He did not answer that one. She had a knack for caging him with questions he did not want to answer. “Maybe you’d better check the baby.”

“You’re ducking the issue again.”

“Damned right.”

“All right. I’ll let up. What’s on for today?” She insisted on being a full participant in royal affairs. He was new to the kinging business. Coping with a strong-willed woman complicated his task.

His circle of old comrades agreed. Some had strong opinions about Inger’s “interference.”

She returned from the nursery. She carried their son Fulk. “He was sleeping like a rock. Now he wants to be fed.”

Bragi slipped an arm around her. He stared down at the infant. Babies were still a wonder to him.

Fulk was his first by Inger, and her first ever. He was a lusty six-monther. Bragi told Inger, “I’m having the whole mob in about Derel’s message this morning. After lunch I’m supposed to play Captures.”

“In this weather?”

“They challenged. It’s up to them to call it off.” He began lacing his boots. “They’re good mudders.”

“Aren’t you a little old for it?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe he was past it. The reflexes were going. The muscles could not take it the way they had. Maybe he was an old man with one hand desperately clamped on an illusion of youth. He did not enjoy Captures much. “What about you?”

“Terminal boredom. And it won’t stop till the Thing adjourns. I feel like a governess.”

He forbore reminding her that she had demanded the right to entertain the delegates’ women.

Commencement for the spring session was a week away, but the wealthier members were in town already, sampling Vorgreberg’s social possibilities.

Bragi said, “I’m going to get something to eat.” He was an informal king. He had no patience with pomp and ceremony, and very little with the luxuries his position afforded. His was a warriorly background. He strove to maintain a spartan, soldierly self-image.

“Don’t I get a kiss?”

“Thought you’d be kissed out.”

“Never. Fulk too!”

He kissed the baby, left.

Maybe Fulk was the problem. He pondered it as he descended the stair. The battle had begun during the name-choosing. He had lost that round.

It had been a difficult birth. Inger wanted no more children. He did, though he did not consider himself a good father.

Too, Inger was worried about Fulk’s patrimony. He was born of Ragnarson’s second marriage. Bragi had three older offspring, and a grandson named Bragi. The latter might as well have been his own child. His father, Ragnarson’s firstborn, had perished at Palmisano.