“It all would have worked fine, except for Rathgar himself,” Kethry said, shaking her head. “If I’d had any idea how he felt about mages—well, she fell very happily and romantically in love with him, and he was just dazzled by her, and it all looked as if things were going to work out wonderfully. He proposed, she accepted, and I told him who she really was—”

“And the roof fell in.” Kero felt entirely confident in making that statement. She knew her father, and had a shrewd guess as to what his reaction to such a revelation would be. Outrage at the deception, further outrage that this mage was his beloved’s mother. Before long he’d have convinced himself that Kethry had some deep-laid plot against him, and he’d have done his best to pry his poor innocent Lenore out of her mother’s “deadly” influence.

“I didn’t see it coming,” Kethry admitted. “I should have, and I didn’t. And at that point, it was too late. My daughter was deep in the throes of romantic love, and Rathgar was her perfect hero. Anything Lenore heard from me on the subject threw her into hysterics. She was certain that I wanted to part them.”

“She thought he made the sun rise and set,” Tarma said with utter disgust, her hawklike face twisted into an expression of distaste. “It’s a damned good thing he was an honest and unmalicious man, because if he’d beaten her and told her she deserved it, she’d have believed him. How could any woman put herself in that kind of position willingly?”

“I suppose I should have expected it,” Kethry said gloomily. “I set the whole mess up in the first place. You know what your people say—‘Be careful what you ask for, you may get it.’ For the first time she had someone around who thought she was wonderful just as she was, helpless and weak, and wasn’t trying to force her to do something constructive with her life. Of course she thought he hung the moon.”

Tarma threw up her hands. “I still don’t understand it. Keth went ahead with the marriage, because anything was safer than letting Reichert have another chance. Well, that was when Lenore decided Keth and I were old fools and began listening only to Rathgar, and when he saw he had the upper hand, he started making demands. Finally it came down to this: when Lordan was born, he made Keth promise never to set foot on Keep property without an invitation.”

“So that’s why—” Kero’s voice trailed off. A great many things started making sense, now.