Chapter 35: Frederico – True King
‘Thinking is a one-person sport, kid. Leave me alone,’ Frederico said. He was sitting at the edge of the Fountain of Tales, unaffected by the winter night’s cold.
‘I’m not a kid!’ replied Leon, who had been watching Frederico from the shadows. He immediately apologized and began to introduce himself but before he could say his name, Frederico stopped him.
‘I don’t want to know your name. It’s enough that I’ll remember your face after you die.’
Leon held his spear tightly. He was fully armed and ready for battle. Frederico assumed that another useless battle would take place at sunrise. He assumed wrong. The prince didn’t know about the shabby woman who came all the way from Lencon with news of invasion. She came alone because the winter storms swept the life out of her travel companions.
‘Sir,’ said Leon, ‘why do they call you Frederito the Weak?’
‘I don’t like killing.’
‘Neither do I,’ said the soldier. He was tall for his age; his black arms were strong and lean.
‘Then don’t.’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘Indeed.’
The prince spoke funny. Did he use in speech the same written words that he had made so famous in Beloú? Thus, with an ‘indeed’ falling on unaccostumed ears, the conversation died away in unsatisfactory silence. But Lencon had been invaded; the War had left the Mouth; Leon needed — and was determined to find — a hero.
‘What have you been thinking about this whole winter?’ he asked.
Frederico turned to face the young soldier. The night’s shadows curtained the prince’s features, leaving only a line of silver light to tell where his face ended and the night began. His voice, when he spoke, had the inflection of mystery.
‘I’ve been thinking about how to end the War.’
Silence fell once again between them, but this time it was like a lullaby, an early breath of the coming spring. Leon left the prince to himself.
At dawn, Frederico went back to the Royal Mansion of Beloú. It was a grey morning, with a heavy, thick light that didn’t cast clear shadows and made rocks look rougher. Frederico climbed the stairs to his brother’s room. Faust was standing, facing the window, his right hand resting on the sill, his strong shoulders dark against the morning, slightly blurred by the morning grey. Seeing Faust there, facing dawn, unfailing and solid against the darkness, filled Frederico with pride. He was the brother of the man who would one day rule all of Franária. Because Frederico had a plan.
‘Brother,’ he said. ‘I know how to win the War.’
But as Faust stood there, he didn’t face dawn, he feared it. He didn’t feel solid. The world he knew was crumbling under his feet while the War shed its reins and proved to Faust he didn’t have control over anything. While his brother spoke at his back, a chill crept up his spine, gathering in as icy spot at the nape of his neck. Faust was not used to being afraid.
‘In the last couple of weeks I’ve shaped a plan for you to become King of Franária,’ Frederico said. ‘We can’t let Fulbert and Margot destroy our future the way they did our past.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Faust.
‘Listen,’ said Frederico, ‘we’re all so used to seeing Franária broken that we never think of it as a whole. If we do, there lies the way to victory. The answer is to summon the fourth part of Franária to our side. The answer, Faust, is the Frontier.’
There it was again, that word that made Faust’s throat spasm, that place whose existence he had so carefully ignored all of his life, and now Frederico threw it there, right in the middle of his own room, in his mansion, right when the world began to crumble.
‘I know it sounds crazy,’ said Frederico, ‘but remember the fear in everybody’s eyes when Líran spoke of the Frontier and the Land of the Banished. The power of those legends alone will win the war for us. We need the Frontier by our side.’
‘You’re insane.’
Frederico came to his brother’s side and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
‘Don’t be afraid, Faust. I’ll always be here by your side.’
‘You!’ Faust pushed away Frederico’s hand. ‘You will always be here by my side? You, who never raised your sword, who are incapable of cutting off a single little finger.’
He loomed over Frederico. He needed to cause fear, to feel powerful. What he saw in his little brother’s eyes was not fear but worry. Even when he raised his fist, even so, Frederico didn’t cower. Frederico touched Faust’s hand with the gentleness you use to calm a scared puppy. He was a mixture of pity and worry.
Pity! Frederico the Weak, feeling pity for Faust the Brave; feeling in the right to protect Faust the Brave. Since when was that possible?
Since the stories, thought Faust. Since that woman climbed the dry fountain and, under the rock eagle, unleashed legends on the streets of Beloú. No, even before that! Frederico already had that protective look since long before the violet-eyed woman stirred dreams and nightmares. That unreadable look, like those black things caught inside his books.
Books! It was they that created that illusion of superiority. Faust didn’t know where they came from, but he could decide their end. He left his room and his brother. When he came back, he had Frederico’s books with him.
‘This nonsense of yours ends here.’ He threw the books in the fireplace.
Frederico watched his books dive into the fire. He was light and distant, like someone watching his own dream. His feet refused to move, just like on the day his nightmare was born. Under the weight of the Old Woman’s books, the fire first withdrew then came back from under the blue cover of the Satironese book and embraced the pile like a carnivorous plant.
When Faust threw those books in the fire, the Old Woman died again.
‘I’ve got real problems to worry about,’ said Faust. ‘Lencon has been invaded by two hundred Baynardians.’
Frederico had to force his eyes away from the Old Woman’s second funeral pire. He had to focus on what was still alive. His brother.
‘Lencon has been invaded,’ he said. ‘So what?’
‘What do you mean, so what?’
‘If the news is already here, the Baynardians must be halfway to wherever they wish to go.’
‘The Halls of Snow.’
‘Two hundred men against the Halls of Snow?’ asked Frederico.
‘Where else would they go?’
‘I don’t know. Anyway, there’s nothing you can do.’
‘It is my duty to hunt them,’ said Faust.’
‘It makes no sense to take away troops from the Mouth to go hunting after a small army that Fulbert will have certainly crushed before you even reach the Halls. It is wiser to wait in Beloú.’
To reach the Halls of Snow, Faust would have to go north, around the Oltiens, almost into Deranian land.
‘All I need are two hundred men. It is possible to cut the enemy’s way,’ said Faust.
‘How?’
‘Crossing the Oltiens.’
‘In winter? It’s crazy enough to travel normal roads during the storms. To climb a mountain range is suicide.’
‘Father will never forgive me if I sit here and do nothing.’
‘It makes no sense to risk your life and that of our soldiers only because Fulbert thinks patience is the same as incompetence,’ said Frederico.
‘If you are afraid of winter and mountains you don’t deserve to be Fulbert of Patire’s son.’
‘There, we agree. If you have to go, Faust, go. When you come back, we will talk about what it really means to be a true king.’
