sat on the bench by Xau.

“I saw them coming to you, and kneeling.

I would have stopped them bothering you,

but that they were right.

Every fucking man and woman

in the fucking room

should have knelt to you.

Myself included.”

“No—” Xau spoke too sharply.

He took a breath, tried again.

“We do not want you to kneel to us.

Better to have a friend.”

Donal leaned back against the wall.

“If you were any other friend of mine,

we’d get drunk together.

Or go to a brothel.

Or both.”

“Not a brothel,” said Xau.

“But we could drink with you.”

Donal raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t think you ever got drunk.”

“We don’t. We will try it once.

For educational purposes.”

With the guards’ help,

they carried the gifts

plus liquor to Xau’s room,

and then set about the business

of educating him.

TIARNAN

The horses and dogs ready

when Connol arrived. Late.

His brother—King Donal—

plus a dozen other men,

and Queen Fian and her sister

all waiting for him.

“Sorry. Where’s Xau?”

“King Xau chose not to hunt with us.”

A hint of scorn in Fian’s voice.

“Anything wrong?” asked Connol.

Donal shrugged. “He drank a lot last night.”

“He got drunk? Xau doesn’t drink.”

“He drank. He sang. I sang with him.”

Connol so preoccupied imagining this

that they were a mile out

before he noticed that Tiarnan,

Donal’s fourteen-year-old son,

wasn’t there either.

∗

Tiarnan searched half the castle

before finding King Xau outdoors,

drilling with his guards.

Xau, his off arm in a sling,

paused midway through a footwork drill.

“Tiarnan, do you want to join in?”

“I’d like that.”

Tiarnan warmed up,

borrowed a practice sword.

Once he had the patterns down,

they went faster and faster

until Tiarnan ran with sweat.

Xau’s guards tirelessly, infuriatingly faultless;

Xau’s form almost the match of his guards

but the king’s face set with effort.

When they finally stopped,

Xau gave Tiarnan an easy, friendly smile.

“You’re a far better swordsman

than we were at fourteen.”

“Thanks.” Tiarnan tried not to show

how pleased he was—

he wanted Xau to like him—

didn’t want Xau to know

that he wanted him to like him.

“We were lazy,” said Xau.

“We didn’t practice.”

“But I thought you were—

I thought you always did

exactly what you were meant to.

My father said, years ago,

that you were ‘hideously honorable.’”

Xau silent a moment.

“We... tried to do what was right.”

“And you did it!”

Tiarnan couldn’t understand

Xau’s hesitation. “You won the war,

saved the demon’s servants,

you did everything.”

Xau looked at him,

not the look a man gives a child,

even a child he is proud of,

but the look of one man to an equal.

“We tried, but men still died.

Men. Women. Children.

Innish and Meqingese alike.

In battle or demon-burnt.”

Lead in Tiarnan’s stomach,

a weight he’d never shared.

“What happens, when I’m king,

if I don’t know what to do?