THEIR DEPARTURE WAS DELAYED IN THE MORNING BY MATTERS OF Arhys's troop and delegations from the town where he had sent the Jokonan prisoners, which she could see annoyed him, but at last the tents were folded. A fresh horse of the march's company was presented to her, a pretty white gelding, clad in her own saddle and trappings. She had noted the young soldier who brought it to her riding it about the meadow earlier, presumably to take its edge off and be certain it was suitable for a lady to ride. A tired, aging lady. She would have preferred a staircase to board it, but made do with the soldier's nervous leg up.

"I hope he will do for you, Royina," said the young man, ducking his head. "I picked him out myself. We miss our master of horse, since he has fallen ill—my lord tries to do two men's tasks. But all will be easier when we return to Porifors."

"I'm sure it will."

It was a much-expanded company that clambered out of the river valley and across the dry countryside. Forty horsemen in the gray tabards of Porifors rode ahead, mail-clad and armed, before Ista and Ferda's reduced troop. A long train of baggage mules and servants followed after, then another twenty men for rear guard. They struck a track, then turned north upon a greater road. Scouts came and went, ahead and along the fringes, to exchange brief but apparently reassuring reports with Arhys's alert officers.

They settled down to a steady plod through the warm morning. At length, Arhys won free of the plucking demands of his command long enough to drop back and ride by her side.

He saluted her with good cheer, now that he had his little army headed in the preferred direction. "Royina. I trust you slept well, and that this last ride is bearable?"

"Yes, I'll do. Though I believe I would mutiny at a trot."

He chuckled. "None shall ask it of you, then. We'll rest a space at noon, and come to Porifors in time for a rather better dinner than I could offer you last night."

"Then we shall dine very well indeed. I look forward to it." The courtesies fell automatically from her lips. But by the tension in his smile, he wanted more than an exchange of pleasantries.

"I feel I must apologize for not recognizing you yesterday," he continued. "The courier from Tolnoxo who brought warning of the column told us a wild tale that you were among the taken, but all his reports were very garbled. Yet when I saw the Jokonan officers hustling a woman away, I thought they might be true after all. Then your alias confused me anew."

"You owe me no apology. I was overcautious, as it proved."

"Not at all. I ... never thought to meet you. In the flesh."

"I must say, I am quite glad you did. Or I should have woken up someplace unpleasant in Jokona this morning."

He smiled briefly and glanced across at Ferda, riding on Ista's other side as a contented audience to all this noble speech. Curiosity wrestled with dread in Ista's stomach, and won. She took the hint and waved Ferda out of earshot. "My good dedicat, leave us a little." With a disappointed look, he tightened his reins and dropped behind. She and Arhys were left riding together side by side, pearl-white horse and charcoal-gray, an elegant picture and as nice a balance between private and proper as could likely be obtained. She felt a pang of loneliness for Liss, and wondered where the girl was now. Carrying on competently, no doubt.

Arhys regarded her through slightly lidded eyes, as though he contemplated enigmas. "I should have known at once. I've felt a gravity in your presence from the moment I first saw you. And yet you did not look like what I thought bright Ista should have been."

If this was the start of some suave dalliance, she was too tired to deal with it. If it was something else... she was much too tired. She finally managed, "How did you imagine me?"

He waved vaguely. "Taller. Eyes more blue. Hair more pale—honeyed gold, the court poets said."

"Court poets are paid to lie like fools, but yes, it was lighter in my youth. The eyes are the same. They see more clearly now, perhaps."

"I did not picture eyes the color of winter rain, nor hair the shade of winter fields. I wondered if your long grief brought you to this sad season."

"No, I was always a dull dab of a thing," she tossed off. He did not laugh. It would have helped. "I grant you, age has improved nothing but my wits." And even they are suspect.

"Royina—if you can bear to—can you tell me something of my father?"

Alas, I didn't think this interest was all for my rain-colored, weeping eyes. "What is there to say that all men do not know? Arvol dy Lutez was good at all things to which he turned his hand. Sword, horse, music, verse, war, government... If his brilliance had any flaw, it was in his very versatility, which stole away the sustained effort that would ..." She cut off her words, but the thought flowed on. Dy Lutez's many great starts, she realized at this distance, had not been matched by nearly as many great finishes. Fragrant in the flower, green and cankered in the fruit... Yes. I should have realized it then, even then. Or,

;I my girl's judgment was too weak, where was that of the gods, who have no such excuse? "He was the delight of every eye that fell upon him." Except mine.

Arhys stared down at his horse's withers. "Not dull," he said after a moment. "I have seen more beautiful women, but you anchor my eye ... I cannot explain it."

A suave courtier, she decided, would never commit the blunder of admitting the existence of women more lovely than his current auditor, and would have gone on to explain himself at poetic length. Mere dalliance might be dismissed with a smile. Arhys's remarks were considerably more worrisome, taken in earnest.

He continued, "I begin to understand why my father would risk his life for your love."

Ista, with regret, forbore to scream. "Lord Arhys. Stop."

He glanced across at her, startled, then realized she did not mean halt his horse. "Royina?"

"I see the romantic rumors penetrated all the way to Caribastos. But there is no lapse in his exquisite taste to explain away, for Arvol dy Lutez was never my lover."

Taken thoroughly aback, he digested her words for a moment. At last he offered cautiously, "I suppose... you've no reason, now, to tell other than the truth."

"I never told other than the truth. The clapping iron tongues of rumor and slander were not mine. I was silent, mostly." And any less at fault, therefore? Hardly.

His forehead wrinkled as he worked this through. "Did Roya Ias not believe your protestations of innocence?"

Ista rubbed her brow. "I see we must back up a little. What have you imagined to be the truth of those fatal events, all these years?"

He frowned uneasily. "I believed ... I concluded... my father was tortured to confess his fault in loving you. And when, to protect you or his honor, he would not speak, the inquisitors went too far in their duress, and he died in accident there in the Zangre's dungeons. The charges of peculation and secret dealings with the roya of Brajar were got up to cloak Ias's guilt, afterward. A truth tacitly admitted by Ias when the dy Lutez legacy was not attaindered, as real traitors' estates are, but let to flow to his heirs."

"You are shrewd," she remarked. And about three-quarters correct. He lacked only the secret core of the events. "Dy Lutez was very nearly as brave as that, indeed. It is as good a tale as any, and better than most."

His gaze flicked to her. "I have offended you, lady. My abject pardon."

She sought better control of her tone. She desperately wanted him to know that she had not been his father's lover. And why? What did it matter, at this late hour? His beliefs about dy Lutez, the father who, as far as she could tell, had ignored him utterly, were noble and romantic, and why should she take that heart's lone legacy from him now?