Marla shook her head and sighed heavily. "And during all of this, you never felt the need to intervene, Captain?"

"My orders are to see the children remain safe, your highness, not to fight their fights or make their decisions for them."

She shook her head at the folly of all men. "That sounds like something Almodavar would say."

"It was Captain Almodavar who gave me my orders, your highness."

And a good order it was, too, Marla conceded reluctantly. With vigilant bodyguards watching his every move, it would be easy to simply fall into the trap of always guiding Damin along the right path.

Easy and dangerous. Damin had to learn to think for himself. There was just something fundamentally skewed about a captain of Krakandar's Guard standing back while his two charges slugged it out over a trip into the fens that they shouldn't have been allowed to make in the first place.

"I think it's time to put a stop to it, Captain."

"Starros won't be pleased," Raek remarked. "He doesn't often get the better of Damin."

"I'm sure he'll learn to live with the disappointment."

Raek nodded and put his index fingers into the corners of his mouth and let out a whistle that almost pierced Marla's eardrums with its intensity. She instinctively covered her ears, but at the sound the boys immediately halted their fighting and looked up at where Raek Harlen waited with Marla and Luciena.

"Enough!" Raek shouted to them. "Get up here."

The mud-encrusted boy on the left took a step backwards and slipped, landing on his backside.

One of the Tirstone boys giggled at the sight, but stifled it quickly as Raek gave him a warning glare over his shoulder. The boy's equally filthy companion, with whom he had been trading blows only moments before, helped him up and together they waded through the sucking black mud to the edge, then clambered up the slight embankment until they were only a few feet from Marla. Both boys had bloodied noses mixed in with the mud, but their eyes were bright and they were panting heavily from the exertion.

The boy on the left grinned, a line of white teeth appearing in the black crack of his mouth. He took a step closer, his arms wide. "Mother! You're back!"

Marla glared at him. "Don't you come one step nearer, Damin. You're disgusting!"

"Your highness." Starros greeted her with a surprisingly courtly bow, given he appeared to have been freshly spat out of the earth after being buried alive.

"Starros."

"It's not what it looks like, Mother-," Damin began.

"Get back to the palace," Marla ordered stiffly. "Both of you. I expect you in the dining room in one hour, looking like civilised human beings."

"Yes, ma'am," Damin replied. He grinned a little wider, nudged Starros and the two of them took off at a run, back through the fens.

Marla shook her head as she watched them leave. "He's incorrigible."

"Aye," Raek agreed.

Marla looked at him askance.

"But there's not a man in Krakandar who wouldn't die for him, your highness," he added.

"Is that so?" She turned her attention to Kalan, Narvell and her stepsons. They were all looking more than a little shamefaced. "Rodja, Adham. I suggest you follow Damin's example. Your father is waiting for you at the palace."

The boys fled wordlessly in the direction Damin and Starros had gone. The twins made to follow but Marla caught them by the collars of their shirts. "As for you two . . ."

"It wasn't my fault, Mama!" Kalan protested, trying to wriggle free. "Narvell made me do it!"

"But I'm the youngest!" Narvell objected, looking up at his mother with a plaintive smile. "And Lirena says I'm easily led." Marla felt her heart constrict for a moment. He was so like Nash, sometimes it actually hurt to look at him.

"I expect you both in the dining room in one hour also," she informed them sternly. Then to Kalan she added, "Dressed in your own clothes, young lady. Not your brother's castoffs."

"Yes, Mama," Kalan replied with entirely false submission. Marla let it pass and released the twins, who bolted in the direction their brothers had gone.

Marla turned to discover Luciena trying very hard not to smile as she waved away a cloud of midges. "You find this amusing, Luciena?"

"No, your highness," she said hurriedly. "What will you do to them?"

"Kill them, probably," Marla announced flatly.

The young woman raised a brow curiously. "After all the trouble you've gone to, protecting your children's lives?"

"I said I wouldn't risk another attack against Damin succeeding, Luciena," she reminded her new stepdaughter grumpily as she picked up her skirts and headed back along the path. "I never said I wouldn't be willing to do the job myself."

There wasn't really anything Luciena could say to that. The young woman fell into step beside Marla and, with their escort, they made their way back through the clouds of midges to the palace.

Chapter 15.

