Royal Quarry Read Free Page A

over with—asking such questions could do no one any good. Manning’s body and perhaps his soul might belong to the crown, but surely his memories were his own to bury as he saw fit.
    Manning’s indignant thoughts were interrupted by Albert’s reply.
    “I’m sure I would have just died.”
    “Of course not,” said Manning perfunctorily. Albert’s self-pity seemed glib to him: how could the boy know how he would react in the face of death until he was confronted by it?
    “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to kill somebody in battle, to see their face coming toward you and then end their life with a sword or arrow? I would lack the strength. Even if I had the strength of body I would lack the strength of will. Even my father, when he executes people, always has somebody do that part for him. You must be very strong.” He looked so small and scared.
    “When the other person is trying to kill you, it’s different,” said Manning gently, “Something inside you takes over. You kill to stay alive.”
    Albert looked at him. “Always?” he asked.
    “It always has for me,” said Manning.
    “I …” Albert started off hesitantly, but when he finally spoke it was quietly and all in a rush: “Two years ago I killed a man. He was a servant at the castle. Something had gone wrong, a thing stolen, I don’t remember. He didn’t do it, and neither did the two others taken with him. My father made me stay in the room as he asked them who had done it, and none of them knew, and they repeated and repeated that they didn’t know until he had a man cut off each of their left hands. And as the sword was coming for Tallis he panicked and accused one of the other two. It was clear it was not true, and my father had the swordsman cut off both his hands and his feet, and they all left him there on the floor, and my father told me to have someone clean up the mess, and the woman who came with a bucket and mop said that Tallis would die, was dying, slowly and in pain. There was nothing to be done for him, and no one dared help him for fear of punishment, but I could do it because I was the prince, and the prince can do no wrong, she said, and so I did. With a cloth over his face. It took longer than I thought it would, longer than it should have with all the blood he’d lost all over the floor and all over me, and I know now that when they come for me, the assassins or the executioners, if they ever come for me, I won’t be able to stop them. I will see that man writhing under my hands, and I will have lost my moment, and I will be dead.”
    He paused for breath.
    “I’m very sorry to have asked you about killing, if you don’t want to talk about it. It’s only that I envy your strength.”
    Manning didn’t know how to respond to this confession. He was angry that a person so young had been made to deal with so much; none of the men he had killed had been helpless or tortured before his eyes. He was surprised that the king was so cruel to his own son. Why are you surprised , he asked himself, with the orders that you are following now? Words of indignation or consolation that rose to his throat were choked back by guilt. If Albert survived the ordeal ahead of him he would some day stammer out a similar, terrible secret, and it would be Manning’s name, alongside Edward’s, among those who had wronged him. The prince envied his strength? If he were strong, he would have refused to do the job he was now undertaking.
    “No,” said Manning softly, “You have strength. I’ve seen how you’ve continued on this trip without complaint despite how hard it is for you.” He wanted to reach out and touch him, to reassure him with a hand on his arm, but he remembered the rebuke from yesterday and refrained.
    “I’m no good at hunting,” said Albert. He looked like he was about to cry. “I can’t track anything, I scare everything away, and I can’t shoot at all. I can’t even string my own bow.”
    “I’ll