"But there is none to do it. No man with the nerve and vision and will. The roya of Brajar is an aging drunkard who sports with his court ladies, the Fox of Ibra is tied down with civil strife, Chalion..." Cazaril hesitated, realizing his stirred emotions were luring him into impolitic frankness.

"Teidez," Iselle began, and took a breath. "Maybe it will be Teidez's gift, when he comes to full manhood."

Not a gift Cazaril would wish on any man, and yet the boy did seem to have some nascent talents in that direction, if only his education in the next few years could bring them into sharp and directed focus.

"Conquest isn't the only way to unite peoples," Betriz pointed out. "There's marriage."

"Yes, but no one can marry three royacies and five princedoms," Iselle said, wrinkling her nose. "Not all at once, anyway."

The green bird, perhaps irritated at losing the attention of its audience, chose this moment to vent a remarkably lewd phrase in rude Roknari. Sailor's bird, indeed—a galley-man's bird, Cazaril judged. Umegat smiled dryly at Cazaril's involuntary snort but raised his brows slightly as Betriz and Iselle clamped their lips shut and turned a suffused pink, caught each other's gazes, and nearly lost their gravity. Smoothly, he reached for a hood and popped it over the bird's head. "Good night, my green friend," he told it. "I think you are not quite ready for polite society, here. Perhaps Lord dy Cazaril should stop in and teach you court Roknari too, eh?"

Cazaril's thought that Umegat seemed perfectly capable of teaching court Roknari all by himself was interrupted when a surprisingly brisk step at the door of the aviary proved to be Orico, wiping bear spittle on his trousers and smiling. Cazaril decided the castle warder's comment that first day was right: his menagerie did seem to be a consolation to the roya. His eye was clear, and color brightened his face again, visibly improved from the soggy exhaustion he'd evidenced immediately after breakfast.

"You must come see my cats," he told the ladies. They all followed him into the stone aisle, where he proudly showed off cages containing a pair of fine golden cats with tufted ears from the mountains of south Chalion, and a rare blue-eyed albino mountain cat of the same breed with striking black ear tufts. This end of the aisle also held a cage containing a pair of what Umegat named Archipelago sand foxes, looking like skinny, half-sized wolves, but with enormous triangular ears and cynical expressions.

With a flourish, Orico turned finally to his obvious favorite, the leopard. Let out on its silver chain, it rubbed itself around the roya's legs and made odd little growly noises. Cazaril held his breath as, encouraged by her brother, Iselle knelt to pet it, her face right next to those powerful jaws. Those round, pellucid amber eyes looked anything but friendly to him, but their lids did half close in evident enjoyment, and the broad brick-colored nose quivered as Iselle scratched the beast vigorously under the chin, and ran her spread fingers through its fabulous spotted coat. When Cazaril knelt, however, its growl took what seemed to his ear a decidedly hostile edge, and its distant amber stare encouraged no such liberties. Cazaril prudently kept his hands to himself.

The roya choosing to linger to consult with his head groom, Cazaril walked his ladies back to the Zangre, as they argued amiably over which had been the most interesting beast in the menagerie.

"What did you think the most curious creature there?" Betriz charged him.

Cazaril took a moment before replying, but in the end decided on the truth. "Umegat."

Her mouth opened to object to this supposed levity, but then closed again as Iselle cast him a sharp look. A thoughtful silence descended, which reigned all the way to the castle doors.

THE SHORTENING OF THE DAYLIGHT RUNNING ON INTO autumn was felt to be no loss by the inhabitants of the Zangre, for the lengthening nights continued to be made brilliant by candlelight, feasting, and fêtes. The courtiers took turns outdoing one another providing the entertainments, freely spending money and wit. Teidez and Iselle were dazzled, Iselle, fortunately, not totally; with the aid of Cazaril's undervoiced running commentary, she began to look for hidden meanings and messages, watch for intents, calculate expenditures and expectations.

Teidez, as nearly as Cazaril could tell, swallowed it all down whole. Signs of indigestion showed themselves. Teidez and dy Sanda began to clash more and more openly, as dy Sanda fought a losing battle to maintain the disciplines he'd imposed on the boy in the Provincara's careful household. Even Iselle began to worry about the heightening tensions between her brother and his tutor, as Cazaril quickly deduced when Betriz cornered him one morning, apparently casually, in a window nook overlooking the confluence of the rivers and half the hinterland of Cardegoss.

After a few remarks upon the weather, which was seasonable, and the hunting, which was too, she swerved abruptly to the matter that brought her to him, lowering her voice and asking, "What was that dreadful row between Teidez and poor dy Sanda in your corridor last night? We could hear the uproar through the windows and through the floor."

"Um..." Five gods, how was he to handle this one? Maidens. He half wished Iselle had sent Nan dy Vrit. Well, surely that sensible widow was in on whatever distaff discussions went on overhead. Yes, and better to be blunt than misunderstood. And far better to be blunt with Betriz than with Iselle herself. Betriz, no child, and most of all not Teidez's only sister, could decide what was fit to pass on to Iselle's ears better than he could. "Dondo dy Jironal brought Teidez a drab for his bed last night. Dy Sanda threw her back out. Teidez was infuriated." Infuriated, embarrassed, possibly secretly relieved, and, later in the evening, sick on wine. Ah, the glorious courtly life.

