The morose atmosphere of anger and fear still permeated the whole palace. The chatter and gossip that had filled the marble corridors during every one of the Brigadier's previous visits was absent and the silence with which servants and courtiers went about their duties hung over everything like a shroud. It was as if the Princess had already died. The King had no doubt tried to keep his daughter's condition secret for as long as possible, not just from the general population but from most of the palace staff as well, but someone must have spoken. Maybe just a whispered comment between two of the girl's personal attendants that had been accidentally overheard. Even if that had not happened, though, the truth would have gotten out sooner or later as her public appearances ceased. As her condition progressed, even a glimpse of her from a distance would have revealed the truth. The King would eventually have had to make a public statement to put a stop to gossip and speculation.

Snatches of half heard conversation did occasionally come to the two men as they made their way back to the main building, but it was never anything cheerful. People offered words of condolence to each other in sniffly voices, vain attempts to ease each other's grief. It was in their eyes as the King and the Brigadier walked past, and only the universal protocol of never speaking to royalty unless spoken to first kept them from saying the same things to him.

The Brigadier sensed the King growing more tense and angry as they made their way along the gold and white corridor, past the house plants on their pedestals and the beautifully painted landscapes that hung on the walls. The need to maintain appearances prevented the sovereign from saying what he was thinking, the thoughts that made his hands clench to fists by his sides and set his face in an expressionless mask, but when they passed a chambermaid who was actually in tears the Brigadier decided to say what the King could not. "The princess is not dead," he told her sternly. "She has an illness from which she will recover. Your grief is premature, and is an insult to those searching for a cure for her condition."

"Yes, yes, of course," the woman said, her eyes darting fearfully to the King. "She has the prayers of everyone in the palace."

"Make sure you tell everyone you meet," the Brigadier continued. "The Princess will make a full recovery. I will personally see to it. Now go about your business." The woman bobbed her head to the two men and scurried off down the corridor.

"Thank you," said the King. "Sometimes my duties feel like an iron collar about my neck. People think a King can do things they cannot, but more often it is the other way around."

The Brigadier nodded back. "It is only that they love you so much," he said. "You and the whole royal family. The whole kingdom recognises your devotion to them and knows there is no other land in the world so fortunate in their leadership. How fares the Queen, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"She seems to age a year for every day that passes. She spends every moment the healers allow by her side, and then longer besides. She has to be torn from her side. She would be there now if I hadn't ordered her go take some rest."

As if being mentioned had summoned her, the Queen suddenly appeared from around a corner, dressed in a nightgown and pursued by a handmaid wringing her hands at her failure to keep her in her bed. The Brigadier's eyes widened with alarm at the lines that had appeared around her eyes and the grey hairs on her head as she hurried towards them. She grasped the Brigadier's arms tightly as she stared pleadingly up into his eyes. "Is it true?" she said. "You can save our daughter?"

"I'm sorry, your Majesty!" said the handmaid in terror. "She heard people talking in the corridor."

"It's alright, Brigitte," said the King. "You can go."

The Handmaid glanced between the Queen and the Brigadier and her face shone with relief and gratitude. Then she turned and hurried back towards the Queen's private chambers.

"Yes, it's true," the King then said. "The Brigadier says there is hope."

"I do not wish to give you false hope, though," said the Brigadier. "Hope is all it is. There is a chance, though, and I will pursue it the length and breadth of the world if necessary. There is no length to which I will not go to save Her Highness."

"I know you will," she said, her cold hands clutching tightly at his. "You have no idea how my heart leapt with joy and relief just knowing you are here. You will save my daughter, I know you will. Thank Those Above for you." She lifted her hand to touch his cheek, then hurried off down the corridor. Not back to her chambers, as the King would have preferred, but to the courtyard to see the Princess and look upon her for the first time in weeks with something other than despair.

☆☆☆

"We're leaving again? So soon?" Malone stared up at the Brigadier's face as he trotted beside him, struggling to keep up with his long strides. "The men are tired. They were looking forward to spending some time with their families."

"Can't be helped," replied the Brigadier.

He hurriedly explained the situation and the younger man cursed softly. The Princess was loved by the entire kingdom. "Yes, of course," he said, a set look of determination appearing on his face. "The Princess... I saw her once, you know, at her declaration parade. I was just a few feet away from her as her carriage went past. I didn't really have colour vision yet but I could still see how beautiful she was. I can't imagine someone wanting to hurt her."

"Politics," said the Brigadier gruffly, and there was a whole conversation in that one word. He was a simple man really, Malone thought, allowing himself to fall back a step or two behind his superior officer. The world he lived in was an uncomplicated one. There were his superiors, whom he obeyed and to whom he gave his unconditional loyalty, there were the men under his command, from whom he expected the same, there were criminals and the enemies of the kingdom, whom he hunted ruthlessly and tirelessly, and there was everyone else, whom he mainly ignored. That was his whole world. There was no room in it for complexities like politics, or even friendship. Malone himself was, he suspected, the closest thing the Brigadier had to an actual friend. Even family relationships seemed alien to him.

"Have you ever thought about having a child?" he asked hesitantly.

