His Father's Son (Where Shines the Sun Aslant)

[badass_tiger]

Title: His Father's Son
Fandom: Original/Where Shines the Sun Aslant
Characters: Prince Armand of Fleuyan, Hilbert, Solange, Ragnhild, Timo
Summary: After encountering a village that has suffered the aftermath of King Hilbert's invasion for the past 20 years, Prince Armand struggles to come to terms with his father's past and legacy.

The small band of men were in high spirits. They had been travelling for the better part of a month, but now they were only a day's ride away from home, and they greatly anticipated seeing their families once again. For the handsome dark-haired youth who was leader of the party, Prince Armand, his return had the double pleasure of both reporting the news he had received on his travels, and of seeing his parents the king and queen who would undoubtedly be proud of all he had accomplished in the time he had been away from home.

'Armand,' called his companion Henrik, trotting up to them. He had gone ahead to scout the area as, in their enthusiasm, they had decided to take a new path into the woods today. 'There's a village up ahead. They call themselves Copperfeld.'

'A village?' Armand said with surprise. 'I've never heard that name before. Who do they swear fealty to?'

'They have no banners. There are a fair number of buildings but not so many people. Would you like to visit?'

Armand flashed him a bright white smile. 'Of course we will. If they have no king, then they can swear themselves to my father, and we will do all we can to help them.'

His friends agreed, the prince unfurled the banner of his kingdom, and they cantered after Henrik into the village of Copperfeld. As the woods parted and the village appeared in their sights, Armand took the lead.

'Stop! How dare you return here! I'll never let you take anything from us ever again!'

To Armand's shock, a villager ran out in front of them so suddenly that Armand jerked on the reins of his horse to avoid trampling him and nearly rammed into his men behind. The villager brandished only a spade as a weapon, but it was a huge and heavy one that they would all much rather avoid.

'I beg your pardon, man!' Armand shouted. 'We are here to visit you and offer friendship to your village.'

The man didn't seem to have heard. 'Is it not enough for you that you killed four good men and dozens more went hungry after all the food you stole from us? Do you think I've forgotten just because it was twenty years ago?'

'Calm yourself, sir,' said Stellan, one of Armand's men. He descended from his horse and walked towards the man, fearless of his weapon. 'This is Prince Armand. He is 16 years old and has never been to your village. You confuse him for someone else.'

The villager's brow creased and he squinted at Armand. Armand saw that he was an old man, perhaps around the same age as his father, and though he was tall, his body seemed to hang loosely on his frame, as if he had rarely had enough to eat all his life.

'You're right,' the old man said at last. 'Now I see that you are a young man and much smaller than he was. But the colours of your banner are the same, so I thought you were Hilbert the Warlord.'

'What?!' Armand dismounted his horse and hurried forward. 'Hilbert - the Warlord? Hilbert is the name of my father, but I have never heard him referred to by that name!'

'Are you serious, Armand? You must know that your father travelled to these mountains from the sea, and conquered many small villages like these before he arrived to Fleuyan,' said Armand's companion Fredrik.

'Of course I know that! I have heard him called "Hilbert the Conqueror" before, but I thought - that is, the title of "warlord" - such a thing - I mean, everyone calls him "Hilbert the Gentle", for goodness' sake!'

'So you are his son?' the villager cried out. 'Then you're here to finish what he started 20 years ago!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Armand snapped. 'You are mistaken. You must be misremembering - or you are referring to someone else. My father would never take and steal from a poor village, and neither would I!'

Stellan placed a soothing hand on Armand's arm. 'Why don't we give the villagers some food and interview this man? If he is mistaken, we will soon put him to rights.'

'Yes, you're right.' Armand took in a deep breath. As he did so, he noticed that several other villagers, who had perhaps hidden in fear, were now peeking their heads out of their houses for a closer look at the newcomers. 'Sir, I give you my word as a prince that I mean no harm to you or your people. If you are hungry, then we have some food that we can share with you now, and we will return and provide more if you and your village decide to swear fealty to Fleuyan. What is your name?' The old man gave his name as Louis. 'Sir Louis, will you take us to a place where we can be comfortable and provide your people with food?'

The old man was still reluctant, but Armand was persistent, and the villagers of Copperfeld had perked up at the mention of food. As such, the prince and his men were invited to the village public house where the villagers often huddled of an evening, and they began distributing the food they had with them. Louis eyed them suspiciously.

'We are just returning from our travels visiting our friends in allied kingdoms and towns around the mountains,' Armand explained. 'These are all small personal gifts from the likes of Crateron, Edevaryn, and Noburg. It is a relief for the horses to be free of them, to tell the truth, for we are almost home and our saddlebags are still heavy with food we will not need.'

'Are you sure you didn't steal them, sire?' Louis sneered.

'Do you think that a band of less than half a dozen men is capable of robbing a kingdom as large as Noburg of its finest fruits?' Armand demanded. 'These were grown in the orchards of the palace, a place more guarded than their very vaults!'

His voice which had a natural thunder he had inherited from his father resounded all the louder in the public house. Several of the villagers flinched, the three village children huddled together behind a barrel, and Armand turned away, flushing with shame.

'Please forgive my father, Prince,' said a man who shortly introduced himself as Gabriel. 'He is the oldest resident of the village and he has been through many difficult times.'

'I understand. I apologise for my outburst too,' Armand said. 'I have never heard such accusations levelled at myself and my family. If you knew my father, you would know that the very notion of him as a common thief is laughable.'

'Of course, sire. But I hope you'll pardon me saying - I was a very young boy back then so my memory is unclear - but you really are the spitting image of that man who came here with a hundred others and killed our village head. He had grey eyes and a black beard, like you; he was only larger in build.'

Armand was beginning to be seriously annoyed by the topic, but he said, 'Will you tell me what happened when he came here? What good did it do him to kill your village head if he didn't take the position himself?'

'Well, sire, as I say, I was a little boy when it happened, so I hardly remember. I heard people say afterwards that our very own villagers had asked him to come and kill the village head because he was a greedy man driving everyone to ruin, but I don't remember any of it. We were all the worse for things afterwards anyway. Those people took our food, many of the villagers died or left, and we never fully recovered. Now only my father and I are left who remember anything of that time.'

'A village like this is usually under the rule of a nearby kingdom. How is it that you have no banner here? Could you not have asked for assistance from one of the kingdoms in exchange for your loyalty - Fleuyan or Noburg being the closest?'

Gabriel gave a little shrug and glanced at his father for help.

'During my father's time - Gabriel's grandfather's time - we were loyal to the king of Fleuyan,' Louis replied. 'But they forgot about us, or we forgot about them - who knows? I don't.'

How long ago was the time of Louis's father? Forty or fifty years ago? Fleuyan had had three kings since. Perhaps there would be an account of it somewhere in the castle's records.

'What do the people here do for food?' Armand said. 'I saw fields, walking through your village, but most of them are bare, though it is summer.'

'Yes, sire. Our fields have not been able to produce enough to feed us in a long time. We have livestock but the land is not suited to grazing either, so they do not prosper,' said Gabriel. 'We try to make up the deficiency with food we hunt or forage, but our people do not thrive. We are as you see before you.'

Armand stood up. He wandered over to the window and looked outside unseeingly. He knew what to do when faced by a poor village with no loyalty and a deficiency of food, but he didn't know what to do with accusations of theft levelled at his father. Worse still, he realised, a sneaking suspicion that they were the truth had begun to creep up on him. Of course, Armand knew that his father was a stranger to the mountains, and that he had claimed many lands on his way to Fleuyan, but how could he have ever set his sights on a small defenceless village like this? That would be the act of a tyrant.

'My tyrant king.' That was his mother's nickname for his father - but she always smiled when she said it.

He turned around to the crowd assembled inside the room. There were less than 40 men and women, not counting his own, and that was all the village had. Was it any wonder that they struggled to feed themselves? They must not know all the best hunting spots in the woods either, for they would have surely run into his father's hunting party by now if they had.

'Will one of you return with me to Fleuyan?' Armand said to the room at large. 'Come and judge if the royal family are worthy of your village's loyalty. Even if you decide against allying with us, you can work in our village for a little while and earn enough to bring back some food and livestock for your people.'

'What guarantee do we have that that person will be able to return?' someone asked - not even Louis this time.

'What use do you think I have for prisoners?' Armand said imperiously. 'They will be free to return at any moment - immediately, if they so wished. I make this offer out of good will. I lose nothing if you refuse!'

Eventually it was decided that Gabriel would go to Fleuyan with the royal party. He was not much of a farmer or a hunter, but he had taught everyone in the village who would learn how to read and write, and Armand approved of his offer to teach the children of Fleuyan who might need him. The food that the royal party gave to the village should last them several days on top of what they already had, so Gabriel was prepared to leave at once.

'Do you have a horse?' Armand asked. Horses were precious in Copperfeld, Gabriel answered, so he would not ask for one to spare. 'Very well, then. You will ride behind me.'

'Let him ride with me, Armand,' Fredrik stepped forward to say. 'It's not right for a common man to ride with a prince.'

'What's not right,' Armand said, 'is an impoverished village not 50 miles away from two prosperous kingdoms.'

He turned away to hide his face, half-ashamed of his own emotional response. But he conceded to Gabriel riding with Fredrik. Armand mounted his horse and Stellan walked his horse to his side.

'Are you sure about this, Armand?' he said quietly. 'Coming to this village has upset you. Why don't we simply return to Fleuyan for now, and send a different party to make a report on what they find here?'

'That would be a waste of men.' Armand sighed. 'Thank you for your concern, Stellan. I will be well once we arrive home. Travelling has taken its toll on me, I think.'

Stellan squeezed his arm. 'Don't worry about the things they say about the king. You must trust that your father is the person you know.'

'Yes. You're right.' Armand composed himself and smiled at his friend. 'Do you think I look like my father?'

