stationed below Feruche at that time. Anything Ianthe wished Rohan to know could be told to the commander, who would tell his prince. There had been just such a gambit when dragons had flown over Feruche in 704; nothing was more calculated to bring Rohan to a place than the chance to see dragons. And when he had ridden up to Feruche, Ianthe had captured him.
Another several layers of parchment dealt with Segev’s birth, Ianthe’s subsequent ostentatious celibacy, her plan for getting Rohan out of Stronghold to view the dragons. Ostvel nodded; his guess had been correct, then. She obviously intended all at Feruche to know that the child she carried that year was Rohan’s; her smug letters to her father gloated on that very subject. But did anyone know this child was Pol? He held his breath when he came upon her last letter.
It’s rumored that Sioned is pregnant—although I saw no signs of it when she was my guest here. I hope one of my guardsmen fathered the child—did I send you details of how often they entertained her? If I forgot, remind me to tell you in person. You desired her at one time, I believe? So it should be highly satisfying to watch her public disgrace. Whatever she whelps, it will be my son and not hers who is Rohan’s acknowledged heir. Soon I will hold the next High Prince in my arms, and all will know him as your grandson. He’ll rule the Desert after we’ve disposed of Rohan, Maarken, Andry, and Sorin—and anybody else who might claim either land or stand in his way. I’ll write again after delivery of our little shining star. And who knows—he might even inherit the Sunrunner gift that appears in Rohan’s family!
How odd, he mused, that Ianthe had used the word Sioned had chosen as the boy’s name. “Pol” meant “star.” Ostvel reached into the coffer once more. Its final contents consisted of a bit of torn parchment bearing words in Roelstra’s hand: Born to my daughter Ianthe, a son, my grandson, heir to Princemarch and the Desert, the next High Prince. May he live a hundred winters and destroy an enemy during each of them—especially his elder brothers.
Ostvel shivered. What a legacy to leave a child. A legacy Pandsala had sought to fulfill, even to planning the murder of her own nephews, Pol’s half-brothers.
But they still lived. They would have to be found and their threat eliminated. They were too dangerous. With a few exceptions—gentle Danladi, quiet Naydra, cowed Moria and Moswen—Roelstra’s offspring were uniformly ambitious, arrogant, and scheming. Thirteen of the sisters were dead, but one still lived who was definitely her father’s daughter.
Chiana was at last a princess in fact. Her marriage to Halian of Meadowlord had given this formerly powerless (therefore relatively harmless) woman a taste of ruling a whole princedom. Chiana had in two brief years grasped as much of her husband’s power as she could. When Clutha died, she would rule, not Halian. Ostvel suspected she would never rest until her son, born this past spring, was High Prince. Though all Roelstra’s daughters had renounced any claim to Princemarch for themselves and their heirs, Chiana had been only a child at the time and could always say she had not understood what she had signed.
Goddess help them all if she or anyone else ever found out that Pol’s right came from Roelstra’s blood in his veins, not just Rohan’s conquest. Ostvel mentally listed those who knew: himself, Rohan, Sioned, Chay, Tobin, Myrdal, and one servant at Stronghold. Not even Andrade had known. If Sioned had her way, no one would ever know, especially not Pol. He doubted the wisdom of never telling the boy the truth, but it was not his decision to make.
He closed and locked the coffer, storing it with the other dangerous one in the secret space. Sioned might just get away with it, he mused. Nothing in the archives even hinted that Ianthe’s fourth son had not died at Feruche. Everyone knew she had been pregnant; many believed the child had indeed been Rohan’s. Ostvel had been at Stronghold that summer and autumn, when Sioned had emptied the keep of all but three servants and spread word that she was pregnant again. Two of those servants had since died, their knowledge of the secret blown away with then ashes on Desert winds. The one who remained—Tibalia, a young girl at the time and now in charge of all