of his chin. ‘They’ve not decided one way or the other about me. Of course, if you insist on calling me Ilthean, they might believe you. Then they’ll decide against me. I have a lot of men here loyal to me, it’s true, but not enough to fight them all. So you understand, I hope, why I’m keen for you to drop this nonsense. I may not be of House Svanaten, but that doesn’t make me any less Turasi than you. In fact, if you’re looking for a pedigree, I can assure you that House Raban held the throne long before the Svanatens, with their penchant for goatherds. Plus, I married a Svanaten daughter,’ he added. ‘I’d call that impeccable lineage, wouldn’t you?’
Xaver studied Dieter a moment, then turned to me for confirmation. ‘Tell me true, Lady Matilde – is he Ilthean?’
I shook my head.
Xaver looked back at Dieter, his face hardening again. ‘Your brother Sidonius –’
‘I have no brother,’ Dieter cut him off, gripping my elbow tighter, warning me to silence. ‘If I did, he would be Turasi, like me and my sister.
‘Yes,’ he said when Xaver frowned. ‘I have a sister, Amalia. Did this Ilthean “brother” neglect to mention her? She was raised with me, in the stronghold of Grabanstein. Quite a way from Ilthea and her conquered nations, I think you’ll agree.’
Slowly, Sepp lifted his head and turned his weary, hopeful gaze on me. ‘He’s not Ilthean?’
I held silent as he and Xaver stared at me, waiting, depending on me for their answer. Why would they trust my word? Didn’t they know I’d turned my back on my family and my House, not only wedding their killer to save my own shivering skin but now also having the coward’s heart to esteem him? Their trust hurt. But Sepp was my cousin, and my closest friend since childhood. I met his gaze squarely. ‘He’s not Ilthean. I’d never turn my people to the Iltheans.’
No need to add that even if Dieter had been Ilthean I wouldn’t have hesitated to act the same way I had back at Aestival. What was a little lying, for a woman who’d committed adultery and betrayed her House and family?
‘Now,’ said Dieter, drawing all eyes back to him. ‘Let’s get to the bottom of this Ilthean brother business, shall we?’
Xaver slumped, the tension leaking from his muscles, so Sepp took up the story.
‘The Lady Helena arrived at Aestival,’ he said, his head hanging. ‘She claimed she was visiting her family. Lady Beata was suspicious of her intentions. She sent me south that afternoon, to investigate the Ilthean army gathered on the border.’
Sepp looked up and cast me a glance of appeal that I couldn’t decipher, then dropped back into his dejected pose. ‘Getting there was easy enough. Lingering nearby to scout them out was more difficult. Getting back …’ he paused, unable to continue.
‘Was nigh impossible,’ said Xaver, taking up the story once more. ‘They’d crossed the river at the foot of the Sentinels, where it bends north in an ox-bow, which left their bulk in between my uncle’s holding and the Turholm.’
The Iltheans had built a half-dozen pontoon bridges to secure their lines of supply and retreat. Nureya was their main base, just as Helena had claimed. She’d failed to mention how many legions had gathered there: a full ten, Xaver told us, and more on the way.
Xaver had been captured while scouting, and it was then he had met Sepp, captured several days earlier under similar circumstances. Sepp had kept his head because the general took a liking to him and claimed him; Xaver they kept alive for the ransom. Freedom for both arrived in the form of a Vestenn raid to retrieve Xaver; they had escaped through a combination of luck, the Vestenn men’s superior knowledge of the land, and Vestenn lives spent to buy them time.
Xaver’s gaze snapped back to the here and now. ‘My uncle’s land follows the line of the river. Generations of blood and battle have made it the official boundary. Unofficially, however, the lands on both banks are of … nebulous allegiance. My uncle always cultivated the support of the rustics as a way of recruiting informants.’
‘A canny man,’ said Dieter.
‘A vulnerable man,’ Xaver corrected. ‘With Ilthea to the south and the Morvingen to the west, it would take little to pen him like a weasel traps a hare in its burrow.’
‘The Iltheans made alliance with the Morvingen?’ asked Dieter.
‘There was no way out. My