'Spare me,' Stellan said with a roll of his eyes. He urged his horse forward and, grinning, Armand cantered after him.

The comfort that his friends brought him was short-lived, however. The questions that going to Copperfeld and meeting old man Louis had given him soon returned, and Armand worried about what he would say to his parents. He had to ask them, there was no doubt about that, but what would they answer? He feared finding their answer unsatisfactory. Armand knew that the king used to be known as Hilbert the Conqueror, but somehow, he realised, he had never thought twice about what such a title must entail. His father as he knew him now was one of the gentlest and noblest men alive. Could a man like that really have been capable of such atrocities in the past?

An hour after sundown, the company crested a hill and caught their first sight of the village and the castle in the valley below. The top of the castle walls were illuminated by the night patrol's torches, and light from the inhabitants' candles within danced on the walls and threw the courtyard into view. Armand's heart swelled at the sight of home. Briefly forgetting his exhaustion and his trepidation, he spurred his horse onwards.

The guards caught sight of the party before they arrived at the gates. When Armand and his men came into the courtyard amidst a thundering of hooves and voices, servants ran forward to take their horses and their cloaks, and friends and family poured out of the castle to greet them. Ignoring the calls of his friends, Armand dismounted and looked around the courtyard until he spotted the queen, standing back and watching the commotion, and ran to her with his arms outstretched.

'Welcome home, my son,' Queen Solange said, embracing the prince warmly. Armand squeezed her tighter. He had missed her greatly during his travels.

'Are you well, Mother?' he said, stepping back to look into her face. Did she look more worn or tired than usual, and had more of her golden hair turned silver in his absence?

'I'm quite well, Armand, and I'll thank you not to scrutinise an old woman's wrinkles.'

'That's not what I was doing!' he protested. 'Where is Father?'

'He's inside. His old wounds have been paining him lately, no doubt entirely for missing you. Will you come and have some refreshments with us before you retire to bed?'

'Of course!'

He offered her his arm and they went inside. The queen's parlour, traditionally the queen's private room, had become a family room for the small royal family, where they often met of an evening to share news and be in one another's company as any other family. Between the ages of 6 and 12, it had been Armand's playroom, and there still stood a trunk in the corner full of his old toys. It was one of his favourite places in the world, but walking there tonight, Armand's anxieties made a return. He looked at his mother, now several inches shorter than he. If the tales of King Hilbert's tyranny were true, could she have been complicit in them? That, at least, he was sure she had not, if only because she was a native of Fleuyan, yet he was confident too, that she was far too peace-loving to be involved in any act of war. The thought comforted him, but then a new, far more disturbing thought made itself known: if his parents had not been allies of war, then how had they met? If Hilbert the Conqueror had come to Fleuyan with the view of claiming it as his own, then had Queen Solange been ... his prisoner?

Armand shook the thought out of his head. The idea was unthinkable. The bond that King Hilbert and Queen Solange shared was so famous that they were considered the very model of a couple in every land and village for a hundred miles. Armand had even heard that the popular custom of young men wearing an image of their beloved on their person was a tradition that had originated with the king and queen. To this day, King Hilbert wore the brooch that depicted the queen in the prime of her youth wherever he went, and save for a few nicks on the silver lace from old age, it still looked new because of how carefully he cared for it every day. Add to that their clear and obvious affection for one another, which even used to make Armand jealous as a child, it was impossible that their marriage could have anything other than the purest origins.

Despite what Queen Solange had said about his old wounds, King Hilbert sprang to his feet when his wife and son entered the room. Before Armand could bow, King Hilbert grasped his shoulders and pulled him into a rib-crushing hug.

'Father, stop,' Armand groaned. He was, as the villagers of Copperfeld had observed, of a much slighter build than his father, having inherited the more willowy frame of the people of Fleuyan than the large, bulky muscles of the people of Rasfura. But as King Hilbert stepped back, Armand was pleased to note that they were now equal in height. The matter did not escape the king's notice either.

'What, my boy, I take my eyes off you for a moment and you grow almost taller than me!' King Hilbert exclaimed.

'I have a few years of growing left to do. I shall soon outgrow you,' Armand said with great satisfaction.

'That you most assuredly will. I only wish we could put some more muscle on you.'

'Impossible, I fear. It is simply not within my nature to look like you or Timo.'

For all the fears that he had harboured on the way to Fleuyan, facing his father now, Armand only felt a gladness welling up inside him. This was the King Hilbert he knew, whose kind and affectionate manner was often made light of by the kingdom's soldiers, but was in truth admired by all who knew him. This man, a warlord? It was simply impossible. Armand clasped his father's arm.

'How are you, sir? Mother tells me your wounds pain you.'

'I don't feel them any more now that you are here,' Hilbert said. 'And you, Armand? Any difficulties during your travels?'

'Not a thing. I have only good reports to make.'

Queen Solange served them herself, a behaviour Armand had always admired for its practicality. He had met far more kings, chiefs, and lords in his travels who would never dream of touching a plate or a spoon but to eat from it, but the sweet and sensible Queen Solange was pleased to pour wine and serve bread to her husband and son with her own two hands. The three of them sat on one sofa, Armand sitting between his parents, and he almost resolved to forget all of his previous unhappiness in his contentment. He told them a little bit about his travels (he would give his full report at court the next day), answering their inquiries about their friends, then asked about his own who had remained behind in Fleuyan.

'I noticed that you were one man extra when you arrived,' Queen Solange said. 'Who was he who rode behind Fredrik?'

'Oh.' There was no avoiding the matter after all. Armand gathered his mental strength. 'He is a man from the village of Copperfeld, by the name of Gabriel.'

'Copperfeld? Where is that?'

'Only some 30 miles south-east of here. Have you heard of it before?'

'I don't believe I have. How about you, dear?'

Armand was shocked when King Hilbert shook his head, and then hope sprung in his heart. It was a mistake after all, as he had known it would be.

'What kingdom do they serve?' Queen Solange asked.

'None. An old man from the village said they once swore loyalty to Fleuyan, but no longer. He does not remember why.'

'Perhaps Eric knows from the treasury records, or I will ask Leonel to look through the library,' Queen Solange said to her husband. 'It may be that they stopped paying their due and the kingdom made no attempt to investigate why at the time.'

'Did Gabriel come here hoping to make an alliance with the kingdom on behalf of his village?' King Hilbert said.

'I - I hope that he will. However, the truth is ...' Armand hesitated. His parents watched him with an impassivity that was neither encouraging nor discouraging. 'The truth is ... when we arrived at Copperfeld, all the villagers were in hiding save for the old man, Louis. He shouted at us and refused to let us into the village because I - I - he thought - he said I resembled a man whose army had come and robbed the village 20 years prior.'

Queen Solange burst into laughter. She clapped her hand to her mouth and said, 'I beg your pardon. It's not funny at all.' But she buried her head in King Hilbert's shoulder and her body shook with repressed mirth. King Hilbert, for his part, flushed with shame.

'I assure you, my love, that it was the only other village I, er, visited before I came to Fleuyan,' he said. 'I forgot the name - or it may have gone by another name at the time. Yes, I - I believe the villagers who asked me to depose their village head at the time called it Cullfield.'

'Is that where you were camped when the villagers of Fleuyan came to you and requested you come here?' Queen Solange said.

'Yes, it was.'

'Then it must have been a very important place for you. How could you forget?'

'Oh - well - I hardly know -'

'Then it's true!' Armand cried, jumping to his feet, and the king and queen gazed at him in surprise. 'You did go there - you stole from them - you left them impoverished - you, Father!'

'Well - yes, I'm afraid so.'

Armand stared at him. Though the king had blushed and he did not look back at Armand with any defensiveness, he did not appear particularly embarrassed or pained to think back on his actions. Armand didn't know what to make of it.

'But - but why?' Armand stammered.

'Sit down, Armand,' Queen Solange said gently. 'It is bad manners to speak to your father standing while he is sitting.'

'I apologise.' He sat down in an adjacent chair to face them. 'I - I was shocked when old man Louis accused me of trying to steal from the village.'

'He mistook you for me?' King Hilbert said, eyes lighting up. Father and son were always equally glad to be thought of as resembling one another, and Armand smiled despite himself.

'Yes. It was Stellan who put him to rights. Yet when old man Louis said he thought I had been "Hilbert the Warlord", I - I was astonished. I had never heard you called by that name before.'

'I disliked to be thought of as a warlord from the beginning,' King Hilbert admitted. 'To be called a conqueror was only slightly better. For my people, on the other hand, the title of warlord is an honour. They celebrated that name.'

'I refused to believe it was you, so I did everything in my power to persuade him he was mistaken.' Armand felt ashamed. 'I must return to Copperfeld to apologise to him.'

'It was good of you to defend your father,' Queen Solange said. 'We have never tried to hide your father's past from you, however. I thought you knew.'

'I - I did know - I know that Father is a stranger to Fleuyan, that he is originally from the village of Rasfura, by the sea, and that he claimed many lands as his own on his way here, but I - I thought -‘ The words died on Armand’s lips as he realised how absurd the notion of a peaceful conqueror would be.

The king and queen shared a long look. Neither of them spoke, but an understanding appeared to pass between them.

‘I have never told you in detail about my origins,’ King Hilbert said. ‘Not because I have any shame in my past, but because I hoped that I had built a good enough life for you here that you would never need to know the circumstances that brought me here. So I will tell you everything now. Some of the matters I mention may make you feel shocked or angry, and I do not ask you to feel sympathy for me. I only hope to make you understand what it is like for those in similar circumstances.’

The speech took Armand aback. He felt slightly ashamed of himself for forcing his father to speak, but he burned with the desire to know, to convince himself that his father was precisely as noble and honourable as he had always believed him to be, and so, he bowed his head and said, 'Thank you, Father.'

