Tiamak hid his smile. A king who apologized! No wonder he was tied to his two monarchs with bonds stronger than iron. “I will confess, it was not like you, Majesty.”

“Well, find him for me, would you?”

“In truth, I think he is just outside the tent, Majesty.”

“Oh, for the love of St. Tunath and St. Rhiap, Tiamak, would you please stop calling me ‘Majesty’ when we’re alone? You said he was nearby?”

“I’ll go see, Simon.”

The minstrel was indeed near, cowering from the brisk Marris winds in a fold of tent wall beside the doorway. He followed Tiamak back into the pavilion like a man expecting a death sentence.

“There you are,” the king said. “Come. Your name is Rinan, yes?”

The eyes, already wide, grew wider still. “Yes, Majesty.”

“I was harsh to you, Rinan. Today . . . I am not a happy man today.”

Tiamak thought that the harper, like everyone else in the royal court, knew only too well what day it was, but was wise enough to stay quiet while the king struggled to find words.

“In any case, I am sorry for it,” the king said. “Come back to me tomorrow, and I will be in a better humor for songs. But have that old scoundrel Sangfugol teach you a few lays that at least approach the truth, if not actually wrestle with it.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Go on then. You have a fine voice. Remember that music is a noble charge, even a dangerous charge, because it can pierce a man’s heart when a spear or arrow cannot.”

As the young man hurried out of the pavilion, Simon looked up at his old friend. “I suppose now I must bring back all the others and make amends to them as well?”

“I see no reason why you should,” Tiamak told him. “You have already given them all the hours since you broke your fast. I think it might be good for you to eat and rest.”

“But I have to reply to King Hugh and his damned ‘suggestions,’ as he calls them.” Simon tugged at his beard. “What is he about, Tiamak? You would think with all these nonsensical conditions, he would rather not have us come to Hernysadharc at all. Does he resent having to feed and house even this fairly small royal progress?”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not so. The Hernystiri are always finicky with their rituals.” But secretly Tiamak did not like it either. It was one thing to insist on proper arrangements, another thing to keep the High King and High Queen waiting in a field for two days over issues of ceremony that should have been settled weeks ago. After all, the king of Hernystir would not have a throne at all were it not for the High Ward that Simon and Miriamele represented. Hernystir only had a king because Miri’s grandfather, King John, had permitted it under his own overarching rule. Still, Tiamak thought, Hugh was a comparatively young king: perhaps this rudeness was nothing more than a new monarch’s inexperience. “I am certain Sir Murtach, Count Eolair, and I will have everything set to rights soon,” he said aloud.

“Well, I hope you’re right, Tiamak. Tell them we agree to everything and to send us the be-damned invitation tomorrow morning. It’s a sad errand that brings us this way in the first place, and today is a sad anniversary. It seems pointless to dicker about such things—how many banners, how high the thrones, the procession route . . .” He wagged his hand in disgust. “If Hugh wishes to make himself look important, let him. He can act like a child if he wants, but Miri and I don’t need to.”

“You may be doing the king of Hernystir a disservice,” said Tiamak mildly, but in his heart of hearts he didn’t think so. He truly didn’t think so.

“Can we swim in it, Papa?”

The black river was fast and silent. “I don’t think so, son.”

“And what’s on the other side?” the child asked.

“Nobody knows.”

It was a mixture of Simon’s dreams and memories, made partly from the time he had taken young John Josua down to Grenburn Town near the river to see the flooding. In the wake of the Storm King’s defeat the winters had grown warmer, and in the years after the fall of the tower, spring thaws had swollen the rivers of Erkynland until they overflowed their banks, turning fields on both sides of the Gleniwent into a great plain of water, with islands of floating debris that had once been houses and barns. John Josua had been nearly five years of age when Simon took him to Grenburn, and full of questions. Not that he had ever stopped being full of questions.

“Don’t cross the river, Papa,” his dream-son told him.

“I won’t.” Simon didn’t laugh, but in life he had, amused by the boy’s solemn warning. “It’s too wide, John Josua. I’m a grown man but I don’t think I could swim so far.” He pointed to the far side, a place where the fields were higher. It was farther than Simon could have shot an arrow.

“If I went across, would you come after me?” the child asked. “Or if I fell in?”

“Of course.” He remembered saying it with such certainty. “I would jump in and pull you out. Of course I would!”

But something was distracting him, some dream noise that he knew he should ignore, but it was hard not to notice the hard-edged baying of hounds. All his life since the weird white Stormspike pack had chased him, Simon had found that the noise of howling dogs chilled his blood.

“Papa?” The boy sounded farther away than he had a moment before, but Simon had turned his back on the river to look out across fields that were darkening as the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Somewhere in the distance a shape moved across the ground, but it moved like a single thing—no hunting pack, but a single hunting thing . . .

“Papa?”

So faint! And the little prince was no longer holding his hand—how had that happened? Even though it was only a dream, though Simon half-knew he was in bed and sleeping, he felt a dreadful cold terror rush through him, as if the very blood was freezing in his brains. His son was no longer beside him.

He looked around wildly but at first saw nothing. In the distance the mournful, scraping noise of the hounds grew louder. Then he saw the little head bobbing on the dark river, the small hands lifted as if to greet some friend—a false friend, a lying friend—and his heart shuddered as though it would stop. He ran, he was running, he had been running forever but still he came no closer. The clouds thickened overhead and the sunlight all but vanished. He thought he could hear a terrible, thin cry and the sound of splashing, but although he threw himself toward the place he had last seen the child, he could get no closer.

He screamed, then, and leaped, as if he could cross all that uncrossable difference by the sheer strength of his need . . . of his regret.

•   •   •

“Simon!”

A cool hand was on his forehead, not so much soothing him as holding him back, prisoning him. For a moment he was so maddened with terror that he reached up to strike the obstacle out of his way, then he heard her gasp, surprised by his sudden movement, and he remembered where he was.

“M-Miri?”

“A bad dream, Simon. You’re having a bad dream.” When she felt his muscles unknot, she took her hand from his head. She also had an arm around his chest, which she loosed before letting herself back down beside him in the disordered bed. “Shall I call for someone to bring you something?”

He shook his head, but of course she couldn’t see him. “No. I’ll . . .”

“Was it the same dream as last time? The dragon?”

“No. It was about John Josua when he was little. Of course—I haven’t been able to think of anything else for days.”

Simon lay staring up into the darkness for a long time. He could tell by her breathing she had not gone back to sleep either. “I dreamed of him,” he said at last. “He got away from me. I chased him but I couldn’t reach him.”

She still didn’t speak, but she put a hand against his cheek and left it there.