Several days later, we arrived in Wiffleblatt. Even though the town was half empty, I found it interesting. It had a cheese factory. It had several cheese caves for aging those cheeses that the two-footed races inexplicably liked with blue and green mold inside them. It even had a factory for drying whey to make it into a powder, which the goblins used as a baking ingredient and to make army and survival rations. Because of the wyverns, the goblins idled the cheese factory and the whey powder factory. The authorities evacuated most families but kept a minimum crew to tend the cheese caves.

The Colonel in charge of the local garrison was an active fellow. When he didn't have paperwork demands, he would dress down to look like a regular soldier in leather scale armor, sneak around town and announce instant and sudden wyvern attack drills. Afterward, he would award outstanding drill responses. He gave out certificates for leave days and getting out of dishwashing duty, which hobgoblins especially hate. He also used free drink tokens for the three pubs still open as awards.

I was getting used to hobgoblins with large shields and long spears running to cover me up. Then I had to tolerate the imposition of hobgoblin soldiers who insisted on scratching and petting me afterward.

I don't know what was worse: the attentions of the hobgoblins soldiers or Cat Rider accusing me, of all people, of being a slut for affection and having no shame. I was just being kind to the soldiers and humoring them.

Regardless, I could sympathize with the Colonel's need for drills. He had his soldiers posted in enclosed watch stations on the roofs of the two factories, the tallest buildings in town besides the clock tower. Those sentries spotted wyverns flying to the west daily.

I think I shocked everyone besides Cat, Owl, and Wren when I jumped onto the roof of the whey factory and then on top of the watch station to watch for myself. I wanted to see if they had patterns of behavior not already described in the Compendium. After two days of watching wyverns, I counted four different ones, but only two in the sky at the same time. They came out in the middle of the morning and the middle of the afternoon to hunt. I could see prey in each wyvern's talons as they flew away toward the mountain wall that marked the kingdom's border to the west.

This matched red wyvern behavior of hunting once or twice a day, eating all the prey, and then sleeping for a long time afterward. Red wyverns would eat a meal around the size of a large sheep or small goblin. They would sometimes take full-grown cattle but then eat their fill and leave the rest of the carcass to rot.

The Compendium classed wyverns as magical creatures. It suggested to me that they might be intelligent. If they were, could we negotiate with them? I wondered if they might be like the trolls, who I once considered dangerous. I kept the thought that wyverns might be rational and intelligent to myself for now. I realized it might upset some people, especially the goblins who had lost many families and family members to these creatures.

Prince Willam and Duke Sven stationed the ballistae in the middle of the town green, which was a large open space with playing fields, picnic spaces, and a lovely perimeter walk. The green also had some great trees, which were just begging me to climb them. I kept myself busy on our third morning in Wiffleblatt because I decided it was time to stalk the assorted members of our hunting party. I was getting out of practice since I couldn't get in my daily ambush of Motley Owl while traveling.

I spent half the morning climbing various trees, discovering which ones were good for sleeping and which ones were good for dropping down on unsuspecting prey like Motley Owl. Then, I picked a tree not too far from where we were staying, got comfortable, and waited. Owl would likely pass right under me on his way to eat lunch, which was served in the town meeting hall for the elves and the humans. The humans' cook was still making food for both of our hunting parties, and it was getting close to lunchtime.

The hobgoblins put the elvish hunting party in the town's grammar school, adding some mattresses so we would have something between us and the floor. The school was one of the buildings around the perimeter of the town green. I expected my elves to appear sometime soon. What I didn't expect was a wyvern. I had spotted one wyvern earlier already. I was a fool for thinking they would repeat their pattern of the previous two days and not come out at midday.

Cat Rider had already started for the meeting hall on the other side of the green. He was a slow walker, so he left before the others. As he walked under my tree, he said, "You might want to consider an invisibility spell because there's a break in the foliage twenty yards back where I noticed the twitch of your tail."

So I cast invisibility on myself, which wasn't exactly sporting of me, but I felt like I really needed to land a pounce on someone. Being a good sport could wait for another day. The pussy cat wanted to play and wanted her Motley Owl cat toy.

