admirers—who for some reason only annoyed her.
“I just hope she’ll be somebody I can talk to the way I can to you. It’s wonderful, Ell, finding out you’ve grown up sensible!”
She smiled wryly at the backhanded compliment.
“I mean it. The girls here, the ones at Graypearl—gigglers and gawkers, all of them. I can talk to you like I’d talk to Riyan or Maarken or Sorin. It’s a relief to find there’s at least one intelligent woman my own age in the world.”
How nice of him to categorize her as one of the boys.
He had fixed his gaze on the delinquent flowers nearby. “Damned roses,” he muttered.
Sionell laughed at him. “As if all you had to do was wave your hand for them to appear! Prince and Sunrunner you may be, but not magician.”
“But I wanted them to be spectacular. My grandmother Milar loved messing about with gardens, too, you know. I think I inherited it from her.” Glancing down at her and then away, he asked, “Ell, what do you think of Tallain?”
“I think very highly of him,” she responded. “He’s very capable, as he’s shown since his father died last winter.”
“He’s determined to keep the Cunaxans and the Merida pent up in the north so we won’t have to worry about them ever again.”
Sionell nodded, wondering why he’d mentioned the young lord of Tiglath. An additional honor for him, perhaps? Tuath Castle had no direct male heir; perhaps Pol and Rohan were considering a union of the two holdings.
“Tallain’s a fine man—he was my father’s squire for years,” Pol went on.
“I know.”
“I like him a lot. A prince is only as good as the people who support him, the athr’im who’re loyal to him. Tallain’s one of the best.”
“I like him, too,” she said, a trifle impatiently, wishing he’d either tell her why he wanted to discuss Tallain of Tiglath or go away and leave her alone.
Pol did not enlighten her. She did, however, receive her second wish. From the Princes Hall came a young maidservant, black-haired and slender; she paused just long enough in the sunshine to make sure Pol had seen her, then stretched her arms wide, as if she’d just slipped out for some fresh air. Pol excused himself a few moments later—not even having the grace to enter the Hall by a different door.
Sionell watched him disappear, stunned. Right in front of my face, too! All the subtlety of a rutting dragonsire!
Then: Fool! Idiot! He’s the High Prince’s heir, the great Sunrunner Prince—he can do as he likes and—damn him! I am not going to cry!
And, finally: Very well, then. If that’s the way the wind sets, so be it. I’m not twelve anymore. If he doesn’t want me, lots of others do. He can find a convenient Hell and rot in it for all I care.
The next afternoon the High Princess enlisted her namesake’s help in packing presents for Andry’s son and daughter. He had not brought them to the Rialla. Rumor had it that this neglect earned him an interview with his parents that acquainted him intimately with their blistering views on the subject. Their anger was not that the children existed; they were furious and hurt that Andry had left them behind at Goddess Keep. Sionell and everyone else knew why. He intended little Andrev and Tobren to be raised as faradh’im only, with no ties and thus no second loyalties to the Desert. She could just imagine what Lord Chaynal—not to mention Princess Tobin—had said to that.
The latter had indulged her thwarted grandmotherly instincts with a buying spree at the Rialla Fair. It was this collection of toys, clothes, and trinkets that Sionell helped wrap and label for the children—while Tobin fretted at not having had them ready for Andry’s departure two days earlier.
“He would ride out in a hurry, wanting to make good time back to Goddess Keep, when he knew I had things for the babies! I swear that one of these days I’m going to skin that boy alive.”
Surveying the piles of packages—and the things yet to be wrapped—Sioned laughed. “Smart of him to escape while he had the chance. Honestly, Tobin, it’s going to take two wagons and four pack horses to get all this to Goddess Keep.”
Sionell said innocently, “The pony cart she bought them ought to hold quite a bit.”
“Goddess in glory, don’t remind her!” Sioned begged. “She’ll go after the departing merchants and load that up, too!”
“Go on, tease me,” Tobin invited, making a