“Never against him,” she said. “And I was part of no plot. They told me to pack for a journey, for myself and my sons.”

“You knew what it meant.”

She did not disagree.

“Bexoi wanted me to get you out of the way. I loved her and I did her bidding. But I also distrusted her even then, and so I didn’t kill you. What I did was worse. I took you and your two dangerous sons, and I put you in the mouths of old slag tunnels in the face of the cliff, and I made gates that caught you if you fell and put you back at the top of the cave, so you lived in constant torment, always about to fall, never able to end your captivity by leaping from the cell. That was my idea, my plan. That was how I saved you alive. How I punished you and your innocent sons, because you posed a threat to the woman I loved, and to my son that she was bearing.”

“That’s a poor excuse,” said Eko boldly.

“It’s no excuse at all,” said Wad, turning to the girl. “It was a monstrous crime against the three of them, and I did it. I thought of it and I carried it out and no one knew that they were there except for me. I stole food and gave it to them. As time went on the food grew better and I made their imprisonment more bearable. When the Queen learned that they were still alive and demanded that I kill them, I disobeyed her. There are a few things in my favor.”

Wad turned back to Anonoei. “But nothing makes up for the evil that I did. I tormented you and your sons. Whatever terrors and dark visions inhabit their minds, I caused.”

Wad looked at the boys, for his eye caught some motion. It was the younger one, Enopp. He had broken his gaze at Wad and was now looking at his brother and then his mother. His face showed some animation for the first time. But Eluik remained dead-eyed, his gaze still riveted on Wad.

“Whomever you blamed and whomever you hated there in your prison cells, and whomever you feared, I was your captor, your jailer, your torturer. What does it matter that I despised myself for what I had done to you? I continued to do it.

“So let me give you some consolation. Queen Bexoi got the King to sleep with her. You were gone, and so were your sons. He believed that my boy was his own, and now he came to love the Queen, and he wanted to give her a baby. So he begot a child upon her. And then she didn’t need my little bastard anymore.