“I am sorry for what I did,” said Rhosh. And it was true, wasn’t it? He was sorry. He could have shrugged again at the pure irony of it. Of course he was sorry! Sorry he’d ever been such a fool and botched it on top of everything, and sorry he’d ever let the Children of Satan ensnare his fledglings and drive him out of France. He was so sorry. So sorry for everything. Seems he was saying it aloud, and who the devil cared that they had no idea what he really meant.

“But I want to come to Court!” he said.

They stood facing him like pieces on a chessboard.

“And I will not clean up that abominable soot you have left on my floor!”

Benedict lifted his fingers to Rhosh’s lips. “I’ll clean it away,” he whispered. “I’ll do it.”

“Come yourself to Court and ask the Prince if this is what he can accept,” said Gregory. “And if you ever strike at any of us again, at any of us, your Blood Kindred, or the Replimoids, it will be the end for you, mark my word.”

Silence.

Rhoshamandes nodded. “Very well,” he said.

They were gone.

Just that quickly, they were gone. The long heavy velvet draperies scarcely moved on their rods. A ripple ran through the massive old tapestry on the far wall, and all those French lords and ladies looked at him from the corner of their eyes.

Rhosh was walking out of the room before he had made up his mind to do it. In his bedchamber he sought the only chair he had ever much liked, and rested his head against the high wooden back. There the civilized fire of early evening still burned, and the golden clock on the wall said it was not yet midnight.

He closed his eyes. He slept.

When next he came awake the clock told him he’d been sleeping for an hour, and he saw that the fire had been banked and built up. The very sight of the flames, always so comforting to him, was chilling. He looked at his hands, so white, so inhuman, yet so strong, and he rested his head back again, vaguely aware of the clock striking the hour of one.

Sleeping. Dreaming.

Then Benedict and he lay side by side on the bed.

“Will you go to Court and talk to the Prince?” Benedict asked.

“No,” he said as he stared up at the interior of the baldachin. “But I won’t be told that I can’t.”

Benedict laid his head on Rhosh’s chest.