Our pro­ces­sion wound up a ter­raced street, ever higher, un­til our lit­ters were set down out­side a palace that was a cluster of the bright, bud-like struc­tures. The main build­ings were purple tipped with white, put­ting me in mind of the road­side lupin and beach-pea flowers of Buck. I stood be­side my lit­ter, star­ing up at the palace, but when I turned to my bear­ers to in­dic­ate my pleas­ure in it, they were gone. They re­appeared mo­ments later, robed in saf­fron and azure, peach and rose, as did the other bear­ers, and walked among us, of­fer­ing us basins of scen­ted wa­ter and soft cloths to wash the dust and wear­i­ness from our faces and necks. Boys and young men in belted blue tu­nics brought a berry wine and tiny honey cakes. When every guest was washed and greeted with wine and honey, we then were bade to fol­low them into the palace.

  The in­terior of the palace was as for­eign to me as the rest of Jhaampe. A great cent­ral pil­lar sup­por­ted the main struc­ture, and closer ex­am­in­a­tion showed it to be the im­mense trunk of a tree, with the swells of its roots still ob­vi­ous be­neath the pav­ing stones around its base. The sup­ports of the grace­fully curving walls were like­wise trees, and days later I was to find that the ‘grow­ing’ of the palace had taken al­most one hun­dred years. A cent­ral tree had been se­lec­ted, the area cleared, and then the circle of sup­port­ing trees planted and ten­ded, and shaped dur­ing their grow­ing by ropes and prun­ing, so that they all bowed to­ward the centre tree. At some point all other branches had been lopped away and the tree­tops in­ter­woven to form a crown. Then the walls had been cre­ated, first with a layer of finely-woven fab­ric, that was then var­nished to hard­ness, and then over­laid with lap­ping after lap­ping of sturdy cloth made from bark. The bark­cloth was daubed over with a pe­cu­liar local clay, and then coated with a bright layer of res­in­ous paint. I never did dis­cover if every build­ing in the city had been cre­ated in this la­bor­i­ous fash­ion, but the ‘grow­ing’ of the palace had en­abled its cre­at­ors to give it a liv­ing grace that stone could never mimic.

  The im­mense in­terior was open, not un­like the great hall at Buck­keep, with a sim­ilar num­ber of hearths. There were tables set out, and areas ob­vi­ously for cook­ing and weav­ing and spin­ning and pre­serving, and all the other ne­ces­sit­ies of a great house­hold. The private cham­bers seemed to be no more than cur­tained al­coves, or rooms like small tents set against the ex­ter­ior wall. There were also some el­ev­ated cham­bers, reached by a net­work of open wooden stairs, re­mind­ing me of tents pitched on stilt plat­forms. The sup­port­ing legs of these cham­bers were nat­ural tree-trunks. My heart sank as I real­ized how little pri­vacy there would be for any ‘quiet’ work I needed to do.

  I was shown quickly to a tent cham­ber. In­side I found my ce­dar chest and cloth­ing bag await­ing me, as well as more warm and scen­ted wash-wa­ter and a dish of fruit. I changed quickly from my dusty trav­el­ling clothes into an em­broidered robe with slit sleeves and match­ing green leg­gings that Mis­tress Hasty had de­creed as ap­pro­pri­ate. I wondered once more at the threat­en­ing buck em­broidered on it, then set it out of my mind. Per­haps Ver­ity had thought this changed crest less hu­mi­li­at­ing than the one that so clearly pro­claimed my il­le­git­im­acy. In any case, it would serve. I heard chimes and small drums from the great cent­ral room, and left my cham­ber hur­riedly to find out what was afoot.

  On a dais set be­fore the great trunk and dec­or­ated with flowers and ever­green swags, Au­gust and Regal stood be­fore an old man flanked by two ser­vants in plain white robes. A crowd had gathered in a great circle around the dais, and I quickly joined them. One of my lit­ter-bear­ers, now robed in rose drap­ings and crowned with a twin­ing of ivy, soon ap­peared at my side. She smiled down at me.

  ‘What is hap­pen­ing?’ I made bold to ask.

  ‘Our Sac­ri­fice, er, ah, you say, King Eyod will wel­come you. And he will show to you all his daugh­ter, to be your Sac­ri­fice, hem, ah, queen. And his son, who will rule for her here.’ She stumbled through this ex­plan­a­tion, with many a pause, and many en­cour­aging nods from me.

