Chapter 16: Five Springs

Leander looked at the point of the knife for a long time.

He did not push it away.

Then he laid it down on Corwin's chest, very gently.

"I am twenty-one years and two months old," he said.

"I have been twenty-one four times before."

Corwin lay still.

"On the morning of my nineteenth birthday I wake up in this bed.

"Every time.

"The same fire in the grate, the same window, the same bird on the sill."

Leander was staring at the canopy.

"Then I live two years, and on the night of my twenty-first, I die."

"Leander."

"Let me finish.

"If I stop, I won't start again."

Corwin closed his mouth.

"The first time, I knew nothing.

"I was a fool.

"I hated the physician, because the prince looked at him, and I had my people look into his family.

"That's how I know his mother's name.

"She took in washing.

"I wasn't proud of it then and I'm more ashamed of it now."

His voice was perfectly level.

"The second time, I told everyone.

"I said I'd die on my birthday.

"My uncle had me sent to the Gray House for four months.

"The walls are yellow.

"They pour cold water on you and they don't let you sleep."

Corwin's hand tightened on his hip.

"They let me out a week before the ball, supposedly cured.

"I died at the toast."

"The third time I tried to kill Hadrian first.

"I got my sword out in the hall.

"He stood there smiling.

"He said that if the glass failed there was always the east bridge on a Thursday, and a knife in the lantern crowd.

"He said he had men for each.

"Then the guards came, and somebody put a carving knife in my back at the door."

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