Queen Solange decided they would need more wine and rose to summon a servant. When she returned, she offered a footstool to her husband, who gratefully accepted it and stretched his feet out towards the fire. King Hilbert's body was covered in battle scars, many of which Armand had glimpsed over the years, but there was one on his right side that Queen Solange had a peculiar fondness for. Once the servants had replenished their glasses and left, Queen Solange leaned against King Hilbert's shoulder once again, one hand under his tunic caressing his side, and King Hilbert draped an arm around her shoulders. Then he turned to Armand, surveying his son with steady grey eyes.

'You asked why I went to Copperfeld 20 years ago for seemingly no other reason than to steal from them,' he began. 'When my friends and I first left Rasfura, it was with little more than the hope of finding enough food to fill our bellies for once. I was born as an orphan in Rasfura, and raised by the village elders alongside all the other orphans in the village. We had a chief, who was very wealthy, who kept his friends and family well-fed, but the rest of us went hungry almost every day. Fine and noble men and women committed crimes and turned on their own families out of desperation. I dreamt of escaping it every day, yet I never had any notion of how, until my friend Ludger suggested that I gather my friends and plunder a nearby village for food. I knew, though I did not acknowledge it at the time, that his motive was not only to feed ourselves, but also to commit a small act of revenge against the chief, under whose domain that village fell.'

'I have never heard his name before,' Queen Solange murmured. 'The name of Adalhard's brother.'

'Yes, he seldom speaks of him since his death.'

'Uncle Adalhard!' Armand exclaimed. 'So he was with you that day too?'

'Indeed, and many others who followed me to Fleuyan and remain here to this day. Ragnhild, Sigi, Eric, Timo, and many more.'

Naturally, it made sense. It was possible to distinguish most of the people of Fleuyan from the people of Rasfura with a single glance, yet now Armand realised that that meant that so many of the people who had been his playmates and caretakers growing up, the people who had trained him to fight, whose courage and bravery he admired, were complicit in the crimes his father had committed. Armand thought of the residents of Fleuyan as if reevaluating what he knew of each one.

'At first, I meant to settle there with everyone I had brought with me. I was sure that if the chief of Rasfura challenged me, I would easily defeat him. Yet many of the problems that plagued us in Rasfura followed us to that village. The reason there was so little to eat for everyone was because the chief of Rasfura hoarded it all for himself. No matter how long we foraged, fished, and hunted, it was not enough. Nor was there enough space for my people to live peacefully. The people of the village feared me at first, but they quickly accepted me as their new leader, and demanded I resolve their quarrels with my people over food and property. I had no choice but to find somewhere new.' King Hilbert paused and looked at his wife's face. 'I had no thought for where I would go next. If I had to, I would have taken from anyone to keep my people alive.'

'What do you mean, dear?' Queen Solange said, looking back tenderly, promising to accept him no matter what he confessed.

'You know how I grieved the people who died, the first time I invaded another village. But my grief was not instant, nor did I mourn them for a long time afterwards. The first time that I killed a village head, to my surprise, the people there honoured me. He was a cruel man who had oppressed them for a long time. My victory was almost entirely free of sorrow, and my triumph double, for it was not only my own people who celebrated me. I learned how it felt to be thought of as a hero that day. Were it not for that day, I'm sure that I would have continued killing under the guise of saving my people, until I had become the monster you feared I was on the day that we met.'

Queen Solange smiled. 'How much I have to thank for that day, then.' King Hilbert's gaze softened in his relief that she understood him.

'But you did not stop at that village either,' Armand said. 'Or you would not have been known as a conqueror - and Rasfura is more than 200 miles away from Fleuyan. You would not have gone so far needlessly.'

'Yes, you're right.' King Hilbert turned to him. 'After that day, I gained a reputation for slaying cruel and despotic leaders. People would ask me to get rid of their oppressors, and it suited us well, for the places we visited would, sooner or later, lose the capacity to maintain my growing number of followers, and we were quick to move from place to place. I will not say that I took pride in what I did, but I felt that I was doing what must be done. Still, the people of Rasfura, and other places we went to by extension, insisted on calling me a conqueror and a warlord. For my people - a warrior tribe from our very roots - it was an honourable thing to be the constant winner of war.'

Growing up surrounded by both the people of Fleuyan and the people of Rasfura, it had not escaped Armand's attention, how fond the people of Rasfura were of fighting in comparison to their brothers and sisters from Fleuyan. Not all of his tutors in fighting had been people of Rasfura, but it was those teachers that always had the greatest zeal for it. Never until then had Armand considered the implication that behind a passion for fighting could lie something like bloodlust.

'You - you all celebrated the deaths of others -' Armand began.

'No,' King Hilbert said sharply. 'We honoured the dead, regardless of whether they had been friend or foe, but we never celebrated the fact that they had died. What we celebrated was our victory.' His expression softened. 'I have never considered whether it was right or wrong. It was simply our way. If you think it wrong, then I will neither agree nor disagree with you. But you must understand, my son, that my people do not venerate death.'

Armand felt the force of his father's rebuke and blushed - but he was relieved, too, to be spared such unsavoury thoughts of the people he loved.

'So - so your travels brought you here?' he said.

'Yes. After many years of travelling, I yearned for a place where my people could live peacefully off the land, without having to travel or fight any longer. No town or village I visited had ever been big enough, and I did not have the people to challenge a kingdom. Then, when I was in Cullfield - or Copperfeld, as you know it - I was approached by some villagers from Fleuyan who asked me to overthrow their king.'

'But -' Armand frowned, 'I thought my grandfather King Fiacre was a wise and revered king.'

'King Fiacre was, yes. But the king they spoke to me about was King Sullivan.'

'My stepfather,' Queen Solange said. 'After the death of King Fiacre, the Queen Celestine was courted by this minor nobleman, who flattered and wheedled his way into her heart and onto the throne. He was an evil man. I have done my utmost to forget him, and the six years of misery he wreaked on this kingdom.'

'So then,' Armand said, beginning to brighten, 'Father came here and slayed the king, for which deed you gratefully bestowed your hand unto him?'

'On the contrary, my son, your father's troops stopped me during my escape and brought me to him, whereupon he threatened to shoot my servants one by one until I agreed to marry him,' Queen Solange said and Armand felt as if a dark shadow had descended upon him. The greatest fear that he held from the moment he had heard his father being branded a warlord, that his parents' relationship had dark origins, that perhaps he had been a child not of love but of extortion, seemed to be coming true. Then it lifted slightly, and he was able to see the smile on his mother's face and hear his father protest.

'I didn't put it quite like that, my love,' he said.

'That is precisely what you said, dear. You aimed your crossbow at three innocent girls, and when I demanded to know what you were doing, you said were giving me a reason to marry you.'

'How could you!' Armand leapt to his feet again, and the king and queen quickly arranged their faces into suitably grave countenances. 'You forced Mother to marry you, under threat of not even her life, but of those around her!'

'Yes, and to top it all off, he was lying through his teeth. He had every intention of frightening me, and none at all of hurting anyone, so sit down, Armand, and listen carefully,' Queen Solange said calmly.

'It doesn't matter whether or not he meant to hurt them,' Armand argued, although he quickly sat down again. 'He lied to you - and frightened you -'

'I have forgiven him,' the queen said, and Armand fell silent. He was reminded that the crime was not against him, and if Queen Solange had forgiven it, it was not his right to continue defending her. 'Now, let me continue the story. King Fiacre was the greatest king that Fleuyan ever knew. After almost 30 years of rule, he succumbed to illness and passed away. Shortly afterwards - too short, in truth, but how could I have ever interfered in my own mother's wishes? - his wife Queen Celestine remarried, and King Sullivan came to the throne. My poor mother was blinded by grief, so hurt by the loss of her first love that she was pleased to simply be flattered, and she failed to see how vile and contemptible her new husband truly was. He was harsh to the peasants and overindulgent to his friends. He almost destroyed this kingdom. Yet, I am sorry to say that although I feared and hated him, while he was alive, I never defied him. While Queen Celestine was alive, I did my best to keep her happy. When she passed away, I hid away from the king as much as possible, grieving for my mother and afraid of what he would do to me. I heard him discuss what to do with me with his friends once or twice, debating what king or emperor to marry me to in order to gain the most favour, as if I was some bartering chip, or joking about giving me to one of his friends as a gift.'

'What a hateful man,' King Hilbert said, bristling. 'I never knew about the things he said or did to you - you never discussed it before.'

'Yes, it was terrible, so imagine my horror when a tyrant burst through the kingdom gates and forced me into a marriage against my own will anyway!' She laughed. The thought of his mother in a forced marriage irritated Armand again, but she was able to joke about it so freely. He still couldn't see how that could be. 'But you remember, dear, how angry I was when you called him an insect. I couldn't criticise his rule back then, nor for a time much longer. To me, it was wrong to speak ill of the king, even if he had been as monstrous as my stepfather was.'

'You have a strong sense of duty that nothing can shake. That is why you married me, even when you did not wish it.'

'Thank you, Hilbert.' Queen Solange pressed a little closer to his side. She resumed addressing Armand. 'Hilbert the Conqueror came here three weeks after my mother's death - just three weeks! He would never have come while she was still alive, you understand. Do you know what your father said in his attempt to persuade me to marry him at first? He said that the people of Fleuyan are famous for their loyalty to the crown. If he had deposed the king while Queen Celestine had been alive, she would have been angered by the death of her husband, and sought to avenge him. If, however, the villagers sought to have the king killed in their grief at the loss of their queen and their desperation to save their kingdom, they would have welcomed him with open arms. That was the reason he gave me for marrying him: so that the people would accept him, rather than rally a rebellion around me. Naturally, I refused him, and he resorted to threatening my servants instead.'

She paused and Armand took the time to digest her words. Everything he heard from her sounded worse and worse. How could he reconcile the image of a princess being made to marry a tyrant against her will with the image of the affectionate couple that sat before him?

