Sorrel found himself strangely withdrawn over the next day or so, as if something in him had been awakened, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. His bones didn’t feel as brittle after Travelling either. He’d braced himself for bruising, but the throbbing fragility he always suffered after Travelling on the High Roads wasn’t there. He thought it probably had something to do with the waystone, and went to see if there was anything in the library about it.

He hadn’t been there long before the library door flew open and blew Arianlach inside.

A chill breeze made the hearth-flames leap and dance. Sorrel flattened his palm over the page he was reading as the backdraft ruffled it.

Arianlach banged the door shut again and exhaled a loud and comic expletive about the weather, shaking droplets of rain from his cloak all over the floor.

‘Thought I’d find you here.’

'And here I thought I was safe.'

'Safe? From me? Oh, you jest! Nowhere is safe for you, Crown-Prince Ellazhán! Not from me.'

Grinning, Arianlach took his cloak off and tossed it over the back of Sorrel’s chair, then held his hands to the flames. ‘It’s getting worse out there. We’re supposed to have snow at this time of year! I don’t know what’s worse – sideways rain, or a sideways blizzard?’

Sorrel glanced at the water-clock that kept time on the table at his elbow. ‘Am I wanted somewhere? Only there’s three hours before the evening meal.’

'Not particularly. Unless you want to come with me to a tavern? I know a couple of good ones - warm and cosy. Yes? No?'

'No...maybe...' Sorrel looked around, half-tempted to brave the sodden streets and risk a cloak-hem crusted with mud for the delights of a cosy corner in a tavern. With Arianlach. 

Arianlach chinked a purse heavy with coins under Sorrel's nose. 'Not going to make me ask twice, are you?'

'It's warm here.' Every one of the library lamps were lit and the librarian kept the fire going, with dour looks at anyone who sat too close to it with one of her books. Sorrel liked the library. Today, it was busier than usual, with a couple trysting in a booth in the far corner, and an old woman with rheumy eyes peering at a child’s primer. Sorrel had been tempted to offer to help her, but the book was written in the Northern language and he was no better off with it than she was.

There were more than enough volumes written in the bardic kánlaith to keep him busy, but he began to think he should learn to read in Vartjastafellan too. Currently more than half the library was out of bounds to him. If he were to stay here, he knew he should learn. It would be most advantageous. A career in statecraft wasn’t on his list of ambitions but it did present opportunities for other things. Influential things. Besides, he liked the idea of being able to read whatever he liked, regardless of the language it was written in.

His mother’s voice echoed faintly around his head. Knowledge is power.

She was right, as she was right about most things, much to the chagrin of those who didn’t want to admit their own lack of wisdom.

Arianlach kicked out a footstool and sat on it, holding his hands to the flames. ‘Suit yourself. I will just have to make myself at home here instead. You are hogging the best spot, I see.’

‘Were you really looking for me?’

‘I needed to return some books and borrow more. That you might be here too was only the incentive I needed to actually do it.' Arianlach slipped a narrow, thin book, little more than a pamphlet, out of his sleeve. ‘A book on the roses of Jaille. I purchased extra time with it, so that you may read it too. And my father’s books. He…well, I did read to him, but now I don’t think he even hears.’

His face clouded for a moment, then the shadows cleared as he leaned forward to grasp the poker and stir up the fire, sending a shower of sparks spiraling up the chimney.

‘It’s not written in the kánlaith,’ said Sorrel, after a quick flick through the pages. He handed it back, regretfully. ‘I can’t read it.’

‘Then I’ll read it to you.’

For some reason, that offer made Sorrel a little warmer than was comfortable.

‘Your father – he’s worse?’

‘I don’t think he’ll see in the Night of New Milk,’ said Arianlach. He sighed. ‘I wish…I know this sounds terrible, but I wish he’d go now. Lingering like this…it makes it worse. We wake each morning wondering if he’s still with us, if today will be the day we prepare his funeral, and tell the kingdom they have me for a King now. And it’s been going on for months.’

Sorrel thought of his own father, full of acerbic vitality and hearty contempt for weakness of any sort, and wondered what he would feel once the man was gone. Not that he could imagine Virishnu ever succumbing to something as inconvenient and weak as death. He'd always maintained he was too busy to bother with dying, that there was no time for it. Only silly women prone to the vapours, and the poselenech, did something as pointless and pathetic as dying.

‘I’m sorry for you,’ he said sincerely.

Arianlach nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you. I know it won’t be long now. It's just....waiting. Kills me, waiting. I'd much rather get on with whatever it is. And then I...I can...'

And then he’d be King of Vartjastafel.