I was waiting patiently when I heard the warning horn from one of the rooftop watch stations. This was followed by shouts from the human ballista crews. I jumped to the ground and saw something that dropped my heart into my stomach: a wyvern diving for Cat Rider in the middle of the green. I started chanting the spell to kill the wyvern when two ballistae fired at the same time from opposite directions.

Giant-weighted fowler's nets fouled the wyvern in flight, but their combined motion changed its trajectory. It was now falling straight toward Cat Rider. I didn't have time to try to cast a barrier spell or even remember the words. I saw that the one thing I valued the most in this world was about to be crushed by an oversized flying monster falling out of the sky.

A running green streak appeared from nowhere, made a flying tackle of Cat Rider, and flung my boy three or four yards through the air to make a painful rolling stop as various bits, and pieces of Cat Rider went flying: his hood, his walking stick, his mask, his glass eye, and his false leg. The flailing tail of the wyvern knocked the soldier in the green Nordvek tabard almost on top of Cat Rider. Cat Rider had fallen on his left side, and I could tell from how he moved that he was hurt and needed help. The situation was complicated by the wyvern, which was flailing wildly next to where the soldier and Cat Rider had landed.

To add to the confusion, the soldier started screaming, "Cat Rider, your eye, that's your eye! Merciful Matadee, did you get hit on the head? Is there blood? Say something, Cat Rider!" The soldier in the green tabard was none other than Prince Willam, who had his back to the wyvern. Cat was fallen so that he was facing it.

While Willam was panicking over Cat's detached glass eye, the flailing wyvern was getting dangerously close. None of the approaching soldiers or the Duke had reached them yet to pull them away from danger. Cat Rider looked over Willam's shoulder as one of the beast's talons almost took off Willam's leg. Somehow Cat Rider found the strength to grab Willam's shoulder with his right hand and wrenched his brother down to the ground so his spell casting would have a clear line of sight.

"Μεμ γοαδιννε εἁρ μ ἰτ ἰις φαν 'ε δjιψτε ἑλ στjοερε ὀμ δε ὁλλε φαν 'ε σνιεερν τε βεφριεζεν!" Cat Rider shouted. I could see the magic gather and then fly like a dart to impact the wyvern's head. The wyvern collapsed and stopped all motion.

Cat tried to grasp Willam to control his fall backward and missed. Willam flung himself at Cat to keep his head from hitting the ground. He laid Cat down gently with tears falling down his cheeks. Kneeling, he tentatively touched the burn scar around the empty eye socket and then examined the red roots of Cat's blond hair.

By now, I had arrived. I carefully picked up the glass eye. When I did, Willam screamed and pointed at me. I didn't understand why he kept pointing and screaming. I was so confused. Then Blue Fox, by far the fastest elf, arrived. Motley was right behind him.

"Fuzzy," Owl addressed me in tones of exasperation, "drop the invisibility spell, now."

I dropped it immediately, embarrassed that I had forgotten I had cast it on myself.

"Eye," Owl held out his hand. I gave him the eye. He cleaned it off on his sleeve and then held it out to me, "Cleansing spell, please." I cast the spell on the eye and Owl's hands. Then Owl knelt next to the wide-eyed and shaking Willam, whose tears had not stopped yet. He gently lifted Cat's head and placed the eye in the socket. Willam's look of disbelief signaled he was on the edge of losing his composure completely. Owl placed his hand on Willam's shoulder, "Highness, it's not real. It's a glass eye. Cloud Eye made it for him."

"A glass...a glass...glass eye? It's not real. Oh gods," Willam looked ready to fall over.

Duke Sven forced his way through the crowd of gathering Nordvek and hobgoblin soldiers, "Alright, troops, we have two injured here, so I need anyone not directly helping, and you know who you are, to back off. I want at least fifteen yards of clear space to work. Sergeant Albert, get these men to drag the dead wyvern off and start recovering the nets and reloading the ballistae."

By now, all the elves were present. Cloud Eye had the mask. Blue Fox had the leg. Wren had the stick and Cat's hood.

