Prince Dominic was the king’s nephew and had been heir apparent until Paul was born. He had come to the royal castle of Yurt as a young boy, almost fifty years ago, and had been there nearly ever since. Since I planned to be along on this quest as well, I would not have picked Dominic. Like his stallion, he tended to be surly, and I had never been one of his favorites.

But he might be a good person to have along in a tight spot. There was still plenty of muscle on him, even if he now had to brush his sandy hair carefully to hide the thin spot.

“Thank you, sire,” he said gravely, twisting the ruby ring on his second finger. “I probably know Sir Hugo better than anyone else here, from that year I lived with him in the City. And I am delighted to serve my king.”

“And me?” said the duchess, irrepressible.

“No,” said the king regretfully. “Not you. I can’t take the queen, because she needs to be here to bring up Prince Paul, and I can’t take both you and your husband for the same reason. Someone has to bring up those twins of yours, and they’re quite a handful from everything I hear. If I took the duchess of Yurt, then both my counts would hear about it and insist on coming, too. No, my lady, I’ll take your husband if he’s willing, but I can’t take you.”

The duchess started to frown but stopped herself in time. There was a brief pause while everyone remembered that, while the rest of the knights present were the king’s liege men, Prince Ascelin, the duchess’s husband, was prince of his own principality as well as duke of Yurt by marriage. He would accompany the king as an equal.

Ascelin rose to his feet. He was by far the tallest man in Yurt, being well over seven feet tall. Another man might have been overshadowed by the force of his wife’s personality, but Ascelin had always been a formidable person in his own right. He bent into the formal bow, trying not to smile. “I shall follow you with pleasure, Haimeric,” he said in his deep voice.