Mahkas Damaran, Regent of Krakandar, was mortified when he realised Princess Marla had returned to the palace while he was in the city visiting his father-in-law. He was even more upset to learn that the children had been caught playing down in the fens, and positively distressed when he learned that Damin and Starros had got into a fistfight.

He was even more horrified to discover that his own daughter had been the cause of the fight.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded of Leila, as she tried to explain things to her mother.

He had found her hiding in Bylinda's bedroom, where she had fled when she realised how angry her father was after he had spoken to Princess Marla. He grabbed his daughter by the shoulder and spun her round to face him.

Leila's eyes filled with tears at his rough handling.

"You knew your aunt was due any day! Why did you follow the others down into the fens?

Marla found the boys fighting in a bog! Over you!"

"It's not my fault!" she sobbed, frightened by his tone. "I said I didn't want to go. Damin called me a sissy. I didn't know Starros was going to fight him."

Bylinda looked almost as distressed as Leila did. She rose to her feet and stepped a little closer to Leila. "Mahkas, it's hardly her fault if-"

"Of course it's her fault!" he snapped at his wife. He turned back to Leila and shook her impatiently by the shoulders. "You should have done what Damin asked, Leila, and then none of this would have happened."

"But I hate it down in the fens! It's full of bugs and creepy-crawly things. And we're not supposed to go there anyway."

"It doesn't matter," Mahkas insisted. "You'll be Damin's wife one day and you'll have to do everything he says then. You might as well get used to it now."

"But I don't want to marry Damin!" she cried defiantly. "I hate him!"

Mahkas shook her again, even harder. "Don't say that! Don't even think it!"

"But it's true," she sobbed. "I don't want to marry him. And he doesn't want to marry me, either."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"I asked him."

Mahkas let her go with a shove, afraid he might really harm his daughter if he allowed his anger to get out of control. "You asked him?"

Leila nodded, sniffing inelegantly as she backed away from him, not stopping until she bumped into her mother. Once she felt she had Bylinda's protection, the child stared up at her father rebelliously. "Damin said he'd rather marry a Fardohnyan than marry me. So I told him I'd rather marry a snake."

Mahkas was speechless. He looked at Bylinda in despair, certain this was somehow her fault. His wife shrugged as she pulled Leila a little closer. "They're children, Mahkas. Damin's at that stage where all girls are annoying. And Leila's only eleven. All boys are disgusting when you're eleven."

"I notice she doesn't seem to mind the bastard fosterling," he noted sourly. "It's just her future High Prince and husband she seems to have a problem with."

"Starros was just sticking up for her," Bylinda pointed out calmly. "He's like that with all the children. You know that. I've seen you compliment him on it. And Damin can be a little inconsiderate when he wants his own way and doesn't get it."

"But don't you see what this looks like?" he demanded of his wife. "Don't you understand how it undermines us? I've been pressing the idea of Damin and Leila's marriage since the night she was born.

It's what we've always dreamed of. Our daughter-High Princess of Hythria! And you know it's the only way I'll ever truly be Krakandar's Warlord. Not Regent of Krakandar, but Warlord." He forced a smile and looked down at his daughter. "Isn't that want you want, sweetheart?" he asked, reaching out to caress her face. The child jerked back from his touch. I shouldn't have yelled at her, he thought despairingly.

Now she hates me, too.

"Damin is not even thirteen, Mahkas," Bylinda reminded him. "There's no need to worry about this now. And no need to shout at Leila about it, either."

"But I have to protect what's hers," he insisted. "Don't you see that?"

"It will be years before Marla allows Damin to marry, and his bride will be whoever offers Hythria the best alliance," she warned. "That may not be Leila."

"Leila can give him Krakandar."

"He owns Krakandar now, my love," Bylinda reminded him gently. "He doesn't need Leila to gain possession of something he already has."

"You're missing the point. I almost have Marla convinced there is no more suitable consort in all of Hythria. And then she comes home to find Damin and Starros fighting over the girl? What must she think?"

"She's probably thinking that they're only children," Bylinda answered reasonably. "This doesn't alter anything, Mahkas. Leila isn't to blame and you're frightening her with your yelling. You're frightening me, too."

Mahkas took a deep breath to calm his rage. Bylinda was probably right; there was nothing to worry about. Marla wouldn't let a childish argument stand in the way of a sound political decision.

