"With Cordelia's approval." Geoffrey frowned. "You do not think he will ask your advice, do you?"

"Oh, I think he may ask," Magnus said, "but he will make his own decisions. Alain has as much a genius for good judgement as you have for warfare."

Geoffrey stared in surprise; then his brow furrowed in thought as he studied the careful neutrality of his brother's face. "I had not thought of it in those terms " he admitted, "but I have realized his good sense and given my word to heed his commands when he becomes king."

Magnus nodded. "As have I."

They were silent as Geoffrey absorbed the implications of that simple statement.

Then he sat down, crossing his legs, eyes narrowing again. "So you do not mean to command your sibs or manipulate the Crown. What then do you plan to do in this land? Sit here and write your memoirs, and rot for the rest of your life?"

"Well, not for all of it," Magnus said, "and I suspect there will be problems enough arising that I can lend a hand in solving—but for the moment, perhaps even for a year, a long rest sounds very attractive."

"I thought you'd had ample time to rest between the stars."

"So had I," Magnus said frankly, "but I find, now that I am here where I grew up, and suddenly have no responsibility, an amazing lassitude has taken me."

"Depression?" Geoffrey's voice sharpened with concern.

"No, it is very pleasant, actually," Magnus said, "rather like a waking sleep."

"Then beware of dreams."

"Well cautioned." Magnus nodded. "I find myself mulling over the events of the past ten years, trying to make sense of them."

Geoffrey's frown deepened; he didn't understand.

"Is there a purpose to my life?" Magnus asked. "Perhaps even only a pattern? You have no need to ask yourself that question—you have Quicksilver, after all, and a blind man could see that she is all the purpose you need, at least for the present."

Geoffrey was reluctant to admit that. "A battle now and then would be pleasant."

"And I've seen you drilling the troops to be ready for it." Magnus nodded. "After all, you must always be prepared to fight off an attack, must you not?"

Geoffrey finally smiled. "Enemies do not usually send warning."

"No, the honorable old custom of declaring war seems to have fallen into disuse," Magnus agreed. "Somehow I feel sure you will have all the opportunity you need to practice your profession."

"Well, it would be better for all that I did not," Geoffrey said with a sigh, "so I am seeing to building a tournament circuit that will keep men in fighting trim even should peace prevail—and may leach from them the need for war."

"For which we both devoutly hope," Magnus said, "but it certainly answers your need for purpose."

"Well, Papa has handed you one, whether you like it or not." Geoffrey was surprised to realize the truth of what he said.

'True, brother—but like yourself, I must wait for the opportunity and hope it does not come."

"Perhaps it would be well if it did not, at least for a year or so, if you are as much in need of rest as you say."

Magnus nodded. "Of rest, and of trying to understand the land of my birth."

"What is there to understand?" Geoffrey frowned. "We are a most simple nation, when all's said and done."

"But I have not been here to hear it said, nor to watch it done," Magnus pointed out. "Believe it or not, brother, it will take me some time, and considerable study of the recent history of Gramarye, before I have the feel of my native planet again."

"Surely you cannot have become so much an alien!" Geoffrey protested.

"I keep thinking I have not; I look about me at familiar sights, hear familiar sounds, walk through a peaceful town and think all is as it was when I was a youth," Magnus said. "Then something will happen, someone nearby will speak of some event that I know nothing about or of some public figure whom I've never heard of, and I realize all over again that the land has become strange to me."

Geoffrey frowned, still not understanding. "Gramarye could never be strange."

"More than you know, brother," Magnus sighed. "Thomas Wolfe was right in saying 'You can't go home again.'"

Geoffrey's frown deepened. "You are home."

"Yes, but in the years I've been gone, home has changed, and I have changed, and it will take some time for me to find myself a new place and become a part of the kingdom again."

Geoffrey decided that, all in all, Magnus finding a new place, rather than trying to bull his way into his old one, might not be a bad thing. "How shall you find that place, then?"

"By approaching Gramarye the way I approached any planet on which I landed—as a new world, one which I'll have to study before I try to do anything. I've always taken a few months to get the feel of a place and learn the basics of its culture before I ever thought of any kind of action."

"What sort of action might that be?" Geoffrey asked, on his guard again.

"Well, first, to discover if my interference was warranted, or if things were all right as they were," Magnus said, "but I had judged well from such historical records as I had, and from my reconnaissance in orbit; only one of those planets did have a government that suited the people, though it was very hard to discover."

"And the rest?" Geoffrey demanded.

"I set out to overthrow their tyrants, of course," Magnus said, "and to make planets proof against SCENT's machinations. With the sublime audacity and supreme arrogance of youth, I never stopped to think that I had no more right to meddle than SCENT had—but, like them, I was certain I was doing it for the people's own good."

"Supreme arrogance indeed." Geoffrey frowned.

"At least I chose planets on which the bulk of the population were clearly oppressed," Magnus said. "The first solo I tried was on a planet called Melange, where the colonists had made their own try at the ideal society—essentially an eighteenth-century culture, periwigs and kneepants, paniers and pompadours—and had cloned the few servants they had brought along into a massive underclass. Having made them, of course, they feared them, and ruled them with iron oppression. They kept modern technology, but only for themselves."

"Which rather negated the advantages of any gadgetry you might have brought along!"

Magnus nodded. "Therefore I went down to the planet with only a peasant's clothes on my back and my spaceship in orbit."

"Foolishly strolling into danger, brother!"

"Of course," Magnus said in surprise. "Don't try to tell me you would have done anything else, Geoffrey."

Geoffrey stared at him a moment, then broke into a shamefaced smile. "Well, but that is me, brother. I would not see you imperilled."

"No more than I would you," Magnus returned. "After a week of skulking about like an outlaw, trying to learn the inside of the society and failing, I had the good luck to make a local contact—Dirk Dulaine."

Geoffrey frowned. "I thought you said he was a spacer."

"He was, but he had been born a churl—that's what they called their clones—and escaped as a boy, whereupon he had been recruited into an organization of other escaped churls, one that had been going on for more than a century. Their founders had managed to hitch rides off-planet, work their way up to riches, and buy a foundering interstellar cargo line, which bought out the supply rights for Melange—so Dirk was a local boy from a backward culture, but had a modern education. He was also a trained commando…"

"Like yourself," Geoffrey interjected.

"There were a few similarities," Magnus admitted. "We strolled the land looking for ways to overthrow the lords. Dirk told me the time was right; there was a prophecy that DeCade, the leader of a centuries-old rebellion, would rise from the dead to lead them again, and if he was ever going to wake up, the time was near. Unfortunately, I was captured by a lord who decided I would make a perfect gladiator …"