'I must tell you,' Queen Solange continued, 'that when your father came here, he sought out the king to kill him, but he was the only casualty of that day. Many of the king's ministers knew of the plot to kill him - perhaps some of them even helped to bring it about - and left before the invasion, while the others were allowed to escape without any hindrance. It really seemed to me as if I had been the only other resident of the castle who had been hurt by the invasion. I didn't realise,' she said thoughtfully, 'how fortunate I was. I understand now, what a true tyrant king would have done to me and my people. I would have been met by a fate worse than death, were it any other warlord and his army to come through the kingdom gates.'

At that moment, Armand couldn't comprehend his mother's meaning. How much worse could it be than to have everything one ever knew torn away in an instant, to be replaced with fear and the knowledge that one was no more than a prisoner in one's own kingdom? Yet, looking into his mother's emerald eyes, Armand suddenly felt impossible naïve. Only with worldly experience would he come to know what his mother meant.

'At any rate, after that, I came to understand Hilbert's true nature and fell in love with him.'

'What?!' Armand struggled against the urge to stand again. 'Is that all?'

'I hardly know what else to say. What happened between us is precious.' Queen Solange rubbed her husband's leg and smiled at him. 'I am sure you do not want all the details.'

'But - but how could you come to love Father? He held you captive, and made you his bride against your will!'

'Yes, but that is all he did.' She glanced at Armand's face as if to confirm something. 'Armand, know that when I married your father, he was exactly the same as you know him now. He is and always has been, the kindest and gentlest man I have ever known, and a more attentive husband than I have ever imagined. Though we were husband and wife, Hilbert courted me as if we were strangers, and he waited for me to accept him. He never forced himself on me -' The relief that Armand felt on hearing that his conception had not been forced was almost palpable; he felt as if a weight had been lifted and his shoulders sagged, '- he showered me with gifts and studied how to woo me as the men of Fleuyan woo its women. I fell in love with him before he ever came to love me.'

'That, my love, cannot possibly be true,' King Hilbert said, gathering her hands into his own and gazing at her earnestly. 'I loved you almost immediately, and I know you despised me for many months.'

'It was not months! And do you claim to have loved me even when I so shamefully rejected your wedding gift?'

'Well - no - and it was not your fault - I blundered by not asking others for advice about a suitable wedding present beforehand. But it was only a few weeks after our wedding that you tended to my wounds with your own two hands, as sweetly as any devoted wife would - no one had ever cared for me so tenderly. Did you not do so despite loathing me then?'

'No, I had stopped hating you at that point. Adalhard teased me for it, and I was angry at him - if I had acknowledged back then that he is the most perceptive man Fleuyan has ever seen him, I would have struck him for knowing, the rascal! Did the fact that I went into the village to defend you, to make the villagers see you as their king once and for all, not make you understand that I had come to accept you most of all?'

'You did so out of your most honourable sense of duty, I know that. We argued so many more times afterwards.'

'So we did, but only because I am as obstinate as a mule.'

'If you must say that about yourself, then allow me to share in the charge too. I am at least as stubborn as you, if not more.'

'Dear, all I needed to love you was time and nothing more. Your natural disposition had done all the work for you.'

Armand stared at the king and queen with their loving gazes locked onto one another. At any other time, he would have interjected, rolled his eyes, or heaved a sigh to interrupt them, but now he was simply glad to watch them and be assured of their regard for one another. It still made him uncomfortable to think that their marriage had a perverse start, but knowing now that it was the only shadow on their relationship, that his mother had forgiven it so long ago that she could laugh about it, gave him some peace of mind.

'Thank you, Mother, Father, for telling me all,' Armand said. The king and queen appeared to tear their gazes away from one another with great effort and turn them warmly to their son. 'I am glad that - that you were able to find your home here, Father. However, I - I cannot yet accept the fact that you stole from so many people, even if a few of their number asked you to. When I saw the village of Copperfeld, I was appalled by the conditions they lived in, so destitute that they can hardly feed themselves, even though there are only 30 of them, and they live so near two highly prosperous kingdoms! How could you rob them to that point?'

'I don't believe that was my doing,' King Hilbert replied steadily. 'I would never have allowed anyone to pass away of hunger before my eyes, and I believe that all my people are honourable men and women who would not do so either. However, it is true that some of the places we visited would become even more impoverished after we left because they could not agree on a leader, or a leader who was just the same as the one they had before would rise up amongst them. It was not rare for villagers to contact me long after I had left to request my assistance once again - perhaps not in overthrowing their new leader, but in helping them to rebuild their lives. If they asked me to come again, then I would do so. I will not cast aside my responsibility and say that it was the fault of the people if they were unable to sustain themselves. I am sure that I had a hand in their misfortunes more often than not.'

The king stopped speaking and Armand was incredulous. He would not even apologise or defend himself to his son? He would claim responsibility for his past, speak of the remedies he had provided, yet show not a drop of remorse?

'Do - do you not feel at all - even a little sorry - for what you have done?' Armand said. He felt foolish even as he said it, realising somewhere in the back of his mind that it was not his place to judge King Hilbert's repentance, but he had to ask - had to know.

'I am sorry that I was the cause of so many deaths, directly and indirectly, of separating families and friends, and taking away the work of others to feed myself and my family. But, my son, if you were to ask me if I would do it again, if I were placed in those circumstances once more, I will reply without hesitation that I would. I can never bear to see the people dear to me suffer - especially now that I know what it is like to give a good life to those who deserve it.'

Armand felt dizzy. How could King Hilbert sit there and so serenely admit to monstrous crimes - admit to his willingness to commit them once again? The king and queen fell into conference. Armand thought they were discussing what to do or say to him, or perhaps reprimand him, and braced himself for defence, but then Queen Solange looked up at him and said, 'Your friend Gabriel of Copperfeld - you said that his village does not wish to swear itself to Fleuyan? Then what does he wish to do here?'

'I suggested that he come here, primarily to judge if his village would choose to ally with Fleuyan, but even if he decided against it, to work here for some time in exchange for food for his village.'

'If he wishes to work here, then we will certainly welcome him,' King Hilbert said. 'But we will pay him with wages. What does he wish to do?' Armand told him about his intention to teach. 'An excellent profession. If you speak to Eric about it, then he will arrange for his payment. In the mean time, we will send a few people to Copperfeld to see what can be done for them. Perhaps we can provide them with tools or supplies or otherwise help them to sustain themselves.'

'I apologise, Sire, but do you think that wise?' Armand said swiftly. 'I doubt they will take kindly to being obliged to pay their due to the kingdom without Gabriel's judgement.'

'I have no intention of asking them to pay anything. We can spare the men and the materials, so we will help them, and if they swear fealty to us, then we will provide for them further.'

King Hilbert spoke without reserve. Could this be his repentance for what he had done to the village 20 years ago? Armand stared into his father's face and realised that - no, it was not. King Hilbert was offering his aid to the village neither from obligation nor from nobility, but purely it was the thing to do. It was beginning to dawn on Armand that his father did not so much have a sense of morality as he had a sense of duty. What must be done would be done. That was where his nobility sprung from.

'In that case, I will be one of the party to go to Copperfeld,' Armand declared.

'I don't think so, my son,' Queen Solange said sweetly. 'Have you forgotten that you offered to do the crop reports this year? It is your task to survey the fields in the village here, to go over our stocks for the winter, and ensure our contracts with our allies are fulfilled on both sides.'

'Oh, yes,' Armand said sheepishly. 'I will stay at home.'

'Very good.'

'There is much work to be done tomorrow, and you have not yet rested from your journey,' King Hilbert said. 'Is there anything else you wish to ask me tonight?'

'No. But,' Armand said, picking his words carefully, 'I - I think I need some time ... to think about everything. I still - I still feel uneasy to think about your past.'

'That is alright.' The king stood up and offered his hand to Queen Solange. Armand stood up too. With the queen on his arm, King Hilbert stepped forward and placed a large hand on Armand's shoulder. 'Even if you never forgive me, I hope that it will not change the way you feel for this kingdom. It is to be yours someday, and you must be able to love and devote yourself to it without scruples.'

'Of course!' Armand placed his hand over his father's. 'And it is not a matter of forgiveness. I only need to find the way to understand. I know that you truly are the king I know you to be.'

King Hilbert smiled and squeezed his shoulder. Armand kissed his mother, and they left the room. At the door, they were to part in opposite ways, but Armand stood for a while, watching his parents leave for their room. Queen Solange had grasped King Hilbert's arm tightly and their silhouettes melded into one as they walked away and disappeared up the stairs.

-

Upon their arrival in the night, Fredrik had surrendered Gabriel to a servant, who had provided him with a guest room. Gabriel eventually found his way to the dining hall in the morning with the help of another servant, in good time for breakfast. Armand spotted him as he entered, and waved him into the seat next to him.

'Good morning, Prince,' Gabriel said. Then he glanced at the king and said, 'Er.'

'Good morning, my friend,' Armand said, and waved to the chair again. 'Sit down. Have some breakfast while my father tells you what he proposed to me last night.'

King Hilbert nodded at the young man. 'Young Gabriel, am I right in saying that your village used to be known as Cullfield?'

'Um, yes, Sire.'

'As I suspected, I have fought in your village before. That makes us comrades in arms.'

'Father!' Armand said reproachfully as Queen Solange giggled.

'Forgive my little jest. Have some fish, young Gabriel, and put some meat on your bones. As my son was saying, I intend to send a small party to your village to see what can be done for you, with your permission. I hear that your fields have yielded little as of late, so I will send my man Dunstan, who understands plants so well he can make them grow out of stone, to see if there is anything that can be done about it. I will send also a few good soldiers who will help your people to fish and hunt for a while, just so you can prepare your stock in advance of the cooler months, and provide their services in repairing buildings and tending to your people if they need it. All, as I say, with your permission, so tell me if that would suit you.'

