When Alexander had served the wine again the old man lay back for a few moments in silence, turning the goblet in hands that were slow and fragile-seeming, but quite steady. When he spoke his voice, too, seemed to come more strongly.

“I believe you told my daughter that though you were vowed to two different quests, you could not continue with either. One was foolish, you said, and the other sinful.”

He paused for a sip of wine, then set the goblet aside. “For the sinful one, the quest laid on you by a witch who wants to seize power to which she has no shadow of right, that vow you can forget, and forget in honour. Even had you not been drugged and duped into it, no one can with honour be made to sin. You understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the other, the vow of revenge made all those years ago by your mother, and now laid on you, to destroy your father’s murderer; that, too, you can forget.”

“Sir, how can I? That, surely, must remain as a duty, even though –”

“Revenge is mine, saith the lord,” quoted the duke gently.

“Sir, if you mean by that that I must leave that devil March to God’s stroke –”

“God has already struck. That is what I meant. I heard it as soon as we landed. King March lies sick, and they say he will not live the year out. You need no revenge on him. Of that, too, you are free, and in honour.”

Alexander merely stared, saying nothing. Later, there would be relief, joy, the bursting energy of freedom; but now the freedom came like emptiness. The question echoed again in his mind: what now? Was he to go on to find Drustan in the bleak north-east, and for what, now that March was dying? Or to turn south and find the long road to Camelot, perhaps to join the High King in the wars that were blowing up like storm-clouds on the Continent? Or what he saw now as the least attractive choice of all, to turn for home and the smallness, yes, the smallness of Craig Arian, and his mother’s fond but indisputable rule?

And Alice? His hopes, that had seemed so sure and shining, had vanished like mist while the two of them were talking. The duke had been kind, but what father would accept his suit, after those weeks in the Dark Tower? Honour had required the confession, and now honour was all he had.

The duke was speaking again.

“It seems that March’s kingdom of Cornwall might be rightly yours, if you were ever to claim it. Would you?”

Alexander hesitated, then spoke the truth. “I hardly know. I don’t think so. My mother told me something of it, a hard kingdom, with hard neighbours. And after all these years, a foreign land to me.”

“Then you will go back to this Craig Arian and care for your lands there?”