to finish my negotiations, Razi. Before we go back. I had always planned to bring it to him, a fait accompli, and there is still much to do. Though all is nearly ready.’
Razi stood with his back to a small dark-wood folding table. He reached behind him and placed his fingertips on the scarred surface, as if to anchor himself. ‘The King did not send me,’ he admitted. Alberon’s face immediately lost its warmth. Razi pressed on. ‘Father has told me nothing of you, nor of what you have done. I have come in secret, without his permission, in the hope that I may reconcile you to each other . . . before this goes beyond repair.’
Alberon shook his head in what Wynter could only interpret as grim disapproval. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Well, well. So, you play the politician even with me, do you, brother? I had hoped you would leave such games behind you in the Moroccos. I had hoped that you at least would talk to me as a man – straight and true.’
‘I play no games, Alberon. I merely—’
‘You merely opened your mouth to me, and your first sentence was a lie,’ interrupted Alberon. Razi went to object and his brother lifted his hand to silence him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No more now. I understand that you have spent years speaking from two sides of your mouth, Razi, and our father owes you much for it. But you will break that habit now, understand? You are here with me now. You are on my side. There is no more need for two faces. We go forward from here together, as men, honestly and without falsehood.’
Razi frowned unhappily and clamped his lips shut, as if biting back a reply.
‘Good man,’ whispered Alberon, his face softening. ‘Good man. We will all do so much better with just a little less guile.’ He slid a half-smile at Wynter. ‘Speaking of which, what brought you to drag our poor little sister along? Thought I might need my socks darned; did you?’
‘Alberon,’ snapped Wynter, ‘what exactly are you doing here?’
Alberon grinned. ‘My!’ he cried. ‘How very direct of you, little sister. How decidedly uncourtly. You have no idea how much that refreshes me. Perhaps your stay with Marguerite has taught you something of candour? Perhaps she has shown you what it can truly mean to be a ruler?’
‘Only if being a ruler means bludgeoning your people into submission and burning all dissenters at the stake.’
‘Sometimes that is what it takes, Protector Lady. I have come to understand that a real leader needs to know when to leave the pretty words aside and hammer his opposition into line. If you are not with me, you are against me, correct?’ Alberon nodded to himself. ‘Correct,’ he said.
Seemingly carried away with the force of his thoughts, he began to pace, his head down, his expression intent. ‘Until recently, I was not certain that my father truly knew what this kind of strength meant . . . but now!’ Alberon smiled in admiration. ‘Mortuus in vita! That was a kingly act. I would not have thought him capable of it – to disinherit his only legitimate heir. Of course, he would have been better to simply have had me killed – but, as ever, he continues to turn his face from the final stroke. I’m telling you, if I were a king and my son stood against me, there would not be a tree left standing till his charred corpse and the corpses of all his supporters had been dragged down the mountain and strung up along the port road.’
Wynter met Razi’s eye as Alberon strode up and down between them. The expression on her friend’s dark face was a mirror image of the confusion in her heart. Was Alberon actually berating his father for not yet having killed him?
‘Your death, though,’ said Alberon, pointing at Razi. ‘A sly trick, but genius nonetheless! What better ruse to break me than the contrived slaughter of my brother? If anything would bring me down, that would! The old man knows me, Razi, I’ll give him that. Damn near broke my will.’
‘But that was no ruse!’ cried Wynter. ‘Albi, that was poor Shuqayr! It was Shuqayr! And Simon De Rochelle and all his men! Those murders were real, Albi. They really did those awful things! And they did them thinking that Shuqayr was Razi! Oh, Albi! The things they did to that poor man. If you only knew.’