The warmth of the crown suddenly seemed to burn, and Blackthorn placed it on a chest of drawers. "I did what had to be done, nothing more. We should not be debating about who might inherit the throne of our ruler. We should be concerned about how our realm fairs while he is gone."

"What if he never returns?"

Blackthorn did not want to answer, believed the question did not warrant an answer. Lord British lives! Yet he heard himself speak. "If need be, then I, as Regent, will ensure that the establishment of a new monarchy is created in accordance to law." But such action will not be needed. He lives!

"And if something were to happen to the Regent?" The scribe leaned forward, the light of the chamber falling full on his face.

'Twas if winter's breath had seeped into Blackthorn's blood. He had known the court advisor for years, but that face always caused disconcertment whenever Blackthorn saw it for the first time. The crystalline, blue eye that scrutinized him gleamed with shrewdness, and the scribe's mouth curved in a sly grin, teeth in even rows if not shining white. His nose, cheeks, and jaw were lean and slender, fit for a thief. Blackthorn had recognized the man's craftiness immediately. 'Twas an intelligence others did not usually see in the old man, not when distracted by the right half his face.

Eye, nostril, and mouth drooped in a perpetual frown, each too thin, too long, twisted and warped. They might have looked as if they were trying to crawl their way off his skull, had they not simply hung there in lifeless lumps. The rest of his skin heaved in thick, molten welts, boiled and burned long ago in a fire of which the man would not speak. The right ear was missing as well, an unsightly hole covered by that angry mesh of gray hair, and 'twas the reason why the court advisor leaned with his left side forward when others spoke.

"Tell me, Whitelock," Blackthorn whispered, "what dost thou mean by ‘if something were to happen to the Regent?'"

The man named Whitelock regarded Blackthorn coolly. "Come now, didst thou not think of this? The Regent may rule in His Majesty's absence, but what if the Regent were, shall we say, to go missing as well? What then? The void of power would resume. The Great Council could then support a third party for the monarchy, should they choose to support a monarch at all." One half of his face smiled, the other frowned. "Do not think that this scenario has not occurred to Windemere."

The crown glinted out of the corner of Blackthorn's eye as he spoke. "Windemere has nothing to gain from overthrowing me. I promised the Great Council full compliance."

"Over what? Creating and signing laws?" Whitelock grunted in amusement. "Lord British had, more or less, already granted the Great Council that power. Rarely did he contend any action of the Council, not that he needed to. The courts and military, they who enforce the laws, ultimately answer to the monarch, not the Council, and Windemere will not rest until that is changed. He took his first steps toward control by providing Britannia with a navy. Certainly, he would have extended his control over the land . . . had not a young lord already done so with the Black Company." The scribe's singular eye stared pointedly at Blackthorn. "Now, with Lord British's disappearance, he need not control the land if he controls the monarchy. Yet here thou art, once again, standing in his way."

Blackthorn shook his head. "Windemere is a fool, that is certain, but he's even more the fool if he believes he can simply rid the realm of a king. The monarchy is an establishment. The Great Council knows this. If one king falls, another will replace him."