A tall young woman, her face glowing with joy, fairly flew down the stairs. Black hair was braided up from her temples, framing her rose-tinted ivory features, but was freed to ripple like flowing silk over her shoulders. Light linens graced her slim body, and a pale green silk robe with wide gilt-edged sleeves fluttered about her, billowing like a sail as she descended. Arhys jumped from his dappled horse and flung his reins to a groom barely in time to open his arms to the impact of her frantic, fragrant embrace. "My lord, my lord! Five gods be praised, you are come back safe!"

The young soldier had appeared at Ista's horse's head and stood ready to help her dismount, but his head turned to mark this play with open, if tolerantly amused, envy in his eyes.

"What an incredibly lovely young woman," Ista said. "I did not realize Lord Arhys had a daughter."

He managed to look back around to her, and hurried to hold her stirrup. "Oh, my lord's daughter does not live here, Royina..."

She came about from her dismount, upright on her feet, as Arhys strode up to her, the young woman clinging to his arm.

"Royina Ista," said Arhys, breathless with pride and a long kiss. "May I have the pleasure and honor of presenting to you my wife, Cattilara dy Lutez, Marchess of Porifors."

The black-haired young woman dipped in a curtsey of surpassing gracefulness. "Dowager Royina. My household is honored beyond all deserving by your presence here. I hope I may do everything possible to make your sojourn with my lord and myself a memorable delight."

"Five gods give you a good day, Lady of Porifors," Ista choked. "I'm sure you shall."

CHAPTER TEN

FLANKED BY TWO SMILING LADIES-IN-WAITING, THE YOUNG marchess led Ista through a cool, dim archway under the balcony and into an inner court. Ferda and Ista's medical acolyte followed less certainly, until gestured forward by Lord Arhys. The courtyard was graced by a small marble pool in the shape of a star, its water bright, and more pots of succulents and flowers. Lady Cattilara darted up the stairway to the second-floor gallery and paused to wait, staring in concern as the acolyte helped Ista labor upward on her sore legs. Ferda hurried to lend his arm. Ista grimaced in mingled gratitude and annoyance.

Their footsteps echoed on the boards toward a corner where a short tower loomed, until Lord Arhys stopped abruptly. "Catti, no! Not these chambers, surely!"

Lady Cattilara paused outside the carved double doors her woman had been about to open, and smiled back at Arhys in uncertainty. "My lord? They are the best rooms of the house—we cannot offer the dowager royina less!"

Arhys strode to her side, lowered his voice, and said through his teeth, "Have some sense!"

"But they are swept and garnished for her—"

"No, Catti!"

She stared up at him in dismay. "I—I'm sorry, my lord. I'll... I'll think of something. Else."

"Five gods, please you do," he snapped back, exasperation leaking into face and voice. With an effort, he recovered an expression of bland welcome.

Lady Cattilara turned, smiling stiffly. "Royina Ista. Won't you... come to my rooms to rest and refresh yourself before dinner? Just this way..."

She eased back past them, and they all reversed direction toward a similar set of doors on the opposite end of the gallery. Ista found herself, briefly, next to Arhys.

"What is the problem with the chambers?" she asked.

"The roof leaks," he growled after a moment.

Ista cast a look at the bright blue, cloudless sky. "Oh."

The men were excluded at these new doors.

"Shall I bring your things here, then, Royina?" asked Ferda.

Ista glanced apprehensively at Arhys.

"Yes, for now," he answered, apparently finding this other, if temporary, lodging more acceptable. "Come, dy Gura, I'll show you and your men to your quarters. You will wish to see to your horses, of course."

"Yes, my lord. Thank you." Ferda gave Ista a parting salute and followed Arhys back down the stairs.

Ista entered the chamber past the lady-in-waiting, who had paused to hold the door open for her. The woman smiled and bobbed a curtsey.

Ista felt an immediate sense of ease from having come at last to what were obviously a woman's private quarters. A softened light filtered through elaborate lattices at the narrow windows on the far wall. Wall hangings, and vases of cut flowers, brightened the austere whitewashed angles. A door, closed, gave interior access to some adjoining chamber, and Ista wondered if it was Arhys's. The walls were crowded with chests, variously carved, inlaid, or ironbound; Cattilara's women whisked away piles of clothing and other evidences of disorder, and set a feather-stuffed cushion on one such trunk for Ista to rest upon. Ista glanced through the lattices, which gave a view onto the roof of another inner court, and settled her aching body down gingerly.

"What a pleasant room," Ista remarked, to allay Lady Cattilara's obvious awkwardness at having her refuge so suddenly invaded.

Cattilara smiled in gratitude. "My household is anxious to honor you at our table, but I thought perhaps you would wish to wash and rest, first."

"Yes, indeed," said Ista fervently.

The acolyte ducked a curtsey at the castle's chatelaine, and said firmly, "And it please you, lady, the royina should have her dressings changed as well."

Cattilara blinked. "You are injured? My lord did not say, in his letter ..."

"Some minor scrapes. But yes, wash and rest, before all." Ista had no intention of neglecting her hurts. Her son Teidez had died, it was said, of an unattended injury upon his leg scarcely worse than a scratch, which had taken a febrile infection. Ista suspected complicating factors beyond the natural; prayers the boy had certainly had poured upon him, but they had gone unanswered.

Lady Cattilara cast off her moment of discomfort in a flurry of activity, ordering her ladies and her maids to these practicalities. Tea and dried fruit and bread were offered, basins and a hip bath trundled in, and water carried up; the acolyte and Cattilara's women tended not only Ista's body but washed her hair as well. By the time these welcome ablutions were concluded, and Ista rewrapped in borrowed robes, her hostess was quite cheerful again.

Under her direction, the ladies carried in armloads of garments for Ista's inspection, and Cattilara opened her jewel cases.

"My lord said you had lost all your belongings to the Jokonans," Cattilara said breathlessly. "I beg you to accept whatever of mine may please you."

"As my journey was intended as a pilgrimage, I actually carried but little, and so it was but little loss," said Ista. "The gods spared me my men; all else may be repaired."

"It sounded a terrible ordeal," said Cattilara. She had gasped in consternation when the acolyte had uncovered the admittedly ugly lesions on Ista's knees.

"The Jokonans had it worse, in the end, thanks to your lord and his men."

Cattilara glowed with pleasure at this oblique commendation of the march. "Is he not fine? I fell madly in love with him from the first moment I saw him, riding into the gates of Oby with my father one autumn day. My father is the march of Oby—the greatest fortress in Caribastos, bar the provincar's own seat."

Ista's lips quirked. "I grant you, Lord Arhys on horseback makes a most striking first impression."

Cattilara burbled on, "He looked so splendid, but so sad. His first wife had died in childbed, oh, years before, when his little daughter Liviana was born, and it was said he did not look at other women after her. I was but fourteen. My father said I was too young, and it was only a girl's infatuation, but I proved him wrong. Three years did I campaign with my father for my lord's favor, and I won such a prize!"