Free Echoes of Betrayal by Elizabeth Moon Page A

should have learned prudence, but he’s at an age to blurt things out anyway. I want to tell Aliam myself.”
    “Ah. I have little experience with boys that age.”
    Kieri went on, “We need to send word of our announcement and the wedding date to all the kingdoms—today or tomorrow, at least.”
    “Already?”
    “Yes. It will be slow going—winter weather—and though we are not waiting until summer, I do not want it to seem a hasty, careless affair. Duke Verrakai will be in Harway, I’m sure, in defense of Tsaia. She could not come to my coronation, but I hope she will be able to come to the wedding.”
    “She’s … remarkable,” Arian said.
    “Yes. And she is in a difficult situation, as the only Verrakai not attaintedand thus not proven in the royal courts to be free of evil magery. Mikeli had to trust someone and trusted her on my word, but she must know others suspect her, especially as they know she has magery. It was well she used it to save the king’s life, but many Tsaians will still have their doubts.”
    “That crown will not have helped,” Arian said.
    “No, indeed. I wish I knew more of that,” Kieri said. “She has been sparing in her letters to me, saying the king does not wish it talked of. I have not asked Mikeli, in case he took offense that she had mentioned it to me. But it seems to me such regalia would be a reason for someone to seek it—it’s an unclaimed crown, and it must belong somewhere.”
    “Well, it’s safe in the Tsaian royal treasury, at least. All but the necklace.”
    “The necklace?”
    Arian told the little she knew, what Dorrin had told her about the necklace. “And then it was stolen from Fin Panir, she heard.”
    Kieri shook his head. “Worse and worse. Rumors of a lost crown being found … a necklace from the same suite of jewels on the loose …”
    “Duke Verrakai says she told the king it would draw trouble.”
    “As honey draws bees, yes. And I’m sure she’s thinking of the same trouble, from the south.”
    “But that’s Tsaia, isn’t it?”
    “No. It’s everyone. What touches Tsaia touches us—and Fintha—and Pargun and, through all of us, the rest. What I learned from Pargun’s king is that Pargun and Kostandan trade all the way to Aarenis.” He felt a sudden chill. “And I hadn’t thought—there wasn’t time—but Alured the Black doesn’t have to invade through Valdaire—he could sail up the river. I must tell Mikeli that. Ships can’t get past the falls, but land an army on the shore below, and … here I thought our danger might be over for at least a few years.”
    “Well,” Arian said, “you’ve thought of it now. So we can plan a defense, and surely he won’t show up this winter.”
    “No, I think not. But he had been a pirate on the Immerhoft—the sea down there—and he will have ships and men who know how to fight from them.” He ran his hands through his hair. “What a day! Imust write those letters, to Mikeli and the Marshal-General as well. And still there’s the rest of the Pargunese invasion to deal with.”
    By late afternoon, the letters announcing his engagement and—for Tsaia and Fintha—his assessment of the new danger from the south were on the way, along with a letter each to Dorrin and Arcolin. The party he’d left to follow him had arrived with the prisoners—bedraggled and tired, but no more injuries or deaths.
    Kieri went down to the courtyard to look them over. Chaya had no large prisons. Smaller than Vérella and more orderly, it had small jails meant to house the occasional violent drunk until he or she had slept it off. He could not leave them in the courtyard, without any shelter, in winter. They were a dispirited lot anyway, pale and pinched with hunger and exhaustion, most with at least one bandaged limb.
    His Council had sided with Sier Halveric—these were dangerous enemies. They had killed Lyonyans and tried to burn the kingdom down. They deserved to die. If Kieri had not