“When did Civil say these things to you?” I demanded sharply.

The Prince gave me an odd look but answered. “Early this morning, when he arrived from Galekeep.”

“In public?” I was horrified. I noticed that Lord Golden had edged his horse closer to us.

“No, of course not! It was very early this morning, before I had breakfasted. He came to the door of my bedchamber himself, urgently begging audience with me.”

“And you just let him in?”

Dutiful stared at me in silence for a moment. Then he said stiffly, “He has been a friend to me. He gave me my cat, Tom. You know what she meant to me.”

“I know how that gift was intended, as do you! Civil Bresinga may be a dangerous traitor, my prince, one who has already conspired with the Piebalds to snatch you away from your throne and eventually from your own flesh. You must learn more caution!”

The Prince had gone pink about the ears at my rebuke. Yet he still managed to keep his voice level. “He says he is not. And that they didn’t. Conspire, that is. Do you think he would have come to me to explain if he had? He and his mother did not know about . . . the cat. They were not even aware I was Witted when they gave her to me. Oh, my little cat.” His voice suddenly faltered on his last words, and I knew how all his thoughts had diverted to the loss of his Wit-partner.

The chill grief of his loss blew through his words. It stirred my own loss of Nighteyes to a sharper ache. I felt as if I were probing a wound as I relentlessly asked, “Then why did they do it? It must have seemed a strange request. Someone comes to them and gives them a hunting cat and says, ‘Here, give this to the Prince.’ And they’ve never said who gave it.”

He took a breath, then stopped. “Civil spoke to me in confidence. I don’t know if I should break that trust.”

“Did you promise not to tell?” I demanded, dreading the answer. I needed to know what Civil had told him, but I would not ask him to break his promise.

An incredulous look came over Dutiful’s face. “Tom Badgerlock. A noble does not ask his prince to ‘promise not to tell.’ It would not be appropriate to our stations.”

“And this conversation is,” the Fool observed wryly. His comment made the Prince laugh, easily dispersing a building tension between us that I had not been aware of until the Fool disarmed it. Strange, suddenly to recognize his gift for doing that, after all the years I had known him.

“I see your point,” the Prince conceded easily, and now the conversation included all of us as we rode three abreast. For a short time, the steady clopping of the horses’ hooves and the whispering of the cool wind were the only sounds. Dutiful took a breath. “He did not ask me to promise. But . . . Civil humbled himself to me. He knelt at my feet to offer his apology. And I think any man who does that has a right to expect it will be kept from the public gossip.”

“It would not become public gossip through me, my prince. Nor through the Fool. I promise. Please tell me what passed between you.”

“The fool?” Dutiful turned a delighted grin on Lord Golden.

Lord Golden snorted contemptuously. “An old joke between old friends. One that is becoming far too worn to be humorous anymore, Tom Badgerlock,” he added warningly to me. I ducked my head to his rebuke, but smirked also, hoping the Prince would accept the hasty explanation. Inside my chest, my heart sank down to the pit of my belly as I castigated myself for my carelessness. Did some part of me long to reveal myself to the Prince? I felt an old familiar twist in my gut. Guilt. Secrets withheld from ones who trusted me. Had not I once promised myself never to do that again? But what choice did I have? I guarded my own secret even as Lord Golden worked at prying the Prince’s secret loose from him.

“But if you would tell us, I promise that my tongue will wag it no further. Like Tom, I am dubious of Civil Bresinga’s loyalty to you, as friend or subject. I fear you may be in danger, my prince.”

“Civil is my friend,” the Prince announced in a voice that brooked no argument. His boyish confidence in his own judgment cut me. “I know that in my heart. However,” and here a strange look flickered over Dutiful’s face, “he warned me to be wary of you, Lord Golden. He seems to regard you with . . . extreme distaste.”

“A small misunderstanding between us when I guested at his home,” Lord Golden demurred casually. “I am sure we will soon resolve it.”

I rather doubted that myself but the Prince seemed to accept it. He pondered for a time, turning his horse to the west and skirting the edges of the forest. I maneuvered Myblack to put myself between Dutiful and possible ambushers hiding amongst the trees. I tried to keep one eye on the woods and one on my prince. When I spotted a crow in a nearby treetop, I sourly wondered if it were a Piebald spy. Little I could do if it was, I told myself. Neither of the others seemed to take notice of the bird. The Prince’s words broke from him just as the bird rose cawing from the trees and flew away.