She would do quite well for your grace in such a role.

  But, alas, I know better than to hope for such things for her. Merit alone is not reason enough to raise up a vassal.

  Perhaps, instead, your grace could consent to help her father find her a fit marriage. Perhaps to Count Draven, who has his holdings among the royal lands. He is said to be quite handsome, and fairly rich.

  No doubt Draven and Byrhta would make a delightful couple.

  Perhaps your grace could invite him to the harvest festival at Water’s End, and introduce them. I would be more than happy to assist. And I could certainly recommend her to him, if it helped.

  Not that I want her getting married too soon. That might take her away from me, and I would hate to lose her wisdom and guidance before coming of age.

  Though, admittedly, to see her happily married, I would accept that fate.

  Though not all of my ideas come from Byrhta, of course. It was my idea to ride the length and breadth of my barony, letting my people see me, and learning how things really stand among the lands of my lers.

  Perhaps that is part of the reason for the grumbling. I’ve seen proof that some have been lying about their taxes, and the treatment of their peasants.

  Which reminds me. While we were riding my lands, Byrhta spotted excellent conditions for growing nysta. And given the popularity of nysta tea, that means another crop to improve Riverbreak’s revenues.

  Alas, I must go. Court is to begin soon, and I wish to raise ideas to Byrhta about…

  Well. I shall tell your grace if those ideas bear fruit.

  I trust that your grace is well, and hope that your grace shall write to me soon.

  Your faithful vassal, and perhaps one day more than that, I remain

  Vercy

  Aefric smiled as he considered Vercy’s letter. Pushing to find a husband for Byrhta, was she? He wondered if Byrhta knew of her charge’s matchmaking desires, and what she’d say if she did.

  Byrhta would probably like the idea of being created a baroness more than she’d like the idea of Vercy hunting up husbands for her.

  Of course, if those mines in the Dragonscar proved as rich as they might, Aefric might need to create a baron to handle the lands up there.

  Assuming the king would permit it, Aefric could do a lot worse for a new baron than Byrhta…

  Of course, whether that happened or not, Vercy might have a point about this Count Draven being an excellent match for Byrhta. But if so, let her father make the arrangements.

  Aefric was in no greater hurry to find Byrhta a husband than he was to find one for Maev. For much the same reason.

  Which might have been part of Vercy’s plan. Trying to remove some of her competition.

  Still. Aefric would have to write Vercy back as well. Think of some way to write a letter that was cordial and fitting for a duke writing to a vassal, without being too encouraging about her … amorous intentions.

  He lay back on the soft gray, overstuffed couch and let his gaze run over the huge tapestry of his duchy, while he considered his three letters, and what he might say in response to each.

  No, he decided, standing. He had spent enough time on letters and private thoughts. Midnight was not more than an hour or two away, and he would have to rise before the sun if he would see the princesses on their way in the morning.

  And he very much intended to do that. Not only because it was his duty as their host, but to make sure they left.

  He locked all three letters in a drawer in his desk. He looked at the reports that awaited his attention — left there, no doubt, by Dajen — but shook his head. They could wait.

  He finished his goblet of water and opened the door of his study.

  Dajen was standing not one step away. Waiting.

  “How?” Aefric finally asked. “How could you possibly have known I was just leaving my study? Or have you been standing there this entire time?”

  Dajen smiled. “Much as it might please me to lead your grace to believe I would stand outside his study door all night, waiting for him to emerge, your grace is far too aware of the other duties I perform on his behalf, to believe such.

  “In fact,” he continued, “I should first and foremost wish to assure your grace that the ducal historian has been made aware of his desires in the matter of the justiciar’s report, and promised a copy will be ready before Princess Astrid takes her leave. Further, that two bottles of honsach have been prepared, and will be ready for your grace to present to the princesses in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Dajen.”

  “Of course, your grace,” Dajen said with a bow. “And as to the matter of how I came to be standing outside your grace’s study door at just the right moment, well. Your grace must remember that I have lived in this castle my whole life, and that I served both Duchess Arinda and her father, Duke Arallan, in the same capacity that I now serve your grace.”

