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boys he was rounding up. Equally for sure, none of the parents has ever heard from their little ones. I was thinking to blurt all this out in the first sitting of the inquiry. I hope you’ll agree that the submission I did make was far less unhelpful to your continued enjoyment of your cushy places in life.’
    I’ll tell you now, Dear Reader, in strictest confidence, I wasn’t able to prove any of this. But I’d picked up a few stray facts from Jeremy’s nightly reports, and had put an easy two and two together. I think I’d made them into neither five nor three.
    ‘Have you told this to anyone ?’ Aelfwine asked. He looked thoughtfully at the pillow on my bed.
    ‘No, my pretty young cousin,’ I said at once. ‘But, if you’re thinking to bump me off, it will inevitably spread once I’m not here to control the flow of information. So why don’t we agree, as members of one big happy family, on the findings and recommendations that Gebmund will announce in the next – and closing – session of his inquiry? And the less attention you both pay to Theodore from now on, the better I think it will be for all of us.’
    I won’t bore you with how things continued. You can fill in the gaps for yourself.
     
    I couldn’t know it, but Theodore had another seizure that night. According to what I got out of Wulfric, it came on about the same time as Aelfwine was sending Ambrose off in search of something for us to drink to happy families. You can’t fault his attention to duty, however. Soon after lunch the following day, he sent for me again.
    Worn out from the excitements of my own life, I limped into the room and sat beside him. ‘Oh, this is awful, Theodore,’ I cried, feeling almost as saddened as I was trying to sound. ‘Not another one, and so soon after the last! If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word. You’re all I have left from the old days. We’ve had our differences, I know. Perhaps I have myself not been wholly without fault in our dealings. But let’s put these behind us and try to think of the good things that remain in our lives.’
    He opened his eyes. I thought for a moment he didn’t recognise me. But he was only gathering what he had left of his strength. ‘Gebmund came to see me this morning,’ he said faintly in Latin. ‘He explained that you’ve beaten me. You’ve always beaten me. You’ve always taken what was mine. You only let me win the Monothelite dispute when you no longer found it politically convenient to keep the Empire immured in the darkness of heresy. You have been the cloud that darkened my life.’
    I snorted so loudly, I had to struggle with my teeth. Of all the passions, resentment is the most enduring. Love – even hatred – will often fade with time. Not so resentment. If his face hadn’t been twisted into a snarl that reminded me of dead Sophronius, I’d have felt sorry for him. As it was, I gave up on the mockery.
    ‘Theodore,’ I said, leaning forward and speaking into his ear, ‘you made yourself unhappy. Worse than that, you’ve spent a lifetime trying to make everyone else unhappy.’ I thought myself into the distant past. Yes, it was still in my head. I quoted:
     
O God of Love, who governs all
With unimagined power;
Who sets the autumn leaves to fall
And wither every flower –
 
Dear Lord, this humble praise accept,
By us, Thy children, given,
And, in return, bless all – except
Who lack a place in Heaven.
 
Let in everlasting torments
Suffer, Lord, who give offence,
And us, Thy chosen instruments,
Give ever, Lord, thy preference.
     
    ‘You wrote that for me when you were twelve,’ I said. ‘There’s more of it, and it gets worse. I should have seen then what a rotter you’d turn out. Don’t blame me for the long shipwreck of your life. You chose your path. Don’t blame me if it didn’t lead to a bed of roses.’
    ‘You lie, Alaric!’ he sobbed. ‘I was happy till you took hold of me, and tempted me with the