Voices buzzed from outside, but no one came in past the two guards standing on the long porch, whose backs he could see. Once, long ago, he had sat in the high seat and presided over Lavas county, her lands and her people. He did not regret what he had lost. Those days seemed like a dream, something glimpsed but never really held. Once Tallia had sat beside him as his wife. How he had loved her! Yet what had he loved, truly? A dream. A wish. An illusion. She was not the person he had made her to be in his mind. Perhaps we can only be betrayed where we have allowed ourselves to be blinded. If we know a man is evil or untrustworthy, then we cannot be surprised if he acts dishonestly or in a way that harms others. If we see clearly, we cannot be surprised.

It was easy now to recall those days and see Tallia for what she truly was: weak in spirit, petty, frightened, cruel in a small-minded way, and intent on getting her own way, without regard to others. The broken vessel, Hathumod had called her, too fragile to hold the weight of the heresy she claimed with the authority of one who has witnessed. She had lied about the nail, but in fact when he thought back through his sad marriage, she had not lied about wanting to marry him. Her uncle had forced her to marry. She had stated openly from the beginning that she prayed every day and every night for a chaste marriage and perpetual virginity.

He had wanted to believe otherwise so badly that in the end he had betrayed Lavastine by lying to a man he respected and loved. Ah, well. It was done and could not be undone.

Dust filtered down around him. Sorrow’s tail thumped on the floor. A horse neighed outside, challenging another. A door creaked behind him, being opened. He wondered if he had dreamed that second betrayal, the one at the mines. Those months were as a puzzle to him, seen in glimpses all hacked into parts that could not be sewn back into a complete tapestry.

Tallia had been pregnant, and she had ordered her steward to cast him into the pit because she had recognized him and feared he would recognize her and harm her. Which betrayal burned worst? That she had tried to have him killed, or that she had given another man the thing she had refused to him?

Desire is a fiend that devours its victims while they still live and breathe.

And still. What she had refused him, Adica had offered freely and with the sweetness of meadow flowers. Who could say which woman valued herself more highly? The one who gave that which was precious to her, or the one who lied to hold it all to herself?

“I pray you, I beg your pardon, my lord. Forgive me.”

He almost overset the bench because he was so startled by the familiar voice. The hounds remained still. Rage’s tail thumped once. Cook bent into an awkward bow before him. Arthritis stiffened her back.