Page 254 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“I told you that even the countries of Virtudom would not come to the aid of Inys if their own shores were under attack,” Sabran said, too concerned with Ead to notice the bird. “You looked surprised.”

“I was.”

“You should not have been. My grandmother once said that when a wolf comes to the village, a shepherd looks first to her own flock. The wolf bloods his teeth on other sheep, and the shepherd knows it will one day come for hers, but she clings to the hope that she might be able to keep him out. Until the wolf is at her door.”

Loth thought that sounded like something Queen Jillian would have said. She had famously argued for tighter alliances with the rest of the world.

“That,” Sabran finished, “is how humankind has existed since the Grief of Ages.”

“If the Eastern rulers have a whit of intelligence between them, they will see the necessity of cooperation,” Ead maintained. “I have faith in the shepherds, even if Queen Jillian did not.”

Sabran cast her gaze toward her own right hand, spread on the table. The hand that had once held a love-knot ring.

“Ead, I would speak with you alone.” She rose. “Loth, Meg, please see to it that the summons go out to the Virtues Council at once. I need them all here to discuss the future.”

“Of course,” Margret said.

Sabran walked with Ead from the Council Chamber. When the doors were shut, Margret looked at Loth with an expression he recognized from their music lessons. She had dealt it to him whenever he hit the wrong note.

“I hope you’re not intending to argue against this plan.”

“Ead is mad to so much as insinuate it,” Loth muttered. “An alliance with the East is a remedy for misfortune.”

The crow took off again.

“I don’t know.” Margret reached for a quill and ink. “Perhaps their dragons are nothing like wyrms. These days I feel obliged to question everything I have ever known.”

“We are not supposed toquestion, Meg. Faith is an act of trust in the Saint.”

“And are you not questioning yours at all?”

“Of course I am.” He rubbed his brow with one hand. “And every day I fear I will be damned for it. That I will have no place in Halgalant.”

“Loth, you know how I love you, but the sense in your head could fit in a thimble.”

Loth pursed his lips. “And you, I suppose, are worldly-wise.”

“I was born worldly-wise.”

She drew a roll of parchment toward her. Loth asked, “What else happened in Goldenbirch?”

Smile fading, Margret said, “I will tell you tomorrow. And I recommend you have a good, long sleep before you hear it, Loth, because your faith will be tested yet again.” She nodded to the pile of letters. “Be quick about it, brother. I must get these to the Master of the Posts.”

He did as he was bid. Sometimes he wondered why the Saint had not made Margret the older child.

Night had fallen over Ascalon. Half of the Knights of the Body followed Ead and Sabran to the Privy Garden, but the queen ordered them to wait outside the gate.

Only the stars could see them in the snow-draped dark. Ead remembered strolling with Sabran on these paths in the high summer. The first time she had walked with her alone.

Sabran, the descendant of Kalyba. Kalyba, the founder of the House of Berethnet.

It had haunted her on the way back from Caliburn-on-Sea. It had haunted her as they rode to find Aralaq. The secret that had divided the Priory for centuries.

Drunk on an enchantment, Galian Berethnet had lain with a woman he had seen as a mother and got her with child. He had built his religion like a wall around his shame. And to save his legacy, he had seen no choice but to sanctify the lie.

Tension poured from Sabran like heat off an open flame. When they reached the fountain, with its frozen rivulets of water, they faced each other.

“You realize what a new alliance may entail.”

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