Again Lilla sought to interrupt: “But my cousin is not king.”
“What do you mean?” Cabot exclaimed, amazed. “Certainly you hold no brief for his brother, the renegade Yuri.”
“Certainly not,” the princess remonstrated, “but you forget our little son. It’s our little Kew who is King of Cupia.”
All the party turned to look at her in horror! Was her mind becoming unhinged by the ordeals which she had gone through? Did she not remember the terrible doings in Luno Castle, when Yuri’s dagger had stilled forever the heart of the little babe?
Toron had found the dead body and had withdrawn the dagger and prepared the funeral bier. Cabot had buried the little corpse with his own hands. Nan-nan knew the whole ghastly story in its every detail, from the spies of the lost religion. And even Wotsn shared in the general popular knowledge.
Had Lilla’s mind gone blank on this subject? Lilla, from whose own arms the babe had been snatched by its assassin!
Myles flung a protecting arm about her.
“My poor, poor, dear girl,” he said comfortingly, “our little darling lies dead and buried in the courtyard of Luno Castle.”
Indignantly she broke away from him, and stormed: “I’ll not be soothed as though I were drunk with saffra-root. I know what I know. And—”
But suddenly Nan-nan exclaimed, “Look! Look at the street below!”