'Well, I - I would appreciate that very much, Sire, but - but our village is very poor and we - we cannot possibly pay for such services.'

'You proposed to Armand to become a teacher here for a little while, correct?'

'Y-yes, Sire.'

'To be a teacher is the most noble of occupations, in my eyes. If you taught one child to read and write, they would owe you for the rest of their lives, and I in turn would owe you the use of a good man or woman. I myself was unable to read or write until I was almost fully grown, and I had to be taught to read the clever letters of this land when I arrived here. Armand will speak to my treasurer on your behalf so that you may begin earning wages for your work, and I will help your village because it is within my abilities to do so.'

Gabriel didn't seem to know how to respond to the king's kindness. His eyes lit up, he flushed, and he looked around him as if seeking a way to express his thanks. He settled for, 'That would be extremely magnanimous of you, Sire. But I - I fear that my - my village - they may not allow a party of armed soldiers to enter - they - my father especially - have been distrusting of strangers since - since -' His blush deepened, '- invaders came to our village.'

'If your father remembers me, then he may remember my sister, and all the better for it will save her making any introductions.'

'You will send Aunt Ragnhild?' Armand said brightly.

'Yes, if she will go. I find it best in situations such as these to send a representative as close to myself as possible. Ragnhild!' King Hilbert bellowed down the table. Meals were always very lively affairs in Fleuyan, and one could hardly be heard by one's neighbours without raising one's voice, let alone someone halfway down the table. Once a few nudges had been passed down the table, Ragnhild turned her head to the front of the table inquisitively. 'Will you go to Copperfeld on my behalf? Bring Dunstan and any four other soldiers you choose, and stay there two weeks. It is only 30 miles from here.'

Lady Ragnhild shrugged and turned back to her conversation with her husband. This apparently counted as assent, because King Hilbert sat back with a satisfied expression.

'She will be ready to go in a few days,' he said. 'If there is anything you wish her to convey to your family, you need only ask her before she leaves.'

Armand was pleased that King Hilbert had chosen to send Lady Ragnhild. 'My aunt's intelligence and virtue are second only to my mother's,' he said to Gabriel. 'There can be no better representative of the king to visit your village.'

But as Armand spoke, he suddenly remembered the conversation he had had with the king and queen the night before, the reservations he had about his father's past, and remembered that his clever and principled aunt must have been one of King Hilbert's closest allies during his days as conqueror. Suddenly, he was uneasy once again.

Fortunately, Gabriel was very happy, and thanked them all many times. After breakfast, he gave his hand to Armand, who clasped it amicably.

'My father must have been mistaken about your father, after all,' Gabriel said. 'I apologise on his behalf.'

'Oh, no.' Armand was deeply embarrassed. 'Your father was not mistaken, and I owe him an apology. But I hope that he will forgive the past and accept my father's gifts - or the kingdom's gifts, rather.'

Gabriel's happiness did not appear at all perturbed by the confirmation that King Hilbert had been every bit his village's ill-omened invader as his father had thought. Armand was surprised and pleased by his graciousness, and left immediately to speak to Eric about his pay.

'Do you know how long he would have to work to earn even a horse to ride or a cow to bring back to his family?' the treasurer Eric said severely.

'A piece of knowledge that only the cleverest few such as yourself have the privilege to, it humbles me to say,' Armand said. He was accustomed to Eric's grumbling. The man had been King Hilbert's treasurer even before he had arrived in Fleuyan, and Armand had a great respect for him, his constant complaints aside.

'Well, take this to give to the boy,' Eric handed him a piece of paper with a signature and stamp on it, 'and I heard at breakfast that Hilbert is planning to send a party to his village? More expense out of my own pocket, it seems, so make sure that someone from the party comes here and tells me what they are taking before they go, if you will, Your Highness.'

'Of course, sir.'

'And I looked into the boy's village, as your father requested. I didn't find any records of it under the name of Cullfield - what a grim name - but the village of Copperfeld was indeed under the kingdom's domain until they stopped paying their due 40 years ago. Fleuyan itself had some troubles that year, quarrels with neighbours and so on, so I surmise the king didn't have the time or men to investigate the village, and they were soon forgotten.'

'I see. Thank you, Eric. Er -'

Eric raised a stern eyebrow. 'Yes?'

'Were you, er, with my father - on the day he visited Copperfeld - back when it was known as Cullfield?'

'I was.'

'Oh.'

'Is that all?'

'Oh - er - yes, I suppose so.'

'Then please excuse me to return to my work, Your Highness.'

Armand fled the room. He hadn't been able to come up with anything to ask Eric, after all. But perhaps there would be other people he would be more comfortable talking to.

As he stepped out into the courtyard, Armand was accosted by Henrik, who urged him to join the soldiers' morning training. It was one of King Hilbert's rules for the prince that he attend a training session at least once a day, so he readily agreed. He was delighted to find Lady Ragnhild leading the training that morning.

'There you are, Armand!' She slapped him on the back, causing his breath to escape from him in a wheeze. She was almost as strong as King Hilbert. 'Glad to see you're back with us, and with an orphan in tow. Precisely as your father would have done.'

'He isn't an orphan,' Armand protested. 'I've met his father.'

'So have I, apparently,' Ragnhild said cheerfully.

'Do you remember him at all?' Armand asked, seizing on the opportunity to raise the topic.

'I barely remember the village, let alone anyone in it.'

'But how can you not remember? Didn't you - I mean, Gabriel's father said - he said that four people were killed - when - when the village was invaded.'

'Four whole villagers? That seems rather high.' Ragnhild tapped her chin with the hilt of her sword. 'By the time I arrived at these mountains with my brother, he almost hated killing. He would avoid killing anyone except whatever brute was next on the list, and was angry if any civilians were killed. He wasn't always like that.'

'He should hate it!' Armand said hotly, appalled by his aunt's indifferent manner. 'It is wrong to kill anyone!'

'Is it?' Ragnhild gave him a curious glance. 'Why do you say so?'

'Well - well - to take the life of another - someone who has family - people dear to them -'

'So if they are penniless and alone, it would be alright to kill them?'

'No!'

Ragnhild stood up straight and turned to look at him. 'Is something the matter, Armand? I've never heard you voice such objections before. Don't you know about our origins?'

'I - I did know,' Armand said for what felt like the umpteenth time. 'I know that my father is Hilbert the Conqueror. I only - I never knew what that truly meant until yesterday.' When Ragnhild only continued to look at him quizzically, he stammered on, 'I - I spoke to my mother and father yesterday, and they told me - about Rasfura, and how my father came to be in Fleuyan. It shocked me. I never really knew - what it meant to be known as a conqueror - that he initially forced my mother to marry him - and when I saw how difficult things are for Gabriel's people in Copperfeld, which my father once stole from - I couldn't understand how my father could have done such a thing - not only there, but to so many other people ...'

His words trailed away. Around them, the training soldiers shouted and cried out to one another, the sounds of clashing metal and wood filled the air, but between the prince and his aunt, a silence hung. If Ragnhild's expression had changed, if she had frowned or looked angry, Armand might have been able to find something else to say. But she only looked impassive.

Then, to his surprise, she reached out and tousled his hair.

'Aunt Ragnhild!' he half-shouted, waving his arms wildly to bat her away.

'I've become accustomed to thinking of you as an adult,' she said, giving his hair a final ruffle. 'But you're still as green as cabbage after all.'

'Wh-what?'

'Come, let us spar.' She drew her sword. 'If you land a hit on me, then we will talk.'

This suited Armand as well as it did Ragnhild. He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. 'You won't wear armour?'

She snorted. Armand had never seen her wear armour, and he strongly suspected Ragnhild had never worn any her whole life.

Training against his Aunt Ragnhild was no joke. Although she was only a few years younger than Queen Solange, who had already resigned herself to being an old woman, Ragnhild was as nimble as any soldier half her age and ten times as skilled. Her words calling him still a child had cut him deeply, but he could spare no thought for that or any of the other doubts in his mind while fighting her. Many of the soldiers soon abandoned their training in favour of watching them, cheering for the prince and the king's sister in turns.

'I suppose you haven't had any serious sparring sessions since you were on your travels,' Ragnhild said. She still stood tall, the hand holding her sword almost relaxed, while Armand was bent over, trying to catch his breath.

'There's no one like you or Father for a hundred miles of the kingdom!' Armand said.

'Then it's a good thing you returned to your training as soon as you arrived home.'

Lady Ragnhild dodged Armand's every attack as easily as if she could see them coming seconds in advance. She was one of his foremost tutors, so it was only natural for her to know him so well.

'I'm sure you've realised that many of our people, especially those from Rasfura, have a great passion for fighting,' Ragnhild said. 'Or at least, it's the first thing they resort to when an obstacle is placed in their way.'

For some reason, this got a cheer from the soldiers.

'I know that. I want to be able to fight alongside all of you too. But if you are asking me -'

'No more talking.'

Armand leapt sideways to avoid a stroke of her sword. In the end, he was sure that he only managed to scrape her because she allowed herself to get distracted into conversation with the other soldiers. He said as much after the crowd had dispersed following much celebration.

'Sometimes the only way to win is to be more alert than your opponent,' Ragnhild shrugged. 'You are only the fool if you rely on waiting for it.'

'Aunt Ragnhild,' Armand said seriously, 'I do want the ability to fight alongside my friends here. It doesn't matter whether my comrades are from Rasfura or are natives to Fleuyan - now that we are here, we are all people of Fleuyan. But I don't want to fight by seeking people out to kill, as my father did. I believe that it is wrong to kill anyone.'

Ragnhild leaned against the side of the spectator box which was occasionally used for public tournaments or for trainees to watch their more skilled seniors fight. She gave Armand that mildly inquisitive look again, as if he was slipping in a word of gibberish here and there into his speech and she was bemused as to why.

'What is your reason for learning to fight then?' she said.

'To be able to protect myself and my people.'

