“So,” Royce said, “you want us to escape from this prison, kidnap the king, cross the countryside with him in tow while dodging soldiers who I assume might not accept our side of the story, and go to another secret prison so that he can visit an inmate?”Arista did not appear amused. “Either that, or you can be tortured to death in four hours.”“Sounds like a really good plan to me,” Hadrian declared.“Royce?”“I like any plan where I don’t die a horrible death.”

“You’re too visible, Albert,” Hadrian explained. “Can’t afford to have our favorite noble hauled to some dungeon where they cut off your eyelids or pull off your fingernails until you tell them what we’re up to.”“But if they torture me, and I don’t know the plan, how will I save myself?”“I’m sure they’ll believe you after the fourth nail or so,” Royce said with a wicked grin.”

“Wait a minute,” Hadrian said. “Was it a beat-up brown leather notebook?About this big?” He gestured with his hands.“Yes,” the Patriarch said.Arista looked back and forth between them. “How do you know that?”“I know it because I have lived in the Crown Tower,” the Patriarchsaid.“And you?” Arista looked at Hadrian, who hesitated.“Ha-ha! Of course, of course. I knew it!” Cosmos DeLur chuckled andclapped his hands together in single applause while smiling at Hadrian.“Such a wonderfully delightful rumor as that had to be true. That isan exquisite accomplishment.”“You stole it?” Arista asked.“Yes, he did,” the Patriarch declared.“Actually,” Hadrian said, “Royce and I did, but we put it back the next night.”

“What’s going on?” Royce asked as throngs of people suddenly moved toward him from the field and the castle interior.“I mentioned that you saw the thing and now they want to know what it looks like,” Hadrian explained. “What did you think? They were coming to lynch you?”He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy.”“Half empty?” Hadrian chuckled. “Was there ever any drink in that glass?”

“You didn’t really hold back on Braga so Pickering could kill him, did you?” Royce asked after the two were left alone in the hallway.“Of course not. I held off because it’s death for a commoner to kill a noble.”“That’s what I thought.” Royce sounded relieved. “For a minute, I wondered if you’d gone from jumping on the good-deed wagon to leading the whole wagon train.”

“Been meddling, have you?” Royce asked, looking around at the hive of activity.“You must admit they didn’t have much in the way of a defense plan,”Hadrian said, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead.Royce smiled at him. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”