“You’re a lot more reasonable than I thought you were,” Pel observed.
This made Torex laugh, as Pel had expected. The man definitely had a good sense of humor. He seemed at first not to take anything seriously, but Pel had begun to realize that it was Torex’s coping mechanism. It was how he dealt with his position and still related to people. It didn’t actually mean he thought everything was a joke.
“I have my moments of absurdity, I assure you,” Torex told him after a moment, a smile still lingering on his lips. Then the amusement fell out of his eyes, and he confessed roughly, “And I did drink too much before. It’s odd how it’s so much easier to see when you’re sober.”
Pel didn’t think it was odd at all, but he’d never felt the urge to drink to excess. Thankfully, his father had mostly given Pel up for a lost cause and didn’t push him too much. Bavil got a lot more of it—but he’d perfected the manner of looking as though he was drinking more than he actually was. Pel might disapprove of his brother’s behavior in a lot of ways, but he was always willing to distract their father for a moment so that Bav could either add water or pour out some of the alcohol.
One day, Bavil was going to inherit the throne, and while Pel had serious concerns, the drinking, at least, wasn’t one of them. So even if Bavil thought the way Forex did on too many matters of policy, just that was an improvement.
And King Forex could rule for decades more. The Fealty of the people tended to confer a longer life span on the ruler—though not indefinite and not entirely predictably.
“You stopped drinking,” Pel pointed out.
Pel saw it every time they went out. Torex almost always had fella-root with the villagers—and a few days after his confession, he even had milk with some children. When one of them had told him that milk was still warm if you drank it as soon as it came out from the cow, Torex had affected a look of complete shock and surprise. “No. Really?”
The children had assured him yes.
“I don’t believe it!”
A chorus of little voices told him, “We’ll prove it!”
And together, they’d pulled the High Prince of the United Realms out to the barn. Pel had been hard pressed not to laugh, and the grin that Torex had shot him when he returned—conceding defeat gracefully—had been impossible to resist.
Torex was very good with children, even when they were young and awkward and sometimes asked rude or impertinent questions.
This tended to embarrass the parents in question, but Torex always waved this aside with a smile.
“I remember being their age. I wanted to knoweverything, and it never occurred to me that there was perhaps a reason why no one else was asking.”
As when they wanted to know if he had children of his own, and when he confessed that he didn’t, they wanted to know what was wrong with him.
Royals tended to bond later in their lives than common folk did, but no adult would have dreamed of pointing that out to the Prince.
“I’m very slow,” Torex had told them with perfect gravity. “I haven’t found the right person yet.”
This had, predictably, devolved into a discussion of all the ways the children thought that he could find people faster. They’d ranged from farm animals being used to sniff out the best options to wandering through the woods—because that was always how you found people in adventure stories—and a giant contest where people came to compete. This then caused a lot of argument amongst the children because some thought it should be a whole bunch of people coming to compete for Prince Torex but others thought that Torex should be competing to show off for the others, but it wasn’t clear who he should be competing with. Torex assured them he appreciated their suggestion and would consider it carefully.
“Don’t wait too long!” a little girl with a gap-toothed smile told him cheerfully. “If you get too old, no one will want you!”
She was shushed, but Torex just laughed.
“Is that true?” Pel asked as they left. “You’re looking for the right person?”
“I’m determined not to wind up with the wrong person!” he snapped.
Pel flinched, taken aback by the unexpected flair of anger. Torex sucked in a breath, blew it out, and then muttered, “Sorry. For some reason, I believe that I should be able to choose my own future.”
Pel had watched Bavil ruin the carefully orchestrated bond his father had wanted for him, and he wondered for the first time if his brother had done it deliberately. Pel had never thought of it like that before. But if that were the case, why hadn't Bavil just told Pel that, rather than acting as though he didn’t care about any of it, as though Marwila’s feelings didn’t matter, and Bavil’s behavior was blameless and acceptable?
“That’s not always how life works,” Pel pointed out.
Torex’s lips tipped up, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Tell me about it.”
There was pressure even being the least-wanted of King Forex’s children. Pel imagined it got a whole lot worse when you were the brother of the High King.
“May I ask you a question?” Pel said.
Torex looked at him sideways. “When do you not ask me questions?”