'Don't you think Hilbert thought the same thing when he brought me and our friends out of Rasfura? Though there was no foe before us in the shape of a man or a beast, our enemy was hunger because it would have slayed us indiscriminately.'

'I understand that, but - but - would not the other people - the villagers whom you imposed on - would they not think the same way?'

'They probably did.'

The simple answer briefly stunned him into silence. Was that it? Because the people of Rasfura were a tribe of warriors that always looked to fighting as the solution to their problems, they would fight even against hunger?

'Was there no other way than to steal from others?' he said.

'Perhaps there was. I wouldn't have been clever enough to think of one.' When Armand didn't say anything for another moment, Ragnhild continued, 'It's alright if you disagree with what we did. But there might come a time when you are forced to choose between taking a life and losing someone important to you.' She gave him a gentle nudge with the tip of her sword. 'It's my job to prepare you to make the right decision.'

'Thank you, Aunt Ragnhild.' He bowed his head. 'I won't neglect my studies. I am only seeking a way to understand my father's past.'

'Not just your father's. It is the past that all of us from Rasfura have. Hilbert eventually came to hate hurting anyone, but it wasn't so for a lot of us - his soldiers. We think of everyone who arrived with us to Fleuyan on the day Hilbert took the throne as the people of Rasfura, but there are several who followed Hilbert after he arrived in their village. To them, asking Hilbert to kill their evil leaders was their way of protecting the people they loved.'

Armand looked into Lady Ragnhild's face, trying to read the expression there. She answered his questions patiently, without any sign of offence or anger, just as King Hilbert had spoken to him in steady tones and unwavering gaze the night before. They would accept his disagreement with their methods, but there was nothing he could say to make them regret the past. Armand looked at his aunt, and felt as if his view was fracturing into two: he saw that his caretakers understood his view, because they had lived his life of comfort and peace, but he could not see theirs because he did not know their life of hardship and conflict. So that was why Ragnhild had called him green. Would he only be able to understand if he came to be in the same situation himself?

'Have you ever,' Armand said, feeling greener than ever, 'met someone whose way of living is so different from yours that you couldn't fathom it?'

'Yes, of course. Even now I sometimes think that Solange must have come down from the stars; lovely and beautiful, but impossible to understand.'

'You think that of my mother?' Armand was taken aback.

'We come from very different places. Isn't it to be expected?'

'Well - yes, I suppose so. It's just that you and Mother get along so well, I never imagined there was any discord between you.'

'Not a drop of it. I only say that in meeting Solange, I met someone whose origins are so vastly different from mine that it is impossible for me to ever fully understand her. I'm sure it's the same for Hilbert - or even more so, because they are always arguing.'

'What? My parents never argue!'

Ragnhild laughed. 'I will allow them to be such excellent parents that they could hide it from you. But even at the beginning of their marriage, when a little hostility would be natural, Solange would always endeavour to hide that they were quarrelling from everyone else. She thinks it would be a disgrace to be seen arguing with her own husband except in jest. Maybe it's true that the people of Fleuyan would think so. For the people of Rasfura, a little argument would be no more than cause for teasing.'

In light of what he had learnt about the origin of their marriage the night before, it made Armand uneasy to think of his parents in disagreement. He had always thought of the king and queen as being united on every front.

'Aunt Ragnhild, did ... you know that my father forced my mother to marry her?'

'Of course.'

'Does everyone - is it common knowledge?'

'Well, I suppose most people would have forgotten about it now. Hilbert never claimed to us that he was going to marry her or anything like that before we came to Fleuyan. They could have come to the agreement to marry one another for all anyone knows.'

'Did he tell you that he would? Or were you there when -' As he realised how much worse he would feel if there had been witnesses to his father's threats against her mother on the day they had met, he fell silent and was unable to say anything more.

'I was there on the day Hilbert killed King Sullivan, but I left almost immediately after the battle to bring the rest of our people to Fleuyan,' Ragnhild said, to his relief. 'I suppose I didn't really know or ask. It was obvious, and anyone would have done the same thing. Solange took it better than a woman from Rasfura would have.'

'Don't you think,' Armand said, 'that it was wrong of him to make her marry him?'

'I suppose so.' Ragnhild smiled. 'Does it matter now?'

'No, it doesn't matter anymore. I only ... wouldn't want anyone else doing that, if I could stop them. No one can know the future and say that a person will come to love them someday.'

Ragnhild watched him for a moment. He knew that she was assessing him, in a way, trying to see what else stood between him and understanding his father's people.

'I know who you might like to talk to,' she said, pushing herself up from the wall. 'Go speak to Bruno. I'm going to return to training.'

'Oh - er - wait -' She looked at him questioningly. 'You think I should speak ... to Bruno?'

'Yes.'

'Oh.' She raised a hand to wave him away but he quickly said, 'You're going to Copperfeld, aren't you?'

'Yes. Don't worry, I'll go and talk to Eric later.'

'Yes. Good. Only ... I cannot go myself, but I wish to apologise to Gabriel's father, Louis. Perhaps you can tell him that I intend to return to make my apologies as soon as I can.'

'What do you want to apologise for?'

'I was angry when he accused my father of stealing from his village, and argued that he must be mistaken. The mistake is mine, so I should apologise.'

'Oh alright. I was afraid you were going to attempt apologising on Hilbert's behalf,' she said with a laugh.

'My father's actions are his own - besides which, he is not sorry.'

'Of course. You asked me if the people we stole from would have done the same thing to us? They would have - and we would not hold it against them. True warriors do not take war personally.'

The words astonished him. But then he thought of kingdoms at war, then forging peace, and becoming allies forevermore. So if Copperfeld had been a village of soldiers like the people of Rasfura, old man Louis would not have begrudged King Hilbert's actions for the past 20 years? There was no way of knowing if that was true.

'Thank you for speaking to me, Aunt Ragnhild,' Armand said, bowing his head. 'I will speak to Bruno.' So saying, he quickly fled before Ragnhild could take it into her head to touch his hair again.

-

It wasn't until after dinner that Armand had time to speak to Bruno. Every day after dinner, the residents of the castle would gather in the large parlour adjacent to the dining room, to continue drinking, socialise after a long day of work, and exchange gossip. It was the king and queen's habit at this time to sit on the sofa in front of the fire, generally flirting with one another, but occasionally speaking to anyone who wished to converse with them. Armand was usually in such high demand during these times that he was rarely able to sit with them, which was why they had their own family room. Tonight would have been no different, especially on his first dinner since his return, but Armand was desperate to speak to Bruno as soon as possible.

'I never thought I'd see you so interested in talking to my father,' Henrik said when Armand had failed to locate him, and had turned to asking his son for his whereabouts. 'Don't you usually avoid him as much as possible?'

'I don't dislike him or anything,' Armand protested. 'It's - it's only that -'

'He's a bit overwhelming? I know. He's probably outside by the stables. He likes drinking outdoors in the summer.'

Armand thanked him profusely. 'But you know my mother would be angry if she heard that one of the royal advisors sits by the stables to drink?'

'Yes, it is unlordly, isn't it?' Henrik said with amusement.

Though both Armand and Henrik were children of men from Rasfura, having been born in Fleuyan, their manners and ideas were a mix of both. They both knew that it was unsightly in Fleuyan for people of status to loiter outside like peasants, but they understood the appeal of acting so common.

Bruno was not drinking alone, naturally. He was with Timo, who had been even younger than Armand was now when he came to Fleuyan with King Hilbert.

'Prince Armand!' Bruno boomed when Armand came into the moonlight. 'Joining a couple of old men for a drink? You'll have to supply your own drink, though.'

'Speak for yourself, Bruno, I'm no old man,' Timo snorted. He moved up the bench that he and Bruno were sitting on and gestured to the centre for Armand to sit. 'You don't have a drink, Prince?'

'I only wanted to talk to the two of you, if you don't mind me joining your conversation,' Armand said, taking his seat.

'We'd love to, boy!' Bruno practically shouted into his ear and Armand winced. 'What do you want to talk about? You're fresh back from your travels, eh? Slayed any devils or met any women while you were out there?'

Armand blushed and mumbled, 'I don't want to kill anyone.'

'Eh? What was that? You'll never live up to your father's name if you're not man enough to kill your enemies without a second thought, you know?'

'But I don't have any enemies!' Armand bit back a sigh. This was why he found it so difficult to speak to Bruno. He turned to Timo instead, in the hopes of finding more sensible conversation, 'Timo, I was wondering if you could tell me about Rasfura ... about the village where you and my father came from.'

To Armand's surprise, a shadow fell over Timo's face. He replied quite calmly, however. 'Oh? What do you want to know?'

'I - well -' Armand stuttered, afraid of upsetting Timo further, 'I know that life was very difficult there, and I was just hoping - to hear a bit more about what made my father leave - or - or something like that ... if you don't mind.'

'Aye, it was no difficult decision, to choose to leave,' Bruno said, thankfully in a much lower voice than before. 'Timo was just a lad who worshipped Hilbert back then, but for those of us with wives and children, there was no other way. Everyone knew Hilbert, one of the best soldiers in the village, and we all knew that if anyone could take us out of that cursed place, it would be him.'

'Why is that? Because he was the strongest soldier?'

'That's the most important thing, aye, but if it was anyone else, we might've been afraid of being cheated or of not getting our fair share. Hilbert - well - he's the sort of man who'll cut up a deer and feed it to everyone else before he takes a bite for himself. You can trust a man like that. Eh, Timo?'

'Did you come here just to ask about a thing like that, Prince?' Timo said. He looked quite calm now, but Armand was still apprehensive of the darkness he had seen in Timo's eyes.

'I had never given much thought to my father's past before. He told me a little about it last night and - and it made me curious to know more.'

'Just out of curiosity?'

'Well ... I ... think it important ... to understand the circumstances that brought my father here. I have much to be thankful for, being raised in a peaceful kingdom ... a privilege that my father did not have.'

