“My son is the handsomest young man on the continent!” Milar defended. “He’s perfectly beautiful and I—”
“And a perfect virgin?”
Milar shrugged. “Zehava says you can tell a woman from a maiden just by the way she walks, but I’ve never heard of a similar test for boys. But what does it matter? It’s the prince’s bride who should come virgin to the marriage bed, not the prince himself.”
“I only wanted to know if he’s heart-whole. He’s not the type to spread every pair of female thighs he can find just for the fun of it. Rohan’s the romantic kind, poor thing.” She mused on this for a moment, then sighed. “In any case, an offer will be made regarding one of the legitimate princesses, because a bastard would be an insult to your house, and—”
“But that’s wonderful!” Milar’s blue eyes shone beneath the sunsilk of her hair. “The honor of it—and the dowry! We must be sure to ask for Feruche Castle. Rohan couldn’t do better than a daughter of the High Prince!”
“Mila, think. You’ll be allied to Roelstra by marriage—”
“I have thought! He would hardly attack his daughter’s husband!”
“Listen to me! Rohan and his princess will have sons who will one day rule the Desert. What would be more natural than for the grandson of the High Prince to annex his holdings to his beloved grandsire’s?”
“Never! The Treaty of Linse gives the Desert to Zehava’s family for as long as the sands spawn fire.”
“Very pretty. A direct quote, I take it? But the Desert will continue to belong to Zehava’s family through Rohan. It will also belong to Roelstra’s, through the daughter he sends as Rohan’s bride. The High Prince is only forty-five this year, Mila. Let me conjure a vision for you.”
The princess’ eyes went wide. “No! Andrade, you mustn’t! Not here!”
“With words only, sister. Say Rohan marries this girl, whichever one it is. I can never keep them all straight. Say they have a child within two years. Roelstra will be forty-seven. Say he lives to be eighty. It’s not unlikely. His grandfather was ninety-three when he died—”
“And his father barely twenty-eight.”
“Pathetic age. I’ve always had my suspicions about that bottle of bad brandy said to have caused his death. But where was I? Ah, yes. Zehava is sixty this year and doesn’t come of a long-lived clan. Oh, don’t go all teary-eyed on me, Mila. He’ll probably prove me a liar just for spite and live to be a hundred and thirty-five. But say something happens to him before the grandsons are grown. Rohan becomes prince. Say further that something happens to Rohan—and believe me, my dear, when his sons are past the usual childhood illnesses, Rohan will be expendable. This leaves us the widowed princess, her sons of ten or twelve winters—and Roelstra hale and hearty, not even the age Zehava is right now.”
“A ridiculous fantasy!” Milar exclaimed, but shadows were in her eyes.
“If you like. Another conjuring with words. Rohan really becomes unnecessary once he’s fathered a son or two on this girl. With him out of the way and Zehava as caretaker for the boys until they come of age, Roelstra could let your husband die in his bed and still do anything he likes once the grandson inherits.”
Lady Andrade applied herself to the grapes and waited for her twin to absorb the implications. Truly, Andrade had no idea why she bothered with this lovely lackwit sister of hers. Milar had inherited all the looks in the family, leaving Andrade to get by on the brains and energy. What was delicate gold in Milar was ruddy in Andrade; the temper for which both women were well-known was a flashfire rage in Milar, but carefully calculated in Andrade. Milar was perfectly happy being wife to a rather remarkable man (Andrade could admit Zehava’s virtues in private), mother to his children, and running his fortress. Andrade would never have been content with that life. She might have married a man through whom she could have controlled vast stretches of the continent, but as Lady of Goddess Keep she ruled more lands indirectly than even Roelstra. Her faradh’im, commonly called Sunrunners, were everywhere, and through them she influenced or downright controlled every prince and lord between the Dark and Sunrise Waters.
She supposed she bothered with Milar because of Rohan. He took after neither of his parents in personality—nor did he resemble Andrade, so it was not herself in masculine guise