‘Anyway, Arissa stayed in the brothel for several weeks, and when she was finally apprehended, Aldreas had no choice but to confine her in that cloister.’

‘That raises a question,’ Tynian said. ‘Considering the amount of time she spent in that brothel and the number of customers she had, how can anyone be sure just who Lycheas’s father was?’

‘I was just coming to that,’ Vanion replied. ‘She assured Lycheas during one of his visits that she was pregnant before she went to the brothel. Aldreas married the Deiran Princess, and she died giving birth to Queen Ehlana. Lycheas was about six months old at the time, and Annias was doing his best to get Aldreas to legitimize him and make him his heir. That was too much even for Aldreas, and he flatly refused. It was about at that time that Sparhawk’s father died, and Sparhawk here took his hereditary position as King’s Champion. Annias began to grow alarmed at Ehlana’s progress after Sparhawk took charge of her education. By the time she was eight, he decided that he had to get her champion away from her before he could make her so strong that he wouldn’t be able to control her. That’s when he persuaded Aldreas to send Sparhawk into exile in Rendor, and then he sent Martel to Cippria to kill him to make sure he’d never come back and complete Ehlana’s education.’

‘But he was too late, wasn’t he?’ Sparhawk smiled. ‘Ehlana was already too strong for him.’

‘How did you manage that, Sparhawk?’ Kalten asked. ‘You’ve never really been what you’d call a very inspiring teacher.’

‘Love, Kalten,’ Sephrenia said quite softly. ‘Ehlana’s loved Sparhawk since she was very young, and she tried to do things the way he’d have wanted her to do them.’

Tynian laughed. ‘You did it to yourself then, Sparhawk,’ he said.

‘Did what?’

‘You made a woman of steel, and now she’s going to force you to marry her – and she’s strong enough to get away with it.’

‘Tynian,’ Sparhawk said acidly, ‘you talk too much.’ The big Pandion was suddenly irritated – all the more so because he privately had to admit that Tynian was probably right.

‘The point here, though, is that none of this is really very new or surprising,’ Kurik noted. ‘It’s certainly not enough to keep Lycheas’s head on his shoulders.’

‘That came a little later,’ Vanion told him. ‘Ehlana frightened him so much when she seemed on the verge of having him summarily executed that he was babbling at first. Anyway, after Annias had forced Aldreas to send Sparhawk into exile, the king began to change. He actually started to develop some backbone. It’s a little hard sometimes to know why people do things.’