'I'm glad that you can acknowledge that.' Timo relaxed. 'Sometimes the children who were born here ask about Rasfura and our time as roaming warriors. Their eyes light up when they hear about battles against our enemies and our struggles to find food on a daily basis. They fail to understand that it only sounds amazing to them because they did not live that life. There is nothing magnificent or glorious about the life we lived - not a thing.'

'That's not true,' Bruno said, suddenly gruff. 'There's a glory in living on your own wits from day to day.'

'I would not wish that life on anyone,' Timo retorted shortly.

'It was hard at times, but when you live as your own man, you're really free,' Bruno persisted. 'If anyone did wrong by you, you just knocked them down and walked past them. Now you have to bring them in front of the king and let him decide if there's enough evidence to prosecute them.'

'That was only at the very beginning. Hilbert quickly put a stop to that - he didn't want people being killed for no reason. He was angry with us whenever we argued with the native villagers no matter what reason we had.'

'Well, yes, but -'

'It wasn't that I idolised Hilbert,' Timo said, turning to Armand. 'Hilbert saved my life. It's only right to give my life to him in return.'

Armand was somewhat alarmed by the men's argument, and somehow aware that though he understood their words, he did not understand their true meaning.

'How did he save your life?' he ventured.

'My father used to beat me when I was a child. I used to escape to the training grounds whenever I suspected he would do it, and Hilbert would let me hide behind the weapons rack, or give me a helmet and let me pretend I was one of the soldiers, so that my father wouldn't know it was me. One day, my father seized me by the hair and tried to strike my head on the table, but I slipped out of his grip and ran to the training grounds as fast as my legs could take me. It was late at night, but by some miracle, Hilbert was there. I begged him to save me, and he took me into his arms and swore that he would never let my father lay a hand on me ever again. He gave me a place to hide, and we left the village the very next day, along with Adalhard, Ragnhild, and everyone else who would come with us. It wasn't the reason that Hilbert chose to leave that day, but if it wasn't for that, then my father would have inevitably killed me - the next day - or eventually - someday.'

Timo told his story without pause, but the shadow over his face became darker and darker, until his tone was bitter enough to rust steel. Armand felt as if a cold breeze was blowing through the stableyard.

'It was a bad time, to be sure,' Bruno said. 'I knew Timo's father. We fought together as soldiers once upon a time, and he was a very brave man. Hard times got the better of him. During my last days in Rasfura, I hardly recognised him whenever I saw him.'

'If my father had killed me - or if it was another man who killed his own son out of temper one day - what good would killing him have done?' Timo cried out. 'The child would still be dead.'

'But the child would be avenged, and the man would kill no more children.'

'He was not even the worst man I ever met,' Timo said, talking to Armand again. 'Far from it. You know that we moved from place to place, following the requests of people who wanted Hilbert to save them from their evil leaders?' Armand nodded. 'There was a place we arrived to - I don't remember the name now - the first thing we saw when we arrived at the village was a very young girl, not more than 10 years old, if that, trussed up on a scaffold as an example to the villagers. She had been caught stealing food for her family.'

'What?!' Armand had been trying to stay quiet as much as possible, but he couldn't stop himself from exclaiming. 'They - they killed her?'

'As good as. Hilbert cut her down immediately, but it was too late to revive her. She had been there for days, slowly starving, and she died soon after our arrival in Sigi's arms.'

Armand felt sick to his stomach. He tried not to think of the girl, to envision that horrifying image, yet it forced itself upon his mind - and the girl he saw there was Frieda, the daughter of one of King Hilbert's advisors, who dreamt of being armourer like Lady Ragnhild, and was often seen running after her. He couldn't imagine how he would have restrained himself if he had seen such a sight - restrain himself from bursting into tears, or tearing the perpetrator into shreds.

'Hilbert killed the village chief and the villagers celebrated him - but I could only think of the girl - think of how I could have died for nothing, just like her,' Timo said.

'Of course you'll be miserable if that's what you think of,' Bruno roared, startling Armand nearly out of his seat. 'What happened to that girl was terrible, but think of how glad her spirit must be that the man who did that to her is dead!'

'All I wish to say,' Timo said evenly, 'is that in order to have the glory of killing a tyrant, a tyrant must have been tyrannical - hurt people in the most terrible way possible.'

Timo's use of the word 'tyrant' startled Armand into recollecting his mother's words about what a 'true tyrant king' would have done to her and her people - and he realised, too, why Ragnhild had called him green. Imagining the things that his father must have seen had been beyond his comprehension until that moment.

'There are always going to be people like that,' Bruno said. 'So we should take some pride in it when we can do something about it!'

Armand stood up. 'Bruno, Timo, I thank you for telling me all of this. I believe ... I have much to think on now.'

'Leaving already?' Bruno seemed disappointed. No doubt, he was dissatisfied with having let Timo tell his stories without telling any of his own, but Armand didn't think he could stomach any more for tonight.

'I should be going,' Armand said. 'But let us speak some other time.'

'Any time, boy!'

'I have finished my drink, so I will accompany you into the castle,' Timo said. He and Armand bowed to Bruno and left.

'Timo, I apologise if I forced you to recollect so much unpleasantness,' Armand said once they were out of earshot of Bruno.

'It's alright. You are to be king someday, so you should know.' Timo shook his head as if to dispel the gloominess from his mind. 'There are times when I find it unbearable, when people ask for tales of our travels and my friends speak of them as if they were such wonderful times, and the people here believe them. They were so terrible that when we arrived here - just when I believed that those times were over - Hilbert was assaulted by men from the village, and it frightened and angered me so much that I almost hurt Queen Solange over it!'

'What?!' Armand was amazed. 'And Father let you live?'

'Most generously,' Timo said with a laugh. 'I thought she had a hand in his attempted assassination, but she very graciously forgave me, and I have loved her almost as much as I love Hilbert ever since.'

Armand was in awe. Although he would need more time to understand if he had completely accepted his father's past, hearing of the reason behind Timo's loyalty to King Hilbert had increased his respect for him tenfold.

'Do you know that when I saw that girl I spoke of, I was so distraught that I couldn't join the fight,' Timo continued. 'I sought Hilbert out afterwards to explain my absence, and he embraced me as he had on the day he protected me from my father, and I think - I think he must have wept - too. For all that he's called a warlord, he has the heart of a lamb - truly.'

Armand couldn't imagine his father - the big, burly King Hilbert who was almost as large as two Fleuyan men put together - shedding tears over anything. But perhaps it required no stretch of the imagination to think of Hilbert the Gentle feeling distraught over the death of a young girl after all. Several winters ago, sickness had taken the life of one of the more aged friends of the king and queen by the name of Carola, and King Hilbert hid himself in his study for almost an entire day after she was buried. Yet how could a man capable of such deep feeling come to be known as a warlord? Armand found himself circling back to the same point once more.

He parted from Timo and wandered to the parlour to see if the company was still there. A few people were leaving as he approached the door and bid him goodnight. Armand nodded and stepped into the room. It was mostly empty now. Only the king and queen remained on the sofa before the fire, speaking quietly. Armand watched them for a few moments, thinking over everything he had learnt in the past day over in his mind. Then he turned to leave, when he heard his name spoken.

'How like you to worry,' Queen Solange said. Armand hadn't heard the entirety of the comment King Hilbert had made, but he could easily guess. 'Just as you used to worry whenever Ragnhild declared that you couldn't be her real brother when you were young.'

'How do you know that?' King Hilbert said in astonishment.

'She told me, of course.'

'I'm sure you'll say it shouldn't matter to me.'

'I will refrain if you already know.'

Armand almost resolved to return to his room in favour of listening to more of this, until Queen Solange said, 'Just as you already know that Armand doesn't love you any less for knowing your past. He told you as much.'

'I know. I only - I only fear that it was wrong to burden him with so much so soon. Perhaps I should have waited to tell him.'

'I think he is old enough to know. Besides which, you know how children hate to be told to wait.' Queen Solange pulled away from King Hilbert's side to look at him and Armand shrank back to avoid being seen. 'And darling, if he comes to be unable to accept your past, then you should be proud. Proud that you have been able to provide your son such a good life that it is impossible for him to imagine anything else, and proud that your son is so noble that he would stick to his principles above all.'

King Hilbert was silent. The words appeared to take as long a time to reach him as they did his son. Queen Solange's insight stunned Armand.

'Wife,' King Hilbert said at last, 'your perspicacity continues to amaze me every day.'

Armand had never heard King Hilbert use the word 'wife' to address the queen; somehow, it embarrassed Armand even more than his other common endearments, or hearing him recite poetry. It was clear that the epithet held a great deal of meaning to Queen Solange too, for she threw her arms around him, and Armand made his hasty exit. As he did so, he recalled his parents' argument from the night before over who had fallen in love with the other first, and blushed more than ever.

-

For the next few days, Armand busied himself with his duties related to the annual crop report. He rode out to the village or beyond every day, first thing in the morning, and returned just before sundown. He was so occupied with his task that he saw his parents very little - or rather, he occupied himself in order to avoid them as much as possible.

He couldn't make himself look either of them in the eye - particularly the king. He felt ashamed of himself and he didn't know what to think.

'Leaving already, my son?'

Armand, exiting his room that morning, jumped a foot in the air to find Queen Solange standing outside his door.

'Oh - yes - well -'

'You won't wait for breakfast? It is a holiday in the village, so you will not be able to make any of the villagers speak to you on business.'

'But I -'

'If you will not wait to eat in the dining hall, then come and have some tea with me before you go, at least.'

Resigning himself to his fate, Armand said, 'Alright.' He gave his arm to her and they left for the queen's parlour.

Fortunately, King Hilbert was not there. That had been Armand's greatest fear as they went to the room. Queen Solange summoned a servant to have a tray sent up, then sat down on the sofa. Armand sat next to her.