"Oh," said Betriz. He'd shocked her a little, but not excessively, he was relieved to see. "Oh." She fell into a thoughtful silence for a few moments, staring out over the rolling golden plains beyond the river and its widening valley. The harvest was almost all in. She bit her lower lip and looked back at him in narrow-eyed concern. "It's not... it's surely not... there is something very odd in the spectacle of a forty-year-old man like Lord Dondo hanging on a fourteen-year-old boy's sleeve."

"To hang on a boy? Odd indeed. To hang on a royse, his future roya, future dispenser of position, wealth, preferment, military opportunity—well, there you have it. Grant you, if Dondo were to let go his space on that sleeve it would instantly be seized by three other men. It's the... the manner that's the matter."

Her lips twisted in disgust. "Indeed. A drab, ugh. And Lord Dondo... that's what is called a procurer, is it not?"

"Mm, and ruder names. Not that... not that Teidez is not on the brink of full manhood, and every man must learn sometime—"

"Their wedding night isn't good enough? We must learn it all then."

"Men... usually marry later," he attempted, deciding this was an argument he'd best stay away from and, besides, embarrassed by the memory of how late his own apprenticeship had been. "Yet normally, a man will have a friend, a brother, or at least a father or an uncle, to introduce him to, um. How to go on. With ladies. But Dondo dy Jironal is none of these things to Teidez."

Betriz frowned. "Teidez has none of those. Well, except... except Roya Orico, who is both father and brother, in a way."

Their eyes met, and Cazaril realized he didn't have to add aloud, But not in a very useful way.

She added, after an even more thoughtful moment, "And I can't imagine Ser dy Sanda..."

Cazaril muffled a snort. "Oh, poor Teidez. Nor can I." He hesitated, then added, "It's an awkward age. If Teidez had been at court all along, he would be used to this atmosphere, not be so... impressed. Or if he'd been brought here when he was older, he might have a more settled character, a firmer mind. Not that court isn't dazzling at any age, especially if you're suddenly plopped down in the center of the whole wheel. And yet, if Teidez is to be Orico's heir, it's time he began training up to it. How to handle pleasures as well as duties with proper balance."

"Is he being so trained? I do not see it. Dy Sanda tries, desperately, but..."

"He's outnumbered," Cazaril finished for her glumly. "That is the root of the trouble." His brow wrinkled, as he thought it through. "In the Provincara's household, dy Sanda had her backing, her authority to complete his own. Here in Cardegoss Roya Orico should take that part, but takes no interest. Dy Sanda has been left to struggle on his own against impossible odds."

"Does this court..." Betriz frowned, clearly trying to frame unfamiliar thoughts. "Does this court have a center?"

Cazaril vented a wary sigh. "A well-conducted court always has someone in moral authority. If not the roya, perhaps his royina, someone like the Provincara to set the tone, keep the standards. Orico is..." he could not say weak, dared not say ill, "not doing so, and Royina Sara..." Royina Sara seemed a ghost to Cazaril, pale and drifting, nearly invisible. "Doesn't either. That brings us to Chancellor dy Jironal. Who is much absorbed by the affairs of state, and does not take it upon himself to curb his brother."

Betriz's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying he sets Dondo on?"

Cazaril touched his finger warningly to his lips. "Do you remember Umegat's little joke about the Zangre's courtly crows? Try it in reverse. Have you ever watched a mob of crows combine to rob another bird's nest? One will draw off the parent birds, while another darts in to take the eggs or chicks..." His voice went dry. "Fortunately, most of the courtiers of Cardegoss don't work together as cleverly as a flock of crows."

Betriz sighed. "I'm not even sure Teidez realizes it's not all for his own sake."

"I'm afraid dy Sanda, for all his very real concern, has not laid it all out in blunt enough terms. Grant you he'd need to be pretty blunt to get through the fog of flattery Teidez floats in right now."

"But you do it for Iselle, all the time," Betriz objected. "You say, watch this man, see what he does next, see why he moves so—the seventh or eighth time you turn out to be dead on the target, we cannot help but listen—and the tenth or twelfth time, to begin to see it, too. Can't dy Sanda do that for Royse Teidez?"

"It's easier to see the smudge on another's face than on one's own. This flock of courtiers is not pressing Iselle nearly so hard as they are Teidez. Thank the gods. They all know she must be sold out of court, probably out of Chalion altogether, and is not meat for them. Teidez will be their future livelihood."

On that inconclusive and unsatisfactory note, they were forced to leave it for a time, but Cazaril was glad to know Betriz and Iselle were growing alive to the subtler hazards of court life. The gaiety was dazzling, seductive, a feast to the eye that could leave the reason as drunk and reeling as the body. For some courtiers and ladies, Cazaril supposed, it actually was the cheerful, innocent—albeit expensive—game it seemed. For others, it was a dance of display, ciphered message, thrust and counterthrust as serious, if not so instantly deadly, as a duel. To stay afoot, one had to distinguish the players from the played. Dondo dy Jironal was a major player in his own right, and yet... if not every move he made was directed by his older brother, it was surely safe to say his every move was permitted by him.

No. Not safe to say. Merely true to think.