Ista bit hard into a large mouthful of bread.

The food, in any case, was excellent. Lady Cattilara, or her castle cook, at least did not attempt to ape the excesses, or worse, what they imagined to be the excesses, of Cardegoss court feasting, but served simple, fresh fare. There did seem to be more sweets tonight, which Ista could not fault, and which Liss plainly relished, consuming an enviable portion. She was very quiet in this company, in what seemed to Ista unnecessary awe of her surroundings. Ista thought she would rather have heard Liss's tales than the local gossip that filled the time. When they had escaped the ladies and returned to the square stone court, Ista told her so, and chided her for her shyness.

"Truly," Liss admitted, "I think it's the dress. I felt a great gawk next to those highborn girls. I don't know how they manage all this fancy cloth. I'm sure I shall trip over myself and tear something."

"Then let us walk about in the colonnade, that I may stretch my scabs as the acolyte instructs, and that you may practice swishing in silks to do me honor in this court. And tell me more of your ride."

Liss shortened her steps in a most ladylike fashion, keeping to Ista's slow limp in the cool of the cloistered walkway. Ista primed her with questions about every aspect of her journey. Not that Ista needed a catalogue of every hair, fault, virtue, and quirk of every horse Liss had ridden for the past several days, but Liss's voice was such welcome music, it hardly mattered what it dwelt upon. Ista had less to report, she found, of her own ride, certainly not details of the Jokonan horseflesh, which she had mainly experienced as a penance. Nor had she desire to recall green flies gathering to feed on thickening blood.

Passing a pillar, Liss reached out to trail her fingers over the carved tracery. "It looks like stone brocade. Porifors is a far more beautiful castle than I was expecting. Is Lord Arhys dy Lutez as great a sword master as the marchess was bragging?"

"Yes, in fact. He slew four of the enemy who attempted to ride off with me. Two escaped." She had not forgotten them. She was almost glad, in retrospect, that the translator officer had been one of those fled. She had spoken with him, eye to eye, a few too many times for her to imagine him as a cipher, blurred into the faceless ranks of the fallen. A feminine weakness, that, perhaps, like refusing to eat any animal one had named as a pet.

"Was it true the march rode in with you upon his saddlebow?"

"Yes," said Ista shortly.

Liss's eyes crinkled with delight. "How splendid! Too bad he's so married, eh? Is he really as handsome as his wife seems to think?"

"I can't say," Ista growled. She added in reluctant fairness, "He is, however, quite handsome."

"How fine, to have such a lord at your feet, though. I am glad you have come to such a place, after all this."

Ista changed He wasn't exactly at my feet to, "I do not plan to linger here."

Liss's brows rose. "The Mother's acolyte said you could not ride far yet."

"Ought not, perhaps. Not comfortably. I could at need." Ista followed Liss's admiring glance around the court, shaded in the slanting light of the late day, and tried to evolve a reason for her unease that did not involve bad dreams. A rational, sensible reason, for a woman who was not mad in the least. She rubbed at the itch on her forehead. "We are too close to Jokona, here. I do not know what treaties of mutual aid presently exist between Jokona and Borasnen, but everyone knows the port of Visping is the prize of my royal daughter's eye. What is planned to happen in the fall will be no mere border raid. And there was a terrible event here this spring that can't have helped relations with the prince of Jokona in any way." Ista did not look toward that corner room.

"You mean how Porifors's master of horse was stabbed by that Jokonan courtier? Goram told me of it while we were swabbing down that fat palomino. Odd fellow—I think he's a little simple in the head—but he knows his trade." She added, "Here, Royina, you are limping worse than my second horse. Sit, rest." She chose a shaded bench at the court's far end, the one where Cattilara's ladies had collected the previous evening, and with an air of determined heedfulness settled Ista upon it.

After a moment of silence, she gave Ista a sidelong look. "Funny old man, Goram. He wanted to know if a royina outranked a princess. Because a princess was the daughter of a prince, but you were only the daughter of a provincar. And that Roya Orico's widow Sara was a dowager royina more recent than you. I said a Chalionese provincar was worth any Roknari prince, and besides, you were the mother of the royina of all Chalion-Ibra herself, and nobody else is that."

Ista forced herself to smile. "Royinas do not often come in his way, I expect. Did your answers pacify him?"

Liss shrugged. "Seemed to." Her frown deepened. "Isn't it a strange thing, for a man to lie stunned like that, for months?"

It was Ista's turn to shrug. "Palsy-strokes, broken heads, broken necks... drownings ... it happens that way, sometimes."

"Some recover though, don't they?"

"I think those that recover start to do so ... sooner. Most struck down that way do not live long thereafter, unless their care is extraordinary. It's a slow, ugly death for a man. Or anyone. Better to go swiftly, at the first."

"If Goram cares for Lord Illvin half as well as he cares for his horses, perhaps that explains it."

Ista became conscious that the runty man himself had emerged from the corner chamber and hunkered down behind the balustrade, watching them. After a time he rose, came down the stairs, and crossed the court. As he neared, his steps shortened, his head drew in like a turtle's, and his hands gripped one another.

He stopped a little distance off, bent his knees, and ducked his head, first to Ista, then to Liss, then back to Ista again as if to make sure. His eyes were the color of unpolished steel. His stare, from under those bushy brows, was unblinking.

"Aye," he said at last, to a point halfway between the two women. "She's the one he was going on about, no mistake." He pursed his lips, and his gaze suddenly fixed on Liss. "Did you ask her?"

Liss smiled crookedly. "Hello, Goram. Well, I was working up to it."

He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking forward and back. "Ask her, then."

Liss cocked her head. "Why don't you? She doesn't bite."

" 'B 'n 't," he mumbled obscurely, glowering at his booted feet. "You."

Liss shrugged amused bafflement and turned to Ista. "Royina, Goram wishes you to come view his master."

Ista sat back and was silent for a long, withheld breath. "Why?" she finally asked.

Goram peered up at her, then back down at his feet. "You were the one he was going on about."

"Surely," said Ista after another moment, "no man would wish to be seen in his sickbed by strangers."

"That's all right," Goram pronounced. He blinked, and stared hard at her.

Liss, her eyes crinkling, cupped her hand and whispered in Ista's ear, "He was more talkative in the stalls. I think you frighten him."

Articulate smooth persuasion, Ista thought she might resist. In this odd tangle, she could hardly find an end. Urgent eyes, tongue of wood, a silent pressure of expectation... She could curse a god. She could not curse a groom.

She glanced around the court. Neither midnight nor noon, now; no details matched her dreams. Her dream had held neither Goram nor Liss, the time of day was all wrong... maybe it was safe, benign. She drew a breath.

"So, then, Liss. Let us renew my pilgrimage party and go view another ruin."

Liss helped her up, her face alert with open curiosity. Ista climbed the stairs upon her arm, slowly. Goram watched her anxiously, his lips moving, as if mentally boosting her up each step.