Page 130 of A Drop of Corruption

Again, I balked, feeling like the words swilling in my mouth were howlingly mad. “I…I think Pyktis—or the man who came to the Shroud claiming to be Pyktis, ma’am…”

“Yes?” purred Ana.

“I think he is not Rathras at all,” I said. “I think he isYarrow.And not just Yarrow—I think he is a child of the Yarrow court. Perhaps a child of King Lalaca himself. That, or…or he believes himself to be these things.”

There was a silence, broken only by the afternoon breeze sweeping across the shore outside. Thelenai turned to stare at me, her mouth hanging open in shock.

“What?” said Malo, astonished.

“That is not possible,” said Thelenai.

“Oh, I surmise the same,” said Ana mildly. “And I, for one, am tempted to conclude that it is more than belief! I think Sunus Pyktisisthe child of the dead king of Yarrow. And I think he has known this for all his life.”

“But…no!” said Malo. “That’s the maddest thing I’ve ever heard! Surely he just…just happened to…”

“Happenedto keep these ancestral totems of the Yarrow regent?” asked Ana. “Happenedto build a shrine to their kings in secret?Happenedto perpetrate an attack on the Shroud?Happenedto assist the High City in undermining the Empire for the past two years? No. No, no, that is all too much coincidence for me.”

“No,” said Thelenai faintly. “Still, I…I cannot…”

“Think, all of you,” said Ana. “Long have we wondered how Pyktis seemed to possess such a mastery over Yarrow culture. How does he know the language, and the court? How does he know about the High City atall,when most imperials are utterly ignorant of it? The answer, though improbable, is simple. Pyktis is part of the culture, because he is thechildof the king. For the thing he cherished most was a piece ofjewelry, yes? A silver necklace, just like those given to countless princes before him.”

“That just can’t be so!” cried Malo. “There alreadyisa prince of Yarrow! Though we know he is a weak fool, Prince Camak is the one and only prince of the realm!”

“True, but it is whatPyktisbelieves that matters!” said Ana. “And I think he believed he was heir—the true prince, living in secret.”

“I still cannot accept this!” said Thelenai. “It is sheer insanity!”

“Is it?” said Ana coyly. “The king has over two hundred children. Chance alone suggests it’s possible for some of them to wind up in very unusual places, yes?”

“But we check all of our Apoths most rigorously!” cried Thelenai. “How could we not have learned this man was Yarrow? He is not just of Rathras folk, he isfromRathras! How could he have fabricated his entire history, and performed well enough in his duties to get placed on the Shroud?”

“I think the answer there is that much of his history wasnotfabricated!” Ana answered. “Din—when I reviewed the files on Pyktis, I mentioned a note about his birth year. Kindly recount it for me!”

My eyes quivered, and I quoted in her own accent: “The only unusual thing I saw was a note from a Rathras registrar stating he thought the boy’s birth year was inaccurate, for he seemed far older than the listed birth year…”

Malo shuddered. “How strange it is to hear her speech come from your lips…”

“But you both see what it suggests, do you not?” asked Ana. “For I believe when he was born to his Rathras mother in the High City, Pyktis was taken away—probably by his mother, or the king’s servants—and formally registered in the Rathras canton. That accounts for the confusion over his birth year! And I think there, in that distant place, he was raised to betwo things at once.A hardworking, brilliant student in the school of Apoths who could pass as a Rathras native…and then, when he was with his intimate family, he was a secret prince of a faraway, wondrous realm, whose kingly father awaited his return. Each night they poured enchanting stories in hisears, and he forged the whole of his being for one purpose.” She tutted her tongue. “I did say at the start of our search that he seemed like a man on a mission…yet even I did not expect this.”

“But what mission could this have been?” asked Thelenai. “Why make one’s entire life into this story?”

Though I did not mean to, I found myself reciting something Darhi had said to me, muttering: “The children and relations of the king are mere tools to his ancestry. If the king asked us to throw down our lives, we would do so…”

Ana tipped her head to me. “Thank you, Din—for there it is! I believe his father the king plotted this long ago—a plot to place a Yarrow loyalist deep within the Empire’s workings here, with the eventual goal ofsabotagingthe Shroud itself! He would use one of his own children to stab at its heart, like marring the heartwood of a great tree. With this act, he would damage the Empire most terribly, and unravel its influence over his kingdom.” She raised her blindfolded eyes to the ceiling. “It was, I think, a suicidal mission. Pyktis himself said his father expected him to die on the Shroud, after all. Yet perhaps his will failed him, for he saved not only those he loved but his own life. Perhaps that sentimental impulse is what saved the Shroud, as well.”

“Yet I wonder, ma’am…why did Darhi appear ignorant of this, ma’am?” I asked. “We know now he was Pyktis’s agent, and we also know he was practically running the realm. Surely he would have discovered this plot?”

“But you forget that the king was terribly aged and addled by Darhi’s time, Din!” said Ana. “So much so that I think the kingforgothe’d ever put such a secret plan in place to begin with, thirty-some years ago! Thus Sunus Pyktis washed ashore, a prince who’d not only failed in his one and only duty, but a princecompletely forgottenby the realm he’d lived to serve! A rather tragic thing, is it not? He returned to his country as a man with no nation and no identity to call his own. So he invented a new one—the pale king, lord of the canals.”

A dreadful silence fell over us as we absorbed this.

“Though all my reason fights this,” said Malo reluctantly, “I must admit, it hangs, though horribly.”

“But even if we know this mad truth,” said Thelenai, “how shall it help us now? We do not know where Pyktis is, nor where we can find those stolen reagents that can bring down the Shroud!”

“Yet there is one person remaining who might,” said Ana. “Satrap Darhi. He knows much that I wish to know.”

“But do you have any clue where he might be?” cried Thelenai.