Legacy

Chapter 5 - The Traps of Youth

The prince sat atop the old stone arch tossing Sidgin berries from a small bag into his mouth. Devin and Barabus's sons were sitting on a broken pillar laughing and throwing stones at a small pile of stones they had made, competing to see who would be the first to knock it over. The ruins of the bakery complex sat just at the edge of the village. It had burnt down years ago and hadn't been used since the empire fell. There had been no need to mass produce bread once the Imperial Hunting Lodge had been all but abandoned.

The villagers just made what they needed when they needed it. No one was quite sure what had started the fire that had gutted the building. It might have been a lightning strike during the storm or someone being careless but, either way, the supports had given way and the roof had collapsed. Now there was just a shell of the structure remaining and a few broken fragments. The prince and his friends had adopted it as their personal headquarters. No one bothered them here and they were free to do what they liked and plan their capers.

It was not as if they ever got into any real trouble, but a little fun and mischief was harmless, and if no one got hurt then that was what mattered. Although the prince had to admit that more often than not they ended up getting caught in the act or sometimes even before they had a chance to do anything. That was the problem with being the prince, everyone knew him and there was never a chance to do anything unnoticed.

They had spent most of the afternoon discussing in great length Barabus's son's recent trip to Three Lakes. He only returned a few days ago but it was the first time his father had taken him and represented the furthest any of them had ever been – at least that they could remember. Technically, two of them had been in the capital as infants but as far as they were concerned that didn't really count.

The way he described Three Lakes made it sound like a grand adventure. The streets were paved, the buildings more stone than wood, and the ones in the town centre all at least two or three stories high. While there, Barabus had eluded detection of the ever-vigilant agents of Praxis and had passed unnoticed as a simple trader buying goods. There had been several special purchases that had been almost clandestine in their undertaking. Quiet words at the edge of shops and things passed unseen beneath table tops.

To listen to his son talk, Barabus knew a hundred different secret signs and languages. Ways of passing messages with a nod or hand gesture that would go unnoticed to the uninitiated. Of marks hidden in plain sight, a sign in a butcher's window advertising a discount on hare and fowl indicating that he had new information to share; or an overturned pot in a flower shop indicating a message had been left elsewhere.

It was a mysterious world of secrets and lies far more interesting than the usual mundane tasks of cleaning the bar and moving casks of wine. It had not been all work though – there had been time to visit the Silver Falls and the two had spent a whole day there just fishing, talking and laughing.

"I'll be getting out of here soon. After my naming day I'll finally get to see the world," the prince said out loud to no one in particular.

"Where do you think you'll go first? The capital? Heidenguard?" Devin asked casually.

"I can't say. It's best if no one knows but it won't be the capital. I won't return there until its mine. An emperor doesn't slink into his own house; he enters in triumph or not at all."

His friends just nodded. They had heard this speech before and knew that in truth he had no idea when or where he would be going. Archon had kept that secret well. There were probably only three people in the village who knew what the prince's future held in store.

"I'm bored! I know, listen closely. I just thought of something that will be a lot of fun."

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