This was too much for Myles.
“Just one paraparth!” he said; and, stepping over to Okapa, he spun her around until she faced the wall.
Then he clasped his princess to him in a long embrace.
But at last a pang intruded in his bliss. “Lilla dearest,” he asked, “where is our little son?”
She shook herself together.
“I know not,” she replied, “They would not let me know, for fear that the usurper—may he rest beyond the waves—might force the secret from me. But our country is more important than our child. While we tarry here the battle rages. Quick, to the upper levels, and let us take control.”
“We cannot do so without a message from their king,” her husband asserted. “Let us therefore bring them one.”
Stooping down, he picked up the dead body of Prince Yuri and flung it across his shoulder.
“Lead on!” he said.
As they emerged up a flight of stairs into the main hall of the palace they saw a frantic throng of palace guards piling tables, chairs, and other furniture into a barricade across one of the doorways. Evidently the troops of Emsul and Hah Babbuh had penetrated the palace and had driven the defenders back to this point.