“It was a poisoned dagger,” Arian put in. “Nothing else but the king’s magic would have saved him.”

“How did you know—?” the Lady asked.

“I was stabbed much the same way,” Kieri said, “and the paladin Paksenarrion saved me. I tried to do what she did. But that was days ago. Last night—I was thinking of Tammarion—thinking of the women I’d met so far this year—most of them too young, I thought, judging them by looks.” He glanced aside at Arian. “And then she came to me. Came as she has never come before.”

“Who? Arian?” the Lady asked.

“Tammarion,” Arian breathed.

“Yes,” Kieri said. “Tammarion. It was … it was not like I had ever imagined, the times I used to wish for it. Gentle. Calm. She bade me withhold nothing from my future wife. And she said whom else could I love but a woman with a sword.”

“A soldier?” the Lady asked; she grimaced.

“A companion,” Kieri said. “An equal, as Tamar was. A woman who could accept all my past—who would not be frightened or repelled by the scars on my body or in my mind, the violence in which I lived so long, the need a king has to defend, if need be with his own body, his realm. A woman of courage. And then I went to bed, and while asleep dreamed, a true dream. Alyanya came to me, and Torre of the Necklace, Falk, and Gird, and Camwyn … I woke refreshed and awed and then slept again. So when I went down to practice in the salle, I was still somewhat bemused.”

“And there was Arian ready to snare you,” the Lady said. “I blame you not, grandson, after a dream like that, but—”

“She did not snare me. Well, she did ambush me, in the salle, but that was at Carlion’s command because I was not attentive. She dropped me like a stone. He also asked if I was thinking about a wife—everyone does, except perhaps you—and I said then I would wed a woman of Lyonya, a woman with a sword, and that if my Squires were not too young—and it was after that I learned they were not.”

“And you chose the first at hand.”

Kieri shook his head. “No, Grandmother. I told you. I had loved her before; I was pulled that way by the same force that pulled me to Tammarion.”

“And yet,” the Lady said, “the impediment remains. Her father had charms to entangle many women; I’ve no doubt she has charms to entangle men, whether she knows it or not. Tell me—” she said suddenly to Arian. “Have you had lovers?”

Kieri opened his mouth to protest, but Arian answered calmly. “Many years ago, I twice shared a bed with a young man. We were both, I believe, about twenty-four and had just won our rubies. He was killed by a daskdraudigs the next year.”

“And would you have married him? Been faithful to him?”