"That my lord has such an excellent way with a jest," he replied, mindful of the other ears in the room.

"Jest?" said Montague, his tone beginning to rise.

Richard held his breath, all his attention on the duke. He did as before with Ambert, as before with Ghislaine, pouring all his hard concentration into it, striving this time to get past the monumental barrier of his father's anger, hatred, and drunkenness. A small pain formed behind his eyes from the effort. "Indeed," he whispered after many long moments. "You did but jest, did you not?"

Montague's reply was tardy. Richard held out, the ache in his skull growing, but in the end he got a small, near imperceptible nod in response. His father's wide face was shiny with sweat.

"It was most clever, but now you will release me from your service."

"R-release... ?" The old man's lips quivered.

"Say it, my lord, say that you release me. Say that I am free of my oath to you."

And the words came out, halting at first, and then in a steady stream of ritualized speech. "I, Montague, Duc d'Orleans, release you, Richard d'Orleans, from all oaths of fealty and service to my house. You are free to go and make thy way in the wide world, in honor and grace..."

"Excellent," said Richard, when it was all finished. "You'll not go back on this. No one will be able to change your mind on it. I shall leave soon, and you'll allow no one to hinder me or the people I travel with. They are of no interest to you; you've better things to worry about. Is your understanding clear on this?"

"Yes... I-"

"That is good." Richard withdrew a few steps and waited.

It took only a little time for the duke to regain himself, and when he did his first action was to rise and fill his tankard again, growling like a bad-tempered bear. He shot a belligerent glare at Richard. "Well? Why do you tarry?

You've leave to go, take it!"

Richard pressed his hand to his brow, and the ache there lessened. The beguilement had been difficult, but worth it.

Relief washed over him, and he recalled the other reason why he'd come. "Then I give you my farewell, Lord Montague."

The old man sneered. For all his lapse bending to Richard's will, he was well recovered back to his original foul humor. "Keep your farewell. I want it not, and will be glad to see you gone."

Richard blinked once at this brusque dismissal. What did I hope for? A fond embrace? A fallen tear? Pushing away the old and futile hurt, he bowed deeply and backed a pace or two toward the main door before turning.

"Bad riddance to thee!" Montague threw after him. "You should never have been born."

How often had he heard that one? Never again, God 'a mercy. He kept going.

"In all of your miserable life, you've brought me nothing but grief from the very beginning," the duke continued, his voice rising. "I curse the day you were conceived and the day you came forth." It was his favorite torment, though he usually took more time to work up to it. His drunkenness must have altered the pattern. "The day you took my wife from me!"

The effect of this all-too-familiar attack on Richard was immediate and impossible to hide behind his usual wall of silence and nonreaction. He knew where the duke was leading and how impossible he was to stop.

"Better if you had died instead, you murdering-you were the one that did it. You killed your own mother!"

No! I did not kill her! I did not! I did not! His steps faltered as the old agony seized him once more.

"Killed her, I say. Ripped her from the inside and left her screaming with her blood pouring out."

In all the years that he'd been lashed by the tale, Richard had held himself in check. He'd endured every kind of variation, delivered by every kind of utterance from whispered baiting to blistering shrieks, time and time again, knowing that any objection, denial, or rage to the contrary would only make it worse. As a child, he'd seek solitude and weep out his grief; as a man, he'd swallow back the anger to release it on the practice field with fighting, or get drunk.

But now...

For want of a sword, his hand sought the dagger on his belt. In that moment he wanted nothing else but to stop the tearing rasp of the old man's voice. A quick strike, slide the blade through his throat and watch the blood spurt...

He felt the heat sear his face and with it came blinding, unquenchable fury born of the helpless anguish he kept within his soul. Always he'd been able to hold it back-but it was... was different now. "Your fault-"

Far, far different.

"You damned-"

His corner teeth... budding...

"-murdering-"

Richard came to a stop, bewildered by his body's unexpected response to the torment. A hot breath seemed to touch his brow, clouding his vision. The torches burned steadily, but the golden cast of their light appeared to be tainted with crimson. He closed his eyes tight, knowing that they'd gone red as hellfire, and lowered his head, giving in to a shudder as he fought what was happening inside.

"-coward!"

He raised his hands, palms out as though to push the words away, and placed all his thought upon mastering himself. I will not let him win. Not after all this time.