  Dajen’s gaze wandered about the sitting room and ceiling.

  “I know these chambers better than anyone else. And I know their sounds. This gives me an advantage in understanding your grace’s movements through his apartments.”

  “Fair enough,” Aefric said, cocking his head to the side and narrowing his eyes. “Of course, that doesn’t explain how you knew I’d be landing on my balcony this evening, exactly when I did.”

  “No, your grace,” Dajen said with a smile. “It does not.”

  Aefric chuckled. Let the man have his secrets.

  “All right,” he said. “I think I’m ready to retire then, unless there’s anything else I need to deal with.”

  “Only one matter known to me, your grace,” Dajen said. “A visitor arrived while your grace was in his study. As I will not interrupt your grace in his study for anything less than a matter of critical importance, I have asked the visitor to await your grace’s pleasure in the sitting room below.”

  “Who is the visitor?”

  “Mistress Zoleen Fyrenn, your grace.”

  “Fyrenn?” Aefric asked for confirmation.

  “Yes, your grace. The younger sister of her grace, Duchess Ashling Fyrenn of Merrek, and of her majesty, Queen Eppida Fyrenn.”

  “Is she the emissary sent by Duchess Ashling? Kentigern mentioned one.”

  “Yes, your grace,” Dajen said. “And she brought with her a package. A gift from the duchess, I believe.”

  “And here I was hoping that could wait till morning,” Aefric muttered.

  “I could tell her that your grace is indisposed and not receiving visitors tonight,” Dajen offered.

  “No,” Aefric said. “Better to get it out of the way. Thank you, Dajen.”

  “Of course, your grace. Will you wish refreshment?”

  Aefric frowned. “Isn’t there a servant on duty downstairs?”

  “Pakel is on duty for the remainder of the night, your grace. I merely wished to be helpful.”

  “I’m sure if I need anything downstairs, Pakel can handle it. Thank you.”

  Dajen bowed, and Aefric went back down the curved staircase, glad he hadn’t changed into lounge clothing.

  Aefric found Zoleen Fyrenn in his sitting room on the public floor of his apartments.

  When he entered, she rose from her seat on a large, padded maroon couch, where she’d been enjoying both a small glass of dark green sharabi and the view of the lake and the night sky.

  Aefric would have known her as a Fyrenn even without Dajen’s identifying her. Were it not for Maev and Byrhta, the Fyrenn sisters would have been the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

  And Zoleen had all the gorgeous beauty of her sisters. The striking features, the sapphire eyes. Her copper hair worn long in soft, gentle waves.

  She was clearly the youngest of the three, right about the age of majority, but she held herself well, and filled out her deceptively complex red dress in ways that no doubt made her dressmakers sigh with joy, at getting to tailor for her.

  “Your grace,” she said, with a smile and a bow. “Thank you for receiving me at this hour.”

  “Well,” Aefric said with a smile, gesturing to Pakel — a heavyset man about five summers older than Aefric — for a glass of sharabi as he walked toward the couch. “I know you’ve come on business for your sister Ashling, and I’m glad I don’t have to make you wait longer than you have already.”

  “Hardly a burden to wait on so handsome — and busy — a duke as yourself, your grace,” Zoleen said with a smile. “Especially when the waiting is done at so fascinating a place as Water’s End. I suspect I could spend an entire summer here and not see even all of the castle, let alone all of the city.”

  “Too true,” Aefric said, inviting her to sit with a gesture as he took his own seat on the couch. “I’ve been here a season, and I doubt I’ve seen half the castle myself.”

  “I have an advantage, though,” Zoleen said mischievously. “I’m not constantly barraged by business and demands on my time while I’m here.”

  “True enough,” Aefric said with a chuckle. He accepted his sharabi from Pakel with a word of thanks, and raised his glass in toast. “To finding time for the simple pleasures.”