'Well, Armand, how goes the report? Shall we have the All Hallow's Eve feast this year, do you think?'

'Oh ... yes. Quite easily, I think.'

'Very good. Do you know, during the first year that your father and I were married, he refused to hold the feast? It is no great matter in your eyes, for we have had poor years where we forego the feast in favour of having sure food stock for the winter, but at the time, the All Hallow's Eve feast had been held every year for nearly thirty years without exception, and for your father to refuse to uphold tradition during the very first year of his rule offended me exceptionally.'

'Was this - er - before you - um - came to - to love him?' Armand said awkwardly.

'I can hardly say now. Afterwards, he tried to apologise to me personally by giving me a gift, but I most rudely rejected it. It's almost strange to me to think of you being angry at Hilbert for forcing me to marry him, when I feel that I treated him much worse back then than he treated me.'

'But - isn't it understandable for you to act with some hostility when he forced you to give him your hand?'

'I suppose it was, to some extent. Apart from that, however, he treated me so well at every instant that I do think it was wrong of me to return his kindness with incivility.'

The teatray arrived and Armand requested to serve his mother, to which she agreed.

'Armand,' Queen Solange said so gently as Armand handed her a cup that he froze, 'are you still angry with your father?'

He shook his head desperately.

'Yet I do believe you have been avoiding us, my dear.'

'No - well - rather -'

Queen Solange beckoned for him to sit down and he quickly obeyed.

'It's alright if you can't accept your father's origins,' she said, 'but I beg you not to continue behaving in this way. He is beside himself with the worry that you will never speak to him again.'

Armand flushed and was deeply ashamed of himself.

'I'm sorry,' he said in a small voice.

'You have been speaking with people to understand Hilbert's circumstances, have you not? Have they not helped you to understand your father's position at all?'

'They -'

'Even if you disagree with his methods, do you not understand that he did so to save the people closest to him?'

'Yes, I -'

'I understand that it shocked you to see the state of Copperfeld and understand that it was a consequence of your father's actions, but will you not also look at Fleuyan and understand that its prosperity and peace are also because of your father?'

'I do understand!' Armand burst out. 'I understand, Mother. I am not angry at Father - I - I am only angry at myself!'

'Oh.' Queen Solange relaxed and took a sip of her tea. 'Is that so? Whatever for, my dear?'

'Well, I - I said all kinds of things - when I returned from Copperfeld - accused Father of all sorts of crimes -'

'Crimes he committed, of course.'

'Yes, but - but - if I had known why -'

'Which you could not have.'

'Mother,' Armand said miserably, 'I spoke to Aunt Ragnhild, and I spoke to Bruno and Timo, and then I couldn't bear to hear any more. I can't believe what the people of Rasfura have been through to come to Fleuyan. Yet when I think of the people who must have suffered whenever they visited their villages, I feel sorry that they couldn't have the same good fortune in the end. At - at the same time ... it sounds like Father tried to help each village he came to, and he must have helped a great deal of people - an even greater number than those who suffered because of him. I don't know what to think.'

'Oh, Armand. Does it hurt you to discover how much injustice there is in this world?'

'S-something like that ... perhaps.'

Queen Solange wrapped her hand around the back of Armand's head and pulled him down to kiss his forehead. He pressed his head against her shoulder and hugged her.

'You have a noble soul,' she said. 'That is why it rebels against every immorality. But if you let yourself be weighed down by the cruelty of the world, then you will never be able to do a thing about it. You must understand that the best thing you can do is to shoulder your responsibilities and do your best for the little part of the world that you can change.'

'Is it impossible to hope for goodness in the world?' Armand mumbled.

'No, it is not. Your hope to spread goodness will spur you to action. However, you are only one man, and to wish to do more than you can is arrogance. Start by tending to your duties as prince and son, and you will find that your capacity for goodness will grow.'

For a few moments, the words only washed over Armand, and he neither heard nor comprehended them. They seeped into his mind slowly, like the spring rain into the soil. He swallowed back the lump in his throat before he spoke again.

'I understand. Thank you, Mother.' He drew back and she smiled at him. 'Aunt Ragnhild said I was still a child - or, she said I was as green as cabbage, and I didn't like that. But she's right. I thought I was an adult, but there is still much I don't understand.'

'I am quite happy for you to be a child for as long as you wish,' Queen Solange said warmly. 'I know that it will never be as long for as I wish it.' Armand chuckled to understand her meaning. 'Now, even if you don't wish to go to breakfast, will you let me call your father here? He misses you so.'

'Of course,' Armand said earnestly. He felt extremely guilty for allowing his father to believe that he was angry at him for so long. He was embarrassed to ask for his forgiveness, but he would not continue avoiding him and hurt him further.

A servant was called and dispatched to summon the king. Armand waited fretfully, thinking of what to say to him. He had settled on beginning with 'Sir, please allow me to apologise,' when King Hilbert entered the room. His eyes lit up as they alighted on his son, and Armand's speech melted away.

'F-Father,' he stammered.

'What is it, my boy?' the king said tenderly.

Armand took a step closer, holding out his hand. King Hilbert took it and held it firmly.

'There - there are still many - many things that I d-don't understand,' Armand said. He couldn't look at King Hilbert, though his father looked at him with so much affection. 'Please ... continue teaching me, and - and - I - I - I am very sorry.'

King Hilbert pulled him into a fierce embrace that might have flattened his ribs, but this time, Armand didn't protest. Being hugged by King Hilbert was like being covered by an extremely heavy blanket, so thoroughly did he envelop Armand. It was deeply reassuring.

'I could not ask for a better son,' King Hilbert said in gruff tones. 'Not one so honourable, so principled, or so good. You will make a very fine king.'

'If I could be half as good a king as you, then I would be proud of myself,' Armand said in a low voice.

'You will be one much finer, without a doubt.'

The king stepped back and Armand was extremely embarrassed to see tears in his eyes. But he felt a little happy too, feeling that things were returning to be as they should be.

'Um, if it's alright,' he said, turning to his mother, 'can - shall we - breakfast together - just the three of us?'

'A most excellent idea,' Queen Solange said as King Hilbert beamed at them both.

A modest breakfast was shortly laid out on the table before the empty fireplace, and the three of them sat down on the sofa as they had on the night Armand had returned from his travels. Food soon returned Armand to good spirits and he became eager to talk to his parents.

'I sparred with Aunt Ragnhild on the day after I returned, and I fear that I was very out of practice,' he said. 'I will not be long in the village today, so will you train with me when I return, Father?'

'Of course! Nothing could give me greater pleasure!'

'She told me,' Armand said rather more seriously, 'that there may come a time when I have to decide between protecting someone dear to me and taking the life of another person. I do not anticipate that day, but I want to be ready, so that I can act without hesitation.'

'As long as I can protect you from that day, then I will,' King Hilbert said. 'I fear that preparing you for that day - making you ready to act on another person's life - will take away your innocence before it is due. Yet if you are unprepared, you will be filled with regret. That is something you must understand too.'

Something occurred to Armand. 'When I spoke to Bruno and Timo, they told me about a village where - where they saw a girl ... being punished for stealing. Timo said she died shortly after you arrived.'

'Ah.' A shadow fell over King Hilbert's face. 'Yes, I remember.'

'You told me very little about what life was like for you in Rasfura. I would have understood sooner if you had told me more - but was it because ... you didn't really want me to know ... that such things lie outside Fleuyan?'

'Yes. I suppose I wanted to protect you.' King Hilbert smiled ruefully.

'Or perhaps you didn't want to be the one responsible for exposing him to such cruelty?' Queen Solange offered. Her tone was light and teasing, but Armand was struck by the notion. He realised that, despite everything King Hilbert had been through, he still maintained a sensitivity that gave him the desire to protect his son from so much as knowing about such crimes - a sensitivity that made him Hilbert the Gentle once he was able to be free of being Hilbert the Warlord.

'Perhaps. If my son never has to see such things with his own two eyes, then I would be content.' King Hilbert ran a hand through his son's hair, an act that would have normally caused Armand to object, but at that moment, he only felt the affection with which his father touched him. 'But I am glad, too, for him to know, for it will make him stronger. It will make you understand, and feel sympathy towards, the people who need your help the most.'

'I fear that - in helping some people, I may inevitably hurt others,' Armand said, and felt as if something had been set free from his chest. That was what he had been trying to understand all along - that good intentions could bring about evil consequences.

'Then make reparations, Armand,' Queen Solange said.

So that was the reason that his father had offered his help to the people of Copperfeld, without remorse or flinching from the idea that it was his responsibility. To neither regret the choices he had made in the past, nor to shy away from making reparations. Armand looked at his mother, and blurted out, 'I'm so glad I wasn't born of extortion.'

'What?' Queen Solange laughed. 'Oh, Armand. How could a thing like that worry you?'

'I simply - I know how much you and father esteem one another, and I have always - always assumed that - goodness comes from a child of love -'

The queen laughed even more heartily. 'Strange boy! But even if such a thing were true, you have nothing to worry about. I do not know when we conceived you, but -'

'No!' This was not what Armand wanted either, and he flailed his arms in a desperate attempt to make his mother stop talking. 'I don't need to know the details! I only - only need to know that - that the love between you and Father is true!'

'That it most certainly is. When you were a child, you always used to ask me whether I loved you or Father better, and get angry when I said I loved Father more.' Armand laughed, somewhat chagrined.

'I know now that that it is an unfair comparison. What you and Father have been through together is unmatched - not just by me, but by anyone in the kingdom.'

'Quite so.' Armand was startled, but pleased, when Queen Solange pulled him into an embrace. 'But you are a close second, my son.'

He leaned against her, and was not too surprised when King Hilbert wrapped his large arms around the both of them. Armand was as tall as his father, and he already had duties of his own for which he was solely responsible. But in that moment, he was content to be a child, who still had much to learn, and would trust his parents to teach him all he needed to know.