"Parnilesse has another quarrel with Draximal," the spymaster said with a thin smile. "Hostile letters are being nailed to shrine doors at night."

"Again?" Iruvain shook his head with mild disbelief.

"What are they saying this time?" Litasse demanded.

"As before, that the dowager duchess poisoned her late husband to speed Duke Orlin's accession to his father's honours," Hamare said carefully. "And now, that she did so with all her sons' full knowledge, not just Orlin's as heir-apparent."

Iruvain whistled. "That's bold. Duke Orlin believes Duke Secaris is behind these rumours?"

There was no doubt about the marsh fever that had killed Iruvain's mother and father. Litasse was grateful for that.

"Many drops make a puddle," Hamare observed. "Many puddles make a flood. If enough Tormalin nobles suspect Duke Orlin of Parnilesse of having some hand in his father's unexpected and untimely death, they'll prefer to trade with Duke Secaris and Draximal."

Iruvain surveyed the whole map. "Do we know what Duke Garnot of Carluse makes of this?"

The dukedom of Triolle sat at the centre of the tapestry. To the right lay Parnilesse, with the borderlands of Tormalin beyond it. Marlier was on Triolle's left-hand side, with the Caladhrian marches stretching out beyond the wide blue course of the River Rel. Across the upper half of the map, Draximal sat above Parnilesse, and above Marlier, Carluse reached out along the Great West Road dividing Triolle from the northernmost dukedom of Sharlac. Tufts of green wool sketched in the untamed grasslands of Dalasor still further north.

However skilfully the long-dead weavers had ornamented the tapestry with gold thread and marked its towns with garlands of enamelled silver, there was no disguising the unwelcome truth that Triolle was the smallest of Lescar's provinces and the only one without a border to a neighbouring country. Leaving without crossing some other duke's territory meant taking ship from the paltry stretch of coastline to the south, running the gauntlet of privateers' ships when storms weren't lashing the Gulf of Lescar.

"Duchess Tadira of Carluse will always support Parnilesse," Litasse asserted.

Hamare nodded. "She sees any suggestion that her brother was involved in poisoning their father as a personal insult."

Though it was probably true, and who knew, Tadira might even have been involved herself. Litasse could believe anything of a woman wed to that murderous villain Duke Garnot. How could Iruvain be so blind to the man's duplicity, so taken in by his compliments?

"As long as Parnilesse and Draximal keep their squabbles within their own borders, I don't see that they need concern us. As long as Duke Ferdain of Marlier keeps out of it?" Iruvain looked at Hamare, brows raised.

Litasse looked at the map apprehensively. The dukedom of Marlier was half as big again as Triolle. The quickest way for Duke Ferdain to attack Parnilesse would be to send an army straight across Iruvain's dominion. It wouldn't be the first time a Duke of Marlier had ridden roughshod over Triolle.

"Duke Ferdain is wholly concerned with improving Marlier's trade with the Caladhrians and the Relshazri," Hamare assured Iruvain.

"He hasn't acquired enough gold to satisfy him yet?" The duke scowled.

"Your Grace, we could always consider improving our own rivers, thereby offering the northern dukedoms an alternative trade route to the sea." Hamare's hand went unerring to a map of the rivers that marked out Triolle's borders to east and west. "If we were to strengthen some embankments here on the River Anock--" his finger moved across from the right-hand border to the left "--and renew these bridges here and here on the river Dyal."

"No." Iruvain shook his head. "Those swamps and floodplains have been Triolle's defence too often. We cannot sacrifice them."

Irritated, Litasse spoke up. "There have been grievous floods along the upper reaches of both rivers this spring. The planting season has been sorely disrupted. If we have another poor harvest, we will have to buy in wheat from Caladhria again."

Iruvain waved her away with an impatient hand. "Then we buy in wheat. I take it our mines are still producing ore?"

Hamare nodded. "But the proportion of silver to lead has decreased sharply over the past year."

"Again?" Iruvain sighed. "Oh well. It all looks the same when it's stamped into coin." He turned his back on the map. "Is there anything else to discuss?"

"There's the question of your brother's betrothal," Hamare said slowly.

Iruvain hesitated before shaking his head. "Our mother may have wanted to see him wed one of Duke Garnot's daughters, but that's all ashes along with her funeral pyre. He weds within Triolle's nobility or not at all, like our sisters."

Litasse breathed more easily. Iruvain might flatter himself that Duke Garnot of Carluse was his friend, but he still wasn't going to let any other dukedom establish a claim on Triolle through a mingled bloodline. Not for the first time, she suspected Iruvain would have repudiated their own betrothal if the tragedy of his parents' death had befallen Triolle before their marriage.

"Anything else?" Iruvain went to the window and squinted up at the clouds scudding across the sky.

