hurt that you didn’t invite me to officiate.’
Sephrenia looked startled at that, then suddenly burst out laughing. ‘It’s not like that at all, Aslade,’ she said. ‘There’s a kinship between the child and me, but not the one you suggested.’
Aslade smiled at Dolmant. ‘Come down from your horse, your Grace,’ she invited the patriarch. ‘Would the Church permit us an embrace – a chaste one, of course? Then you’ll get your reward. I’ve just taken five loaves from the oven, and they’re still nice and hot.’
Dolmant’s eyes brightened, and he quickly dismounted. Aslade threw her arms about his neck and kissed him noisily on the cheek. ‘He married Kurik and me, you know,’ she said to Sephrenia.
‘Yes, dear. I was there, remember?’
Aslade blushed. ‘I remember very little about the ceremony,’ she confessed. ‘I had my mind on other things that day.’ She gave Kurik a wicked little smile.
Sparhawk carefully concealed a grin when he saw his squire’s face redden noticeably.
Aslade looked inquiringly at Berit and Talen.
‘The husky lad is Berit,’ Kurik introduced them. ‘He’s a Pandion novice.’
‘You’re welcome here, Berit,’ she told him.
‘And the boy is my – uh – apprentice,’ Kurik fumbled. ‘I’m training him up to be a squire.’
Aslade looked appraisingly at the young thief. ‘His clothes are a disgrace, Kurik,’ she said critically. ‘Couldn’t you have found him something better to wear?’
‘He’s only recently joined us, Aslade,’ Kurik explained a little too quickly.
She looked even more sharply at Talen. ‘Do you know something, Kurik?’ she said. ‘He looks almost exactly the way you looked when you were his age.’
Kurik coughed nervously. ‘Coincidence,’ he muttered.
Aslade smiled at Sephrenia. ‘Would you believe that I was after Kurik from the time I was six years old? It took me ten years, but I got him in the end. Come down from your horse, Talen. I have a trunk full of clothes my sons have outgrown. We’ll find something for you to wear.’
Talen’s face had a strange, almost wistful expression as he dismounted, and Sparhawk felt a sharp pang of sympathy as he realized what the usually impudent boy must be feeling. He sighed and turned to Dolmant. ‘Do you want to go to the cloister now, your Grace?’ he asked.
‘And leave Aslade’s freshly baked bread to get cold?’ Dolmant protested. ‘Be reasonable, Sparhawk.’
Sparhawk laughed as Dolmant turned to Kurik’s wife. ‘You have fresh butter, I hope?’ he asked.
‘Churned yesterday morning, your Grace,’ she replied, ‘and I just opened a pot of that plum jam you’re so fond of. Shall we step into the kitchen?’
‘Why don’t we?’
Almost absently, Aslade picked up Flute in one arm and wrapped the other about Talen’s shoulders. And then, with the children close to her, she led the way into the house.
The walled cloister in which Princess Arissa was confined stood in a wooded glen on the far side of the city. Men were seldom admitted into this strict community of women, but Dolmant’s rank and authority in the Church gained them immediate entry. A submissive little sister with doelike eyes and a bad complexion led them to a small garden near the south wall where they found the princess, sister of the late King Aldreas, sitting on a stone bench in the wan winter sunlight with a large book in her lap.
The years had touched Arissa only lightly. Her long, dark blonde hair was lustrous, and her eyes a pale blue, so pale as to closely resemble the grey eyes of her niece, Queen Ehlana, although the dark circles beneath them spoke of long, sleepless nights filled with bitterness and a towering resentment. Her mouth was thin-lipped rather than sensual, and there were two hard lines of discontent at its corners. Although Sparhawk knew that she was approaching forty, her features were those of a much younger woman. She did not wear the habit of the sisters of the nunnery, but was wrapped instead in a soft red woollen robe open at the throat, and her head was crowned with an intricately folded wimple. ‘I’m honoured by your visit, gentlemen,’ she said in a husky voice, not bothering to rise. ‘I have so few visitors.’
‘Your Highness,’ Sparhawk greeted her formally. ‘I trust you’ve been well?’
‘Well, but bored, Sparhawk.’ Then she looked at Dolmant. ‘You’ve aged, your Grace,’ she observed spitefully, closing her book.
‘But you have not,’ he replied. ‘Will you accept my blessing, Princess?’
‘I think not, your Grace. The Church has done quite enough for me already.’ She looked meaningfully around at the walls enclosing the garden, and her refusal of the customary blessing seemed to give her some pleasure.
He sighed. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘What is the book you read?’ he asked her.
She held it up for him to see.
‘The Sermons of the Primate Subata,’ he noted, ‘a most instructional work.’
She smiled maliciously. ‘This particular edition is even more so,’ she told him. ‘I had it made especially for me, your Grace. Within this innocent-looking cover, which deceives the Mother Superior who is my jailer, there lurks a volume of salacious erotic poetry from Cammoria. Would you care to have me read you a few verses?’
His eyes hardened. ‘No, thank you, Princess,’ he replied coldly. ‘You have not changed, I see.’
She laughed mockingly. ‘I see no reason to change, Dolmant. I have merely altered my circumstances.’
‘Our visit here is not social, Princess,’ he said. ‘A rumour has surfaced in Cimmura that prior to your being cloistered here, you were secretly married to Duke Osten of Vardenais. Would you care to confirm – or deny – that rumour?’
‘Osten?’ She laughed. ‘That dried-up old stick? Who in her right mind would marry a man like that? I like my men younger, more ardent.’
‘You deny the rumour, then?’
‘Of course I deny it. I’m like the Church, Dolmant. I offer my bounty to all men – as everyone in Cimmura knows.’
‘Would you sign a document declaring the rumour to be false?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ She looked at Sparhawk. ‘What are you doing back in Elenia, Sir Knight? I thought my brother exiled you.’
‘I was summoned back, Arissa.’
‘How very interesting.’
Sparhawk thought of something. ‘Did you receive a dispensation to attend your brother’s funeral, Princess?’ he asked her.
‘Why, yes, Sparhawk. The Church generously granted me three whole days of mourning. My poor, stupid brother looked very regal as he lay on his bier in his state