"Your fault!"

I will be the strong one, not he. But it was so hard. So many, many years of blame to carry, to struggle against. It had ever and always been the one fight he could not win.

Then clear within his mind he heard Sabra's voice, full of love and comfort. Ah, the poor man. He grieves for her still. He loved her so.

And suddenly Richard's hot rage cooled. He felt a stillness take hold of his pounding heart, gently slowing it.

Holding his breath, he listened for her to speak again, but no more came. What had been said was all; it would have to be enough. Was, indeed, enough. He was in control of himself again and very, very calm.

He'd always believed the old man's anger over his wife's death had been about being deprived of one of his prized possessions. It never occurred to Richard that his father could have loved a woman, might still love her. If he felt about her as I feel about Sabra... He shook his head at the idea, finding it a difficult thing to take in, then turned and looked at Montague, trying to see him afresh.

But nothing about him seemed different. The duke stood hunched forward, a hand on the table to hold himself steady, his bloated face flushed and mouth set. "Well, boy?" he demanded, once more insisting on an answer to the impossible.

He is the same; it is I who am changed.

"Well?"

Richard shook his head as comprehension seeped into him. "I thought you the greatest in all the land. You were a noble warrior, strong and valiant-and you were my father. I'd have done anything to show my love for you. I tried everything I could think of to prove it, yet nothing worked. Whatever I did was never enough."

The old man snarled as he poured more ale, yet his disdain meant nothing to Richard. Not anymore.

"I have ever been loyal. I fought and bled and killed for you. I have been a fine and faithful son. That you could never see this makes your loss of me all the greater."

The duke peered at him more keenly now. This was verging on criticism. This was verging on revolt.

"I have seen my father change over the years. I have seen his nobility vanish, his strength turn to cruelty, his valor become bitter self-interest."

The tankard crashed to the floor, spraying ale.

"I've watched him degenerate into the drunken old man who totters before me now. You are pathetic, and the worst of it is that you know it not."

The duke's face went purple. His whole body quivered, and he worked his mouth until white spittle flecked his lips.

He looks like to die, and in truth, I care not.

Montague gave a half-choked bellow and lurched blindly forward, fists swinging. Richard put his arms up to ward them off, but one blow landed full in his face, bloodying his nose. A second followed, but with a speed born of his changing, a speed impossible for a mortal man, Richard caught the massive fist in midair, stopping it dead. He pulled the old man close and, staring eye-to-eye with him, tightened his grip, and began to squeeze... hard. He could clearly hear the sound of muscles tearing and bones snapping. The old man's face paled in an instant to a sickly gray, and a grunt of pain escaped him. He tried to pull free. Richard held on. For one of eternity's long, silent seconds the two stayed exactly as they were, father and son striving for control.

"Yield, Montague," he whispered.

"To... hell... with you." Montague's gray flesh faded to white; his knees began to crumble. Breath hissing, he struggled to stay afoot, pressing to throw off Richard's balance. Richard held firm, until he felt a sudden shifting between them. Montague's eyes gleamed with unholy delight as his free arm made a short, forceful movement.

Richard thought he'd only been struck somewhat more bruisingly than before until the burning started. He looked down and saw the duke had drawn his dagger and put it to use. It was buried to the hilt in Richard's leg, just below its join to his body. The blade had cut deep, severing the flow from his heart. Blood pumped from him like a river.

Its warmth soaked his clothes, then the pain set upon him in earnest, and he fell. He found the floor with a jolt, twisting awkwardly to avoid jarring the dagger. The soot-black ceiling spun once and seemed to swoop down toward him, blotting out the world. He didn't care. Despite all the beatings, humiliations, the thousand daily censures, he'd not foreseen this, not really.

He dares. God in heaven, he dares. He would kill his own son!

Pressing his hands hard against the wound, Richard managed to slow the bleeding. It was bad. On the battlefield he'd seen men die in but a few swift moments from such piercings, their life gushing out to be soaked up by the cold earth. He'd felt such a death once in a vision Sabra had given him. A hard lesson it was and frightening in its reality of pain.

But the agony of his father's act transcended that of the knife in his flesh, and for a time all he could do was lie unmoving as this last betrayal tore him to the soul.

He dimly saw Montague tower over him, wheezing and holding his injured hand... but grinning. He was actually grinning down at his dying son.