Sorrel couldn’t imagine the exuberant Lyr Blaed Earl as King of such a country. For a start, he didn’t seem to take much interest in it, and regarded his own position with equal measure of flippancy and insecurity. Then there was the much stronger, much more ambitious Rurien Hervik, the Queen’s brother. He was determined and aggressive and widely regarded his own sons as more legitimate claimants to the throne than their bastard, half-Lyr Blaed cousin. It didn't matter that Arianlach was the King's son - he'd been born to some unkempt Lyr Blaed bitch, said the Lyr Deru lords, and they'd be damned before they accepted him as their overlord.

‘What will you do?’ Sorrel asked.

‘What can I do? My uncle has the North on his side. If he snaps his fingers at most men in the South, and to the West, they’ll rally to him. I have…the Lyr Blaed, and any who might ally themselves with them for whatever reason, I don’t know. I have you…’

‘You have me,’ said Sorrel. ‘And twenty-thousand Tethiri horsemen to call under my banner. But why should that be necessary? Send out your people and find out who you can count on. Surely not all the Northern lords will want to ride under Rurien Hervik? Find out now, before your father…’

‘No-one would dare to venture into the Hester hills to seek out the Lyr Blaed there. Even less will they go into the hills south of here where the Ulthvár live. Who should I ask? I have no-one that foolhardy or loyal to send.’

‘As Crown Prince of Vartjastafel, you do not ask,’ said Sorrel quietly.

He raised his own book again, signaling for quiet once more, and resumed his reading. He expected Arianlach to leave him, bored, or finding more pressing duties, but he didn’t, and sat on the footstool with his own book, pensive and silent.

Much later, Sorrel put his book aside and leaned over to shake Arianlach gently awake. ‘The supper chimes are ringing.’

There was no answer. Arianlach’s breathing was even and deep. Sorrel waited, then reached out his hand and laid it lightly on Arianlach’s head.

‘Arianlach,’ he said again, softly. There was still no answer, the book lying forgotten on Arianlach’s knee. ‘You’ve slept half the afternoon…’

‘Mmm…’ Arianlach turned his face into Sorrel’s knee.

Sorrel’s fingers curled gently in a lock of yellow hair.

He didn’t have the heart to move the Earl. Hadn’t he said he hardly slept? It seemed cruel to move him, to wake him.

Let him sleep. He’ll barely get a chance in the coming days.

Even if he was slumped on a footstool with his long legs splayed out before the fire and his head on Sorrel’s knee in a position that didn’t look that comfortable.

Sorrel sat back in his chair and put one arm behind his head, wishing for a cushion at the least. The high-backed oaken chair with its rigid and narrow arms wasn’t built for napping in. If he tried it, he’d wake with an almighty crick in his neck and he was certain Arianlach would only find that amusing.

But he left his hand buried in the mass of soft pale hair, and closed his eyes anyway.

A few moments later his stomach growled and he decided that between lounging with Arianlach’s cheek pressed warmly against his leg, and eating supper, supper would have to win this time.

‘Arianlach, get up! I want to eat, if you don’t.’

Arianlach yawned and sat up. ‘What?’

‘I said, it’s supper time. Get up.’

Sorrel stood and went to one of the tall windows. Droplets of water slid languorously down the pale green pane. Darkness had descended more than an hour ago. It was still raining outside, the chill winter fog casting an oppressive gloom over the streets. He could smell the moor on the wet and part of him yearned to ride out into the wild weather, yearned to feel cold rain in his face, and icy winds in his hair. Another part of him wanted to stay where he was, ensconced in warmth and serenity, with Arianlach’s head on his knee.

The door blew open and clanged shut again, and a messenger came to a dripping halt, bowed to Arianlach, and handed him a letter. He looked about him in obvious wistful envy for anyone who got to stay indoors, instead of riding around cloaked in dark, wet fog, but he didn’t say anything, and inched a little closer to the fire and awaited Arianlach’s reply to the letter.

Arianlach broke the seal, unfolded the crisply-folded paper, and read, his eyes darkening. Then he thrust the note into his shirt.

‘Go and show him to the council rooms,’ he said to the messenger, his voice strangely tight.

The man bowed again, and left, his boots squelching and his cloak-hem dripping.

Arianlach turned back to Sorrel. ‘I…I need to go and see to this.’ He paused, licked his lips, then shrugged. ‘You can do as you like. Go eat.’

He strode from the library before Sorrel could ask him what the matter was, or who the letter was from.

Whatever it was, it was trouble. Whoever had written the letter was trouble.

‘I’ll eat later,’ he said, and hurried to catch up with them both.