"What will they do with Ariane and the corans?" she asked, aware that unmixed wine and excitement were doing dangerous things to her. His hair was tousled from the confining mask and his smooth-shaven face looked clever and young and a little bit reckless. Whatever the rules of the courtly game, this would not be a man easily or always controlled. She had known that from the first.

As if to bear witness to that, he arched his brows, composed and poised again. "They will be continuing on their way to Talair soon enough. My men will have removed their masks by now and declared themselves. We brought wine and food for a meal on the grass. Ramir was there, did you recognize him? He has his harp, and I wrote a ballad last week about a play-acting escapade by the arch. My parents will disapprove, and your husband I rather imagine, but no one has been hurt, except Valery by you, and no one will really be able to imagine or suggest I would do you any harm or dishonour. We will give Arbonne a story to be shocked about for a month or so, no more than that. This was fairly carefully thought out," he said. She could hear the note of pride.

"Evidently," she murmured. A month or so, no more than that? Not so swiftly, my lord. She was trying to guess how her mother would have handled this. "How did you arrange for Brette in Miraval to help you?" she temporized.

He smiled. "Brette de Vaux and I were fostered together. We have had various… adventures with each other. I thought he could be trusted to help me with…»

"With another adventure, my lord?" She had her opening now. She stood. It seemed she didn't need to think of her mother after all. She knew exactly what to do. What she had dreamt of doing through the long nights of the winter just past. "With the easy matter of another tavern song?"