"The weather hasn't been kind to my poor pigeons." Hamare began tying up sheaves of paper with black ribbon. "I have had several reports of a merchant in Vanam disrupting some Guild celebration with an appeal for Lescari unity, but it will take time to decipher all the dispatches."

"I have no interest in exiles." Iruvain glowered. "Cowards and sons of cowards who abandoned their birthright rather than fight for it."

"As you say, Your Grace." Hamare concentrated on securing a troublesome knot.

"I'm going to the mews," Iruvain decided. "Perhaps we can go hawking tomorrow, my lady, if the wind drops."

"That would be lovely, my lord." Litasse let him see how much the prospect of a morning on horseback delighted her.

"What will you be doing with your day?" he asked politely.

"I must beg some of Master Hamare's time. I'm still having difficulty with the cipher in my mother's letters." Litasse could feel a blush colouring her cheeks and cursed inwardly.

Iruvain smiled with faint derision. "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it eventually. Until dinner, my lady."

"Your Grace." Hamare opened the door and bowed as the duke departed.

"The man outside?" Litasse asked as soon as the door closed.

"Mine," he confirmed. "Utterly loyal."

Crossing the room in a few swift strides, he took Litasse in his arms.

She breathed in the lavender scenting the shirt beneath his black doublet. "He doesn't mean you, when he talks of cowardly exiles. He knows you're as loyal to him as you were to his father."

"I only wish he'd listen half as intently as his late Grace did." Hamare pressed a forceful kiss against her hair. "He cannot ignore everything and everyone beyond Lescar's borders."

Litasse sighed. "He promised me, before we wed, that we'd travel to Tormalin and to Relshaz. But my dressmakers have journeyed further than I have."

"His father was determined he should travel before he inherited the title." Now Hamare sighed. "But it wasn't to be."

"He'll be asking me to fill his nursery soon, as a good duchess should." Litasse grimaced. "I'll be wracked with childbed fever and hemmed in by cradles. Drianon save me."

"He's no more eager than you." Hamare's arms tightened around her. "As soon as he's a father, not even escaping to his hawks and his hounds will let him make-believe he's still neither duke nor husband."

Litasse hoped he was right. Iruvain hadn't spoken of children yet and besides they'd only been married a little more than a year. Everyone knew children came later in a marriage between cousins. During the festival, no one had been looking to see if her waist was thickening, whispering behind their hands that it wasn't.

"Do you miss Col?" she asked suddenly. "Are you never tempted to go back?"

"I'm grateful my father sent me there to study but I could never make a life there, no matter how much he might have wished me to." Hamare held her shoulders so he could look her in the eye. "I am Triolle-born and this is where all my loyalties lie."

"Just your loyalties?" she asked coquettishly.

"Where all my passions are irrevocably committed." He ducked his head to kiss her neck.

Why didn't the touch of Iruvain's lips arouse such heat in her? She shivered with delicious anticipation. She fought the urge to kiss Hamare back as hard as she could, to smear her rouged lips, to redden her cheeks with the scrape of his bristles. But she couldn't leave this room looking fresh from a tumbling for all to see.

As he nuzzled the hollow of her collarbone, she felt him loosening the laces of her gown with practised fingers. She let the merest suggestion of a moan escape her. So unlike the nights when Iruvain came to her bed. She made sure to delight him with ecstatic cries and loud encouragement. No maid or manservant within earshot could doubt their connubial bliss. No servant passing a door closed on her private conversations with Hamare would suspect their duchess was deceiving her husband so quietly.

"Do you love me?" She closed her eyes the better to concentrate on the exquisite sensations teasing her.

"With every beat of my heart." He eased the red velvet off her milky shoulders. "With every breath I take." His kisses followed as he slid her lace-frilled shift down to expose her breasts. "Can we?"

"Valesti found a festival peddler to replenish my store of raspberry leaves and maidsgirdle. She agrees it's only sensible for a bride of my youth to regulate her monthly courses before thinking of childbearing." She opened her eyes. "I wish Pelletria was still my lady-in-waiting. We could both trust her."

"Forgive me, my love. I needed Pelletria on other business." Hamare lifted Litasse to sit her on the edge of the table.

"Did Iruvain know?" Litasse pushed him away for a moment. "That she was your spy? Did he ask you to find out if I could be trusted?"

"No." Hamare twisted around to kiss her pale shoulder. "That was the old duke's last order."

"Can we trust Valesti?" Litasse glanced involuntarily at the door. "She was one of the old duchess's women."

"She barely knew Her Grace." Hamare began sliding Litasse's skirts up over her knees. "According to Karn, she's no more than she seems: a maidservant with a sour disposition."

Karn, that was the spy who'd been talking to Hamare when she arrived, Litasse recalled. One of his most trusted enquiry agents, along with Pelletria whom she still missed. Quite apart from anything else, the old woman had been an excellent personal maid. "What has Karn to do with Valesti?"