"Rendell, Frederick," the Duke waved Willam's two guards-cum-companions over impatiently. "You two, make a perimeter around us. We need to talk here and not be overheard. Get to it," he snapped. Then he knelt next to Cat's head and touched a dark linear streak from the left ear to just under the left cheekbone, "When I arrived at the burning hunting lodge that the staff had fled, I flung aside burning timbers to reach the bodies I could see. I burned my arms doing so, but it was worth it because I saved my nephew."

The Duke pulled up his sleeves, revealing the burn scars on his skin, "When I pulled the dead body of my niece off of my nephew, I removed a still burning piece of wood molding off of his cheek. It left a linear burn like so." His finger traced the linear mark on Cat's scarred face.

"I can't begin to express how I feel at almost losing the nephew I have plus the nephew I suspected was still alive, both at the same time." The Duke took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, suddenly all business again, "Why is Cat Rider unconscious?"

*Cat Rider cast the wyvern-killing spell when he saw the struggling wyvern almost strike Willam with its talon. It takes two days to recover from casting this spell. It is powerful and debilitating magic. It will do the same to me if I need to cast it.*

"But he will be fine in two days?" the Duke wanted reassurance.

*He will, other than the bumps and bruises from when Willam flung him away from the falling wyvern. There will be some. He didn't fall well.*

"I didn't mean to hurt him," the despondent Willam wailed.

*Child, you saved his life. He can't move fast. You kept him from being crushed to death.*

I studied the upset 15-year-old boy who hadn't recovered yet from his adrenaline rush. It was probably the first time in his life that he survived life-threatening danger. The shock of seeing the eyeball on the ground and then floating in the air as I held it in my invisible mouth had not helped the Prince keep himself together. The contrast was extreme between the smooth operator I first met when he ogled Wren in Kizdangengar and the panicked wreck in front of me.

"We need to take Cat back to his bed and start the healing of his overuse of magic." Cloud Eye declared. "Do we have all of his stuff? Yes? Good. Duke Sven, Prince Willam, you should come with us. We need to talk."

Owl picked up Cat Rider and stood. He waited for Willam to join him and started walking so Cat Rider would not be bumped or jarred. He didn't walk at his usual pace, which ate up the ground with his long stride. He matched his pace to Willam beside him. I walked next to Willam. The Duke walked next to me.

"How did my nephew do that flaming eye thing on our first evening out of Kizdangengar?" Duke Sven asked.

Hearing the questions, Cloud Eye caught up with us, "Cat has several different glass eyes that I made for him, and he's very good at switching them while distracting his audience, just like a stage magician. One of them is a magic illusion of a flickering flame. There's a case on his belt with four eyes in it. The flame eye, a starry night eye, an extra green eye, and one eye that works like a lantern light."

"You're quite the artificer," the Duke remarked.

"Not really," Cloud Eye replied. "I just learned a few things from my uncle, Beaver Tooth, who is the real thing. He's the one who made Cat Rider's leg, which I now need to fix. I need to find wood, tools, and leather."

"What do you need, cousin?" Blue Fox asked. "I can fetch what you need from the hobgoblins while you put Cat Rider to bed."

"Let's go together," Cloud Eye said. "Wren and Owl can take care of Cat." Cloud Eye and Blue Fox peeled off, leaving me and Owl and Wren with Cat and the two round ears.

"How did my brother get a pointy ear?" Willam asked.

"Cloud Ear made a fake ear tip and attached it with spirit glue," Wren said from just behind us. I didn't realize she was that close.

"That's going to hurt when he takes it off," Duke Sven said.

"You folks worked hard to keep us from knowing this was my brother," a subdued Willam remarked. "No wonder you got upset with me, Motley Owl, when I pestered you with all my questions."

"Well, yes," Owl said.

"So, are you going to use magic to make us forget, if that's possible, or will you just bump us off?" Duke Sven inquired sourly, knowing we had him and Willam in our power.