  Zoleen raised her glass in confirmation of the toast, and they both drank. This dark sharabi was strong, with a rich taste that made Aefric think of blackberries.

  After the toast, Zoleen set down her glass and picked up a small valise. She patted it.

  “I have come bearing a gift for your grace, Ser Aefric Brightstaff, Duke of Deepwater and Baron of Netar, from my sister, Ashling Fyrenn, Duchess of Merrek, in gratitude for his efforts this spring in the Indecisive River Valley, not least of which was his stirring victory at Frozen Ridge.”

  She got all that out in a single breath without sounding rushed. Impressive.

  “Your sister has already given me three excellent ships,” Aefric said. “I hardly think she needs to give me more.”

  “She disagrees.” Zoleen smiled. “In fact, her exact words to me were, ‘Don’t let Aefric humble his way out of this, Zolly.’”

  Aefric chuckled. “All right then. What is the gift?”

  Zoleen opened the valise and drew out two folded pieces of parchment. She unfolded the first piece. It was a sketch of a good-sized keep on a small hill situated near a river and surrounded by a town.

  “Oh, what has she done?” Aefric asked breathlessly.

  “When Merrek annexed the city of Kivash as retribution for Malimfar’s aggression this past spring, the city was taken intact.”

  Zoleen unfolded the other piece of parchment, which turned out to be a map of Kivash.

  “The forces of Malimfari nobles occupied three castles within that city at the time. They were offered the opportunity to leave in peace, if they surrendered those castles and all properties and goods contained therein. When they realized how badly outnumbered they were, they chose wisdom, and accepted the offer.”

  Aefric let out a breath. Those nobles must have been screaming bloody murder to their king. Just another thing to upset Princess Astrid.

  “The largest and finest of these castles, of course,” Zoleen continued, “Ash — I mean, Duchess Ashling — retained for herself. The second largest she presented as a gift to his majesty, King Colm Stronghand, in thanks for his aid and support in driving back the forces of Malimfar, and in capturing the city.”

  She pointed to a marked spot on the map, down near the mouth of the river and fairly close to the town square on the southern bank of the Indecisive.

  “And the third is here,” she said. “The keep depicted in the drawing your grace has already seen. This castle and everything within it, her grace, Duchess Ashling Fyrenn, presents to your grace, Duke Aefric Brightstaff, as both a gesture of friendship and a gift of thanks for his quick thinking and decisive actions against the armies of Malimfar on her behalf, and on behalf of Armyr.”

  “That’s too much,” Aefric said under his breath.

  “The castle is to be regarded as the property of the Duke of Deepwater in perpetuity,” Zoleen continued, clearly enjoying Aefric’s reaction. “And the castle, the hill it stands on, and the land beneath are to be regarded as part of the duchy of Deepwater, not the duchy of Merrek.”

  Zoleen put the map and sketch on the table and pulled a soft leather scroll case out of the valise and handed it to Aefric.

  “Here is the deed and the formal letter associated with the gift.”

  Aefric looked at the scroll case in her hand and chuckled breathlessly in disbelief.

  “In addition to those ships, she’s giving me a castle?”

  “A castle,” Zoleen said, smiling, “the land beneath, and whatever goods and properties are contained within.”

  She raised the scroll case slightly, as a signal for Aefric to take it. He stared at it, unsure. It sounded like too much.

  “Her grace’s soldiers protect the castle right now,” Zoleen said. “Keeping it safe from thieves and ensuring that it remains unspoiled until such time as your grace sends his own replacements. Preferably, while taking possession of the castle, and surveying its contents.”

  “She’s too generous,” Aefric said, shaking his head.

  Zoleen frowned. Perhaps surprised that Aefric not only hadn’t eagerly snatched that scroll case from her, but even accepted it at all yet. Her voice was more serious when she next spoke.

  “Duchess Ashling is all too aware of how much her lands and people would have suffered, had your grace not stopped Malimfar at Frozen Ridge. Even a military victory would have come at a high cost of life, and done significant damage to both the river valley and Merrek’s economy for years to come.”

