Page 63 of The Prisoner's Throne
“If you had a powerful queen, it would be more possible to support you against the current occupants of the thrones.”
Oak should have known better. “Since I haven’t made myself look as though I would make a competent ruler.”
“Some Folk prefer incompetence. Their desire is for their rulers to have enough power to hold the throne and enough naivete to listen to those who put them there. And your queen exudes both.”
“Oh?” Madoc holding forth about politics is comforting in its familiarity, but it bothers him that Madoc so quickly identified the factions at Court that were up for treachery. It worries Oak how Madoc might respond if Oak ever indicated hewasinterested in becoming High King. He’s concerned that the redcap might prize naivete in Oak as much as any conspirator.
“They will sidle up to your little queen tonight,” his father goes on. “They will introduce themselves and curry her favor. They will attempt to ingratiate themselves with her people and compliment her person. And they will gauge just how much she hates the High King and Queen. I hope her vows were ironclad.”
Oak can’t help recalling the way she told Randalin she might be able to break her vows like she broke a curse.Pull it apart like a cobweb.He doesn’t like thinking how intrigued his father would be by that information. “I better get dressed.”
“I’ll ring the servants,” Madoc says, reaching for his cane and pushing himself to his feet.
“I can manage,” Oak tells his father firmly.
“They ought to clear these platters and bring you some breakfast.” His father is already moving toward the pull beside the door. As with so many things, it is not as though Oakcouldn’tstop him, but it would take so much effort that it doesn’t seem worth doing.
Oak’s family is used to thinking of him as someone who needs to be taken care of. And for all that Madoc knew that Oak was dangerous enough to spring him from the Ice Needle Citadel, he suspects Madoc would be surprised about the prince’s machinations at Court.
Before a servant can be called in to give him help he neither wants nor needs, Oak goes back to his bedroom and hunts through his armoire for something to wear. As soon as he finishes with his father, he will steal a basket of food from the kitchens and go to Wren’s claw-footed cottage, so there’s no need for anything fussy. He chooses a plain woolen green jacket and dark pants that stop at the knee. He’s going to tempt Wren to run wild in Elfhame. Leave their guards behind and politics behind, too. He’s determined to make her laugh. A lot.
A fierce knock on the door brings him out of his bedroom. Despite having gorged the night before, and despite telling his father not to bother summoning more food, his stomach growls. Probably he has some meals to catch up on. Possibly he can take this food and not bother robbing the kitchens.
“Ah,” Madoc says. “That would be your mother.”
Oak gives the redcap a look of betrayal. There would have been no avoiding Oriana for long, but he could have managed a little longer. And his father could have warned him. “What about breakfast?”
“She’ll have brought you something.” He supposes they had some kind of prearranged signal when Madoc was done with Oak—the bell pull, a servant to run and alert her.
With a sigh, the prince opens the door, then moves to one side as his mother sweeps into the room. She has a tray in her hands. On it rests a teapot and some sandwiches.
“You’re not going to marry that girl,” Oriana says, fixing him with a glare. She sets down the tray sharply, ignoring the loud sound of it hitting the table.
“Careful,” Oak warns.
Madoc rises, leaning heavily on his black cane. “Well, I will leave you two to catching up.” His expression is mild, fond. He is not fleeing conflict. He loves conflict. But perhaps he doesn’t want to be in the position of openly telling Oriana that her priorities do not match his own.
“Mom,” Oak says.
She makes a face. She is dressed in a gown of white and rose, a frothy ruff at her throat and the ends of her sleeves. With her pink eyes and pale skin and petallike wings on her back, she sometimes looked like a flower to him—a snapdragon. “You sound like a mortal. Is it so hard to say in full?”
He sighs.“Mother.”
She presents her cheek to be kissed, then presses the backs of his hands to her lips. “My beauty. My precious child.”
He smiles automatically, but her words hurt. He never before doubted her love for him—she turned her life upside down, even marrying Madoc, for the sake of Oak’s protection. But if that love was something forced on her, some enchantment, then it wasn’t real and he would have to find a way to free her from the burden of it.
“You worried me when you left,” she says. “I know you adore your father, but he wouldn’t want you to risk your life for him.”
Oak bites his tongue to keep from answering that. Not only was Madoc willing to let Oak risk his life, but he was counting on it. Perhaps Oak should be grateful, though. At least he was certain Madoc’s feelings were real—he was far too manipulative to have been manipulated by magic. “Father looks well.”
“Better than he was. Not resting enough, of course.” She looks up at Oak, impatience in her face. Normally, she is rigid about etiquette, but he can tell she’s not interested in small talk now. He’s only surprised that she allowed Madoc and Jude to get at him first. Of course, by buttonholing him after they left, she had the advantage of being able to lecture him as long as she liked without the worry of being interrupted. “Questing I understand, even if I didn’t like the thought of you in danger, but not this. Not offering this girl marriage when she has none of the qualities anyone might look for in a bride.”
“So let me get this straight,” Oak says. “You understand the part where I might have had to kill a lot of people, but you think I chose the wrong girl to kiss?”
Oriana gives him a sharp look, then pours him some tea.
He drinks. The tea is dark and fragrant and almost washes the taste of bitterness from his mouth.
