Luca, at the end of my row, laughed harshly, and we turned as one to look at him. “You talk,” he said. “It’s talk, and that’s the all of it.”

I shrugged, and Luca laughed again. “You keep saying ‘your baron,’ Man-killer. Isn’t he yours as well? Are you going to rush up the hill to save him, or do you just expect us to?” The other men saw me struck back and laughed. My face reddened. I had no desire at all to defend their baron from any passing murderers, and they could tell. I asked myself whom I would fight for, with the people I loved most already dead.

“I’d save Berrone,” I muttered, thinking that she’d been kind to me, that she held my debt, even if she was too stupid to know it.

“Oh,” said Luca, taking my words in an unintended fashion. “I’d save Berrone, too,” and they all laughed. The conversation continued on in a different direction, and I fell silent.

I thought of the servants in the villa at Letnos. Free and slave, they had turned on me. They could have chosen to fight, and they hadn’t, probably because they judged it a losing battle, and I couldn’t blame them for that. They had seen me in desultory practice with a sword or reading poetry. They’d seen me whimpering after my tutor switched my hands. It was no wonder they thought they would be asking for their own deaths by following me. So they had made their choices and died of it anyway.

I don’t know if we would have won the fight in the villa if they had stood with me. I know that it was my fault that they didn’t try. My entire life I had been no better than Hyacinth, who chose to betray me and then stood wringing his hands at the consequences. All my life I had been aggrieved to be the prince of Sounis, wailing, “Why me? Why me?” and looking for some way to deny my responsibilities.

Of course the servants had chosen not to follow me; I’d failed them already by refusing to be a man they could believe in. I was, in that sense, as responsible for their deaths as I was for my mother’s and sisters’. I was sorry that I hadn’t done better for them and glad that I would not fail anyone else.

CHAPTER SIX

IN one of my dreams, my tutor told me a story, and I would like to tell it to you. I don’t know why I was dreaming of it, but it has come to my mind often in recent days. It is the story of Morpos’s choice.

There once was a young man named Morpos who lived in a small village at the edge of a great forest and was known to all his neighbors as a fine pipe player. The nearby forest was filled with bandits, and hidden in the middle of it was a temple belonging to Atrape, goddess of wise decisions. The temple was guarded by a wolf, and stories told of an opisthodomos filled with treasures. Any one of those treasures—a bag of gold, a necklace of rubies, an enchanted shield or sword—the goddess would give to any who got past the wolf at the door.

Few people took up the offer. Not only was there the wolf to consider, but also the bandits who would catch those who survived a visit to the temple and strip them of anything of value. And those who didn’t have gifts of value were stripped of their lives. One wise supplicant had survived to ask the goddess for the gift of prophecy and been given it, only to be captured immediately thereafter. He shouted, “I am going to die, I am going to die,” and he did.

Another man asked for a magical sword. He left the temple and became king of the bandits for a time, until he was stabbed in his sleep. The sword rusted away soon after.

One night, as he was sleeping, the young man in our story dreamed of the wolf. In his dream, the wolf revealed that he had once been a king who had offended the gods and been transformed into a beast. He had been sent to guard the temple but was forbidden to attack anyone who came in peace. All that was necessary to enter the temple was to bow to the wolf and offer your throat.

The young man had no desire to go to the temple and gave little thought to his dream. His own wish was to travel far from the forest, to see the world and play his pipes. In the night the wolf came to him again. And again. Finally, late one winter afternoon, the young man was walking at the edge of the forest when rain began to fall. He moved under the trees for shelter but continued to get wet. He moved deeper into the woods, and the rain came down more and more heavily. Ahead he saw a small hut made from branches left by a woodcutter. He ducked through the low opening on one side and came face to face with the largest wolf he had ever seen in his life. It was as high as his chest, with teeth like awls in a row, and there was no hope of escape. Remembering his dream, he offered the wolf his throat. Perhaps if the animal was not hungry, the two might share the shelter awhile.

He was much astonished when he heard the wolf say, “Your grandfather’s brother was welcome here once.”

Lifting his head, the young man looked around and found himself in a temple with marble floors and pillars and a roof high overhead, not the crossing branches of the hut he had seen from the outside.

“He asked for a sword,” said the wolf over his shoulder as he padded away toward the fire in front of the altar.

The young man looked out the open doors of the temple at the rain.

“The bandits will expect you to have gold, and will kill you if you don’t,” the wolf said. “Though, if you have offended the goddess by leaving without her gift, your problems with the bandits will be inconsequential.”

Sighing, the young man moved to the fire. He could at least be warm and dry. He found a tray of food waiting and made himself at home. The wolf was surprisingly good company, telling stories of the people who had come to the temple in the past. Some had taken the gold, hoping to sneak past the bandits. Some had taken weapons and then spent the rest of their lives fighting. The young man played his pipes for the wolf and eventually lay down to sleep as the rain fell outside. In the morning the goddess appeared to ask him what gift from the temple he would choose.

“Does anyone who takes the gold get to keep it?” he asked. “Does everyone who takes the sword end up a bandit?”

The goddess smiled. “Everyone thinks he will be the exception.”

Morpos asked if he could have another day to think about it.

“Tomorrow at dawn,” said the goddess, “you must choose.”

The young man talked things over with the wolf all day and slept well that night. In the morning, when the goddess came and asked if he had made a decision, he said he had.

“Goddess, I must choose a gift from your temple.”

“There is no must,” said the goddess. “I offer you a gift of your choice, and you may choose to decline.”

Morpos knew it was a foolish man who declined the gifts of the gods.

Morpos said, “Then I will take the wolf, if you please.”

The goddess smiled. She said, “You may take him with my goodwill, but once he leaves the temple he will not be under my power or yours. He may eat you.”

“He may, but he may not. I cannot like my other choices, and indeed, I believe he will not.”

The goddess freed the wolf, and he did not eat Morpos. They walked together out of the forest, the wolf warning the bandits away with a wolfish grin and Morpos playing his pipes.

In my dreams, I tasked my tutor. These stories always seem to me to have more holes in them than story. Why did the temple look like a hut on the outside? Did the goddess mean to trick Morpos? Wasn’t the temple supposed to be in the middle of a forest? Surely the young man would have noticed if he’d gone that far. Why was the goddess giving away gifts anyway? And why would someone who took a sword or a spear necessarily become a bandit? Obviously it was so some lesson could be taught, but I found it frustrating.