  She offered the scroll case again.

  Aefric finally accepted it, still shaking his head in wonder.

  Zoleen picked up her glass of sharabi. Raised it as though in toast. “All that she has given your grace amounts to only a fraction of what she would have lost.”

  Aefric raised his glass, and joined her in the drink, still marveling.

  Aefric sat with Zoleen Fyrenn on that soft couch in his sitting room for some time. Drinking sharabi, looking out over the lake by night, and speaking of little more than pleasantries.

  But Aefric’s day had been long. So after no more than a second slow glass of sharabi, he smiled, stood, and said, “I’ve enjoyed sitting with you tonight, Zoleen. But I must rise early tomorrow, and so I should probably say goodnight.”

  “If morning must come early,” Zoleen said slowly, while one hand teased along her thigh, “I would be more than happy to help ensure that your grace … sleeps soundly.”

  The smile she gave him then left no possible doubt about her meaning.

  Aefric looked her over, and had to admit he was tempted. Her beauty was exquisite, and his blood had already been raised by those letters from Maev and Byrhta.

  It wasn’t as though either of them would object to his taking this young beauty to his bed.

  And the release would do him good.

  Which left only one concern.

  “You tempt me, Zoleen,” Aefric said, letting his gaze wander over her again. “But I worry that you might be too young—”

  “I reached the age of majority this past midwinter, your grace.” She smiled and shook her head. “Ash said you would ask my age, if I came to you for the noble privilege. But I didn’t believe her.”

  “Where I grew up,” Aefric said, “no one below the age of majority was considered fit to give consent for such activities.”

  A statement that was both true and not true. It was true in America, where he’d grown and lived as Keifer McShane, but the question was … much less clear in Sartis and the many lands of his youth in Qorunn, as Aefric.

  “Well,” Zoleen said, coming to her feet and closing the distance between them. “Then let me lay both those concerns to rest.”

  She raised up on her toes and whispered her next words scant inches from Aefric’s lips.

  “I, Zoleen Fyrenn, do solemnly swear on my family’s honor that I came of age this past midwinter. And I further swear that I give your grace my ‘consent’ most freely and eagerly.”

  Aefric took her in his arms. Tasted the blackberries of the sharabi while they kissed deeply and clutched each other tightly. She whimpered into his mouth as that kiss went on.

  The silks of her dress were soft under Aefric’s hands. Part of him was tempted to tear them. To rip the dress right off her so that nothing stood between him and Zoleen’s firm, hot flesh.

  But no. That would be too quick. And Aefric had felt rushed about too many things. He didn’t want to feel rushed about sex, too.

  So he pulled back from the heat of the kiss, even though Zoleen’s panting lips reached for his, for more.

  He held up a single finger, and ran it slowly down her cheek. Enjoying the way she shivered in response as much as he enjoyed the smoothness of her skin. He dragged that finger along her chin then.

  When that finger reached the tip of her chin, Zoleen dipped her lips and kissed it.

  The look she gave him was fiery. Her hands twitched, as though wanting to tear off his clothes. Or at least to continue their explorations of his body.

  “I am torn,” he whispered. “Part of me wishes to take this slowly, and enjoy getting to know every inch of you. The rest wishes to tear off your dress and take you the first time here on the couch.”

  “The first time?” she whispered back with a smile. “I thought your grace had an early morning.”

  “I do,” he admitted, reluctantly. “And yet beauty like yours deserves its proper due. I would never be sated after only a single draught.”

  She tilted her head to one side, and the quality of her smile shifted slightly. “This from a man who has known the charms of Byrhta Ol’Caran? My beauty is nothing to hers.”

  “Beauty should never be compared,” Aefric whispered, leaning in and kissing her long, smooth neck. “Only appreciated. Preferably slowly. And repeatedly.”

  Zoleen pulled back, smiling with her eyes more than her lips, and put her hands on Aefric’s chest.

  “Does your grace truly believe that?”