Yet Lady Luriel had traveled to Guelemara on her hope and on her high pride, bravely so, for there was no private royal assurance what her welcome would be, whether cruel, public disgrace, or (some even whispered) to take up her former position within the court and within reach of the king’s bedroom, to the bride’s sure discomfort. Certain women and certain men would not believe otherwise, by their own natures; and the supposition was even reasonable: the king might have his foreign bride and yet maintain a northern Guelen mistress to keep Murandys close to his side… if he were so inclined, or less in love with his bride.

Even to this hour Murandys was not utterly sure of his intentions, Cefwyn was sure, and he enjoyed every instant of it, modest recompense for the damage Murandys had done in his obdurate opposition to the marriage. That opposition had not stopped short of slander, which was why Lord Ryssand was home mourning a son this winter season; but since Murandys had gotten off alive and unscathed, and vengeance was yet unvisited, Murandys was learning that the king, like his grandfather, observed, remembered, and had very sudden limits to his tolerance.

“Shall I bring her?” Prichwarrin asked faintly, not loudly enough for the satisfaction of every listener leaning forward to hear, and Cefwyn cocked his head on a side, affecting not to hear, himself, so Prichwarrin said it again, clearing his throat. “She accepts Your Majesty’s gracious invitation.”

Oh, there still wasa defiance. Indeed, and depend on it, the bitter bile could still from time to time seep out of Murandys… not a grand, battlefield sort of spirit, rather a mean dagger on the stairs sort of courage.

Luriel, his niece, had both kinds.

“Invitation?” Cefwyn echoed him, casting mild aspersion, loudly enough to be gossiped about, and gave Prichwarrin no chance to amend himself… fool, to challenge him here, and under the circumstances; but Prichwarrin had not proved himself the keenest wit in court, and the lack of Ryssand’s guidance tonight was evident. “Bring your niece in,” Cefwyn said, “yes, pray do. Let us see her.”

“Your Majesty,” Prichwarrin said, his face quite rigid, and turned and walked through a widening gauntlet of spectators toward the doors. A small whisper of anticipated misfortune followed him.

The doors opened, and the hall stayed fixed on the sight of Prichwarrin going out, and immediately on Prichwarrin coming back, not escorting his niece, rather stepping aside as if he had just admitted the plague.

Luriel had evidently waited cloaked, for a moderate gasp went up as she appeared: the lady came not in modest repentance, but in jewels and a russet gown that blazed in the soft candle glow of the hall. Her fair hair was swept up in braids and pinned with gold; her cloak was trimmed with fox and embroidered in gold thread.

Fox-colors to cover a vixen heart, Cefwyn thought, well remembering that wonderful hair tumbled on a pillow, and that silken body luxuriant by faintest candlelight… how could a man not recall those nights, even a man faithful and sworn? Luriel wore the russet gown like a bright blazon in a hall listening and watching for her destruction. She wore it before all the good Quinalt women who would die rather than yield the virtue she had freely abandoned in a Marhanen’s bed; and she wore it before all the good pious Quinalt men who now longed to breach that defense for themselves. She was a battle cry in motion as she walked to the steps of the dais, and there with a pale, set countenance, she bowed her head and sank in a deep reverence from which majesty alone could bid her rise forgiven or damned.

“Lady Luriel,” Cefwyn said, “rise. We delight to see you. Welcome, most happily.”

“My lord king,” she said, looking up and rising indeed with a high flush on her cheeks. He had not been king when last they had seen one another, when she had left Henas’amef in grand dudgeon and ridden home… all because he would not pass last winter in revels and spend the Amefin treasury on her gowns.

She had hated the provincials of Amefel, calling them heretics, hated their rusticity, and despised the generally dark-haired Amefin lords and their ladies, calling them peasant farmers no matter their ancient blood.

Luriel now looked up at an Elwynim woman, the Elwynim being closer kin to the Amefin than not, a dark-haired, gray-eyed woman who was her rival in beauty, who had every motive to detest her, and who sat where she had hoped to sit as a crowned queen.

And what bitter and foreboding thoughts might not pass through Luriel’s heart? Or seeking what redress had she written those letters asking him to bring her to court, when her uncle’s order held her immured in his hall, in disgrace for her adventure?

Of all the ploys her uncle had used to prevent the wedding of him with Ninévrisë, however, her uncle had notbrought Luriel’s lost virtue into it, and with reason: Luriel hated her uncle Prichwarrin from childhood and would take any opportunity to set him at disadvantage. The question in everyone’s mind, however, was not Lord Murandys’ view of his niece: power lay in other hands at this moment. Cefwyn maintained a studiedly calm benevolence as his bride and his former lover first crossed glances.

“Lady,” Ninévrisë said, and gallant and wise as she was, even held out her hand, bidding Luriel come toward her. She rose from her lesser throne as Luriel mounted the steps like a prisoner to the scaffold. The whole great hall held its collective breath as Ninévrisë took Luriel’s hands to prevent her second, confused curtsy.

To a stunned murmur from the hall, Ninévrisë leaned down and kissed Luriel of Murandys on either pallid cheek.

No one might ever have gotten the better of Luriel, her weak father’s and feckless mother’s despair in all her life, certainly the thorn in her uncle’s flesh; but Luriel stood eye-to-eye with Ninévrisë, and found not a word to say, beyond a faint, “Your Grace,” as the court maintained its deathly hush.

“How lovely you are,” Ninévrisë said. “I shall look forward to seeing you among the ladies in my court. No, better still, I commandit.”

“Your Grace,” Luriel said again, blushing, actually blushing in confusion and perhaps in dread of women’s vengeance. Thus released, russet skirts gathered, she ebbed down the steps, having been publicly welcomed at highest authority into the society of the consort’s court, women who must under other circumstances ostracize her for her breach of rules; a society which, perversely, would have welcomed her with discreet silence on her sins were she to become the king’s mistress, and under the king’s protection. But absentthe king’s furtive approval, she could not enter that society without the consort’s express invitation or some man’s patronage. Her kinship to Murandys was not sufficient for a woman under such a cloud. She would have had to find a connection or a liaison, probably furtive, likely less than her station, so that she could breach that female society on someone else’s privilege.

And lo! instead, acceptance and respectability was handed her in her own right, without struggle, from her enemy’s very hand, and Luriel was confounded andindebted to the Royal Consort at one stroke. As she backed from the foot of the dais perhaps her hard little heart even beat in gratitude; Cefwyn dared entertain that hope… at least of a calculated, weighed, and measured gratitude mingled with fear, for Luriel was, in terms of her own safety, no fool.

Her advantage most certainly now lay down a different path than she must have envisioned when she had written him letters pleading for royal rescue, and she must see that, either in gratitude or in fear… unless her scheming had turned one more corner than hehad yet discovered.

His invitation to court was not a summons back to his bed, above all else. From the time they were lovers he had known that her true and deepest passion was for the throne, and that only Luriel’s mirror ever saw love in those blue eyes. No, no one touched Luriel’s well-armored little heart, no suitor ever so much as dented it, and no one could be more aware of that quality than her former lover. It was perhaps tragic that she was incapable of wanting power in a useful and sensible way, for what power itself could do— move armies, build cities, leave a legacy to the ages… but alas! all that wit and cleverness bent toward the trappings of power, the jewels, the music, and the festivities. She was no wiser than her mother in that respect.