The Brigadier gave no sign of having heard, staring thoughtfully ahead along the crowded street and glaring at the occasional passers-by who jostled them with their elbows. His mind was already out in the wild, Malone knew. Thinking ahead to all the challenges that faced them. This was a mission that might well take years of his life, and good preparation was essential.

Malone repeated the question, this time louder, and the taller man looked down at him. "Hmm? Not really. Raising a child properly takes two people. I mean, look at you. I've done my best by you, but in the five years since your parents died you're barely more human now than you were then."

"I'm not sure I want to be fully human," Malone replied. "I'd miss my sense of smell too much. Right now, for instance, I can tell that a herd of garbage pigs passed this way just a couple of hours ago, and that one of them was still half rat. Has anyone ever adopted a pig, do you think?"

"I dare say someone has, sometime. Possibly a pig farmer who spent too long in close proximity with them until they began to show human traits. The law says you can't eat them then, so his options would have been rather limited." A small man with a grimy face and tousled hair bumped into him and the Brigadier grabbed his wrist before he could escape into the crowd. He retrieved his pouch from the pickpocket and sent him on his way with a clout to the head. "Bloody cities. I'll be glad to be out of here."

Malone checked his own pockets and was relieved to find everything where it was supposed to be. "Once, I would have smelled a crook a mile off. My nose isn't what it once was. You must be having some effect on me. I remember once I could put my nose in the air and find a bell flower in a field of turnips from a mile away. I miss that."

"If you want to keep what's left of it you'll have to avoid prolonged contact with any single human. Especially me, since I became parent bonded to you. You'd have to keep moving around, avoid spending too long with any single person in case you form a new parent bond. It would mean retiring from the army. You could become a merchant perhaps. Moving from town to town."

Malone laughed. "Tempting though that is, I think I'll pass. You need me too much. No, I'll accept the loss of my nose. I get colour vision anyway, as compensation. I still find myself staring up into a cloudless blue sky, trying to remember what it was like before I could see blue. And fire! All those yellows and reds! That's about all I do remember, though. Most of my life from before I was adopted is just gone, like it never happened." Then he frowned. "There is one thing I remember. A chain, around my neck. I was chained to something. I think. I'm glad I don't remember more than that."

"It's the same for everyone. Animals don't have the same range of cognitive capacity as humans. They don't have autobiographical memory, certainly."

"I've heard apes do, to an extent. That's one of the reason people hardly ever adopt them. It's too traumatic, the clash of memories from before and after. Imagine being able to remember not being a person. Remembering not just being treated as an animal but actually being an animal." He looked up, where a pair of Radiants were drifting slowly across the sky like small luminous clouds. "Do you think they remember being human?" he mused. "They can't, or they'd surely feel an attachment to the family they once belonged to. Go back and visit and so forth. So does that mean that being taken by the Radiants is like dying? Everything you once were, all your accomplishments and experiences, wiped out as if you never were?"

"They don't think so," replied the Brigadier, looking at a rooftop where people had climbed up and were now waving at the Radiants, trying to get their attention. The creatures ignored them, through, and changed direction, heading for the noble district. They wanted healthy humans, strong and well fed. Not half starved wretches bent and crippled by a lifetime of manual labour.

     "What would you do if one of them tried to take me?" asked Malone. "Would you let me go, glad that I'd soon be a higher being, free of all the petty concerns of humanity? Or would you try to fight them off?" He stared up into the Brigadier's face. "They say the Radiants always back off if their chosen adoptee, or a group of friends and relatives, put up too much of a fight. There are too many others all too glad for the honour."

     "That would be your decision," the Brigadier replied. "Would you like to be a Radiant?"

     "I want to stay with you." He smiled. "I'm your batman. You need me too much."

     The Brigadier nodded. "Then we'll fight them off," he said.

     A thought struck Malone. "Could they be persuaded to take the princess, do you think? With Radiant parents to guide her development she wouldn’t have to fear aberrancy. She would develop normally. Become a normal Radiant."

     "Radiants almost certainly would not take her," the Brigadier replied. "They'd see her as already damaged goods. Besides, the King would never let her go, and enough musket fire would kill even a Radiant eventually." Malone nodded glumly.

     "And, of course, there's the matter of the arranged marriage," the Brigadier continued. "Helberion needs a royal heir to marry Prince George of Carrow if we're to put an end to almost a century of distrust, confrontation and occasional outright warfare. The other royal children are still much too young. Years away from being declared human."

     "I wish she didn't have to marry him," said Malone vehemently. "She's our Princess, and Prince George is a beast."

     "It's not our place to criticise affairs of state," the Brigadier told him with a frown. "Our duty is only to obey the King."

     "Yes, of course," Malone agreed glumly."

     "No matter what our personal feelings might be," the Brigadier added in a much lower voice. Malone looked up at him again, just in time to see his superior look away as if to hide the expression on his face.

     "No, the Radiants are not the answer," he added, as if wanting to change the subject. "We have to find another, and we have to hope that Parcellius has one. Because if he doesn’t..."

     He was saved from having to complete the thought by their arrival at the guardhouse. Sounds of merriment were coming from within as the men made their preparations for their two week leave of absence. The Brigadier paused a moment outside the heavy gates, and Malone could only guess at the dark thoughts passing through his head. Then he strode in to break the bad news to them.