In much the same way, sixth was done in by a strap come undone, but so off balance was he in his fall that he tumbled all through his room and then out his window and down to his death in the courtyard below. Sentries resting there heard him curse the wayward strap as he fell through the air, Oh, traitorous! I am betrayed!

Second, wee babe, died in his sleep, napping in the half-light of late afternoon.

And such was his grief on the loss of his child that first, who died last, smothered himself in the depths of his pillow late in the night as he sought to silence his cries.

A brutish age. A brutish day, with accidents like that.

When the chroniclers of the age wrote about this day, none thought to question the terrible misfortune that had befallen the first through the tenth, for, yea, though the misfortune was great, it was not inconceivable for such a series of accidents to occur, despite their large number in so short a time. None thought to record how a rider galloped away from each accident to carry the news to a man with a wriggling worm for a lip. Instead, they focused on the tremendous good luck that eleventh, in all his wisdom, had sat himself on a stool outside a door to watch a pair of ditch diggers all through the day, and thus, through intelligent idleness, brought the succession of accidents to an end. So wrote the chronicler Agnolo the Flat-Footed:

And the palace guards that arrived did find eleventh—now first—eating alone in his chamber late in the day. And when they knelt before him and called him king, he lifted a spoonful of cooked cream and asked whatever did they mean. And his tutor, the great, good governor who entered the chamber then in a hurry, did have to explain, with much wriggling of his mouth, that eleventh was now first and should be king of all the land. And the guards who looked on were well amazed that the new king showed neither astonishment nor bewilderment upon his pale cheeks but finished the scraping of the cooked cream from the sides of his dish, which he did then eat slowly and with much contentment.

III

THE ORACLE AND THE APPRENTICE

A man will become a bird.

A boy will become a lily.

Bees and eggs and feathers stuffed make eleven one.

Terror—there’s no adder in the garden!

Horror—no lace will cause a man to fall!

Oh, one, oh, king, oh, one.

For days now, the oracle had been wailing the oddest laments as she puttered up and down the mountain. The oracle’s apprentice, who had grown well used to the strangeness of the old woman’s mutterings, nevertheless found these lamentations particularly unnerving. When they knelt at the pool to wash and moonlight shimmered on the water, the oracle would suddenly cry, The mare would not kick her master! Or, climbing the hillside, she would pause and hold out a handful of stones. His own sword in another’s hand! Whenever the apprentice asked the old woman what she meant, though, the oracle would simply shake her head: She was not aware of the words coming from her mouth. Or, if she was, she would not say more to help her apprentice understand.