"Oh, I heard it. But I also heard you were some kind of feckless thug and that Randa had you under his thumb. Neither of which turned out to be true."

She smiled then and threw her own bone into the fire. One of the horses whickered. Some small creature slipped into the pond, the water closing around it with a gulp. She suddenly felt warm and content, and full of good food.

"Raffin and I talked once about marrying," she said. "For he's not wild about the idea of marrying some noblewoman who thinks only of being rich or being queen. And of course, he must marry someone, he has no choice in the matter. And to marry me would be an easy solution. We get along, I wouldn't try to keep him from his experiments. He wouldn't expect me to entertain his guests, he wouldn't keep me from the Council." She thought of Raffin bending over his books and his flasks. He was probably working on some experiment right now, with Bann at his side. By the time she returned to court, perhaps he would be married to some lady or another. He married, and she not there for him to come to and talk of it; she not there to tell him her thoughts, if he wished to hear them, as he always did.

"In the end," she said, "it was out of the question. We laughed about it, for I couldn't even begin to consider it seriously. I wouldn't ever consent to be queen. And Raffin will require children, which I'd also never consent to. And I won't be so tied to another person. Not even Raffin." She squinted into the fire, and sighed over her cousin whose responsibilities were so heavy. "I hope he'll fall in love with some woman who'll make a happy queen and mother. That would be the best thing for him. Some woman who wants a whole roost of children."

Po tilted his head at her. "Do you dislike children?"

"I've never disliked the children I've met. I've just never wanted them. I haven't wanted to mother them. I can't explain it."

She remembered Giddon then, who had assured her that this would change. As if he knew her heart, as if he had the slightest understanding of her heart. She threw another bone into the fire and hacked another piece of meat from the goose. She felt Po's eyes, and looked up at him, scowling.

"Why are you glaring at me," he asked, "when for all I can tell, you're not angry with me?"

She smiled. "I was only thinking Giddon would have found me a very vexing wife. I wonder if he would've understood when I planted a patch of seabane in the gardens. Or perhaps he would've thought me charmingly domestic."

Po looked puzzled. "What's seabane?"

"I don't know if you have another name for it in Lienid. It's a small purple flower. A woman who eats its leaves will not bear a child."

They wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay before the dying fire. Po yawned a great, deep yawn, but Katsa wasn't tired. A question occurred to her. But she didn't want to wake him, if he was falling asleep.

"What is it, Katsa? I'm awake."

She didn't know if she would ever get used to that.

"I was wondering whether I could wake you," she said, "by calling to you inside your mind when you're sleeping."

"I don't know," he said. "I don't sense things while I'm sleeping, but if I'm in danger or if someone approaches, I always wake. You may try it" – he yawned again – "if you must."

"I'll try it another night," she said, "when you're less tired."

"Aren't you ever tired, Katsa?"

"I'm sure I am," she said, though she couldn't bring a specific example to mind.

"Do you know the story of King Leck of Monsea?"

"I didn't know there was a story."

"There is," Po said, "a story from ages ago, and you should know it if we're to travel to his kingdom. I'll tell it to you, and perhaps you'll feel more tired."

He rolled onto his back. She lay on her side and watched the line of his profile in the light of the dying fire.

"The last King and Queen of Monsea were kind people. Not particularly great state minds," he said, "but they had good advisers, and they were kinder to their people than most today could even imagine, for a king and queen. But they were childless. It wasn't a good thing, Katsa, as it would be for you. They wanted a child desperately, so that they might have an heir – but also just because they wanted one, as I suppose most people do. And then one day, a boy came to their court. A handsome boy of about thirteen years, clever-looking, with a patch over one eye, for he'd lost an eye when he was younger. He didn't say where he came from, or who his parents were, or what had happened to his eye. He only came to court begging and telling stories in return for food and money."

"The servants took him in, for he told such wonderful stories – wild stories about a place beyond the seven kingdoms, where monsters come out of the sea and air, and armies burst out of holes in the mountains, and the people are different from anyone we've ever known. Eventually the king and queen learned of him and he was brought before them to tell his stories. The boy charmed them completely – charmed them from the first day. They pitied him, for his poverty and loneliness and his missing eye. They began to bring him into their presence for meals, or ask for him when they'd returned from long journeys, or call him to their rooms in the evenings. They treated him like a noble boy; he was educated, and taught to fight and ride. They treated him almost as if he were their own son. And when the boy was sixteen and the king and queen still didn't have a child of their own, the king did something extraordinary. He named the boy his heir."

"Even though they knew nothing of his past?"

"Even though they knew nothing of his past. And this is where the story truly becomes interesting, Katsa. For not a week after the king had named the boy his heir, the king and queen died of a sudden sickness. And their two closest advisers fell into despair and threw themselves into the river. Or so the story goes. I don't know that there were any witnesses."

Katsa propped herself on her elbow and stared at him.

"Do you think that strange?" he asked. "I've always thought it strange. But the Monsean people never questioned it, and all in my family who've met Leck tell me I'm foolish to wonder. They say Leck is utterly charming, even his eyepatch is charming. They say he grieved for the king and queen terribly and couldn't possibly have had anything to do with their deaths."

"I've never known this story," Katsa said. "I didn't even know Leck was missing an eye. Have you met him?"

"I haven't," Po said. "But I've always had a feeling I wouldn't take to him as others have. Despite his great reputation for kindness to the small and the powerless." He yawned and turned onto his side. "Well, and I suppose we'll both learn soon enough whether we take to him, if things go as I expect. Good night to you, Katsa. We may reach the inn tomorrow."

Katsa closed her eyes and listened to his breath grow steady and even. She considered the tale he'd told. It was hard to reconcile King Leck's pleasant reputation with this story. Still, perhaps he was innocent. Perhaps there was some logical explanation.

She wondered what reception they would receive at the inn, and whether they'd be lucky enough to cross paths with someone who held the information they sought. She listened to the sounds of the pond and the breeze in the grasses.

When she thought Po had fallen asleep, she said his name aloud once, quietly. He didn't stir. She thought his name once, quietly, like a whisper in her mind. Again, he didn't stir, and his breathing didn't change.

He was asleep.

Katsa exhaled, slowly.

She was the greatest fool in all the seven kingdoms.

Why, when she fought with him almost every day, when she knew every part of his body; why, when she'd sat on his stomach, and wrestled with him on the ground and could probably identify his arm hold faster than any wife would recognize the embrace of her own husband, had the sight of his arms and his shoulders so embarrassed her? She had seen a thousand shirtless men before, in the practice rooms or when traveling with Giddon and Oll. Raffin practically undressed in front of her, they were so used to each other. It was like his eyes. Unless they were fighting, Po's body had the same effect on her as his eyes.