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sake, for Harcia’s sake, I have no other choice.”
    “You’re a duke,” said Balfre, coldly. “You have nothing but choices.”
    “Ah, Balfre…” Run through with pain, he tightened his fingers. “The day you understand that isn’t true is the day you will be ready for a crown.”
    Balfre wrenched free. “Fuck you, Your Grace,” he said, and walked away.

CHAPTER TWO
    S ome time later, alone with his father, Grefin blinked away weariness and cleared his throat. “It wasn’t murder, my lord. Balfre was angry. But he didn’t murder Hughe.”
    “Grefin, Grefin…” Staring into the Rose chamber’s flame-leapt fireplace, Aimery shook his head. “You always defend him.”
    He felt his body tense. The spirits save him, not this brawl again. “He’s my brother.”
    “And he’s my son! But that doesn’t—”
    “The wrong son,” he muttered, then held his breath.
    Slowly, Aimery turned. Seeing the naked pain in his father’s face, Grefin shifted in his chair and looked down. “I’m sorry.”
    “You should be.”
    There was a splash of dried mud on his woollen hose. He scratched at it, trapping dirt beneath his fingernail. “My lord, I did try to stop him. But you know Balfre. And Hughe’s slur was wicked. Drunk or sober, he meant to wound.”
    Aimery turned back to the fire. “Yet you still say it wasn’t murder.” His shoulders rose and fell. “You’d have me brand Herewart a liar? Is that it?”
    Hughe’s father, scarcely comforted and spurning his duke’s offer of a bed for the night, was on the road back to Bann’s Crossing. Ridinghome to his dead son, laid out in his finery on a trestle surrounded by sweet candles and weeping women.
    Remembering Malcolm, and their mother, Grefin watched his knuckles turn white.
    “The old man claims you weren’t there when Hughe fell,” said his father. “He claims Hughe’s squires told him you fought with Balfre, and stormed off.”
    Curse it. If only he’d been permitted to meet with Herewart by his father’s side. But no, he’d been kept out of the room as though he were still a child. As though he couldn’t be trusted to speak the truth, dispassionate. As though speaking up for his brother was the same as telling lies.
    “It’s true Balfre and I fought,” he said, holding resentment at bay. “And I left him. But I didn’t go far. I saw the joust. I tell you, my lord, Balfre’s not to blame. Hughe fell awkwardly. It was bad luck, that’s all.”
    Aimery swore under his breath. “No, Grefin. It was bad judgement. There should never have been a joust. Can you admit that much, at least? Or is there
nothing
Balfre could do that you won’t excuse?”
    At the end, when the leeches had no more help for his mother and it came his turn to sit with her for the last time, she’d surprised him by rousing out of her stupor.
    “You’re the youngest,” she’d whispered. “My wee babe. Even so, you’re older than Balfre. I fear you always will be. Stand for him, Grefin. Take his part, no matter what. He’s not like Malcolm was. Your father can’t fathom him. But you do. You must. Always.”
    He’d promised he would. Of course. But sometimes he wondered if his mother had known what she was asking.
    “My lord…” Grefin braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “I’m not saying your anger is unjust. Balfre was wrong to call the joust. But must you make me the Green Isle’s Steward in his place? He won’t forgive it.”
    Aimery swung round again. Though the chamber’s candlelight threw shadows, they weren’t deep enough to hide his rage. “How can I make him Steward, Grefin? What will Herewart say, and the other lords, if I elevate Balfre the very day of Hughe’s death?”
    “Then wait,” he said, close to pleading. “Let Hughe be buried with all sorrow and honour. Give Balfre time to express the regret I know he feels, even if his wounded pride won’t let him show it, then—”
    “I have no time for Balfre!” his