*Neither,* I said. *I've already ascertained you will not harm our Cat Rider, though it would be wise to make sure of the silence of your men. We could arrange such a measure to ensure all your troops remember a Cat Rider who is unlike Prince Andray. It's more of an encouragement than brainwashing or coercion.*

"You ascertained?" the Duke glowered at me. "Just what do you mean by that?"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

*Hmmm.* How much did I want to enjoy this?

"I'm waiting," the Duke growled. I was amused though Wren looked ready to run the Duke through.

*Wren, love, please consider that these two have not had an easy time, on edge for days trying to figure out if Cat Rider was their missing Andray, who they both have missed terribly.*

"Are you sure of that," Wren snapped at me.

*Permit me to reveal a most revealing interchange in a very revealing conversation these two had while pondering Cat's identity. I promise it will remove all doubt.*

I had to stop briefly to cast the spell of recall combined with the spell of mind talking.

In their minds, Sven, Willam, Wren, and Owl first heard Sven's voice: *Willam, here's a serious question for you. If Cat Rider is Andray, what will you do?*

This was followed by the voice of Willam: *I would determine if he would be a good King, Uncle, because I do not want to be King of Nordvek. If he looked like he would be a bad King, I would find a way to prevent his rule, even if it led to bloodshed. Then I would take the throne unless, of course, I could foist it off on you. *

The voice of Duke Sven provided the denouement: *No, no, no, you don’t. I do not want to be King.*

"You were eavesdropping on us," the Duke whipped around to face me, radiating menace.

I started up a very loud purr. *Oh, certainly. For days now. My task in life is the health and happiness of this poor boy, and I had to be sure of your intentions. I would not consider letting you live otherwise.*

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 come to a full draw."

"He was the best in the royal family by the time he was ten," the Duke grimaced. "He dropped his first elk when he was eight. 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?" I told them. *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 help the deserving poor. He means it too," Wren argued back.

"He's said that if Willam were able to be a good king, then 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 open his eye 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 lessen the pain. 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, though even that 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 what is wrong with him. Please give some thought about how we might achieve that."

"My Prince!" Sven gushed with great emotion.

"Calm down, Uncle Sven," Cat frowned, looking at his uncle and brother with just his eye, careful not to move his head. "I am nobody's Prince and certainly no one's savior. That stuff is 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 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 sighed. "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 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 Greenwood 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 in his former congregation who would testify on the Bishop's behalf. The case would have failed in court."

*Then Gershom's escape was wise. It seems to me that the real object of Gershom's arrest was to murder him in transit as an escaping prisoner. They could not afford to let the case 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. Your father passed it 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 utterly 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.

"The gods must hate us, Uncle Sven," Willam looked a little scared to me. "That accursed poem has even followed us here. It's like it will follow us everywhere forever."

"It does seem that way, Willam," the Duke sighed as if the universe indeed hated him. "Of all the love poetry in the world, why did the gods gift this spirit beast with the knowledge of that particular poem?"

I tilted my head in confusion. It struck me as a very lovely romantic pean to the poet's lady love.

*I do not understand your objection, Duke Sven. Of all the human poems the gods inexplicably put in my head, it was certainly much better than, say, the one that goes: 'My vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow. A hundred years should go to praise thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze. Two hundred to adore each breast: but thirty thousand to the rest. An age at least to every part, and the last age should show your heart.'*

"Oh, merciful Matadee!" Duke Sven shook his head in despair. "Not that one too!"

"We should change the subject," Willam said with fortitude. "Spirit beast Fuzzy, plague us no more with such dusty verses!"

*Do you not care for what is considered the apex of romantic verses? I thought your kind was greatly invested in this sort of literature. Why else would so many of your race write such things? There are so many of them. I find them rather inspiring and wish other cougars had the intelligence to appreciate them so I could share them with others of my kind.*

"Oh please, stop, Fuzzy! This is unforeseen torture," Willam pleaded. "It would be best if you would just forget..."

*Ah, yes, the 'forget not yet' poem. How did that one go?*

"No!"

