“Well, then the Prince said something about the unfairness of it all, and the other man told him to be patient, and that Selenay was—” here Kimel blushed, “—well, anyway, what he went on to say was ‘once the child is born, there is no law preventing you from becoming Regent, when something happens to Selenay. All you have to do is to be patient.’ And the Prince muttered something, and the man laughed, and they all went out of the room.”

So. There it was. “You may have done Her Majesty a great service, Kimel,” Alberich said gravely.

“I am in a position to do more,” the young Guard replied, to Alberich’s surprise. “So long as I wear my uniform, and look as if I am guarding something, no one ever notices me. I could make sure that if I am not on duty elsewhere, I can follow the Prince all over the grounds of the Palace. Perhaps I might discover who he was speaking with.”

“If you did, invaluable, it would be,” Alberich said, hardly able to believe the luck.

“Then I will.” That seemed to be all that Kimel felt urged to say on the matter; he remained a little longer, but not much, and excused himself.

:Well?: he said to Kantor when the young man was gone.

:I think we’ve gotten an ally, who will at least be watching out for Selenay. I don’t know how useful what he learns or overhears will be.:

:It’s better than nothing, which was all we had,: Alberich pointed out.

:Yes, Chosen. It is at that.:

19

19

Everyone knew the obvious that night—that the Prince had not attended the Queen at dinner. By morning, though, there was a better bit of gossip to take its place—that the Prince had not spent the night with the Queen, nor even (it was said) in the Palace.

By breakfast, that gossip had inflated further, with the addition that the Prince had returned at last, from somewhere outside the Palace walls. And he had gone to his own suite, not the Queen’s.

Valdemaran royal marriages, like most royal marriages, were not always for love. Hence, the Consort always had his (or her) own suite of rooms within the larger Royal Suite. It had its own entrance; the one who occupied it could come and go without disturbing the Monarch. It would not be the first time that the Monarch’s spouse had elected to take up residence in his own private space. The trouble was, this defection of the Prince would have gone unnoticed except that this was supposed to have been a love match. Selenay herself had virtually bullied the marriage through the Council. And now, it seemed, it was already falling apart.