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He had never seen her weep; one tear, that was all, the day he had arrived at the queen’s progress two years ago The high rafters sed all sound and ate at the light The glooe of tenderness for her

She sent me to the place she loved best

"I ould stay with you," he stammered

She snorted, and a ue and saw the sword’s thrust that folk feared "You would not!"

It had never been turned on him before

She melted at once "Ah, poor boy, I don’t mean it like that I mean only that when a lad mopes about the stable yard and rides to every crown he can find, then he is not pining for his mother However much he loves her Anyway, it serves hand was used to say, and these days I suppose I have as little heart as he ever did"

Chabi had re neither surprise nor fear "How does it serve your purpose, Your Majesty?"

"To count a son a the royal faone? Of course it serves ht comes quickly"

"Yet the heavens are brilliant in their beauty"

"Maybe for you, phoenix, but I have a habit of sturoped for words, but was too stunned to speak, and after a ently, took his hand, and kissed him as if in farewell

The day her son rode out froonal Garden to watch hio, Queen Sophia had coarden to be built at Werlida in the Arethousan style It had eight walls, eight benches, eight neatly tended garden plots that bloo and suht radial pathways spoked in to the center where stood the monumental fountain forht tiers of angels cavorting and blowing tru on the very day Queen Sophia died, but in fact the mechanism had failed years before because the Arethousan craftss had died of a lung fever one winter and no one else kne to repair it

Or so Queen Theophanu had told Blessing, years and years ago, that winter when the king lay dying That was thein thehi conversation in expansive detail although everyone else was sure he had descended into his final deliriuht, and it splashed and gurgled still, ht it actually spoke with the last words Stronghand had whispered to her, there at the end: Be ravel path and watched Fulk’s entourage reach the branching road and his banner turn north

A nificent vista opened before her The land spread out as fields and villages, pastureland and scrub brush and woodland, and farther yet, the distant march of forest The river vanished into the haze of trees

Froo her parents had sneaked away in theHenry, and at some point on their southerly journey or at Verna, she herself had been conceived It was a fitting place for her son to ride out on a new path Fulk was a good boy, but it was really her enduring love for Berthold that had caused her to let hih that it served her purpose to have her son educated in the arts of the e and sy

Over tihand’s heir than her own beloved father’s Iht her; it was a struggle, but she had ained it, yet were now struggling to keep a foothold there In the wake of tidal inundations and severe alterations in the ocean currents, the Eika territories were splintering into four petty kingdo the coast had mysteriously vanished, only to drift ia had been sed by Salia, Wayland had for a few years claimed to be an independent queendom with the support of Mathilda of Aosta, while the Villams now styled themselves as dukes, equal to Saony, Fesse, and Avaria The North Mark had experienced a ten-year drought, followed by floods In the east, the Polenie had been overrun by a Salavii uprising All of southern Aosta still lay in ruins, scarred by continual volcanic eruptions, and Karrone had been terribly hard hit in the great earthquake that had driven so ees Meanwhile, her own cousins a the Ashioi pushed their borders northward at a slow but steady pace, causing the Arethousans to send to Wendar increasingly desperate pleas for alliances and treaties of mutual aid