*'Forget not yet the tried intent of such a truth as I have meant; my great travail so gladly spent, forget not yet.' There's another verse. That one is rather tame. Why don't you care for what is considered the best of all human literature? What can be more praiseworthy than poems of love?*

"I think the royal family of Nordvek is cursed," Sven collapsed into himself. "As sad as her death was to us, it was such a relief that Princess Sophie no longer moped about the palace quoting all those soppy love poems at anyone who couldn't escape her during her love poetry phase. It really was horrible."

"Terrible," said Willam.

"Interminable," pronounced Sven.

"Sticky," said Willam. "That's what Andray called it." He looked at Owl, and with solemnity, said, "You are lucky, sir, not to have had an older sister stricken with love poetry disease." Sven nodded in agreement.

"But I like that poem," Wren protested, "the one titled 'To his coy mistress,' especially the part where the poet accuses the lady of making him wait so long that she would die first before she ever gave in to his advances. That was quite funny. How did that go? 'Your quaint honor turn to dust; and into ashes all my lust. The grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace.'"

"Yes, I liked that one too," Cloud Eye said, startling the rest of the two-footeds. He and Blue Fox had come in several minutes ago but chose not to disturb the conversation. "Father Garshom uses that one in the human literature portion of his class for adventurers. You will find most young elves know that poem, and find it amusing, given the lengths to which a young human male will go to get a female to bed with him. It's very different from how elves behave."

"How do elves do it?" Willam just had to ask.

"Would you like to spend the evening with me in the private room, Wren?" Cloud asked.

"No, I would not," Wren stated.

"Oh, alright," Cloud Eye nodded once. Then there was a long silent pause.

"That's it?" Willam finally broke the silence.

"Well, of course, it is," Cloud Eye protested. "The lady said no. I'm out of luck."

"You won't try again later?" Willam asked.

"Why would I?" Cloud looked a little confused. "That lady said no. That's the end of the matter."

*That's one of the reasons Father Garshom includes that poem in his class for adventurers,* I explained, *because elves do not understand or appreciate how humans approach human courtship. It's essential that elves do understand, lest some poor human gets unfortunately wounded or killed in an elvish duel over a misunderstood insult to an elven lady who said no and meant it *

Willam's mouth made an unsounded "Oh," as the point of the lesson achieved comprehension in his adolescent brain. I was happy he understood before he undertook a campaign to pester Wren. Elvish princesses were not appropriate targets for the courtship of human princes.

"So, what are we going to do about these two?" Cloud Eye asked the rest of us, referring to Prince Willam and Duke Sven.

"Cat Rider said the first thing that needed to be done was taking care of the Wyverns," Wren replied. "And he asked these two to give some thought on how to rescue his father from the Regent. That gives all of us several days, at the least, to give these problems some thought."

"Cat woke up?" Blue Fox asked.

*Long enough to make his wishes known and also to ask for a pain-killing spell before being magicked to sleep.*

"How did everyone get on the subject of love poetry?" Cloud Eye asked, innocently curious.

"It's all her fault," Duke Sven pointed an accusing finger at me.

*No, not exactly. It was you, Duke Sven, who asked me how I knew about Nordvek and church law.*

"My apologies, you are right," he scowled in frustration and then sighed greatly. "At least it was just love poetry you recited. It could have been scripture, Holy Mother, forgive me."

*Well, I do know the entire Holy Writ of Matadee as well as the Scriptures of Weasilli.*

"The Scriptures of Weasilli are heretical." Duke Sven said without thinking.

"Maybe for humans," Cloud Eye pointed out in a helpful manner, "but goblins follow Weasilli as their patron god, and elves revere Matadee, Weasilli, and Enleel."

"Still," the Duke circled back to his original question, "why did the gods put all that in your head, Fuzzy? It doesn't make sense to me."

*I have a theory that I might be a repository of everything a Crown Prince should know, including how to court a lady and write a love song if needed.*

"Music?" Willam was incredulous.

*Young man, I know so much on the subject that if I had hands, I could play the lute, the flute, the wood-reed pipe, and all the keyboards, including the carillon.*

At the sight of Willam gaping, I could not resist the temptation to tease him. *I even know a representative selection of love songs. Should I mind-sing some for you?*

His look of horror was all the response I could have hoped for.