"But the men have sons, Janosk," Lady Lorena said softly. "Perhaps if you showed them some mercy they would come to love you as we do."

"Silence!" he bellowed. "Do you think I like being seen as a barbarian? There is no other way, I tell you. But I have been wise, that's why Mihael here has not been fighting at my side."

"I'm old enough," Mihael insisted. "I should have training in what I'll need to know."

"On an invading enemy, not your own people," Janosk insisted. "I'll be the one to destroy the last of the rebels and take on the burden of my people's hate. You'll keep your hands clean of this, and when I die and you inherit my title, the people will see you as their savior, Baron Mihael the Good."

Mihael winced. "But an Obour nonetheless," he insisted.

"People will forget the past like the fools they are," Janosk said, his patience obviously wearing thin. Mihael's face reddened and he looked down at his plate.

As the meal continued, Baron Janosk quizzed each of his children on what they had done in his absence. Marishka had begun a new tapestry, one far more intricate than anything she had tried previously. It showed Janosk mounted on his war-horse and carrying a shield with the family's symbol-dragon's teeth above an unsheathed, bloodied sword. Mihael had begun studying battle strategy with old General Noire, a man who had trained Janosk himself when he'd been a child.

"And your studies, Ilsabet?" Janosk asked, leaning forward so he could look at her sitting, ignored, at the end of the table.

"Jorani said that before he can teach me anything more, he wishes to speak to you," Ilsabet replied sorrowfully.

"Did you ask him what that meant?" her father asked.

"No, but I doubt it is a good omen," she said.

"We'll ask him together as soon as the meal is finished, all right?"

Lady Lorena rested a hand on her husband's arm. "Don't you have to return to your troops?" she asked.