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"I pray you, Prince Sanglant," she added after she had translated the captain’s words, "you know the Ungrians as well as any man, so they say Are they men of honor? He’s offered to take me back to his home, but he already has a wife and I’m only a common woman, not the sort a man like him would marry He says he’ll care for itiria is a long walk froone there, you’ll likely never see your old ho in her eyes Her captain grinned, quickly hiding his amusement at her fierce delant had so the insult and angering a prince, or losing his honor by doing nothing She was canny enough to observe his disco her attention to Sanglant "I’ve nothing to return to, back in ht have to poverty or slavery"

"No man or woman knohat lies in the future Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying But even Prince Bayan had more than one wife before he itiht to share in his wealth Even if it’s true your captain can only have one ho is recognized by the church, I suppose he still prefers the old ways If he doesn’t beat you now, then he’s scarcely likely to beat you once he returns to Ungria I see no reason why you would suffer for living there, except that it’s a foreign land and like any foreign land a hard place to raise Wendish children"

"You’re a bastard, too, aren’t you?" She toyed with one end of her girdle, wrapped tightly around her waist Handsoold thread, it was a rich garment for a woman of her station "What do I care if rian than Wendish as long as they have a better station in life? Why shouldn’t hters to guard the keys to a chest of treasure that they can adrew up in, not one fa!"

Her words struck him powerfully He had hoped for so little all his life, raised to be captain of the King’s Dragons, raised to serve Wendar and the regnant, nothing er He no longer had the stomach for it He had a child to consider

"Go to Ungria," he said softly, "and I pray that God go with you"

Inside the chapel, Bayan’s body lay in state before the Lady’s Hearth His uarded by her slaves and by a contingent of Ungrian troops Rumor had it that her attendants had asked for a barrel of honey in which to preserve her body

Brother Breschius lay prone before the shrouded corpse, still weeping, heartbroken at the loss of his lord Sapientia fell to her knees beside him She had to be held up by two of her attendants, and a third woht shawl over her head to hide her face from the clerics and lant had cried all his tears at dusk, when he had ridden in through Osterburg’s gate beside Bayan’s liht Heribert’s eye, and the cleric squeezed through the crowd and hurried over to hilant in a low voice

"Little enough They’re still too grief-stricken to think beyond Bayan’s death He was a good man"

"True-spoken words" He considered his weeping sister and her dead husband, illuleaht and the shifting oil flames, washed the wall behind the Hearth: the e to a heathen queen "Sapientia could become duchess of Saony"

"An odd choice of words, my lord prince I’m not certain I understood correctly what you just said"

"Nay, you heard well enough, Heribert, but never er, if you please I’ve set the fox a the hens up inof it here soon enough, and I’d like to knohat they’re saying"

Heribert’s sue, "

"Darre wasn’t built in a day" He laughed, choked it back as the people nearest hi ould be so crass as to disturb mourners in such a manner Luckily, Sapientia had not heard hi into a cleric soon"