‘It is true that Chiv­alry and Ver­ity were both sons of King Shrewd’s first queen, but there is not that great a span between them. And Ver­ity, when he is not burdened with the prob­lems of state, is not so dour and severe as you might ima­gine him. He is a man who knows how to laugh.’

  She cast me a side­ways glance, as if to see if I were try­ing to put a bet­ter face on Ver­ity than he de­served.

  ‘It is true, prin­cess. I have seen him laugh like a child at the pup­pet shows at Spring­fest. And when all join in for luck at the fruit­press to make au­tumn wine, he does not hold back. But his greatest pleas­ure has al­ways been the hunt. He has a wolf­hound, Leon, which he holds dearer than some men hold their sons.’

  ‘But,’ Kettricken ven­tured to in­ter­rupt. ‘Surely this is as he was, once. For Regal speaks of him as a man older than his years, bent down by the cares of his people.’

  ‘Bent down as a tree burdened by snow, that springs erect again with the com­ing of spring. His last words to me be­fore I left, prin­cess, were to de­sire me to speak well of him to you.’

  She cast her eyes down quickly, as if to hide from me the sud­den lift of her heart. ‘I see a dif­fer­ent man, when you speak of him.’ She paused, and then closed her mouth firmly, for­bid­ding her­self the re­quest I heard any­way.

  ‘I have al­ways seen him as a kind man. As kind as one lif­ted to such a re­spons­ib­il­ity can be. He takes his du­ties very ser­i­ously, and will not spare him­self from what his folk need of him. This it is that has made him un­able to come here, to you. He en­gages in a battle with the Red Ship Raid­ers, one he couldn’t fight from here. He gives up the in­terests of a man to ful­fil his duty as a prince. Not through a cold­ness of spirit, or a lack of life in him­self.’

  She gave me a side­ways glance, fight­ing the smile from her face as if what I told her were sweetest flat­tery such as a prin­cess must not be­lieve.

  ‘He is taller than I am, but only by a bit. His hair is very dark, as is his beard, when he lets it grow. His eyes are blacker still, yet when he is en­thused, they shine. It is true there is a scat­ter­ing of grey in his hair now that you would not have found a year ago. True, also, that his work has kept him from the sun and the wind, so his shoulders no longer tear the seams of his shirts. But my uncle is still very much a man, and I be­lieve that when the danger of the Red Ships has been driven from our shores, he will ride and shout and hunt with his hound once more.’

  ‘You give me heart,’ she muttered, and then straightened her­self as if she had ad­mit­ted some weak­ness. Look­ing at me gravely, she asked, ‘Why does Regal not speak of his brother so? I thought I went to an old man, shak­ing of hand, too burdened by his du­ties to see a wife as any­thing other than an­other duty.’

  ‘Per­haps he …’ I began, and could think of no courtier’s way to say that Regal was fre­quently de­cept­ive if it gained him his goal. For the life of me, I had no idea what goal might be served by mak­ing Kettricken so dread Ver­ity.

  ‘Per­haps he has … been … un­flat­ter­ing about other things as well,’ Kettricken sud­denly sup­posed aloud. Some­thing seemed to alarm her. She took a breath, and be­came sud­denly franker. ‘There was an even­ing, in my cham­ber, when we had dined, and Regal had, per­haps, drunk a bit too well. He told tales of you then, say­ing you had once been a sul­len, spoiled child, too am­bi­tious for your birth, but that since the King had made you his pois­oner, you seemed con­tent with your lot. He said it seemed to suit you, for even as a boy, you had en­joyed eaves­drop­ping and skulk­ing about and other se­cret­ive pur­suits. Now, I do not tell you this to make a mis­chief, but only to let you know what I first be­lieved of you. The next day Regal begged me to be­lieve it had been the fan­cies of the wine rather than the facts he had shared with me. But one thing he had said that night was too icy a fear for me en­tirely to lay aside. He said that if the King did send you or Lady Thyme, it would be to poison my brother, so that I might be the sole heir to the Moun­tain King­dom.’

  ‘You are speak­ing too quickly,’ I chided her gently, and hoped my smile did not look as dizzy and sickly as I sud­denly felt. ‘I did not un­der­stand all you said.’ Des­per­ately I strove to think of what to say. Even as ac­com­plished a liar as I found such a dir­ect con­front­a­tion un­com­fort­able.

