An unusual quiet bloomed suddenly in the kitchen. Men paused in their eating, gripping bread or mugs or trenchers, and turned eyes to the man called Burrich. He himself set his mug carefully away from the edge of the table. His voice was quiet and even, his words precise. "If my master has no heir, 'tis Eda's will, and no fault of his manhood. The Lady Patience has always been delicate, and-"

"Even so, even so," Jason was quickly agreeing. "And there sits the very proof that there's nowt wrong with him as a man, as is all I was saying, that's all." He wiped his mouth hastily on his sleeve. "As like to Prince Chivalry as can be, as even his brother said but a while ago. Not the Crown Prince's fault if his Lady Patience can't carry his seed to term ... ."

But Burrich had stood suddenly. Jason backed a hasty step or two before he realized I was Burrich's target, not him. Burrich gripped my shoulders and turned me to the fire. When he firmly took my jaw in his hand and lifted my face to his, he startled me, so that I dropped both bread and cheese. Yet he paid no mind to this as he turned my face toward the fire and studied me as if I were a map. His eyes met mine, and there was a sort of wildness in them, as if what he saw in my face were an injury I'd done him. I started to draw away from that look, but his grip wouldn't let me. So I stared back at him with as much defiance as I could muster, and saw his upset masked suddenly with a sort of reluctant wonder. And lastly he closed his eyes for a second, hooding them against some pain. "It's a thing that will try her lady's will to the edge of her very name," Burrich said softly.

He released my jaw and stooped awkwardly to pick up the bread and cheese I'd dropped. He brushed them off and handed them back to me. I stared at the thick bandaging on his right calf and over his knee that had kept him from bending his leg. He reseated himself and refilled his mug from a pitcher on the table. He drank again, studying me over the rim of his mug.