He grinned ruefully now at the memory. If he’d thought his life would be easier once he had control over it, he had been even more innocent than most boys. He enjoyed ruling his own palace while learning from Ostvel now to rule a princedom, and pleasing himself in the matter of his guests, his gardens, his everyday activities, and—truth be told—his bedmates. But if he’d caught a glimpse of his destined wife in the flames dancing gently across the Water, at least he would have known who to look for. And that part of his life would have been settled.
Suddenly he could hear Sionell laughing at him. “Poor prince!” she would say. “More wealth than he knows what to do with, the most beautiful palace ever built, fine horses racing through his paddocks, and two princedoms to rule one day—feeling sorry for himself because he can’t find a woman to complete this portrait of perfection! Poor, poor prince!”
Imagination provided memory of her bracing mockery, fond and nettled all at once, and the teasing glint in blue eyes below coils of dark red hair. If only he could find someone with Ell’s wit and understanding, someone he could talk to and depend on. Tallain was a lucky man.
A glance at the sun reminded him that he had a late afternoon appointment with an emissary from Gilad. He was not looking forward to it, but it would at least be a distraction. He ran up to his own chambers and washed away the stink and dirt of horse—and abrupt contact with the ground. He was about to go back downstairs when his scandalized squire hurried in with one of the casually elegant outfits Aunt Tobin regularly sent him. She despaired of his ever developing the right instincts about his appearance, something that came naturally to his father. Pol was oblivious when it came to clothes, and tended to greet important persons in dusty riding rig or with half the rosebeds on his trousers rather than the silk and velvet decreed by his position. Tobin’s gifts were compromise, being cut as comfortably and casually as everyday clothes, but made of gorgeous fabrics she chose herself when the silk ships came to port at Radzyn. Pol wrinkled his nose at the green shirt, dark blue tunic, and gray trousers presented for his inspection, then laughed as the boy’s face turned stubborn.
“Stop glowering at me, Edrel,” he chided. “I know I have to look pretty for the Giladans.”
“Very good, my lord.” Thirteen years old, nearly as dark as a Fironese, Edrel was the younger son of Pol’s vassal Lord Cladon of River Ussh. He had been a year at Dragon’s Rest, was the very first of Pol’s squires, and took his duties with absolute seriousness. Pol had been trying to teach him a sense of humor, but thus far had had little luck.
As he donned clothes, Edrel gave brief descriptions of the guests without being asked. It was a little trick Pol had developed, and not entirely for his own amusement. Edrel escorted visitors to an audience chamber, then came to Pol with verbal sketches of any unknowns in the group. It flattered guests to be identified on sight by their host—but it also amazed them that somehow Pol instantly knew who was whom without introductions. A nice bonus was the training Edrel received in powers of observation and judgment. It was a task at which the solemn little boy excelled.
Prince Cabar had sent his cousin Lord Bang and two experts on Giladan law. His lordship was characterized as short, gray, bearing little resemblance to his grace of Gilad, of an age with Pol’s father but looking many winters older and, “Rather sour, my lord. The lawyers are worse.”
“Lawyers usually are.”
“My lord!” Edrel’s own studies at Dragon’s Rest included law.
He fastened his shirtsleeves. “I admire my father with all my heart for instilling such respect for the law in everyone—but people who study it are thunderously dull. I anticipate an excruciating afternoon. Perhaps I’ll cancel it and go out riding instead. I’d cut quite a figure in these clothes on horseback, don’t you think?” He grinned at the boy.
It took Edrel several moments to realize he was being teased. He reacted with a tentative smile. Pol clapped him approvingly on the shoulder and gave himself a swift glance in a mirror before leaving his dressing chamber for the corridor outside.
Edrel scampered ahead of him to be the first at the door of the reception room. The boy straightened his own clothes, gave his prince’s outfit a critical look that made Pol grin, and nodded importantly to the page who opened the great wooden doors inlaid with bronze. Edrel stepped through, bowed slightly to the three men within, and announced, “His Grace of Princemarch.”
Pol distributed a polite smile all around as they inclined their heads to him. “Lord Bang,” he said, “we hope you had a pleasant journey from Medawari, and that his grace our cousin is well.”
Use of the plural was cue enough to any courtier. His lordship bowed again, murmuring affirmatives, and did not introduce the socially inferior lawyers. Pol gestured to chairs and they were all seated. Edrel hovered at the door, waiting for word about refreshment. Pol gave none. This was a formal audience, not a private chat.
Bang took some time to get to the point. Pol could have set to music the standard progression of topics. First the civil inquiries about his parents’ health, then the compliments on the beauties of Dragon’s Rest, then the remarks about the weather, made interesting this year only because of the winter downpours that had half-drowned the continent. A digression was made when he mentioned a visit to Swalekeep on the way here. Finally the usual wishes for a fine and profitable Rialla were expressed. That done, Pol wondered how Bang would work his way around to Sunrunners.
He did it with a strategic return to the weather. Sour-faced he certainly was, and gray from his hair and eyes to his goat’s wool tunic, but Pol gave him credit for a nice degree of subtlety.
“I trust this long season of rain has not interfered too much with faradhi communication, your grace. It must be frustrating for Sunrunners to be trapped by the weather like the rest of us.”
“Clouds are a faradhi’s natural enemy,” Pol responded. “But we manage.”
“Then your grace will have been apprised of certain unhappy events in Gilad. Specifically, this matter of a Sunrunner’s involvement with the death of one of our most distinguished citizens.”
“Yes. We have heard something of it.” He had, in fact, heard a great deal. Thacri, a master weaver who lived near the Giladan seat of Medawari, had contracted a severe fever at winter’s end. Faradh’im had knowledge of medicine, though not as extensive as trained physicians; in the absence of the latter, Sunrunners offered their services. Despite the best efforts of a young faradhi traveling through the area, the man died on the first night of the ten-day New Year Holiday. Afterward it was discovered that one of the potions tried against the fever had been concocted wrongly. And therein lay the difficulty. Barig presented his case. “The position of His Grace of Gilad is that this Sunrunner, acting beyond her capacity as a physician, is responsible for the death of Master Thacri.”
One of the lawyers, as brown in coloring, clothing, and countenance as Barig was gray, shuffled his lanky bones and said, “Your grace, it is only by the strenuous efforts of myself and my colleague that the widow was persuaded to abandon her plan of charging the Sunrunner with murder.”
“We understand,” Pol murmured, privately shocked. The penalty for murder was death; although the Sunrunner must indeed pay for her mistake, it should not be with her life. But had she been anything other than a Sunrunner, he would not be listening to this at all. Barig went on, “As it stands, your grace, the charge is misrepresentation of skills, which led to criminal negligence and Master Thacri’s death. The punishment for this in Gilad is a fine, the amount to be determined by his grace on review of the victim’s probable earnings over the course of his remaining natural lifespan. Master Thacri,” he added, “left behind a wife and many dependents.”