I T WAS LATE SUMMER, over a year after my exile had begun, when at last I
told him of how I had killed the boy. We were in the branches of the
courtyard oak, hidden by the patchwork leaves. It was easier here somehow,
off the ground, with the solid trunk at my back. He listened silently, and
when I had finished, he asked:
“Why did you not say that you were defending yourself?”
It was like him to ask this, the thing I had not thought of before.
“I don’t know.”
“Or you could have lied. Said you found him already dead.”
I stared at him, stunned by the simplicity of it. I could have lied. And
then the revelation that followed: if I had lied, I would still be a prince. It
was not murder that had exiled me, it was my lack of cunning. I understood,
now, the disgust in my father’s eyes. His moron son, confessing all. I
recalled how his jaw had hardened as I spoke. He does not deserve to be a
king.

Chapter 6