"Ah."

Foix brought him a bowl of bean porridge, hot and aromatic, on a tray, and Bergon himself arranged his pillows and helped him sit up to eat it. Cazaril had thought he was ravenous, yet found himself unable to force down more than a few bites. Palli was keen to get away while the darkness still cloaked their numbers. Cazaril struggled to oblige, letting Foix help him back into his clothes. He dreaded the attempt to ride again.

In the post's stable yard, he found that their escort, a dozen men of the Daughter's Order who'd followed Palli from Taryoon, waited with a horse litter slung between two mounts. Indignant at first, he let Bergon persuade him into it, and the cavalcade swung away into the graying dark. The rough back roads and trails they took made the litter jounce and sway nauseatingly. After half an hour of this, he cried for mercy, and undertook to climb on a horse. Someone had thought to bring along a smooth-paced ambler for this very purpose, and he clung to the saddle and endured its rippling gait while they swung wide around Valenda and its occupiers' patrols.

In the afternoon, they dropped down from some wooded slopes onto a wider road, and Palli rode alongside him. Palli eyed him curiously, a little sideways.

"I hear you do miracles with mules."

"Not me. The goddess." Cazaril's smile twisted. "She has a way with mules, it seems."

"I'm also told you're strangely hard on brigands."

"We were a strong company, well armed. If the brigands hadn't been set onto us by dy Joal, they would never have attempted us."

"Dy Joal was one of dy Jironal's best swords. Foix says you took him down in seconds."

"That was a mistake. Besides, his foot slipped."

Palli's lips twitched. "You don't have to go around telling people that, you know." He stared ahead between his horse's bobbing ears for a time. "So, the boy you defended on the Roknari galley was Bergon himself."

"Yes. Kidnapped by his brother's bravos, it turned out. Now I know why the Ibran fleet rowed so hard after us."

"Did you never guess who he really was? Then or later?"

"No. He had... he had a deal more self-control than even I realized at the time. That one will make a roya worth following, when he comes into his own."

Palli glanced ahead to where Bergon rode with dy Sould, and signed himself in wonder. "The gods are on our side, right enough. Can we fail?"

Cazaril snorted bitterly. "Yes." He thought of Ista, Umegat, the tongueless groom. Of the deathly straits he was in. "And when we fail, the gods do, too." He didn't think he'd ever quite realized that before, not in those terms.

At least Iselle was safe for now behind the shield of her uncle; as Heiress, she would attract other ambitious men to her side. She would have many, not least Bergon himself, to protect her from her enemies, although advisors wise enough to also protect her from her friends might be harder for her to come by... . But what provision against the looming hazards could he effect for Betriz?

"Did you get the chance to know Lady Betriz better while you escorted the cortege to Valenda, and after?" he asked Palli.

"Oh, aye."

"Beautiful girl, don't you think? Did you get much conversation with her father, Ser dy Ferrej?"

"Yes. A most honorable man."

"So I thought, too."

"She's very worried for him right now," Palli added.

"I can imagine. And him for her, both now and later. If... if all goes well, she will be a favorite of the future royina. That kind of political influence could be worth far more to a shrewd man than a mere material dowry. If the man had the wit to see it."

"No question of it."

"She's intelligent, energetic..."

"Rides well, too." Palli's tone was oddly dry.

Cazaril swallowed, and with an effort at a casual tone got out, "Couldn't you just see her as the future Marchess dy Palliar?"

Palli's mouth turned up on one side. "I fear my suit would be hopeless. I believe she has another man in her eye. Judging from all the questions she's asked me about him, anyway."

"Oh? Who?" He tried, briefly and without success, to convince himself Betriz dreamed of, say, dy Rinal, or one of the other courtiers of Cardegoss... eh. Lightweights, the lot of them. Few of the younger men had the wealth or influence, and none the wit, to make her a good match. In fact, now Cazaril came to consider the matter, none of them was good enough for her.

"It was in confidence. But I definitely think you should ask her all about it, when we get to Taryoon." Palli smiled, and urged his horse forward.

Cazaril considered the implications of Palli's smile, and of the white fur hat still tucked into his saddlebags. The woman you love, loves you? Had he any real doubt of it? There was, alas, more than enough impediment to twist this joyous suspicion into sorrow. Too late, too late, too late. For her fidelity he could return her only grief; his bier would be too hard and narrow to offer as a wedding bed.

It was a grace note in this lethal tangle nonetheless, like finding a survivor in a shipwreck or a flower blooming in a burned-over field. Well... well, she must simply get over her ill-fated attachment to him. And he must exert the utmost self-control not to encourage it in her. He wondered if he could promote Palli to her if he put it as the last request of a dying man.

Fifteen miles out from Taryoon, they were met by a large Baocian guard company. They had a hand litter, and relays of men to carry it aloft; too far gone by now to be anything but grateful, Cazaril let himself be loaded into it without protest. He even slept for a couple of hours, lumping along wrapped in a feather quilt, his aching head cushioned by pillows. He woke at length and watched the dreary darkening winter landscape wobble past him like a dream.

So, this was dying. It didn't seem as bad, lying down. But please, just let me live to see this curse lifted from Iselle. It was a great work, one any man might look back on and say, That was my life; it was enough. He asked nothing more now but to be permitted to finish what he'd started. Iselle's wedding, and Betriz made safe—if the gods would but give him those two gifts, he thought he could go in quiet content. I'm tired.

THEY ENTERED THE GATES OF THE BAOCIAN PROVINCIAL capital of Taryoon an hour after sunset. Curious citizens collected in the path of their little procession, or marched beside it with torches to light the way, or hurried out to watch from balconies as they passed. On three occasions, women tossed down flowers, which after their first uncertain flinch, Bergon's Ibran companions caught; it helped that the ladies had good aim. The young lords sent hopeful and enthusiastic kisses through the air in return. They left interested murmurs in their wake, especially up on the balconies. Near the city center Bergon and his friends, escorted by Palli, were diverted to the town palace of the wealthy March dy Huesta, one of the provincar's chief supporters and, not coincidentally, his brother-in-law. The Baocian guard carried Cazaril's litter on at a smart pace to the provincar's own new palace, down the street from the cramped and lowering old fortress.

Clutching his precious saddlebags containing the future of two countries, Cazaril was brought by dy Baocia's castle warder to a fire-warmed bedchamber. Numerous wax lights revealed two waiting man-servants with a hip bath, extra hot water, soap, scissors, scents, and towels. A third man bore in a tray of mild white cheese, fruit cakes, and quantities of hot herb tea. Someone was taking no chances with Cazaril's wardrobe, and had laid out a change of clothing on the bed, court mourning complete from fresh undergarments through brocades and velvets out to a silver and amethyst belt. The transformation from road wreckage to courtier took barely twenty minutes.