He drew his gaze slowly down from the glory of the window. Looking at Tegid—a contrast worthy of an aphorism—he said kindly, “Do not reproach yourself. The Chancellor is right—the three of them will know what they are doing. You may join me, if you like, in sympathizing with your Prince, who will have to deal with her from henceforth. If we survive.”
He turned to the Chancellor. “I would appreciate food, my lord Gorlaes, and instruction to my captains for the quartering of my men. After that, if you are not weary, I wonder if we might share some wine and a game of ta’bael? That may be the closest we two get to war, it seems, and I find it soothes me to play at night.”
The Chancellor smiled. “Ailell used to say the same thing, my lord. I will be glad to play with you, though I must warn that I am an indifferent player at best.”
“Might I come watch?” the fat man asked diffidently.
Shalhassan scrutinized him. “Do you play ta’bael?” he asked dubiously.
“A little,” said Tegid.
The Supreme Lord of Cathal pulled his sole remaining Rider backward, interposing it in defense of his Queen. He favored his opponent with a glance that had made more than one man contemplate a ritual suicide.
“I think,” he said, more to himself than to either of the other two men, “that I have just been set up quite royally.”
Gorlaes, watching, grunted in commiseration. Tegid of Rhoden picked off the intervening Rider with his Castle.
“Prince Diarmuid insists,” he murmured, putting the captured piece beside the board, “that every member of his band know how to play ta’bael properly. None of us have ever beaten him, though.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair, patting his unmatched girth complacently.
Studying the board intently, searching for a defense to the two-pronged attack that would be unleashed as soon as Tegid moved the Castle again, Shalhassan decided to divert some of his earlier sympathy to his daughter, who was going to have to live with this Prince.
“Tell me,” he asked, “does Aileron also play?”
“Ailell taught both his sons when they were children,” Gorlaes murmured, filling Shalhassan’s wine flask from a beaker of South Keep vintage.
“And does the High King also play now at some rarefied level of excellence?” Shalhassan noted the hint of exasperation in his voice. The two sons of Ailell seemed to elicit that in him.
“I have no idea,” Gorlaes replied. “I’ve never seen him play as an adult. He was very good, when he was a boy. He used to play with his father all the time.”
“He doesn’t play ta’bael anymore,” said Tegid. “Don’t you know the story? Aileron hasn’t touched a piece since the first time Diarmuid beat him when they were boys. He’s like that, you know.”
Absorbing this, considering it, Shalhassan moved his Mage threateningly along the diagonal. It was a trap, of course, the last one he had. To help it along, he distracted the fat man with a question. “I don’t know. Like what?”
Pushing hard on the arms of his chair, Tegid levered himself forward to see the board more clearly. Ignoring the trap and the question, both, he slid his Castle laterally, exposing Shalhassan’s Queen once more to attack and simultaneously threatening the Cathalian Lord’s own King. It was quite decisive.
“He doesn’t like to lose at anything,” Tegid explained. “He doesn’t do things when he thinks he might lose.”
“Doesn’t that limit his activities somewhat?” Shalhassan said testily. He didn’t much like losing, himself. Nor was he accustomed to it.
“Not really,” said Tegid, a little reluctantly. “He’s extremely good at almost everything. Both of them are,” he added loyally.
With such grace as he could muster, Shalhassan tipped his King sideways in surrender and raised his glass to the victor.
“A good game,” said Tegid genially. “Tell me,” he added, turning to Gorlaes, “have you any decent ale here? Wine is all very well, but I’m grievously thirsty tonight, if you want to know the truth.”
“A pitcher of ale, Vierre,” the Chancellor advised the page standing silently in the doorway.
“Two!” Shalhassan said, surprising himself. “Set up the pieces for another game!”
He lost that one, too, but won the third decisively, with immense evening-redeeming satisfaction. Then both he and Tegid made cursory work of Gorlaes in two other games. It was all unexpectedly congenial. And then, quite late at night, he and the Chancellor further surprised themselves by accepting a highly unorthodox suggestion from the sole member of Prince Diarmuid’s