The duke’s head snapped back briefly as if a blow had landed. He recovered quickly. He said, “Discourtesy, you say? You did not even reply to my entreaties. Was there a reason for that, cousin?”

Thierry couldn’t see the king’s face from where he stood, but his bearing did not change. Gravely, King Roch said, “They were not entreaties, Laurent. They were demands. We do not reply to demands. You do not make requests very well, you know, let alone entreaties, to use your word. Never have. From childhood. It is a flaw.”

“That is how you choose to explain your conduct?”

A quick response. Perhaps too quick.

Another silence. Then the king again, “We will also explain not replying because you killed our brother, Laurent. Your cousin. Are you forgetting this? Somehow?”

The duke, narrow-faced, deep-set eyes, said, “I went to Rhodias. As requested. I did exactly what was asked of me, and received absolution there.”

“Yes, there,” said King Roch. “Does that mean forgiveness in Orane? In Ferrieres? In our family? We expect you to kneel and beg for that forgiveness, Laurent, before anything else can happen here.”

The duke had reddened, Thierry saw. His face was not unreadable anymore.

“I have an army,” he said.

“This has been noted, yes,” said the king. “So do we. But there is still a murder to address.”

And then.

And then the king of Ferrieres glanced over his shoulder at Thierry Villar. And by some process—to do with the king, or himself, or something he could not name—Thierry suddenly grasped why he was here. His task. He didn’t know what Medor had sensed back in Orane, but…he had told Thierry he should come, and he had. He was on this bridge.

—

“Something is about to happen,” Gauvard Colle said to Silvy, to himself, to the morning wind in a summer vineyard.

“Will he die now?” Silvy asked, and never knew why she’d said that, other than that it was her heart’s fear, and sometimes you needed to speak that aloud.

—

Thierry stepped forward. And as he did so, he realized he wasn’t afraid anymore. That he could do what needed to be done. And done by him because he was so inconsequential—and that, in itself, would be a provocation.

“You really do need to kneel before your king,” he said, lifting his voice. His very good speaking voice. “And beg royal forgiveness for murdering his brother. Don’t you understand why that is so? Rhodias has nothing to do with it.”

He used no honorific. He had something to achieve here. A task.

There was a shocked silence. Then:

“And who the fuck, in the holy name of Jad, are you?” demanded the duke of Barratin.