‘I think I would have felt much the same about it at any time,’ I said, and Rurisk threw back his head and laughed.
‘There is much of your father in you. So would he have said, I am sure. But I must explain. She came to me days ago, to tell me that you were coming to make an end of me. I told her then that it was not her concern, and I would take care of it. But, as I have said, she is impulsive. Yesterday she saw an opportunity and took it. With no regard as to how the death of a guest might affect a carefully-negotiated wedding. She thought only to do away with you before vows bound her to the Six Duchies and made such an act unthinkable. I should have suspected it when she took you so quickly to the gardens.’
‘The herbs she gave me?’
He nodded, and I felt a fool. ‘But after you had eaten them, you spoke so fair to her that she came to doubt you could be what it was said you were. So she asked you, but you turned the question aside by pretending to not understand. So again she doubted you. Still, it should not have taken her all night to come to me with her tale of what she had done, and her doubts of the wisdom of it. For that, I apologize.’
‘Too late to apologize. I have already forgiven you,’ I heard myself say.
Rurisk looked at me. ‘That was your father’s saying, as well.’ He glanced at the door a moment before Kettricken came through it. Once she was within the room, he slid the screen shut and took the tray from her. ‘Sit down,’ he told her sternly. ‘And see another way of dealing with an assassin.’ He lifted a heavy mug from the tray and drank deeply of it before passing it to me. He shot Kettricken another glance. ‘And if that was poisoned, you have just killed your brother as well.’ He broke an apple pastry into three portions. ‘Select one,’ he told me, and then took that one for himself, and gave the next I chose to Kettricken. ‘So you may see there is nothing amiss with this food.’
‘I see small reason why you would give me poison this morning after coming to tell me I was poisoned last night,’ I admitted. Still, my palate was alive, questing for the slightest mistaste. But there was none. It was rich, flaky pastry stuffed with ripe apples and spices. Even if I had not been so empty, it would have been delicious.
‘Exactly,’ Rurisk said in a sticky voice, and then swallowed. ‘And, if you were an assassin,’ here he shot a warning to silence Kettricken, ‘you would find yourself in the same position. Some murders are profitable only if no one else knows they were murders. Such would be my death. Were you to slay me now, indeed, were I to die within the next six months, Kettricken and Jonqui both would be shrieking to the stars that I had been assassinated. Scarcely a good foundation for an alliance of peoples. Do you agree?’
I managed a nod. The warm broth in the mug had stilled most of my trembling, and the sweet pastry tasted fit for a god.
‘So. We agree that, were you an assassin, there would now be no profit to carrying out my murder. Indeed, there would be a very great loss to you if I died. For my father does not look on this alliance with the favour that I do. Oh, he knows it is wise, for now. But I see it as more than wise. I see it as necessary.
‘Tell this to King Shrewd. Our population grows, but there is a limit to our arable soil. Wild game will only feed so many. Comes a time when a country must open itself to trade, especially so rocky and mountainous a country as mine. You have heard, perhaps, that the Jhaampe way is that the ruler is the servant of his people? Well, I serve them in this wise. I marry my beloved younger sister away, in the hopes of winning grain and trade routes and lowland goods for my people, and grazing rights in the cold part of the year when our pastures are under snow. For this, too, I am willing to give you timbers, the great straight timbers that Verity will need to build his warships. Our mountains grow white oak such as you have never seen. This is a thing my father would refuse. He has the old feelings about the cutting of live trees. And like Regal, he sees your coast as a liability, your ocean as a great barrier. But I see it as your father did: a wide road that leads in all directions, and your coast as our access to it. And I see no offence in using trees uprooted by the annual floods and windstorms.’
I held my breath a moment. This was a momentous concession. I found myself nodding to his words.
‘So, will you carry my words to King Shrewd, and say to him that it is better to have a live friend in me?’
I could think of no reason not to agree.
‘Aren’t you going to ask him if he intended to poison you?’ Kettricken demanded.
‘If he answered yes, you would never trust him. If he answered no, you would probably not believe him, and think him a liar as well as an assassin. Besides, is not one admitted poisoner in this room enough?’
Kettricken ducked her head and a flush suffused her cheeks.
‘So come,’ Rurisk told her, and held out a conciliatory hand. ‘Our guest must get what little rest he can before the day’s festivities. And we must back to our chambers before the whole household wonders why we are dashing about in our night-clothes.’
And they left me, to lie back on my bed and wonder. What manner of folk were these that I dealt with? Could I believe their open honesty, or was it a magnificent sham for Eda knew what ends? I wished Chade were here. More and more, I felt nothing was as it seemed. I dared not doze, for I knew if I fell asleep, nothing would wake me before nightfall. Servants came soon with pitchers of warm water and cool, and fruit and cheese on a platter. Reminding myself that these ‘servants’ might be better born than myself, I treated them all with great courtesy, and later wondered if that might not be the secret of the harmonious household; that all, servants or royalty, be treated with the same courtesy.
It was a day of great festivity. The entries to the palace had been thrown wide open, and folk had come from every vale and dell of the Mountain Kingdom to witness this pledging. Poets and minstrels performed, and more gifts were exchanged, including my formal presentation of the herbals and herb starts. The breeding stock that had been sent from the Six Duchies was displayed, and then gifted forth again to those most in need of it, or most likely to be successful with it. A single ram or bull, with a female or two, might be sent out as a common gift to a whole village. All of the gifts, whether fowl or beast or grain or metal, were brought within the palace, so that all might admire them.
Burrich was there – the first time I had glimpsed him in days. He must have been up before dawn, to have his charges so glossy. Every hoof was freshly oiled, every mane and tail plaited with bright ribbons and bells. The mare to be given to Kettricken was saddled and bridled with harness of finest leather, and her mane and tail hung with so many tiny silver bells that each swish of her tail was a chorus of tinkling. Our horses were different creatures from the small and shaggy stock of the mountain folk, and attracted quite a crowd. Burrich looked weary, yet proud, and his horses stood calmly amidst the clamour. Kettricken spent a deal of time admiring her mare, and I saw her courtesy and deference thawing Burrich’s reserve. When I drew closer, I was surprised to hear him speaking in hesitant but clear Chyurda.
But a greater surprise was in store for me that afternoon. Food had been set out on long tables, and all, palace residents and visitors, dined freely. Much had come from the kitchens of the palace, but much more from the mountain folk themselves. They came forward, without hesitation, to set out wheels of cheese, loaves of dark bread, dried or smoked meats, or pickles and bowls of fruit. It would have been tempting, had not my stomach still been so touchy. But the way the food was given was what impressed me. It was unquestioning, this giving and taking between the royalty and their subjects. I noted, too, that there were no sentries or guards of any kind upon the doors. And all mingled and talked as they ate.
At noon precisely a silence fell over the crowd. The Princess Kettricken alone ascended the central dais. In simple language, she announced