Shalhassan made his eyes as kind as he could, that she might know he was, for the moment, pleased. She was not looking at him.

“I thought I had saved you a cloak,” she said to Diarmuid.

“You did. How should I better use it than as a gift?” There was something very strange in his eyes.

“Is gallantry adequate compensation for incompetence?” Sharra queried sweetly. “You are responsible for the south, are you not?”

“As my brother’s expression should tell you,” he agreed gravely.

“Has he not cause to be displeased?” Sharra asked, pressing her advantage.

“Perhaps,” the Prince replied, almost absently. There was a silence: something very strange. And then just before he spoke again it flashed maliciously in his blue eyes and, a pit yawning before them, father and daughter both saw a hilarity he could no longer hold in check.

“Averren,” said Diarmuid. All eyes turned to where another figure detached itself from the four remaining riders from Seresh. This one, too, removed a cap, revealing short copper-colored hair. “Report,” said Diarmuid, his voice carefully neutral.

“Yes, my lord. When word came that the army of Cathal was moving west, I sent word to you from South Keep, as instructed. Also as instructed, I went west myself to Seresh and crossed yesterday evening to Cynan. I waited there until the army arrived and then, in Cathalian colors, I sought out the Princess. I saw her bribe a bargeman to take her across that night and I did the same.”

“Wasting my money,” said the Prince. There was utter silence in the square. “Go on.”

Averren cleared his throat. “I wanted to find out the going rate, my lord. Er… in Seresh I picked up her trail without difficulty. I almost lost her this morning, but ah… followed your surmise, my lord Prince, and found her in the colors of Seresh waiting with the guards. I spoke with Duke Niavin and later with the other three guards, and we simply rode with her in front of the army all day, my lord. As instructed.”

After silence, sound. Sound of a name cried on rising note after rising note to reach a crescendo so high it bade fair to break through the vaults of sky above and earth below, that Mórnir and Dana both might hear how Brennin loved its brilliant laughing Prince.

Shalhassan, calculating furiously, salvaged one meager crumb of nurture from the ashes of the afternoon: they had known all along, but if that was bad it was a comprehensible thing and better that it had been done this way than in two hours, utterly without warning. That was—would have been—simply too formidable.

Then he chanced to see Aileron’s face, and even as he mentally added another score to Diarmuid’s tally for the day, he felt his one crumb turn to ash as well. It was abundantly clear from the High King’s expression—Aileron hadn’t known any of this.

Diarmuid was looking at Sharra, his own expression benign. “I told you the cloak was a gift, not a wager lost.”