Free Blood and Honor (Forest Kingdom Novels) by Simon R. Green

ceremony. The Stone then grants the king power over the Unreal. Without that power, no king can rule in Redhart.”
    “Don’t tell me,” said Jordan. “The crown and the seal have both gone missing, right?”
    “I said you were starting to think like a prince,” said Gawaine. “Viktor and his two brothers have been turning the castle upside down since Malcolm died, but there’s no trace anywhere of crown or seal.”
    “Wait a minute,” said Jordan, frowning thoughtfully. “If Lewis or Dominic had killed King Malcolm, that would mean they’d have to have the crown and seal. Since they obviously haven’t got them, that proves Lewis and Dominic couldn’t have been the murderers! I mean, they wouldn’t have been stupid enough to kill the king without being sure where the crown and seal were first. Would they?”
    “The best laid plans can go adrift,” said Roderik. “Or perhaps there was a third party involved that we don’t know about … There’s a great deal concerning the king’s death that remains unclear. What is clear is that if it becomes known at Court that Prince Viktor is ill, and therefore vulnerable, he’ll lose all hope of support. That’s why we need you, Jordan. We need you to be the prince in public, so that our people can carry on the search behind the scenes.”
    The four of them stood silently around the fire for a while, each man considering the complications of the situation, and his own part in it. Gawaine roused himself first, and set about preparing a frugal breakfast. Argent went to make sure each of the horses had a nose bag. Roderik pulled a folded map from one of his panniers, and busied himself plotting the quickest route back to Castle Midnight. Once again, Jordan found himself rather left out of things, and decided to go for a little walk to see what there was to see. Besides, the exercise might warm him up. He blew on his hands and wished, not for the first time, that he hadn’t bet his gloves on that last roll of the dice two towns back. He never had been lucky with dice; unless they were his own.
    The open moor stretched away in all directions, colored gray and purple by the hard-wearing heather that flourished where little else would. The only disturbance in the even landscape was a smooth oblong mound that rose a good ten feet above the moor, lying not far from the rough trail. Jordan walked slowly through the heather toward it. Despite the patchy heather that covered the mound from crown to foot, he could still tell the shape was too regular for it to be a natural phenomenon. More likely it was a barrow of some kind: a burial mound for some ancient chieftain.
    When he was a child, Jordan’s mother had told him never to go near a barrow, because that was where the faerie kind lived, and if they tempted him through the secret door in the heart of the barrow, he’d never be seen again. When he was a little older, he sat and listened wide-eyed to the old ballad of Silbury Hill, which told of a king in golden armor who lay sleeping under a barrow with his great sword in his hand, waiting to be called forth to do battle with the final evil at the end of time. When he reached a man’s age, Jordan decided that all the stories and ballads were nothing more than myths and legends, and barrows were just graves and mounds of earth. He still had a fondness for the old stories, and often incorporated them into his act, but he knew there was no truth in them. Or so he’d believed. Until now.
    Approaching the great mound of earth was like knocking on the door of a haunted house. There was something about the barrow: a disturbing sense of presence , of something evil waiting and watching … Jordan stopped halfway to the mound, and stared at it for a long moment. He shivered suddenly, and pulled his cloak about him. The chill of the early morning air grew sharper, and a gusting wind tousled his hair. The temperature dropped sharply, and Jordan was startled to see his breath suddenly