  With mu­tual dif­fi­culty, she ex­plained that the wo­man stand­ing be­side King Eyod was her niece and I awk­wardly man­aged a com­pli­ment to the ef­fect that she looked both healthy and strong. At the mo­ment it seemed the kind­est thing I could find to say of the im­press­ive wo­man stand­ing so pro­tect­ively by her king. She had an im­mense mass of the yel­low hair that I was be­com­ing ac­cus­tomed to in Jhaampe, with some of it braided up and coiled about her head, and some flow­ing loose down her back. Her face was grave, her bare arms mus­cu­lar. The man on the other side of King Eyod was older, but still as like to her as a twin, save that his hair was cut severely short at his col­lar. He had the same jade eyes, straight nose and sol­emn mouth. When I man­aged to ask the old wo­man if he, too, were a re­l­at­ive, she smiled as if I must be a bit dim, and replied that, of course, he was her nephew. She shushed me then, as if I were but a child, for King Eyod was speak­ing.

  He spoke slowly and care­fully, but even so, I was glad of my con­ver­sa­tions with my lit­ter-bear­ers, for I was able to make out most of his speech. He greeted us all form­ally, in­clud­ing Regal, for he said that pre­vi­ously he had greeted him only as the emis­sary of King Shrewd and now he greeted him as Prince Ver­ity’s sym­bol of his pres­ence. Au­gust was in­cluded in this greet­ing, and both were presen­ted with sev­eral gifts, jew­elled dag­gers, a pre­cious fra­grant oil, and rich fur stoles. When the stoles were placed about their shoulders, I thought with chag­rin that both now looked more like dec­or­a­tions than princes, for in con­trast to the simple garb of King Eyod and his at­tend­ants, Regal and Au­gust were decked in circlets and rings, and their gar­ments were of op­u­lently rich fab­rics and cut with no re­gard for either thrift or ser­vice. To me, they both ap­peared fop­pish and vain, but I hoped that our hosts would merely think their out­land­ish ap­pear­ance was part of our for­eign cus­toms.

  And then, to my per­sonal chag­rin, the King summoned for­ward his male at­tend­ant, and in­tro­duced him to our as­semblage as Prince Rurisk. The wo­man be­side him was, of course, Prin­cess Kettricken, and Ver­ity’s be­trothed.

  And fi­nally, I real­ized that those who had been our lit­ter-bear­ers and greeted us with cakes and wine were not the ser­vants, but the wo­men of the royal house­hold, the grand­moth­ers, aunts and cous­ins of Ver­ity’s be­trothed, all fol­low­ing the Jhaampe tra­di­tion of serving their people. I quailed to think I had spoken to them so fa­mil­iarly and cas­u­ally, and again men­tally cursed Regal that he had not fore­seen to send us more word of their cus­toms rather than the long list of cloth­ing and jew­ellery he wished brought for him­self. The eld­erly wo­man be­side me, then, was the King’s own sis­ter. I think she must have sensed my con­fu­sion, for she pat­ted my shoulder be­nignly and smiled at my blushes as I at­temp­ted to stut­ter an apo­logy.

  ‘For, you have done noth­ing to shame your­self,’ she in­formed me, and then bade me call her not, ‘My lady’, but Jon­qui.

  I watched as Au­gust presen­ted to the Prin­cess the jew­ellery Ver­ity had se­lec­ted to send her. There was a net of finely-woven sil­ver chain set with red gems to drape her hair, and a sil­ver col­lar set with lar­ger red stones. There was a sil­ver hoop, wrought like a vine, full of jingling keys, that Au­gust ex­plained were her house­hold keys for when she joined her hus­band at Buck­keep, and eight plain sil­ver rings for her hands. She stood still as Regal him­self decked her. I thought to my­self the sil­ver with red stones would have looked bet­ter on a darker wo­man, but Kettricken’s girl­ish de­light was dazzlingly ob­vi­ous in her smile, and around me people turned and mur­mured ap­prov­ingly to one an­other to see their prin­cess so ad­orned. Per­haps, I thought, she might en­joy our out­land­ish col­ours and ac­coutre­ments.

  I was grate­ful for the brief­ness of King Eyod’s speech that fol­lowed, for all he ad­ded was that he bade us wel­come, and in­vited us to rest, re­lax and en­joy the city. If we had any needs, we had but to ask of any­one we en­countered, and they would at­tempt to meet them. To­mor­row at noon would be­gin the three-day ce­re­mony of the Join­ing, and he de­sired that we all be well-res­ted to en­joy it. Then he and his off­spring des­cen­ded, to mingle as freely with one and all as if we were all sol­diers on the same watch.

