"Oh," said Verity again, and I lay still and wondered if he were trying to sort out the King's words, or refraining from replying to his brother's complaint.

"You discern his real reasons, of course," Regal informed him.

"Which is?"

"He still favors Chivalry." Regal sounded disgusted. "Despite everything. Despite his foolish marriage and his eccentric wife. Despite this mess. And now he thinks this will sway the people, make them warmer toward him. Prove he's a man, that Chivalry can father a child. Or maybe prove he's a human, and can make mistakes like the rest of them." Regal's tone betrayed that he agreed with none of this.

"And this will make the people like him more, support his future kingship more? That he fathered a child on some wild woman before he married his queen?" Verity sounded confused by the logic.

I heard the sourness in Regal's voice. "So the King seems to think. Does he care nothing for the disgrace? But I suspect Chivalry will feel differently about using his bastard in such a way. Especially as it regards dear Patience. But the King has ordered that the bastard be brought to Buckkeep when you return." Regal looked down on me as if ill satisfied.

Verity looked briefly troubled, but nodded. A shadow lay over Burrich's features that the yellow lamplight could not lift.

"Has my master no say in this?" Burrich ventured to protest. "It seems to me that if he wants to settle a portion on the family of the boy's mother, and set him aside, then, why surely for the sake of my Lady Patience's sensibilities, he should be allowed that discretion-"

Prince Regal broke in with a snort of disdain.