“I’m asking about Camwyn,” the crown prince said. “Is he what you’d expect—what we need?”

“Hard to tell what he’s really like, after something like this … he seemed quiet … a little stiff …”

“He’s lost his best friend,” Duke Marrakai said. “It can’t be easy, knowing the Verrakai boy’s in prison, under charge of attainder. Aris said Egan was always with him.”

“And I didn’t do anything,” the crown prince said. “I thought—if Cam liked him, that might ease the tension with the Verrakaien.”

“Egan didn’t like Aris,” Juris Marrakai said. “He didn’t want Camwyn and Aris to be friends. Though in all fairness, Aris didn’t like Egan either. I don’t know who started it.”

“I do,” Count Destvaorn said. “And unfortunately it fuels our suspicions of Egan Verrakai. He told tales of Aris, and some of them were not true. I heard him; I scolded him; he apologized. But later I heard through a friend’s son that he was spreading the same tales again. And tales of me, as a Marrakai friend who could not be trusted.”

“I worry that Cam’s loyalty to his friend could overcome his good sense,” Mikeli said, helping himself to a handful of shelled nuts.

“After the attack on you? And on himself today?”

“I hope not, but—I don’t know, my lords. This business today frightened me, I don’t mind admitting. We were warned some of them could take other bodies, and to keep watch, but—a groom? A stableboy? How can we tell?”

“Dorrin Verrakai has some way to tell—she found some, she reported,” Duke Marrakai said.

“And we’ve heard nothing from her since—”

“Except reports from the Marshals in Harway and Darkon Edge that things are better. No specifics,” Destvaorn said.

“We could send someone to ask, but she’s surely coming to your coronation,” Duke Marrakai said.

“I am not sure,” Mikeli said. “If she’s battling renegades over there, she may not come.”

“I would send her a very clear invitation,” Duke Marrakai said. “A royal courier. We will all feel better if we see her again and can be sure of her loyalty, and you can also ask her advice.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Verrakai Holding

The prince’s courier cantered up to the house on a lathered horse at midafternoon. Dorrin, riding out of the stable yard at the same time to visit the nearest village, reined in.

“My lord Duke,” the courier said. He was a tough-looking middle-aged man with a courier’s tabard over his clothes, sweating heavily in the early summer heat.

“Be welcome,” Dorrin said. She had had no word from Vérella since hearing that the Verrakaien she’d first sent had all been executed. What now, she wondered? One of the stable hands who had followed her out to close the gate came running when she waved. “Maddes here will walk your horse cool; come inside and have something to drink. You will stay the night, of course.”

“I can’t stay that long,” he said. “If you could lend a horse … I should get back to Harway tonight.” He had dismounted, and now unbuckled one saddlebag, pulling out a velvet pouch. “This is for you, from the prince’s own hand.”