This statement was followed by the sharpest silence Oliver had ever experienced.

“Your Majesty, I believe that Heinrich might be some help in this matter,” said Prince Galen after the longest minute of Oliver’s life.

“Heinrich? What would he know about it?” King Gregor looked at his oldest son-in-law in distraction, rubbing at his chin as though trying to scrub the clean-shaven skin right off.

“The captain of Heinrich’s regiment was the Earl Caspar Saxony,” Galen said. He took the neatly wound yarn from Rose’s hands with a smile and began wrapping it around one of his knitting needles.

“My father was the captain of the Eagle regiment,” said Oliver. His mother had told him that often and with great pride.

The king raised one eyebrow, and Oliver saw a sudden similarity to Poppy in the expression and the set of his jaw. “Fetch the boy,” the king snapped at one of the guards.

What boy? Oliver wondered.

“To the victor go the spoils, they say,” King Gregor went on after one of the guards had left. “I drew up the border to take whatever spoils I could when the war ended. Which is why I can’t believe I would give Analousia half an earldom.”

“I’m afraid you did, Your Majesty,” said one of the ministers.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at the man, who shuffled through some papers on the table in front of him. He absently stuck a pen behind his ear, leaving streak of black ink on his gray hair.

“Here it is,” he announced. “The earldom of SaxeborgRohlstein was declared defunct, according to this. There are no heirs listed. All dwellings within its borders were declared empty. ‘Estate abandoned, land to be divided,’ it says in your own handwriting, sire. And here is your signature.” He held up the paper for the king’s inspection.

King Gregor snatched it from his hands and studied it. “That’s my hand, all right,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t remember writing this. Why would I say it was abandoned?” He looked around the room, but no one answered. “I’d been to that estate, with Maude, just before the war. It was a fine place!”

Oliver wanted to snatch the paper from the king’s hands and throw it on the fire, as though that would do any good. He caught the crown prince looking at him and glared. The crown prince raised his eyebrows and the fingers of one hand, as though urging Oliver to be calm.

The old minister had more papers to hand to the king. “And here is a copy of the deed giving the estate and surrounding farms to the grand duke as a reward for his service during the war, along with the title of Duke of Hrothenborg.”

“Blustering fool,” the king said, almost to himself. “Made a terrible duke. Does anyone remember what Hrothenborg did to deserve that?” He looked around. “Anyone?”

It seemed that no one did.

“This is highly irregular,” the king remarked, striding around the room. “I’m starting to suspect that it falls into your area of expertise, Galen,” he said to the crown prince.

Oliver wondered what the crown prince’s area of expertise was, and saw he wasn’t the only one. He saw one of the ministers mouth, “Knitting?” to his fellow, who smirked.

The man with the impressive eyebrows did not look puzzled but was looking over the papers with great concern. “This isn’t good, Gregor,” he said in a gravelly voice.

“No, it isn’t, Hans,” the king retorted. “I would like to—”

“Prince Heinrich,” announced the guard at the door, and Oliver’s question was answered as the “boy” King Gregor had sent for entered the room.

He was actually a man in his late twenties who walked with a pronounced limp. He looked a great deal like Galen but slightly shorter and more weather-beaten. And, Oliver supposed, to someone like King Gregor, just a boy.

Oliver himself must appear to be a squalling infant, then.

Heinrich bowed and nodded all around, and then his gaze fixed on Oliver. “Yes, Your Majesty?” he said to his father-in-law without moving his eyes from Oliver.

He was married to Lily, the second oldest princess, Oliver remembered. Also, Oliver thought that Heinrich was Galen’s cousin or some other relation, and looking at them made that obvious. He wondered that the two oldest princesses had been allowed to marry commoners—Galen would be the future king! What had they done to deserve such rewards?

“Heinrich,” King Gregor said. “What was the name of your captain in the war?”

“The Earl of Saxeborg-Rohlstein, Caspar Saxony, sire,” Heinrich said promptly.

“Ever talk about his family?” The man was all but shouting at Heinrich, who looked as though it were nothing out of the ordinary.

“Oh, yes. His wife was foreign, I believe.” Heinrich tilted his head, studying the ceiling as he thought. “I don’t remember her name,” he went on after a moment. “But he always spoke of her with great affection. He had a young son, and then a daughter? Perhaps the youngest was another son …” Heinrich shook his head. “I’m sorry, I just don’t remember much.”

“Does this young man bear any resemblance?” King Gregor asked gruffly.

Heinrich stared intently at Oliver, then nodded. “I marked it as soon as I entered, yes.”

“Very well,” King Gregor said. “You can stay or go.”

“I believe I will go,” Heinrich said deferentially. “Lily is not feeling well.”

“Still?” A cloud passed over the king’s face. “Hans,” he said to the man with the eyebrows. “You could do more good with Lily than here, I’ll wager.”

“Most likely,” said the other man. He handed the papers to Crown Princess Rose before following Heinrich out of the room.

“So,” King Gregor barked at Oliver when the door had closed behind them. “You’re an earl. Now I have to find out if I can hang an earl for banditry, or just keep you in prison for the rest of your life.”

Fugitive

Two days passed in silence. Oliver wondered if this was to be his punishment: to spend the rest of his life in the attic of the palace, alone, reading the same two books over and over.

The books were mildly interesting, but he still could not figure out why Princess Poppy had sent them. There were surely plenty of novels and books of poetry in the palace library, so Oliver was convinced that the princess had sent him these particular books for a reason, and he was determined to find it.

And really, what else was there for him to do?

One book was a history of Westfalin, beginning before it was Westfalin. Prior to the late fourth century, it had been nothing but a collection of walled cities. Then Ranulf, ruler of the largest city, had united them to fight the Rhwamanes in the south. After the Rhwamanes were defeated, he had declared himself king.

Oliver felt his eyes glazing over, then something jolted him, and he read one of the passages over again. Ranulf the Second, grandson of the first king, had been closely tied to a sorcerer named Wolfram von Aue. Later, Wolfram von Aue became known as the King Under Stone. The author of the book noted this with some distaste, as though reporting the rumors of magic and evildoing made him less of a historian.

Tossing that book onto the bed, Oliver scrabbled for the other. This was a slightly more whimsical work on the legends of Westfalin; there was sure to be more about the King Under Stone.

At last he found what he was looking for. This author not only believed that Under Stone had really done all that the rumors claimed, but was quite obviously afraid of the sorcerer king. The book asserted, as Oliver’s mother had, that the Nine Daughters of Russaka had borne the king’s sons, and it listed three other noblewomen who had done the same.

“He has at least twelve sons?” Oliver whistled. “And where do they all live? That is a lot of mouths to feed, assuming they eat and …”