  Jon­qui had ob­vi­ously at­tached her­self to me, and there was no gra­cious way to es­cape her com­pany, so I re­solved to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could about their cus­toms. But one of her first acts was to present me to the Prince and Prin­cess. They were stand­ing with Au­gust, who ap­peared to be ex­plain­ing how, through him, Ver­ity would wit­ness his ce­re­mony. He was speak­ing loudly, as if this would some­how make it easier for them to un­der­stand. Jon­qui listened for a mo­ment, then ap­par­ently de­cided that Au­gust had fin­ished speak­ing. She spoke as if we were all chil­dren brought to­gether for sweet­cakes while our par­ents con­versed. ‘Rurisk, Kettricken, this young man is most in­ter­ested in our gar­dens. Per­haps later we can ar­range that he speak with those who tend them.’ She seemed to speak es­pe­cially to Kettricken as she ad­ded, ‘His name is FitzChiv­alry.’

  Au­gust frowned sud­denly and amended her in­tro­duc­tion. ‘Fitz. The bas­tard.’

  Kettricken looked shocked at this sou­bri­quet, but Rurisk’s fair face darkened some­what. Ever so slightly, he turned to­ward me, put­ting his shoulder to Au­gust. Even so, it was a ges­ture that needed no ex­plain­ing in any lan­guage. ‘Yes,’ he said, switch­ing to Chy­urda and look­ing me full in the eye. ‘Your father spoke of you to me, the last time I saw him. I was grieved to hear of his death. He did much to pre­pare the way for the for­ging of this bond between our folk.’

  ‘You knew my father?’ I asked stu­pidly.

  He smiled down at me. ‘Of course. He and I were treat­ing to­gether, re­gard­ing the use of Blu­erock Pass, at Moon­seye, north-east of here, when he first learned of you. When our time of talk­ing of passes and trade as en­voys were done, we sat down to meat to­gether, and spoke, as men, of what he must next do. I con­fess, I still do not un­der­stand why he felt he must not rule as king. The cus­toms of one folk are not those of an­other. Still, with this wed­ding, we shall be closer to mak­ing one folk of our peoples. Do you think that would please him?’

  Rurisk was giv­ing me his sole at­ten­tion, and his use of Chy­urda ef­fect­ively ex­cluded Au­gust from the con­ver­sa­tion. Kettricken ap­peared fas­cin­ated. Au­gust’s face past Rurisk’s shoulder grew very still. Then, with a grim smile of purest hatred for me, he turned aside and re­joined the group around Regal, who was speak­ing with King Eyod. For whatever reason, I had the com­plete at­ten­tion of Rurisk and Kettricken.

  ‘I did not know my father well, but I think he would be pleased to see …’ I began, but at that mo­ment, Prin­cess Kettricken smiled bril­liantly at me.

  ‘Of course, how could I have been so stu­pid? You are the one they call Fitz. Do not you usu­ally travel with Lady Thyme, King Shrewd’s pois­oner? And are you not train­ing as her ap­pren­tice? Regal has spoken of you.’

  ‘How kind of him,’ I said in­anely, and I have no idea what next was said to me, nor what I replied. I could only be thank­ful I did not reel where I stood. And in­side me, for the first time, I ac­know­ledged that what I felt for Regal went bey­ond dis­taste. Rurisk frowned a brother’s re­buke at Kettricken, and then turned to deal with a ser­vant ur­gently ask­ing his in­struc­tions about some­thing. Around me people con­versed gen­i­ally amid sum­mer col­ours and scents, but I felt as if my guts had turned to ice.

  I came back to my­self when Kettricken plucked at my sleeve. ‘They are this way,’ she in­formed me. ‘Or are you too weary to en­joy them now? If you wish to re­tire, it will of­fend no one. I un­der­stand that many of you were too weary even to walk into the city.’

  ‘But many of us were not, and would truly have en­joyed the chance to walk leis­urely through Jhaampe. I have been told of the Blue Foun­tains, and look for­ward to see­ing them.’ I only faltered slightly as I said this, and hoped it had some bear­ing on what she had been say­ing to me. At least it had noth­ing to do with poison.

  ‘I will be sure you are guided to them, per­haps this even­ing. But for now, come this way.’ And with no more ado or form­al­ity than that, she led me away from the gath­er­ing. Au­gust watched after us as we walked away, and I saw Regal turn and say some­thing in an aside to Rowd. King Eyod had with­drawn from the crowd, and was look­ing be­nignly down on all from an el­ev­ated plat­form. I wondered why Rowd had not re­mained with the horses and other ser­vants, but then Kettricken was draw­ing a painted screen aside from a door-open­ing and we were leav­ing the main room of the palace.

