"I assume so. Everyone seems to think He does."

"I believe God is evil," Dafyd said. It was the first time he had said the words aloud, and he felt the air itself clear when he said them.

"Is that why you're conspiring to lose the trial?" Rosmund asked, his voice as comfortable as if they'd been discussing nothing more than food or which girls were prettiest. "To take the decision away from Him?"

"I suppose so."

"It won't work. It can't. Whatever happens tomorrow will have been God's will," Rosmund said. "You win? God did it. Palliot? God will have done that too. You both fall down when you step on the court and stub your toes too badly to walk? Still God."

"I'll know," Dafyd said. "That's enough."

"What if ceding to Palliot was God's plan all along? How would you know?"

Dafyd growled, a small noise in the back of his throat. Rosmund didn't seem to hear it.

"It doesn't matter whether God is good or God is evil," the priest went on. "It doesn't even matter if God is God. As long as He's a tale told after the fact, He's inevitable. You can't beat Him."

"Watch me," Dafyd said.

"Listen to me. As a priest, I'm telling you the dice are shaved. The cards are marked. Good or evil or a fairy story grown fat on too many tellings, it doesn't matter. Even if there is no God, He will win."

Dafyd Laician, Duke of Westford, spent the following day in one of two equally placed couches overlooking the melee field. Grass still clung to the margins, but days of battles and games had reduced the center to mud. There were four combats planned: a children's melee at dawn, a battle of ten against ten with maces and flails, a great battle of twenty to a side in the early afternoon, and the generally comic infirm melee at evening where the wounded and spent of the previous days' games took the field in splints and bandages.

His mother had arranged to have the sword God's Will hung behind his chair and draped with cloth-of-gold. If she hadn't sat beside him the whole day through, he would have taken the thing down. Across the field, Palliot sat in a seat that mirrored his. For all the battles and entertainments, more eyes were on the pair of them than the field. Only when Sir Emund Loak, having survived the blow that caved in his armor, died when his breastplate's straps were cut did the drama of the day turn from the succession. And then only briefly.

Night came with a great feast. Some master of entertainments with an overactive sense of humor placed the high table crosswise from its usual orientation, with Palliot on one end and Dafyd at the other, the court etiquette fashion of asking which is the king?

Dafyd retired to his rooms early, claiming the need to rest and prepare for the next day's trial. Palliot did the same. There would be time enough for wine and song when the succession was decided.

A fire burned low in the grate, red coals casting dim shadows on the walls. The air stifled, and rather than call for a servant, Dafyd opened the window shutters himself and stood in the cool air, watching the stars in the sky and the lights of the palace wink at each other.

The door opened behind him, then shut.

"Will you pray with me?" the Duchess asked, her voice small. Almost fearful. She glowed red in the dim light. The thin line of her mouth and the severe knot of her hair made her an ascetic. He wondered what had happened to the woman with long, soft hair who had sung to him when he was a boy. He wondered what had happened to the boy.

"No," Dafyd said. And then, "I'm sorry. But no. I can't."

"I can pray for you," she said. She meant I will make it all right, and the sorrow in her eyes meant she knew she couldn't. They stood for a moment in silence, a gulf between them more painful than the one separating them from the dead. He was the first to look away.

"You have to kill him," she said. "If he gives you an opportunity during the trial, you must kill him. It will stop any chance of his leading an insurrection later."

"Is that what God tells you?" Dafyd said more harshly than he'd meant. He braced himself against her anger. She sighed faintly.

"It is what my experience says, and it is what I fear he is thinking of you. I wish that your father… " she began, then shook her head. "I love you, perfect child. Sleep well."

He wanted to turn to her, to call her back, but he loved her too well to do it. The door closed again, leaving him to himself.

When Dafyd had found Bessin, a hundred men or less had lounged on the tiered benches around the court within the court. Now there were thousands. The noise of voices could have drowned out a heavy surf. The air hung low and thick, stale as children hiding too long under a blanket.

Dafyd wore his best armor, black and silver scale and fit for a body slightly changed by the months since its making. His shield dragged at his left arm, and the new sword hung at his side in a scabbard of gems and silver like a milkmaid wearing silk. As he passed the benches, he saw a hundred faces that he knew. His father's men and allies. He saw the anxiety in their eyes, the hope and the fear. He was about to disappoint them all. It was the choice he'd made and he told himself the shame would be worth the relief.

The Duchess sat on the front bench in a dress whose cut owed as much to a nun's habit as to the glamour of court. Rosmund, behind her, wore his cassock and a grave expression.

What if ceding to Palliot was God's plan all along?

Across the court, Dafyd's opponent wore armor of enameled scales the blue of the sky; his shield bore a bronze sun. When their eyes met, Dafyd nodded. Palliot didn't return the gesture.

The high priest entered the court and raised his hands. His voice rang clear and pure and totally at odds with the pandemonium around him. As he chanted out a benediction, all heads bowed except Dafyd's. Even Palliot cast his gaze down. Dafyd felt singled out, even embarrassed, but his neck would not bend. The prayer echoed off the distant ceiling, giving the words a sense of depth and grandeur. He wondered whether the architects had designed the room just for moments like this.

When the high priest was done, the two combatants strapped on their helmets and stepped over the border mark together. There was no court official to remind them of the rules of combat, no priest to declare that God would strengthen the arm of the righteous. Everyone knew.

Dafyd drew his sword. Palliot did the same. They stepped to the center of the court to determine the fate of the kingdom and, Dafyd thought bitterly, through their violence, heal the world.

Palliot shifted to his right, swinging his blade low and slow, no more than the testing blow that any fight might begin with. Dafyd moved away rather than block with his shield, and countered with a half-hearted swing at Palliot's exposed arm. Palliot pulled back, moving carefully, his weight forward.

Dafyd's eyes were narrow, and he found his body reacting as if the fight were genuine. With a sudden roar, Palliot charged, his shield slamming against Dafyd and shoving him off balance. Dafyd bent low, and his enemy's blade skittered off the face of his shield.

Dafyd swung at Palliot's leg, turning the blade at the last moment to slap him with the flat of it. To the crowd, it would look like a missed chance; a cut tendon would have ended the issue, only not the way Dafyd had chosen.

Palliot danced back, his face flushed. He held his blade high behind him, as his father had taught. In a true battle, it would leave his opponent uncertain of which angle his attack might come from. Dafyd met the man's eyes, nodded, and swung a high overhand toward Palliot's skull. Palliot blocked with his shield. Dafyd's sword clanked, and the power of the blow made his fingers smart. The poor balance left his arm aching already.