Fugitive Prince by Janny Wurts

steel, the problem’s not simple or straightforward. Arithon has changed. The campaign brought to ruin at Dier Kenton Vale left him marked, sometimes too deeply to reach. You don’t want to tangle with his temper.”
    But that had been true far and long before the devastating war in Vastmark. Every one of Jieret’s ancestors had lived with the peril of challenging s’Ffalenn royalty head-on. The clan chief probed, “You haven’t mentioned the Havens.”
    A sudden, fierce gust slapped the sailcloth overhead. Dakar flinched. Brown eyes slid away in discomfort. “Your war captain, Caolle, saw everything.”
    Jieret stared back in rancorous bitterness. “My war captain? Who came back to us changed? He resigned his post, did you know that? Said he would lift a sword for nothing else except to train our young scouts sharper skills. But no more to kill. He won’t say what tookplace.” Jieret paused, snorted through the high bridge of his nose in mixed admiration and disgust. “For stubborn, close secrets, a clam’s less lockjawed than Caolle.”
    Beyond stiff disquiet, the wind raked the night, deepened by clouds until the stars at the zenith were blackened. Dakar raised no smile as, in boisterous consternation, the sailhands scurried for shelter. His gaze tracked the broken, white line of the breakers creaming the reefs far below. Each crest came unraveled in driven, wild splendor against shores nothing like another blood-soaked shingle he wished he could raze out of memory.
    He said softly, “If Caolle can’t speak, then neither will I. Trust my word. What went wrong between the Havens and the clash with Lysaer’s war host lies beyond spoken words to explain. Hear advice from a friend. Don’t ask your prince. I beg you, keep clear and don’t pry. Let Arithon explain if he chooses.”
    “If he’s still alive, and not roasted for sorcery on some mayor’s pile of lit faggots.” Jieret shot out a fist and grabbed the stout spellbinder by the collar. “By Ath, prophet! Where my prince is concerned, I’m more than a friend. We’re bloodbond! I’ve twice risked my life to guard his mind from Desh-thiere’s curse.” Pain, naked and deep as a canker burst through. “Dharkaron avenge!” cried Jieret. “I’ve drawn his very blood to spare his sanity. What happened on that shoreline, in his right mind or not, could scarcely come to surprise me.”
    Strangely uncowed by the clansman’s fierce strength, Dakar tore away. “It’s not what you could bear, nor what I could!” Just anguish blazed through and reclothed his rumpled dignity. “Nor do you question a man’s conscience alone, but a masterbard’s empathy turned under siege by the Fellowship’s imposed royal gift of compassion. Let Arithon be, if you have any mercy.”
    Hemmed in by the howling descent of the squall line, Earl Jieret went obstinate to the bone. “That one thing I can’t do. In this, I am not my own master, but the oathsworn caithdein of Rathain. I am the realm’s conscience in matters of the law! And Lysaer’s charges of dark sorcery are too weighty to drop without question or inquiry.”
    The tempest broke over the cliff top. Wind screamed, and the billowed, dry dust became trampled under the cloudburst. The sky above Corith split apart in actinic tangles of lightning. For a drawn span of minutes, thunder slammed through the old fortress. Jieret hung waiting, racked to naked appeal; he first presumed Dakar had left him. Against the white gush of the leaks through the sailcloth, his agonized words had only the storm’s voice for answer.
    Then from the tempestuous wail of the elements, the Mad Prophetserved his opinion. “Well thank Ath, it’s going to be you. Your liege would mangle anyone else who challenged his integrity this time.”
    “How nicely opportune,” a silvery, smooth voice issued unbidden from the rain. “I can see I’ve returned just in time to play my own part in the satire.”
    Dakar gasped an oath, and