  We were out­side, in fact, walk­ing on a stone path­way un­der an arch­way of trees. They were wil­lows, and their liv­ing branches had been in­ter­laced and woven over­head to form a green screen from the noon sun. ‘And they shed rain from the path, too. At least, most of it,’ Kettricken ad­ded as she noted my in­terest. ‘This path leads to the shade gar­dens. They are my fa­vour­ites. But per­haps you would wish to see the her­bery first?’

  ‘I shall en­joy see­ing any and all of the gar­dens, my lady,’ I replied, and this at least was true. Out here, away from the crowd, I would have more chance to sort my thoughts and pon­der what to do from my un­ten­able po­s­i­tion. It was oc­cur­ring to me, be­latedly, that Prince Rurisk had shown none of the signs of in­jury or ill­ness that Regal had re­por­ted. I needed to with­draw from the situ­ation and re-eval­u­ate it. There was more, much more, go­ing on than I had been pre­pared for.

  But with an ef­fort I pulled my thoughts away from my own di­lemma and fo­cused on what the Prin­cess was telling me. She spoke her words clearly, and I found her con­ver­sa­tion much easier to fol­low away from the back­ground chat­ter of the great hall. She seemed to know much about the gar­dens, and gave me to un­der­stand that it was not a hobby but know­ledge that was ex­pec­ted of her as a prin­cess.

  As we walked and talked, I con­stantly had to re­mind my­self that she was a prin­cess, and be­trothed to Ver­ity. I had never en­countered a wo­man like her be­fore. She wore a quiet dig­nity, quite un­like the aware­ness of sta­tion that I usu­ally en­countered in those bet­ter born than I. But she did not hes­it­ate to smile, or be­come en­thused, or stoop to dig in the soil around a plant to show me a par­tic­u­lar type of root she was de­scrib­ing. She rubbed the root free of dirt, then sliced a bit with her belt knife from the heart of the tuber, to al­low me to taste its tang. She showed me cer­tain pun­gent herbs for season­ing meat, and in­sisted I taste a leaf of each of three vari­et­ies, for though the plants were very sim­ilar, the fla­vours were very dif­fer­ent. In a way, she was like Pa­tience, without her ec­cent­ri­city. In an­other way, she was like Molly, but without the cal­lous­ness that Molly had been forced to de­velop to sur­vive. Like Molly, she spoke dir­ectly and frankly to me, as if we were equals. I found my­self think­ing that Ver­ity might find this wo­man more to his lik­ing than he ex­pec­ted.

  And yet, an­other part of me wor­ried what Ver­ity would think of his bride. He was not a wo­man­izer, but his taste in wo­men was ob­vi­ous to any­one who had been much around him. And those whom he smiled upon were usu­ally small and round and dark, of­ten with curly hair and girl­ish laughter and tiny soft hands. What would he think of this tall, pale wo­man, who dressed as simply as a ser­vant and de­clared she took much pleas­ure in tend­ing her own gar­dens? As our talk turned, I found she could speak as fa­mil­iarly about fal­conry and horse-breed­ing as any sta­ble­man. And when I asked her what she did for pleas­ure, she told me of her small forge and tools for work­ing metal, and lif­ted her hair to show me the ear­rings she had made for her­self. The finely-hammered sil­ver petals of a flower clasped a tiny gem like a drop of dew. I had once told Molly that Ver­ity de­served a com­pet­ent and act­ive wife, but now I wondered if she would much be­guile him. He would re­spect her, I knew. But was re­spect enough between a king and his queen?

  I re­solved not to bor­row trouble, but to keep my word to Ver­ity in­stead. I asked her if Regal had told her much of her hus­band, and she be­came sud­denly quiet. I sensed her draw­ing on her strength as she replied that she knew he was a King-in-Wait­ing with many prob­lems fa­cing his realm. Regal had warned her that Ver­ity was much older than she was, a plain and simple man, who might not take much in­terest in her. Regal had prom­ised to be ever by her, help­ing her to ad­apt, and do­ing his best to see that the court was not a lonely place for her. So she was pre­pared …

  ‘How old are you?’ I asked im­puls­ively.

  ‘Eight­een,’ she replied, and then smiled to see the sur­prise on my face. ‘Be­cause I am tall, your people seem to think I am much older than that,’ she con­fided to me.

  ‘Well, you are younger than Ver­ity, then. But not so much more than between many wives and hus­bands. He will be thirty-three this spring.’

  ‘I had thought him much older than that,’ she said won­der­ingly. ‘Regal ex­plained they share but a father.’