“No. No, my love, I will not. But long enough to—perhaps—convince a traitor that the chance has passed.”

“I will talk to Sonder, then,” Kieri said. “Your visit can certainly be delayed until we engender another child. Sonder will understand that and can explain it to Mikeli if he returns immediately. But perhaps he would stay until you could travel if Dorrin and Beclan left. I’m sure she’s anxious to get back to her steading, and it’s the king’s command that he and Beclan have little contact that makes him anxious to leave. It should not take us long…” He looked at her, and she looked back at him. They both grinned, though he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER THREE

North Marches, Tsaia

Welcome home, my lord.”

Jandelir Arcolin, Count of the North Marches, nodded his thanks. His face was near-frozen with riding into the north wind. It bit even through the layers of wool.

He dismounted, handed his horse over to the grooms, and stamped, banging his hands together until he could move his fingers. The courtyard was almost empty; he had seen the recruits drilling far out on the plain as he rode up from Duke’s East. At least here, the rest of the stronghold broke the wind’s force, and he could look forward to a hot bath soon.

“Any news?” he asked one of the servants.

“Not up here, my lord. There’s a message for you from the Duke—I mean King Kieri, my lord, sorry.” More than a year since Kieri had left on his last journey, and he was still “the Duke” to most here in the north. Probably always would be. “Come across country by Lyonyan courier, not ours. He’s gone these hand of days.”

What could be important enough for Kieri to send his own courier so far? Rumor in Vérella had it that Kieri had pledged to one of his Squires at Midwinter, but Mikeli had said nothing about it. An unmarried king, as he and Mikeli both knew, would collect gossip and rumor. But maybe it had been true. He couldn’t himself see Kieri courting one of his Squires: not the man who had been so careful to distance himself from his troops. Except for Tammarion, of course, but that was only the once.

Inside the officers’ courtyard, his household staff waited, and soon he was warm, clean, and refreshed by two mugs of sib and a hot meal. Now for work.

The green velvet sack with the gold-embroidered arms of Lyonya lay alone in the center of his desk; lesser messages were stacked to one side, a courteous gap between them and the royal missive.