  ‘I am sorry. But you speak our lan­guage so well, al­most like a nat­ive. Al­most as if you were re­call­ing it, rather than learn­ing it new. I will go more slowly. Some weeks, no, it was over a month ago, Regal came to my cham­bers. He had asked if he might dine alone with me, that we might get to know one an­other bet­ter, and …’

  ‘Kettricken!’ It was Rurisk, call­ing down the path as he came seek­ing us. ‘Regal is ask­ing that you would come and meet the lords and ladies who have come so far to see your mar­riage.’

  Jon­qui was at his shoulder, hur­ry­ing after him, and as the second and un­mis­tak­able wave of dizzi­ness hit me, I thought she looked too know­ing. And, I asked my­self, what step would Chade have taken if someone had sent a pois­oner to Shrewd’s court, to elim­in­ate Ver­ity? All too ob­vi­ous.

  ‘Per­haps,’ Jon­qui sud­denly sug­ges­ted, ‘FitzChiv­alry would like to be shown the Blue Foun­tains now. Lit­ress has said she would gladly take him.’

  ‘Maybe later this af­ter­noon,’ I man­aged to say. ‘I find my­self sud­denly wear­ied. I think I shall seek my cham­ber.’

  None of them looked sur­prised. ‘Shall I have some wine sent to you?’ Jon­qui asked gra­ciously. ‘Or per­haps some soup? The oth­ers will be summoned to a meal soon. But, if you are tired, it is no trouble to bring food to you.’

  Years of train­ing came to the fore. I kept my pos­ture straight, des­pite the sud­den fire in my belly. ‘That would be most kind of you,’ I man­aged to say. The brief bow I forced my­self to make was soph­ist­ic­ated tor­ture. ‘I am sure I will re­join you soon.’

  And I ex­cused my­self, and I did not run, nor curl in a ball and whim­per as I wished to. I walked, with ob­vi­ous en­joy­ment of the plant­ings, back through the garden to the door of the great hall. And the three of them watched me go, and spoke softly to­gether of what we all knew.

  I had but one trick left to me, and small hope it would be ef­fect­ive. Back in my room, I dug out the seapurge the Fool had given me. How long, I wondered, had it been since I had eaten the honey cakes? For that was the venue I would have chosen. Fa­tal­ist­ic­ally, I de­cided I would trust the ewer of wa­ter in my room. A tiny part of me said that was fool­ish, but as wave after wave of gid­di­ness washed over me, I felt in­cap­able of any fur­ther thought. With shak­ing hands I crumbled the seapurge into wa­ter. The dried herb ab­sorbed the wa­ter and be­came a green sticky wad, which I man­aged to choke down. I knew it would empty my stom­ach and bowels. The only ques­tion was, would it be swift enough, or was the Chy­urda poison too wide­spread in me?

  I spent a miser­able even­ing that I will not dwell on. No one came to my room with soup or wine. In my mo­ments of lu­cid­ity, I de­cided they would not come un­til they were sure their poison had had its ef­fect. Morn­ing, I de­cided. They would send a ser­vant to waken me, and he would dis­cover my death. I had un­til morn­ing.

  It was past mid­night when I was able to stand. I left my room as si­lently as my shak­ing legs would carry me and went out into the garden. I found a cistern of wa­ter there, and drank un­til I thought I would burst. I ven­tured fur­ther into the garden, walk­ing slowly and care­fully, for I ached as if I had been beaten and my head poun­ded pain­fully with each step I took. But even­tu­ally I stumbled into an area of fruit trees grace­fully trained along a wall, and as I had hoped, they were heavy with the har­vest. I helped my­self, filling my jer­kin with a sup­ply. These I would con­ceal in my room, to give me food I could safely con­sume. Some­time to­mor­row, I would make an ex­cuse to go down and check on Sooty. My saddle­bags still held some dried meat and hard bread. I hoped it would be enough to get me through this visit.

  And as I made my way back to my room, I wondered what else they would try when they found the poison hadn’t worked.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Princes

  Of the Chy­urdan herb Car­ryme, their say­ing is, ‘A leaf to sleep, two to dull pain, three for a mer­ci­ful grave.’

  To­wards dawn, I fi­nally dozed, only to be awakened by Prince Rurisk fling­ing aside the screen that served as door to my cham­ber. He burst into the room, flour­ish­ing a slosh­ing de­canter. The loose­ness of the gar­ment that fluttered about him de­clared it a nightrobe. I rolled quickly from the bed and man­aged to stand, with the bed­stead between us. I was cornered, sick and weapon­less, save for my belt knife.

  ‘You live still!’ he ex­claimed in amazement, then ad­vanced on me with his flask. ‘Quick, drink this.’

  ‘I would sooner not,’ I told him, re­treat­ing as he ad­vanced.

