"Never say that again," came the sudden command through the tiny intercom. "Do you hear me? Never even let yourself think that for a moment."
"I'm sorry, Petra," Let said. His cousin, the Duchess, had been acting strangely since her arrival two days ago. Fifteen years his senior, she was still the member of the family to whom he felt closest. Usually, with her, he could forget the crown that was always being pointed to as it dangled above his head. His brother was not very healthy, nor even—as some rumored—all in his proper mind. Yet now it was Petra herself who was pointing out the gold circlet of Toromon's kingship. It seemed a betrayal. "Anyway," he went on. "Here I am. What did you want?"
"To say good morning." The smile in the voice brought a smile to Let's face too. "Do you remember that story I told you last night, about the prisoners in the tetron mines?"
"Sure," said Let, who had fallen asleep thinking about it. "The ones who were planning an escape." She had sat in the garden with him for an hour after dark, regaling him with the harrowing details of three prisoners' attempt to escape the penal mines. She had terminated it at the height of suspense with the three men crouching by the steps in the darkness and the drizzling rain, waiting to make their dash into the forest. "You said you were going to go on with it this morning."
"Do you really want to hear the end of the story?"
"Of course I do. I couldn't get to sleep for hours thinking about it."
"Well," said Petra, "when the guard changed, and the rope tripped him up when he was coming down the steps, the rear guard ran around to see what had happened, as planned, and they dashed through the searchlight beam, into the forest, and ..." She paused. "Anyway, one of them made it. The other two were caught and killed."
"Huh?" said Let. "Is that all?"
"That's about it," said Petra.
"What do you mean?" Let demanded. Last night's version had contained detail upon detail of the prisoners' treatment, their efforts to dig a tunnel, the precautions they took, along with an uncannily vivid description of the scenery that had made him shiver as though he had been in the leaky, rotten-walled shacks. "You can't just finish it up like that," he exclaimed. "How did they get caught? Which one got away? Was it the chubby one with the freckles? How did they die?"