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partial glory and strips of ribbon on the table. A mound of pale blue velvet and gold- and pearl-colored satin stood like a mountain range against the high, clear windows of the former scriptorium. The center panes of amber glass cast a bar of golden light across the room, from the embroidering maids to the far, scrapstrewn tables in this, the domain of the Regent and her ladies-in-waiting.
    He endured his own wedding fittings in a hall similarly devoted to the groom’s garments, a hall piled with red and gold…Marhanen colors, more modest heaps, however, although he was the king. He was astounded by this volume of fabric, grown by half again, he swore, since his visit two days ago. Could so much cloth possibly be involved in a few gowns for one slender woman? He had thought he was expert in ladies’ accoutrements…but find his bride on their wedding night, in such an array?
    Even finding his bride in this room proved no straightforward task, amid heaps and bales of velvet, destined for, one hoped, various other ladies of the court as well as his bride.
    Amid all the ladies and maids and their stitching frames set in the advantageous light from the windows, one maid, with a deep curtsy, retrieved the damaged pearl, and another, with a deeper curtsy, snatched an imperiled length of satin fabric from his path. In what became a rapid sweep of curtsies among the women discovering his presence, he passed like a gale through a flower garden…and by sheerest chance the diminishing of ladies standing upright directed his eye to the group under the farthest of the three tall windows.
    His bride, the Lady Regent of Elwynor, stood on a bench, curiously draped in lengths of blue cloth, with a knot of ladies about her.
    Intriguing, he thought as he approached in that breaking wave of ladies rising and curtsying. It proved difficult to hold folds in unsewn velvet and curtsy at once, and the ladies’ efforts all went for naught as Lady Ninévrisë shed the velvet and descended into the sea of ladies’ wide, fashionable skirts.
    Among so many witnesses she kissed him chastely on the side of the mouth.
    â€œI murdered a pearl,” he said between two formal kisses. “Surrogate for my Lord Chancellor.” This last in a low voice as he led her off by the blue velvet mountains next the windows. “This man.” The precise cause of his anger, the inane and constant repetition of the phrase your late father found it good policy… followed by what had been done for the last twelve years, a recitation undaunted by the firm statement of his own will to change that policy…all of that was impossible to articulate in this listening hall of daughters and sisters of great lords—northern lords at that, all of whom were involved in this contest of wills between the king and his late father’s court. “This man.” He was not yet up to coherent exposition.
    â€œWhat has he done?” Ninévrisë asked.
    â€œI asked for the tally of village levies. It was not my father’s policy to deal with such matters himself. Lord Brysaulin accordingly sent the tally to the lord of Murandys and not to my Master of Accounts, as I instructed. But my lord father always had it go to Murandys. Accordingly the lords, now possessed of the information I had wished to present, are delaying me, fearing all this presages a new tax, and are already resolved, Murandys to the fore, to oppose any such collection. This is beyond incompetency. It verges on treason!”
    â€œI should hardly think that there was any ill intent.”
    â€œOh, I have no doubt the river simply flowed as it was accoustomed to flow, in all its old channels. But more than that—” He lifted a forefinger. “More than that—I asked for the accounts also to list the notable men in the villages by name and lineage. I wished the wagons listed, the houses, the weapons. No! The cattle, gods forbid, the cattle and