“What is a Runelord,” his mother had taught him as a child, “but a man who keeps an oath? Your vassals give you endowments, and you grant them protection in return. They give you wit, and you lead wisely. They grant you brawn, and you fight like a reaver. They bestow stamina, and you work long hours in their behalf. You live for them. And if you love them as you should, you die for them. No vassal will waste an endowment on a Runelord who lives only for himself.”

These were the words Queen Orden had taught her son. She had been a strong woman, one who taught Gaborn that beneath his father’s callous exterior, there lived a man of firm principle. It was true that in years past, King Orden had purchased endowments from the poor, and while some considered this behavior morally suspect, a way of taking advantage of the poor, King Orden had seen it differently. He’d said, “Some people love money more than they love their fellow men. Why not turn such people’s weakness into your strength?”

Why not indeed? It was a good argument, from a man who sought only the betterment of his kingdom. Yet in the past three years, his father had given up the practice, had quit taking endowments from the poor. He’d told Gaborn, “I was wrong. I’d buy endowments still, if only I had the wisdom to judge other’s motives.” But the poor who sought to sell endowments usually had many reasons for doing so: even the most craven of them had some ennobling love of family and kin and could therefore imagine that by selling an endowment, they were performing an act of self-sacrifice. But then there were the desperate poor, those who saw no other way to escape poverty than to sell themselves. “Purchase my hearing,” one farmer had once begged Gaborn’s father after the great floods four years past. “What need have I of ears, when all I hear are the cries of hungry children?”

The world was full of despairing creatures, people who for one reason or another had given up on life. Gaborn’s father had not purchased the farmer’s hearing. Instead, he’d given the man food to last the winter, timber and workers to rebuild his home, seed to plant for the coming spring.

Hope. He’d given the man hope. Gaborn wondered what Iome would think of his father if she knew this tale. Perhaps she’d think better of him. He hoped that she would live to hear it.

Gaborn glanced up through the tree trunks, slashes of black against a dark background. To look toward the city, to look toward the castle walls, filled him with despair.