"He's a good-looking boy." Hamare's searching fingers traced the line of Litasse's garters. "He has a winning way with women whatever their mood. He tells me she's lusty enough under all that starched linen. If Valesti ever thinks she can let your secrets slip, you should inform her that her reputation will suffer so badly that few will believe anything she says."

Litasse stiffened. "Don't play the puppet-master. Just the lover." She gasped as his deft touch melted her indignation.

"As you command, Your Grace." Hamare ducked his head to kiss her breast as he began unbuttoning his breeches.

Chapter Eight.

Aremil Beacon Lane, in Vanam's Upper Town, 3rd of Aft-Spring of Aft-Spring

"Can I help?" Tathrin hovered anxiously.

"You can bring these people here," snapped Lyrlen, "to suit my lord's convenience."

"You can both be quiet, please." Aremil concentrated on placing his crutches securely and sharing the burden of his weight as best he could between his legs and hands. His feet twisted awkwardly and he struggled to grip the crutches. But letting them dig into his armpits hurt even worse and caused worrying numbness in his hands.

Lyrlen plucked at her apron. "Master Tathrin--"

"No." Aremil would crawl across the flagstones before he'd let anyone carry him to the waiting carriage.

"You'd best sit with your back to the horses, to make the downhill stretches easier." Tathrin was opening the door, unfolding the coach's step, doubtless a duty he'd performed countless times at his father's inn.

Aremil nodded. "Very well. Lyrlen, if you please?"

She took his crutches as he rested one hand on the arm Tathrin was offering and gripped the doorframe with the other. Unasked, the taller youth lifted him bodily up into the coach. Aremil's balance deserted him and he fell backwards onto the padded seat. He stifled his annoyance. At least it was a relief to be sitting down again.

"We must remember to thank Master Gruit." Aremil managed a half-smile for Tathrin. "For the use of his carriage."

Tathrin took the crutches from Lyrlen and tossed them onto the floor of the coach. "I am sorry to put you to this trouble." He folded up the step and pulled the door closed as he sat opposite. "But it's best if this man Reniack doesn't know where you live."

"If he's half the man you say, I imagine he'll find out soon enough," Aremil observed.

At the snap of the coachman's whip, the carriage moved off.

"Perhaps." Tathrin didn't look too pleased at the prospect.

"You think he'd use my parentage against me?" Aremil wedged himself into the cushions as the coach rumbled over an uneven patch of road.

"You've read his broadsheets. He'd use anything he discovered for his own purposes." Tathrin frowned out of the window.

"He sounds like a perilous ally, but he could be useful," Aremil said cautiously.

"Master Gruit seems to think so," Tathrin agreed. "And if Reniack has no love for nobles in general, he's honest enough to judge individuals on their merits. Otherwise he wouldn't be working with Lady Derenna."

"I have learned more about her husband." Since Tathrin had told him about Master Gruit's unexpected introductions, Aremil had been making his own enquiries.

"Oh?" Tathrin looked torn between curiosity and his stubborn dislike for the woman.

"Lord Rousharn was the second son and so his father agreed he could study in Col." Aremil allowed himself a wry grin at Tathrin's grimace. "Don't hold his choice of university against him. He studied alchemy and became fascinated by the properties of rare minerals. Soon he discovered that volatile airs could be released by heating them or mixing them with vitriol and such." He swallowed. "The mentors of Col have archived several of his studies."

Tathrin was impressed despite himself. "And then?"

"Once he had won his seal ring, he travelled to Vanam and throughout Tormalin. He made a great many friends among the more intellectually inclined princes. He also met various Lescari lords with a taste for scholarship who were making similar visits." Aremil broke off as the coach rounded a corner with a rattle that sent a spasm up his leg.

"Gruit was right. There's a sizeable web of correspondence linking like-minded lords across all the dukedoms. They exchange books and opinions and recommend further reading to each other. A good many favour Rationalist philosophies, notably the writings of Niamen of Meche." He stopped to catch his breath.

Tathrin looked thoughtful. "Niamen argues that demonstrable merit is the most important measure of a man."

"He has also written extensively on the responsibilities of the high-born to use their wealth and position to improve the lot of the less fortunate." Aremil tried to ignore the strain the coach ride was putting on his back. "Just as those with practical expertise are morally obliged to build things like better drains and roads for the good of all."

"Has his lordship put any of these theories into practice?" Tathrin asked sardonically.

"He's spent time and coin making all manner of improvements to his estates." Aremil saw that surprised Tathrin. "He's held in high regard by all his people, down to the swineherds and road-menders."

"How did he come to inherit?" asked Tathrin.

Aremil took a breath. He didn't relish repeating this tale.