nothing, but forcefully.
    “I know,” said the mage. “What
has
occurred is able to occur.”
    “What will you do now?” the Bastard asked.
    “What would you have me do that I have not already done?”
    “Talk to Ellis.”
    Marcos winced. “Have Trevennen talk to her. She doesn’t care for me. You know that.”
    “Trevennen, then. You . . .” The Bastard paused, and finished gently, “Look somewhere you haven’t looked before. Somewhere both within the Kingdom and outside it. Somewhere outside the fall of light and the dream of trees. Find such a place and look there for the Prince.”
    “All right,” said the mage