When Simon had gone, Pasevalles said, “I did not wish to talk of this in front of the others—excepting the king, of course—but I wanted to give to you a name that might prove useful if you find yourself in any difficulty.”

“Difficulty?” It came out mockingly, though she had meant it to be light and teasing. “In our beloved southern duchy? Yours and my dear ancestral home?”

He could not manage a smile, but he nodded. “Please, Majesty. You know as well as I do that Nabban is a bear pit covered with pretty ribbons. And matters there, I suspect, are worse than anyone is letting on.”

She was afraid of just that but did not show it in her face. “And so, Lord Pasevalles . . . ?”

“I have already reminded you of Count Froye, our ambassador there, but should you find yourself in a truly bad situation, I want you to remember the name of a friend of mine, a very able and sensible man—Viscount Matreu.”

“Matreu? That sounds like an island name.”

“He is the son of old Count Millatin of Spenit. Matreu’s mother came from an old island family. But all that is of little import. Matreu is a good man who has given me much useful information over recent years and done me more than a few favors.”

“But Spenit is such a long journey from the capital!”

“Matreu lives most of the year in Nabban. If you need him, you have only to send a messenger and he will attend you, I promise.”

“I will remember it, Lord Pasevalles, and my thanks.” She looked on him for a moment with real fondness. “It is always good to have a secret ally.”

“In Nabban, Majesty, you must have as many as you can find, if only to make up for all the secret enemies.”

She took a sharp breath. “You are usually the mildest and most cautious of courtiers, Pasevalles. Do you really think things there are so bad?”

“I saw my family cheated of their land and name, Majesty.” A hard edge was in his voice that she had not heard before. “I saw my mother humbled and treated like a servant. I left that country with only my shoes and the clothes on my back.” His smile was twisted. “And that was in better times.”

“Then I hear you, and I am grateful for your concern,” she said. “I know that those old days were bad ones for you, loyal Pasevalles. We are lucky that your road brought you to us.”

He bowed. “I deserve no credit, my queen. I think only of the High Throne.” He rose, then kissed her hand. “I will pray for your safety every night, Majesty.”

“Pray for Nabban,” she said. “If Nabban is preserved, I’m sure I will be too.”

She was trying to play jackbones with Aedonita and Aedonita’s sister, Elyweld, but Elyweld was too young and spoiled everything by grabbing the bones when it wasn’t even her turn.

“Stop it or I’ll tell my grandmother on you.” Lillia gave Elyweld a little shake, meant only to underline the seriousness of the threat, but Aedonita’s sister was a blower of the lowest variety and immediately began to shriek as if she’d been slapped.

“Here, what’s this?” Countess Rhona looked up from her conversation with the queen. “Why can’t you three play nicely?”

“Lillia hurt me!” said Elyweld.

“She’s a blower, Auntie Rhoner—a terrible liar! I hardly touched her.” Lillia was particularly irritated by the hue and cry because she’d also been listening with interest to the two grown-up women’s conversation. “Isn’t that true, Aedonita?”

Aedonita, daughter of a Rowson relative and one of Lillia’s most frequent playmates, nodded vigorously. “Ely’s a terrible sniveler, Countess.”

After order was restored, Elyweld was given one of Lillia’s dolls to play with (and probably to destroy, was Lillia’s thought). The two older girls continued with their game of jackbones and Lillia continued with her eavesdropping.

“I dread this, I truly do,” the queen was saying. “It is hard enough, having Morgan so far from home, but now I must leave this little one behind, too.”

Lillia knew that meant her, and although she did not like being called the “little one,” she was pleased that her grandmother was worrying about her.

Auntie Rhoner laughed “She’s like a weed, our Lillia. She’ll be fine. And why shouldn’t she be, here in the Hayholt with me and soldiers and her grandfather the king?”

“I just worry. The world seems such a dangerous place to me these days.”

“Well, you know what they say, dear Miriamele—I mean Your Majesty. ‘Heaven is good, but you still shouldn’t dance in a small boat.’ And I think that it’s true. You shouldn’t call down troubles you don’t have yet. In Nad Glehs, we were raised most studiously to avoid such things.”

“Ah. Very wise.” The queen sighed loudly, which surprised Lillia, because it seemed more like the sound she, herself, would make on a boring afternoon or during a punitive banishment to her bedchamber. “But it’s not just the little one I’m worrying for. It’s the king as well.”

“Do you think him apt to get into mischief with you gone? Shall I keep an eye on the serving girls?”

The queen laughed again. “Simon? No. He is more like a boy that way. Not in the marriage bed, where he is lusty enough, but his eye for a pretty woman shames him a bit—he thinks I would take it badly, so he looks away more than he looks at, if you take my meaning. God bless him, but he does not want me angry with him.”

“So what is it you want, dear? What is it that has you worried?”

“Oh, everything. I’m not even certain, my lovely Rhona. I suppose I fear that the king, my Simon, will be sad with me gone. That he will be lost. And this is not a time when he can afford to be a mooncalf.”

“The king—a mooncalf?”

Miriamele smiled. It was slightly grim. “You cannot even guess. Don’t misunderstand me—Simon is the kindest man I know. But sometimes, I swear with the Sacred Mother as my witness, I feel more like a mother than a wife. Do you know, he wanted us to go and eat supper last night on top of Holy Tree Tower?”

“Truly? Why?”

“He wanted to talk about things he’d done when he was a boy—which tower roofs he’d been on, where he’d gotten into different kinds of mischief. I wanted to talk with him instead about what was to come, what he must watch carefully while I’m gone, many important things. All he wanted to talk about was when we were young.”

“Hmmmm.” Lillia saw that Auntie Rhoner was not convinced by what the queen said. “I can think of worse things, Majesty, than a husband who wants to reminisce about the days when you both were young and in love.”

“To be honest, I don’t think I have that much to do with it, Rhona. When he was young he knew me only as somebody he saw a few times from a distance. I knew him better than he knew me.”

“You did? How could that be?”

Lillia, listening intently now, wanted to ask the same thing.

“Because I watched him and the other servants. I envied them their freedom.”

“That’s an odd word for it.”

“Oh, I know, Rhona dear. Don’t scold me. We never understand anyone but ourselves when we’re young, and we don’t understand ourselves very well. But I watched Simon and Jeremias, and that page, what was his name . . . ? I watched them running around, and even when they were working, they laughed and they sang.” She frowned. “Izaak. That was his name. Little fellow, but he had a lovely singing voice. Not like Simon’s honking.”

Rhona laughed. “I stand near your husband in the chapel. I have heard him sing, my lady. When you say ‘honking,’ you are very kind.”

“Bless him. And he does love to sing, too.” She sighed again. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, Rhona. I will miss him terribly. And he is not a fool, not at all—he will do very well whenever he takes time to think carefully. But I worry that something may happen that compels a sudden choice, and that is when I fear his judgement.”