I brought him the washbasin and set it on the bed next to him. He crooked an arm around it as if it were a doll. “What, exactly, did you do?” I demanded.

“Oh, Eda, make it all stand still.” He clenched his eyes tightly and spoke. “I kissed him. I knew that would do it.”

“You kissed Sydel? Civil's intended?”

“No,” he groaned, and I knew a shortlived moment of relief. “I kissed Civil.”

“What?” csv, “I had gone to piss. When I came back, he was waiting for me outside the parlor where the others were gaming. He grabbed my arm and all but dragged me into a sitting room where he confronted me. What were my intentions toward Sydel? Did not I grasp that they had an understanding?”

“What did you say?”

“I said Ê” He paused abruptly and his eyes grew round. He leaned toward the basin, but after a moment he only burped gassily and lay back. He groaned, then continued: “I said I understood their understanding, and hoped that perhaps we could come to an understanding of our own. I clasped his hand in mine. I said I saw no difficulty. That Sydel was a lovely girl, as lovely a girl as he was a boy, and that I hoped we might all become close and loving friends.”

“And then you kissed him?” I was incredulous.

Lord Golden screwed his eyes shut. “He seemed a bit na'ive. I wanted to be sure he took the fullness of my meaning.”

“Eda and El in a tangle,” I swore. I stood up and he groaned as the bed moved beneath him. I walked to the window and stared out. “How could you?” I demanded of him.

He took a breath and strained mockery crept into his voice. “Oh, please, Beloved. You needn't be jealous. It was the most brief and chaste kiss you can imagine.”

“Oh, Fool,” I rebuked him. How could he make a jest of something like this?

“It wasn't even on the mouth. Just a warm press of my lips to the palm of his hand, a single flick of my tongue.” He smiled feebly. “He snatched it away as if I had branded him.” Suddenly he hiccuped loudly and then made a sour face. “You're dismissed. To your room, Badgerlock. I've no more need of you tonight.”

“Are you certain?”

He nodded, a short vehement nod. “Go away,” he said plainly. “If I'm going to puke, I don't want you watching me.”

I understood his need to preserve that much dignity. He had little enough left. I retreated to my room and shut the door. I busied myself with packing my things. A short time later, when I heard the sounds of his misery, I did not go to him. Some things a man should do alone.

I did not sleep well. I longed to touch minds with my wolf, but dared not allow myself that comfort. Necessary they might be, yet I still felt dirtied by the Fool's political manipulations. I longed to live the direct and clean life of a wolf. Toward dawn, I came out of a doze to the sound of the Fool moving about in his chamber. I found him sitting at the small table looking haggard. Somehow the fresh clothing he had donned only made him look the more rumpled. Even his hair looked sweaty and disheveled. He had a little box in front of him and a mirror. As I watched, puzzled, he dipped his finger in something and wiped it under his eye. The shadow there deepened to a pouch. Then he sighed. “I hate what I did last night.”

I did not need him to explain. I tried to ease his conscience. “Perhaps it was a kindness. Perhaps it is better they discovered, before they wed, that Sydel's heart is not as constant as Civil believed.”

He shook his head, refusing the comfort. “If I had not led, she would not have followed in that dance. Her first sallies were but a girl's coquetry. I think it as instinctive for a girl to flirt as it is for boys to show off their muscles and daring. Girls of her age are like little kittens pouncing at grass to practice their hunting skills. They do not yet know the meaning of the motions they make.” He sighed, and went back to his little box of colored powders.

Silently I watched as he not only made himself look more ill, but added a decade to his years by delineating the lines in his face.

“Do you think that's necessary?” I asked him as he snapped the little box shut and handed it to me. I tucked it back into his case, which was, I noted, already neatly packed for our journey.

“I do. I wish to be sure that the glamour I put over Sydel is completely broken before I depart. Let her see me as substantially older than she is, and dissolute. She will wonder what she was thinking, and flee back to Civil. I hope he will have her. It would be better than her pining after me.” He gave a melodramatic sigh, but I knew his ridicule was for himself. This morning, Lord Golden's fa Êade was fractured and the Fool shone forth from the cracks.