  See­ing my war­i­ness, he paused. ‘You have taken poison,’ he told me care­fully. ‘It is fully a mir­acle of Chran­zuli that you still live. This is a purge, that will flush it from your body. Take it, and you may still live.’

  ‘There is noth­ing left in my body to purge,’ I told him bluntly, and then caught at a table as I began to shake. ‘I knew I had been poisoned when I left you last night.’

  ‘And you said noth­ing to me?’ He was in­cred­u­lous. He turned back to the door, where Kettricken now peeked in tim­idly. Her hair was in tousled braids, and her eyes red with weep­ing. ‘It is aver­ted, small thanks to you,’ her brother told her severely. ‘Go and make him a salty broth from some of last night’s meat. And bring a sweet pastry as well. Enough for both of us. And tea. Go on now, you fool­ish girl!’

  Kettricken scampered off like a child. Rurisk ges­tured at the bed. ‘Come. Trust me enough to sit down. Be­fore you up­set the table with your shak­ing. I am speak­ing plainly to you. You and I, FitzChiv­alry, we have no time for this dis­trust. There is much we must speak of, you and I.’

  I sat down, not out of trust so much as for fear I would oth­er­wise col­lapse. Without form­al­ity, Rurisk sat down on the end of the bed. ‘My sis­ter,’ he said gravely, ‘is im­petu­ous. Poor Ver­ity will find her more child than wo­man, I fear, and much of that is my fault; I have spoiled her so. But, al­though that ex­plains her fond­ness for me, it does not ex­cuse her pois­on­ing of a guest. Es­pe­cially not on the eve of her wed­ding to his uncle.’

  ‘I think I would have felt much the same about it at any time,’ I said, and Rurisk threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘There is much of your father in you. So would he have said, I am sure. But I must ex­plain. She came to me days ago, to tell me that you were com­ing to make an end of me. I told her then that it was not her con­cern, and I would take care of it. But, as I have said, she is im­puls­ive. Yes­ter­day she saw an op­por­tun­ity and took it. With no re­gard as to how the death of a guest might af­fect a care­fully-ne­go­ti­ated wed­ding. She thought only to do away with you be­fore vows bound her to the Six Duch­ies and made such an act un­think­able. I should have sus­pec­ted it when she took you so quickly to the gar­dens.’

  ‘The herbs she gave me?’

  He nod­ded, and I felt a fool. ‘But after you had eaten them, you spoke so fair to her that she came to doubt you could be what it was said you were. So she asked you, but you turned the ques­tion aside by pre­tend­ing to not un­der­stand. So again she doubted you. Still, it should not have taken her all night to come to me with her tale of what she had done, and her doubts of the wis­dom of it. For that, I apo­lo­gize.’

  ‘Too late to apo­lo­gize. I have already for­given you,’ I heard my­self say.

  Rurisk looked at me. ‘That was your father’s say­ing, as well.’ He glanced at the door a mo­ment be­fore Kettricken came through it. Once she was within the room, he slid the screen shut and took the tray from her. ‘Sit down,’ he told her sternly. ‘And see an­other way of deal­ing with an as­sas­sin.’ He lif­ted a heavy mug from the tray and drank deeply of it be­fore passing it to me. He shot Kettricken an­other glance. ‘And if that was poisoned, you have just killed your brother as well.’ He broke an apple pastry into three por­tions. ‘Se­lect one,’ he told me, and then took that one for him­self, and gave the next I chose to Kettricken. ‘So you may see there is noth­ing amiss with this food.’

  ‘I see small reason why you would give me poison this morn­ing after com­ing to tell me I was poisoned last night,’ I ad­mit­ted. Still, my pal­ate was alive, quest­ing for the slight­est mis­taste. But there was none. It was rich, flaky pastry stuffed with ripe apples and spices. Even if I had not been so empty, it would have been de­li­cious.

  ‘Ex­actly,’ Rurisk said in a sticky voice, and then swal­lowed. ‘And, if you were an as­sas­sin,’ here he shot a warn­ing to si­lence Kettricken, ‘you would find your­self in the same po­s­i­tion. Some murders are prof­it­able only if no one else knows they were murders. Such would be my death. Were you to slay me now, in­deed, were I to die within the next six months, Kettricken and Jon­qui both would be shriek­ing to the stars that I had been as­sas­sin­ated. Scarcely a good found­a­tion for an al­li­ance of peoples. Do you agree?’

  I man­aged a nod. The warm broth in the mug had stilled most of my trem­bling, and the sweet pastry tasted fit for a god.

