“You’ve not been to see me in some time, so I suppose there’s something you need to work out in your mind. When you were in the nursery—and later—you always used to come to me when you couldn’t work matters out. Shall I make a pot of tea?”

“Some time, Lini? I visit you every week, and a wonder I do, given how you speak to me. I would exile the highest lady in Andor if she said half what you do.”

Lini gave her a level look. “You have not darkened my doorway since the spring. And I talk as I always have; I’m too old to change now. Do you want tea?”

“No.” Morgase put a hand to her head in confusion. She did visit Lini every week. She could remember. . . . She could not remember. Gaebril had filled her hours so completely that sometimes it was hard to remember anything other than him. “No, I do not want tea. I do not know why I came. You cannot help me with the problem I have.”

Her old nurse snorted, though somehow she made it a delicate sound. “Your trouble is with Gaebril, isn’t it? Only now you’re ashamed to tell me. Girl, I changed you in your cradle, tended you when you were sick and heaving your stomach up, and told you what you needed to know about men. You have never been too shamed to discuss anything with me, and now is no time to begin.”

“Gaebril?” Morgase’s eyes widened. “You know? But how?”

“Oh, child,” Lini said sadly, “everyone knows, though no one’s had the courage to tell you. I might have, if you hadn’t stayed away, but it is hardly something I could go running to you with, now is it? It is the kind of thing a woman won’t believe until she finds out for herself.”

“What are you talking about?” Morgase demanded. “It was your duty to come to me if you knew, Lini. It was everyone’s duty! Light, I am the last to know, and now it may be too late to stop it!”

“Too late?” Lini said incredulously. “Why should it be too late? You bundle Gaebril out of the Palace, out of Andor, and Alteima and the others with him, and it is done with. Too late, indeed.”

For a moment Morgase could not speak. “Alteima,” she said finally, “and . . . the others?”