For a moment, he gazed around him. He could see too many faces. Along every wall of the refectory, men and women stood on chairs and tables to watch him. Near the back, three women had a table to themselves. He recognized them by their raiment, and by their sorrow, rather than by any other sign. They were Set Ungabwey’s daughters.

He had never felt so exposed. So small.

But this had to be done. Who was he, if he did not stand to meet every challenge?

Because he had seen those three women, he began with them.

“I hardly knew Master Set Ungabwey. I know that he sacrificed his living and almost his life to keep the Great God’s raiders away from Belleger. And I know more. Dying, he clung to life until he had destroyed many hundreds of the Great God’s men in Belleger’s Fist. He told me why. He did it for his daughters.”

While the women wept, Bifalt turned to the rest of his audience.

“You knew Master Ungabwey,” he continued more strongly. “You also knew the most holy devotee of Spirit Amandis.” Like Klamath, he could make his raw voice carry. “Before the final battle, she sacrificed herself to stop the approach of the Great God’s books. She only failed because I failed her.

“I am what you see, an ordinary man with ordinary gifts. I fail as often as any man. I am wrong as often as a man can be.

“I was wrong when I came here long ago. I judged the Magisters you have lost wrongly. I interpreted their intentions wrongly. When I left, I vowed to myself that I would humble their arrogance. I was wrong.

“And in my own realm, and in Queen Estie’s, I was wrong. I feared sorcery. I saw every wielder of a Decimate as dishonorable and cowardly, Belleger’s as well as Amika’s. In all of my dealings with them, I betrayed my scorn. I could not bear to admit that their gifts diminished me. I was wrong.

“Worse, I treated my wife wrongly, my Queen-Consort, Estie of Amika. You do not know the pain I caused her. I do. My father, King Abbator, was a good man. He would have groaned to see my treatment of her.”

For a moment, the King paused, bowed his head. During their last exchange in Belleger’s Fist, Third Father had encouraged him to surpass himself. He did not know how.

Nevertheless he knew what he had to say.

He raised his head, faced the gathering like a man who knew himself.

“But I was not wrong when I sought an alliance with Amika, or when I married Queen Estie to confirm it. I was not wrong when I chose Commander Forguile and Captain Flisk to defend the Bay of Lights. They were defeated, yes, but only because I asked too much of them.