"It would, your highness," Rudel said. He coughed. "I do hope my dear father becomes mindful again of that last."

The king showed a flash of teeth. "Ah. He is unhappy with you? You spent some of the money before you had to return it, didn't you? What a shame. But I'm certain your father will forgive you in time." He turned back to Bertran, who had remained motionless through all of this, waiting. The two men exchanged a long glance. Blaise had an eerie sense that he and Rudel, and Valery over by the fire, had been forgotten. It was as if they were not there.

Daufridi said, very softly, "It is unwise to love anyone or anything too greatly, de Talair. People die, things are taken from us. It is the way of our lives in this world."

"I have reason to know this. I have lived twenty-three years with that truth."

"And have therefore moderated your passions?"

"And am therefore resolved that I will not live through the death of my country as I endured the death of the woman I loved."

There was a silence then. Not daring to move, Blaise looked out of the corner of his eye at Rudel, and saw the rigid, focused expression on his friend's face.

"And so you asked me here," Daufridi of Valensa said at length, "to seek what aid I could give."

"I did. Is this a surprise?"

"Hardly. Will it be a surprise in turn if I say I can give you nothing?"

"I should be grateful to know why." Bertran was pale but quite composed.

Daufridi shrugged. "I have a treaty signed, and I need five years, at least, to consolidate my hold on the lands they have ceded us. We need our own farmers there, we need to fill the villages with Valensans and give my own barons time to put down their roots in the castles that now are ours. Those men of Gorhaut who elect to stay—and some of them will—must be given time to feel that there are worse things than being subjects of the king of Valensa. In time, the treaty will offer us all the riches of that farmland north of the Iersen and more than recoup the money we have already paid and will pay out over the next three years. But I need peace to make all that happen." He sipped from his wine again. "It isn't very complex, de Talair. I would have expected you to know all this."

"So you are happy Gorhaut is looking now to the south."

Carefully Daufridi said, "I am not entirely unhappy."

Silence again. But into it there came now a light, cool voice.

"Forgive me," said Rudel Correze, "forgive my presumption, but I do have a question." Daufridi and Bertran both turned to him. "What do you imagine will happen to Valensa, your highness, if Gorhaut indeed comes south with fire and sword and conquers here?"

Blaise's own thought, his own question. Rudel had always been quicker to speak his mind. Portezzans tended to be. For the first time, he saw Daufridi shift in his seat a little uncomfortably.

"I have thought on that question," he admitted.

"And what have you concluded after such thinking?" It was Valery this time, from by the fire, his broad arms folded across his chest.

Bertran leaned forward a little in his chair and echoed his cousin softly. "What can you possibly have concluded, your highness, should Gorhaut destroy Arbonne and have all the wealth of this land and its ports on the sea to draw upon? If there are five countries, not six, a year from now? Do you really think you would have your five years of peace then, to… as you say, solidify your hold on that farmland north of Iersen? How long do you think it would be before Ademar turned north again?"

Something curious began to happen to Blaise just about then. It seemed to him as though the words each man was speaking had become like preordained speeches in some temple ritual of the god, or the well-known opening moves of a tavern game, each following the other, each compelling the move that followed.

Daufridi said, a slight edge to his voice, "As I say, I have considered this. I do not have any immediate conclusions."

And so Blaise, seeing the next moves now as clearly as if they had already happened, said, "Of course you do not. That is why you are here, isn't it, your highness? To see if the duke of Talair has a conclusion for you. And you find, to your disappointment, that what he wants is your help, which frightens you. You know—you know it is not in the interests of Valensa for Gorhaut to rule in Arbonne. Why will you then deny that aid, when asked for it?"

Daufridi of Valensa turned in his seat to look appraisingly at Blaise, his hard grey eyes almost lost beneath the heavy, drawn-together brows. "I have a question of my own, first," he said coolly. "One I should have asked at the outset perhaps, before being as frank as I have been. Why are you here, Garsenc? Why are you not at Ademar's court in Cortil anticipating the glory of this conquest your father and king have set in motion? There might even be land for you. Younger sons always want land, don't they? We have spoken of love of country—where then is yours, de Garsenc?"

Blaise had been waiting for that: it was the next foreknown speech, the next move in the game being played. He wondered if Bertran had prepared this, if he had seen it coming or even steered them towards this moment. It didn't really matter. The moment was upon them. He said, "Because I have set myself squarely against Ademar of Gorhaut. Because I think he is weak and unworthy of allegiance. Because it is my belief that he dispossessed and betrayed the people of my country with the Treaty of Iersen Bridge. Because the Gorhaut I love is the holy land where Corannos the god of the Ancients first came among the six countries we know, and the earliest corans swore their oaths to serve the god and their fellow men and walk a path of righteousness. Because the invasion of Arbonne would be a final straying from that path in pursuit of a dominion that could never, in the end, be preserved. Because my father knows that. He does not want to rule in Arbonne, he wants to put it to the fire. Because he has long ago lost whatever true communion with the god he ever had."

He drew a needful breath to check this rush of words spilling out of him like a river in flood over a dam that has been breached. And he said the last thing then, made the next move in the game, chose:

"And because before the Lussan Fair is ended I will have named myself claimant to the crown of Gorhaut, to see if there are men of honour in my country—and elsewhere—who will rally to my name and this cause."

He heard Rudel suck in his breath sharply. At least he'd surprised his friend, Blaise thought. If he did nothing else at all, he seemed to have succeeded in astonishing the unflappable scion of the House of Correze.

And the king of Valensa, too, he now saw. Daufridi's hands went to the arms of his chair and gripped there. He pushed for a moment, as if to lever himself to his feet, but then, with a visible effort, remained where he was.

It was silent in the room then. The only sound was the crackle of the fire and the strained breathing of four men. From outside, where the corans of the king were being entertained by Bertran's men, they heard a sudden loud burst of laughter.

"Ah, well," said Daufridi of Valensa at length, very softly. "Ah, well now. It seems we do have some things to talk about after all."

Blaise felt light-headed, almost numb. He reached for his wine and drank. The motion itself seemed odd, unnaturally slow. He felt as if the owl should be in the room with them, Beatritz de Barbentain's white owl, settling on his shoulder again to mark him as a fool, or whatever else he was.