Wren and Owl stripped Cat down to his braies and after noting where the bruises were, put him in a clean undershirt and tucked him into his bedroll.

The Duke was thoughtful, looking at all of Cat's burns exposed. "He was never able to move his arm after the fire. How can he move it now?"

Wren was the one to answer, "my aunt, Sleeping Willow, saw him every morning for two years and she made him stretch every day. Sadly, while he can now hold a bow up and nock an arrow, it is too painful for him to draw an arrow."

"He was the best in the royal family by the time he was ten. He dropped his first elk when he was eight," Duke Sven was looking morose. "It must be hard for him. He loved archery as a boy."

"Was he as good as me?" Willam asked.

"Twice as good as you and at a younger age too," Sven replied with a frown. "So Cat Rider is Andray. Now that we know, what are we going to do?"

"If we take him home, can we protect him from mother?" Willam asked, as glum as his uncle.

* Before you get too involved with making plans, don't you think you should ask Andray what he wants to do? It's his life, after all. *

"But he's the Crown Prince," Sven protested.

"He's told me many times that all he wants out of life is to hang out his shingle as a healer and mage and overcharge the rich to fund helping the deserving poor. He means it too," Wren argued back.

"He's said that if Willam were able to be a good king, Willam should be king," Owl said.

Cat groaned. The sound froze everyone.

"Fuzzy?" Cat managed to squeak, grimacing with his eyes closed.

* How are you even awake? * I was shocked.

"Woke up last time, too. Remember?" Cat managed to crack an eye open and looked at me through his slitted eyelid.

* No, I don't. I wasn't there. Remember? I was hunting when the wyvern attacked. *

"Father Garshom did something to make the pain not so unbearable. Do you think you can do that, Fuzzy? It hurts too much to sleep."

* Let me try. * I started the chant in my head for the pain-killing spell. It was silent as I cast it.

"That's much better, Fuzzy. That's good enough to keep me from killing myself to stop the pain."

* Don't even joke about it like that, young man, * I snapped at him.

"I would argue with you about not having a sense of humor but that's too much effort right now," he smiled at me. "Silly pussy cat."

* Hmph. *

"Uncle, there are two things that take priority," Cat said softly. Speaking was an effort for him. "The first is resolving the wyvern crisis. That's all we should concentrate on for now. The second is rescuing my father from that woman and her partners in crime. From what I remember in the description of his symptoms, I believe he has been both drugged and magicked into his current comatose state. I or Fuzzy or both of us must examine him to determine the exact nature of what is wrong with him. Think about how we can achieve that."

"My Prince!" Sven gushed with great emotion.

"Calm down, Uncle Sven," Cat frowned, looking at his uncle and brother with just his eyes, being careful not to move his painful head. "I am nobody's prince and certainly no one's savior. That stuff's for fairy tales. I'm just your nephew and not a very good one at that, having run away from home." Cat glanced at me, "put me to sleep, please, Fuzz? I can bear to be awake but would rather not while my head hurts like this."

"Andray!" Willam blurted, "that's not..."

"Brother," Cat cut him off, "I'm sorry I deserted you and I'm sorry I had to doubt you. We can sort this out when I wake up. Now I should rest. Fuzz, that sleeping spell?"

I nodded and cast it. He wouldn't wake up for at least a day.

"Andray mentioned Bishop Garshom," the Duke fished. "Is the old man still alive?"

"Alive and thriving and the scourge of elven youth everywhere, at least among the Green Elves," Wren shrugged. "Everyone who goes adventuring, and that's several hundred every year, must attend Father Garshom's classes on what the world is like outside of the Greenwood. He's a hard instructor and exams are brutal. I believe he enjoys torturing students."

Duke Sven laughed, to my surprise. "Oh, that sounds just like him. He was my tutor when I was a boy. I will never forget that evil smile of his."

"The one that says 'you will learn this and learn to like it, and you're not escaping until you do?'" Owl remarked in tones of one who has shared the same ordeal.

"I see you do know the old torturer," Sven nodded knowingly to a fellow sufferer.

"Father Garshom is well," Owl engaged in one of his rare bouts of feeling talkative. "He is one of only two humans allowed to live among the elves. He enjoys his teaching. He teaches magic and healing with Sleeping Willow and Deer Foot when he isn't teaching interkingdom geography and sociology to would-be adventurers. He will also take on special students to instruct them in one-on-one armed combat, which he excels at."

"Now I am envious," Sven looked envious too. "I am glad he prospers. My brother and I knew he had been framed but could not interfere with a church court. All of the bishops who had been his allies have been forcibly retired. Now both the church and the court are stuffed with the Regent's creatures and sycophants from Osterius looking for sinecures."

* The Provost's men came to arrest him when he fled to the land of the Green Elves for protection. On what grounds did they come to arrest him? *

"He was accused of being a pedophile and abusing a boy once in his congregation in Herman's Close," Sven sneered. "The boy was a servant at Lord Herman's manor. He mysteriously vanished after the Bishop escaped. The servant was not a credible witness since I found many who would testify on the Bishop's behalf. The case would have failed in court."

* Then Gershom's escape was wise. It appears to me that the real object of Gershom's arrest was to murder him in transit as an escaping prisoner. They could not afford the case to go to court. But tell me, what was the verdict of the independent forensic review of Gershom's accounts for the original embezzlement trial? Was that rigged too? *

Sven's face was a study of sudden revelation, "there's a law to that effect? But the case was heard in a church court."

* Did you not learn the law during your education as a prince, Duke Sven? The law exists expressly to prevent the abuse of church courts for felony offenses. It was passed by your father before you were born. *

Sven turned bright red with embarrassment, "I must confess, I was not a good student like my older brother. I do not know the law all that well."

* Where was Chief Justicar Fallwich when Garshom was accused and tried? *

"He died of food poisoning along with half his family the month before," Sven's eyes were growing wider and wider as he put the pieces together. "Merciful Matadee!"

* Exhume the bodies and test for arsenic. It mimics food poisoning. So do aconite and tartar emetic. *

"How do you know all this?" Sven asked in wonder.

* I was born knowing all this, Duke. My head is filled with human knowledge that is completely useless to a hunting machine such as myself. For example, I must know an entire volume of love poetry by heart. I ask you, what good does it do a cougar to know such a thing? I will never meet another cougar who would even understand me if I tried to woo him with a recitation of: 'Ah, love, let us be true to one another, for the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new...!' *

"No, no! Anything but that poem," Duke Sven cried in panic.