Sabra, did you see this, too? Why did you not warn me?

Unless a warning was not needed. He was changed. Stronger. The natural way of things held no sway over him, now.

Nor did his father, it seemed.

So that was it.

I'll not grant you this wish, old man.

Richard's fingers gingerly grasped the hilt of the dagger. He hissed at the touch, but held fast. There was no way to prepare himself; hesitation would make it worse, so he simply carried through and pulled as fast as he could.

The shock of it dragged a cry from him even as he dragged the blade clear. More blood flowed, but for naught but an instant before the cut sealed itself up. The burn flared and blazed, then gradually diminished. After a few moments it ceased altogether, and he breathed normally again, marveling at the miraculous healing he knew must be taking place.

Sabra had told him such things would be quick. Not pleasant, but quick.

He waited it out, staring up at Montague, who had not budged. Indeed, he was taking vast amusement from Richard's seeming futile efforts to save himself.

He dares to laugh.

Richard's reaction surged up from his deepest being: a rage powered by strength such as he'd never known before, a rage he'd never allowed himself to express. Rage at the lifetime of mistreatment and of blame for something not his fault.

He rolled and got his hands under him and pushed the floor away, found his feet, and stood.

The blunt astonishment for this was plain on Montague, his surprise so consuming that he did not move even as Richard closed on him. Richard wrenched him around and slammed him upon the great table, bending him backwards with both hands fastened around his throat.

He knew his eyes were red and his teeth were out, but Richard cared not. All that mattered was the fact that his trembling hands could free him from all the tyranny by snapping Montague's neck as easily as a dry summer twig. He wanted to; he had the power and the will to do so. Montague gagged and clawed, his heels drumming against the flags. He was helpless, probably for the first time in his life. Panic limned his eyes, and his tongue bulged as he fought to draw air.

Richard squeezed all the more. How little effort it would take to finish things. But within him the beast hungered.

He had a better use for the old man...

He clawed at the duke's tunic, ripping the stained wool away to bare his throat. The old man cried out as Richard bit down through the thick folds of skin to reach the nectar within.

Your blood is already in me, Father, but you will render more.

Montague did not struggle, perhaps too far gone from being choked.

Richard drank deeply, replacing that which had been taken, relishing the bitter taste of the man's horror.

You wanted a death, dear Father, then I shall deliver it to you.

He would smother that grating voice forever and for him it would be forever. He'd have his freedom-true freedom-once and for all from the past, from a lifetime of misery.

He pulled away to look at Montague, at the face he'd tried so hard not to hate. His father's head lolled weakly away, lips slack, eyes staring.

Richard encircled that fat bleeding neck with his hands, savoring the satisfaction it would bring, the vast, singing joy.

Forever. Think on it!

A dozen times over he set himself to finish things. But each time he refrained, kept himself from taking that last terrible step, delighting in the anticipation for its own sake.

He hovered on the edge for a hundred heartbeats.

Think on it.

For good or ill, this death above all others would be with him for the rest of his life. What a long journey it would be to always carry such a burden. Light for now, but how heavy in a year, a hundred years hence, or a thousand?

Then he came to know he could not, would not be able to bear it. Strong as he was, he was not that strong.

He eased his grip.You won't win this way, either, old man.

But the rage still lived and needed expression. He roared, a great, angry, monstrous sound torn from the maddened beast within that reverberated through the chamber, blasting everything else to utter silence. He hauled Montague up from the table and, with a mere flick of his hands, hurled him into his great chair so hard that both nearly crashed to the floor.

The duke roused himself but made not a sound, as much from his awe of Richard as from his injuries. He trembled in his chair, gasping and rubbing his throat. Richard thought that now the old man finally looked different, smaller...

no, not that, not smaller; it was something else.

Montague was afraid.

Yes, it was fear that Richard perceived in those once-hard eyes-cold, naked fear. He'd gone his whole life waiting to see that look but until this moment had never before realized it. And with realization came revelation.

He is a rock, but I am a river. And the river shall triumph always, for a river cannot be pushed, and does not wear away. The heavens shall feed me, renew me forever, and I will be here long after he is gone and forgotten.

Sweet calm returned to his soul in a soothing rush. Richard was master of himself once more. His teeth were normal again, his eyes their usual disturbing wintry blue. He looked at his father and understood suddenly just how close he'd come. How very, very close...