a united Kierst and Isel, a fact he had known almost before he’d learned to walk. Right now he was trying to think like a prince—admirable, but depressing to Rohan, who wanted the boy to stay a boy for at least a few more years.
“Do you think that could be it, my lord?” Arlis said anxiously.
“He’s probably just come for a visit, and has brought someone with him for company.” Or so Rohan devoutly hoped.
Arlis looked relieved. Rohan sent him down to the kitchens to bring refreshment up to the Summer Room, where Rohan then repaired to receive his exalted guests. He had just seated himself in a comfortable chair when a servant scratched on the door, opened it, and announced Lord Urival and Lady Morwenna of Goddess Keep.
Rohan went forward to greet them, hiding his curiosity as best he could. “A most welcome surprise, my lord,” he said. “My lady, please sit down. Something cold to drink will be here shortly.”
“Amenities are so soothing, aren’t they?” Urival observed cynically as he sank wearily into a chair. “Essentially useless, but soothing.”
“Pay him no mind, your grace,” Morwenna said. “He’s saddle sore.”
Arlis hurried in with chilled wine. “I’ve ordered the Tapestry Suite readied, my lord,” he said to Rohan as he served. “Is that all right?”
“As long as it has a bed and a bathtub,” Morwenna sighed, then grinned. “Actually, I’d settle for just the tub!”
“Three rooms and a beautiful bath, my lady,” Arlis told her shyly.
“Sounds perfect.” She inspected him as he gave her a goblet of wine. “You’d be Latham’s boy, wouldn’t you? Volog and Saumer’s grandson.”
“I have that honor, my lady.”
“Prince Arlis, I’m very pleased to meet you. My mother served as your grandfather Saumer’s court faradhi at Zaldivar for many years.”
“I hope she was happy there, my lady.”
“Very.”
Rohan noticed Urival’s restless frown, and gestured the squire out. “That will be all, Arlis. Make sure the Tapestry Suite is ready quickly, please.”
“Yes, my lord.” He bowed his way out and closed the door.
“A fine lad, your grace,” Morwenna said. “I recognize the Kierstian green eyes.”
“Sioned’s eyes,” Urival said. “Where is she, Rohan?”
“With Sorin at Feruche. What brings you to Stronghold?” he asked, too bluntly, he knew, but Urival had never been one for in-direction.
The old man shrugged. “Tapestry Suite, eh? I don’t remember that one from my stay here in 698.”
“My mother’s old rooms,” Rohan explained. “Sioned chose the hangings at the last Rialla and we renamed it. I assume your business is with her.”
“It would be, if she were here. Since she’s not, I’ll burden you.” Urival’s smile was more of a grimace. “One of the privileges of your position, High Prince.”
Morwenna, several years Rohan’s junior and with the dark skin, black hair, and tip-tilted brown eyes that marked her as Fironese, gave a derisive snort. “What he means to say, your grace, is that neither of us could bear to stay at Goddess Keep anymore and have come to burden you with superfluous Sunrunners. I knew the High Princess slightly when she was a young girl earning rings faster than Andrade could keep up with. In herself she’s more Sunrunner than you’ll ever need.”
“She’d be pleased to hear you say that. But we’re informal here—if you don’t feel comfortable calling me by my name, then at least deliver me from being ‘my grace.’ ” He smiled, all the while fretting inwardly at Urival’s uncharacteristic slowness in divulging the reason for his presence at Stronghold.
“Charm,” the old Sunrunner mused. “The whole family has it to one degree or another. Andry’s worse—he gets it from Chay as well as Tobin. Charmed all of us into accepting things we’d never have considered in a hundred generations. And by the time we realized where he was going with it. . . .”
“Oh, for the love of the Goddess and all her works, tell him!” Morwenna snapped.
Urival eyed her. “It’s the privilege of my seventy winters and nine rings to speak when and as I please.” He set down his untasted wine and sank back in his chair, looking every one of those seventy winters. His golden-brown eyes, remarkably beautiful in an otherwise unhandsome craggy face, were dark and lackluster. But not from mere tiredness, Rohan thought. There was an older and deeper weariness in him, one of the spirit.
“Andry was never what you’d call biddable,” Urival began. “Brilliant, intelligent, mind-hungry, yes. But as ungovernable as Sioned in his own way. A more dangerous way, it turns out. Had you heard