“Me,” Kieri said. “She doesn’t want to marry me and be a queen, and she knows I don’t want to marry her. I think she may marry, if she finds the right lad, and Falk grant it’s someone her family will approve of.”

“So she doesn’t want to do what she was sent for, and she thinks she has no future at home. She’s not the first we’ve taken in that way. But again—if she doesn’t measure up—”

“I understand,” Kieri said. “But it’s a chance for them both.”

“I’ll tell the barracks mistress. When will you send them?”

“When I’ve contrived a way to convince their guardians to let them go. They’re princesses; it must be done legally and with the approval of their guardians.”

“I’m glad you understand that. I was half afraid you’d give them horses and let them gallop off on their own.”

Kieri snorted. “I’ve matured, Knight-Commander. No wild exploits: they will arrive with you and an escort of King’s Squires, and their guardians will have only good tales to tell of their treatment on return.”

“I’m glad you’re using King’s Squires. I wasn’t looking forward to having Countess Settik as my guest at the Hall. How long do you think all this will take? I do have duties back at the Hall, you know.”

“Very soon, I hope,” Kieri said.

A few days later, both princesses quarreled with Kieri in front of their guardians and then with their guardians: they were tired of the confinement—Kieri was too old—their guardians were cruel—it was too hot—the bathing facilities were barbaric—the food turned their stomachs. They yelled, they threw dishes at the Squires, they ripped their clothes. Their guardians yelled back; Elis’s slapped her face; Ganlin’s locked the door on her. Elis’s tantrum had been carefully timed to occur two glasses earlier than Ganlin’s, so that Kieri would not be interrupted as he talked to Elis’s guardians. He explained, coolly, that he did not think he and Elis were well-suited; although she was beautiful and accomplished, she did not like him.

“You could master her,” Lord Settik said. “You are a strong man; she is only a woman.”

“She is a child,” Kieri said. “Even if I turned her over my knee, she would still be a child. No.”

“You are saying you cannot master a child?” Lord Settik said with a sneer that made Kieri want to remove his head and kick it down the hall.

“Marriage is not only about mastery,” he said. “The girl does not want to marry—that is enough for me. But I have a solution that may work for all of us.”

“What is that?” Settik said, sticking out his jaw.

“You surely know her type,” Kieri said. “She loves the outdoors, riding, even swordplay.” Settik said nothing. “Such women,” Kieri said, “sometimes find later that they want to marry, and they make good wives. My first wife was such. Here in Lyonya we have the finest of all training schools for nobly born warriors, Falk’s Hall. You met the Knight-Commander.”