He glared at her as though he had been suddenly attacked by an unknown and fabulous kind of animal, asking angrily, “Who told you that?”
“Don’t be angry at anyone, Cousin. No one told me, but I overhear people, duxa devo duxa, saying this little thing and that little thing. They say the prince is pushing a match between you and the duchess Alicia. I’ve seen her from the orchard, where the wall runs along the road. Sometimes she goes past on the way to the Shrine of the Kraken, or to take a boat across to Kamfels, to visit her brother, though people say he never invites her. Sometimes I think she must be staying somewhere nearby, for she goes by every day. She looks at this castle and I can see the hunger in her eyes. She would like to swallow it all, down to the last hen in the yard. By marrying you she could get whatever it is she hungers for.”
“I am not sure it is she who hungers,” he muttered, running his hand across his face in bewilderment. “It may as well be Prince Rancitor. He’s in his thirties now, and they say he has grown in both greed and girth.”
“Were you indeed close friends with Duke Falyrion?”
The duke took a deep breath. “He was closer to my father’s age than mine, but his son Falredi and I became good friends. Before my mother and father died, Falyrion and his first wife and his son and daughter often visited here. The father and son came for the hunting; Naila and Genieve came to keep my mother company. Falredi was much like his father. He would have been a wiser leader of Kamfels than Hulix has been. Of course, Hulix was only a child of five when Mirami went to Ghastain. I suppose Kamfels lacks the kind of society she enjoys . . .”
“Cousin, did you ever meet her?”
“Who? Mirami?”
“Did you ever meet her?”
“I met her, certainly. My father had died that year, but my mother and I went to their wedding. It was not then so difficult a journey; the fjord was not so wide; we went back and forth a good deal.”
“What was she like?”
His face contorted, a twisted smile. “We were surprised when we saw her, for she was the age of his children, a very young woman. But she was very beautiful, very . . . charming.”
“Your voice has a ‘however’ in it, Cousin. However, what?”
He shrugged in discomfort. “However . . . Mother and I didn’t like her very much. Of course, we had very much liked Naila, Falyrion’s first wife, and we had grieved over her untimely death. It seemed very soon for him to remarry, so my mother and I were a bit upset with him and not much moved to love her.”
“But she was charming?”
“All the charm seemed to us to be . . . learned. A surface gloss. She did not seem to speak from the heart as . . . as my darling princess always did. My mother died that year, not unexpectedly. She was in her late forties when I was born, her only child. But all that happened thirty years ago. It’s old history, surely not interesting to you.”
She shifted uncomfortably. Being interested in particular non-child sorts of things was as much a puzzle to her as it was to others. It was like the twinned reflection she saw sometimes in the mirror, herself, but not herself: simultaneously a child and someone older. Now she must say something only an older person would say, because it was important.
“Take great care, Cousin. Something says to me that you should be warned against Alicia.”
“Warned? By you, child?”
She thought about this for a long moment. “Cousin, if a hostile army is seen crossing the river, does it matter who brings the news? Is the army fewer and less well armed if it is seen by a child than if it is seen by the captain of the guard? A warning is a warning. If it is true, does it matter whose mouth it comes from?” Her voice faded and she pleated her skirt between her fingers, considering how strange this all was. She had planned to have Abasio with her when she talked with the duke, for he could explain things to her, but her cousin’s coming at bedtime this way had been unforeseen.
“Children sometimes like to make up stories . . . ,” he offered.
“Not only children, Cousin. You should hear the stories the men in the stables make up when they don’t know I’m listening.” She laughed, a childlike laugh. “To hear them tell it, each of them is the greatest lover of women the world has ever seen.” She laughed again at the distress on his face. “I was not offended, Cousin. Precious Wind told me all about males and females a long time ago, and there are enough stallions in the paddocks and rams, bucks, and bulls in the pastures to make the lesson clear. I know people of any age like to make up stories, but this is not a story I would invent. Remember, I spent hours with the princess, your princess. She talked to me, Cousin. I loved her. She taught me much. Perhaps these are her words I am telling you, but it comes to me as a certainty that if you ever marry Alicia, you will be in great danger. I think the duchess wishes to bring the castle of Woldsgard and all the lands of Wold to her brother the prince.”
For a moment he did not reply. “She cannot,” he whispered at last. “My men of business have seen to that. I hold the lands of Wold in my own right directly down the lineage of Huold! It was no gift from King Gahls that he may dispose of as he likes. It is mine to give as I see fit, and I have forestalled