  ‘So. We agree that, were you an as­sas­sin, there would now be no profit to car­ry­ing out my murder. In­deed, there would be a very great loss to you if I died. For my father does not look on this al­li­ance with the fa­vour that I do. Oh, he knows it is wise, for now. But I see it as more than wise. I see it as ne­ces­sary.

  ‘Tell this to King Shrewd. Our pop­u­la­tion grows, but there is a limit to our ar­able soil. Wild game will only feed so many. Comes a time when a coun­try must open it­self to trade, es­pe­cially so rocky and moun­tain­ous a coun­try as mine. You have heard, per­haps, that the Jhaampe way is that the ruler is the ser­vant of his people? Well, I serve them in this wise. I marry my be­loved younger sis­ter away, in the hopes of win­ning grain and trade routes and low­land goods for my people, and graz­ing rights in the cold part of the year when our pas­tures are un­der snow. For this, too, I am will­ing to give you tim­bers, the great straight tim­bers that Ver­ity will need to build his war­ships. Our moun­tains grow white oak such as you have never seen. This is a thing my father would re­fuse. He has the old feel­ings about the cut­ting of live trees. And like Regal, he sees your coast as a li­ab­il­ity, your ocean as a great bar­rier. But I see it as your father did: a wide road that leads in all dir­ec­tions, and your coast as our ac­cess to it. And I see no of­fence in us­ing trees up­rooted by the an­nual floods and wind­storms.’

  I held my breath a mo­ment. This was a mo­ment­ous con­ces­sion. I found my­self nod­ding to his words.

  ‘So, will you carry my words to King Shrewd, and say to him that it is bet­ter to have a live friend in me?’

  I could think of no reason not to agree.

  ‘Aren’t you go­ing to ask him if he in­ten­ded to poison you?’ Kettricken de­man­ded.

  ‘If he answered yes, you would never trust him. If he answered no, you would prob­ably not be­lieve him, and think him a liar as well as an as­sas­sin. Be­sides, is not one ad­mit­ted pois­oner in this room enough?’

  Kettricken ducked her head and a flush suf­fused her cheeks.

  ‘So come,’ Rurisk told her, and held out a con­cili­at­ory hand. ‘Our guest must get what little rest he can be­fore the day’s fest­iv­it­ies. And we must back to our cham­bers be­fore the whole house­hold won­ders why we are dash­ing about in our nightclothes.’

  And they left me, to lie back on my bed and won­der. What man­ner of folk were these that I dealt with? Could I be­lieve their open hon­esty, or was it a mag­ni­fi­cent sham for Eda knew what ends? I wished Chade were here. More and more, I felt noth­ing was as it seemed. I dared not doze, for I knew if I fell asleep, noth­ing would wake me be­fore night­fall. Ser­vants came soon with pitch­ers of warm wa­ter and cool, and fruit and cheese on a plat­ter. Re­mind­ing my­self that these ‘ser­vants’ might be bet­ter born than my­self, I treated them all with great cour­tesy, and later wondered if that might not be the secret of the har­mo­ni­ous house­hold; that all, ser­vants or roy­alty, be treated with the same cour­tesy.

  It was a day of great fest­iv­ity. The entries to the palace had been thrown wide open, and folk had come from every vale and dell of the Moun­tain King­dom to wit­ness this pledging. Po­ets and min­strels per­formed, and more gifts were ex­changed, in­clud­ing my formal present­a­tion of the herb­als and herb starts. The breed­ing stock that had been sent from the Six Duch­ies was dis­played, and then gif­ted forth again to those most in need of it, or most likely to be suc­cess­ful with it. A single ram or bull, with a fe­male or two, might be sent out as a com­mon gift to a whole vil­lage. All of the gifts, whether fowl or beast or grain or metal, were brought within the palace, so that all might ad­mire them.

  Burrich was there – the first time I had glimpsed him in days. He must have been up be­fore dawn, to have his charges so glossy. Every hoof was freshly oiled, every mane and tail plaited with bright rib­bons and bells. The mare to be given to Kettricken was saddled and bridled with har­ness of finest leather, and her mane and tail hung with so many tiny sil­ver bells that each swish of her tail was a chorus of tink­ling. Our horses were dif­fer­ent creatures from the small and shaggy stock of the moun­tain folk, and at­trac­ted quite a crowd. Burrich looked weary, yet proud, and his horses stood calmly amidst the clam­our. Kettricken spent a deal of time ad­mir­ing her mare, and I saw her cour­tesy and de­fer­ence thaw­ing Burrich’s re­serve. When I drew closer, I was sur­prised to hear him speak­ing in hes­it­ant but clear Chy­urda.