Damin was going to be High Prince some day and he needed a consort he could trust. Who better than his own cousin, raised with him from birth, educated with no other function in mind than being the wife of a High Prince? Marla understood that.

And when Damin was finally crowned High Prince, he would have to relinquish Krakandar. There was no more logical contender for the position of Warlord when that happened than the beloved uncle who had administered his province so effectively all these years . . .

"I'm sorry," he conceded. "It's just I've worked so hard for this."

"I understand," Bylinda said. She bent over, kissed Leila on the top of her head and told her to run along. Still wiping away her tears, Leila bolted from the room, glaring at her father as she fled.

Instinctively Mahkas rubbed at the sore spot on his forearm, as he always did when he was stressed. The tiny scar that bothered him was so small he couldn't even recall how he came by it. Some minor nick in the training yards, no doubt. But it itched abominably, for no apparent reason, particularly when he was worried about something.

Bylinda placed her hand over his to stop him scratching at it. "Leave it alone, Mahkas. You've rubbed it raw."

"I've worked so hard," he repeated, as much to himself as to his wife. "I've been a good regent, haven't I? Krakandar has never been more prosperous. I love Damin like a son. The gods know, you're more a mother to him than his own mother has been. I just can't bear the thought of losing it all, Bylinda. Not now. Not after all this time."

Before his wife could reassure him, a knock sounded at the door Leila had left open in her haste to escape her father's wrath. Orleon stood in the doorway, his expression giving away nothing. Mahkas wasn't sure how much he'd overheard, or if, indeed, he'd overheard anything at all.

"What?" he demanded of the chief steward.

"Princess Marla requests your presence, my lord."

"Did she say why?"

"No, my lord."

Bylinda smiled at him encouragingly. "Go to her. I'll see you at dinner." Mahkas nodded, wondering if Bylinda's faith in him was simply blind love or a genuine belief in the righteousness of his cause. "I'll see you at dinner," he agreed, and then he turned and followed Orleon, still rubbing at the sore spot on his arm.

Marla was in the study Mahkas normally called his own, sitting behind his carved wooden desk, reading a small scroll, the type easily concealed and carried on the person of a courier. Marla's most recent husband, Ruxton Tirstone, stood behind her, reading over her shoulder.

They both looked up as he entered. Marla smiled briefly and pointed to the scroll. "We're in the wrong business, Mahkas. We should be traders. You wouldn't believe the information Ruxton manages to get hold of in the guise of selling spices."

"Really? How fortunate for us."

Mahkas didn't like Ruxton Tirstone. He was far too sure of himself for a common-born merchant. With growing concern, Mahkas had watched Marla become more and more at ease in his company over the past five years. She respected the trader's opinion and listened to it more often than Mahkas thought prudent. His distrust of the spice trader was prompted by jealousy as much as dislike.

Marla didn't seem to notice his sarcasm, though. "Look at this," she chuckled, holding up a list of some kind. "Would you like to know the goings-on in the Sisterhood? This is a complete list of Sisters of the Blade's postings throughout Medalon this year." She glanced over her shoulder at Ruxton, shaking her head in amazement. "How did you get this?"

"Ah, now that would be telling."

"I don't see how the goings-on in the Sisterhood concern us in the slightest," Mahkas remarked, a little annoyed that Ruxton was providing Marla with something so worthless and she didn't seem to know it. Didn't she understand the most valuable ally she had was her own brother-in-law, her son's regent, his own flesh and blood? Not some common-born trader with no breeding and just enough money to buy himself a bit of respectability. It was almost obscene.

"It pays to keep an eye on them," Ruxton suggested. "Particularly the ambitious ones. Trayla won't always be First Sister, you know."

"And you know who the ambitious ones are, I suppose?" Mahkas asked with a vaguely condescending smile.

"I'd watch out for that one, for starters," Ruxton said, pointing to a name on the list.

"Who?" Mahkas couldn't see the name and he was sorry now that he'd pursued the subject. All he needed was Ruxton showing off his knowledge of the inner workings of every other government on the continent to convince Marla that her husband was indispensable.

"Joyhinia Tenragan," Marla read. "Who is she?"

"Someone worth watching. Very smart. Very ambitious. And as ruthless as Hablet, by all accounts. She already has a son supposedly fathered by the Lord Defender. She'll be on the Quorum some day, you mark my words."