“Have you listened to any of their bards?” Lord Golden asked quietly.

“I’ve listened, but not understood. Chade urged me to learn the basics of their language, and I have tried. It shares many roots with our own. I can speak it well enough to make myself understood, though the Narcheska has already told me that she would rather speak to me in my own tongue than hear hers so twisted.” For an instant, he clenched his teeth to that insulting reproof. Then he went on. “The bards are more difficult to understand. Evidently the rules of their language change for their poetry, and syllables can be stretched or shortened to make them fit a measure. Bard’s Tongue, they call it, but add their windy music blasting past the words and it is difficult for me to get more than the basics of every tale. All seem to be about chopping down enemies and taking bits of their bodies as trophies. Like Echet Hairbed, who slept under a coverlet woven from the scalps of his enemies. Or Sixfinger, who fed his dogs from skull bowls of those he had defeated.”

“Nice folks,” I observed wryly. Lord Golden scowled at me.

“Our songs must sound as strange to her, especially the romantic tragedies of maidens who die for love of a man they cannot possess and such,” Lord Golden gently pointed out. “These are barriers you must overcome together, my prince. Such misunderstandings yield most easily to casual conversation.”

“Ah, yes,” the Prince conceded sourly. “Ten years from now, perhaps we’ll have a casual conversation. For now, we are so ringed by her hangers-on and my well-wishers, that we speak to one another through a throng, in raised voices to reach one another. Every word we exchange is overheard and discussed. Not to mention dear Uncle Peottre, standing over her like a dog over a bone. Yesterday afternoon, when I attempted to stroll through the gardens with her, I felt more as if we were leading a horde to war. There were over a dozen people chattering and trampling along behind us. And when I did pluck a late flower to offer to her, her uncle stepped between us to take it from my hand and examine it before he passed it on to her. As if perhaps I were offering her something poisonous.”

I grinned in spite of myself, recalling the noxious herbs that Kettricken herself had once offered to me when she considered me a threat to her brother. “Such treachery is not unknown, my prince, even in the best of families. Her uncle is doing no more than his duty. It has not been long since our lands warred against one another. Give time for old wounds to close and heal. It will happen.”

“But for now, my prince, I fear we must put our heels to our horses. Did not I hear you say that you had an afternoon appointment with your mother? I think we had best put a little haste into our pace.”

“I suppose,” the Prince replied listlessly to Lord Golden’s words. Then he turned a commanding stare on me. “So then, Tom Badgerlock. When will we next meet? I am most anxious to begin my lessons with you.”

I nodded, wishing I shared his enthusiasm. I felt obligated to add, “The Skill is not always a kindly magic to deal with, my prince. You may find these lessons less than pleasant after we begin them.”

“I expect that to be so. My experiences of it to date have been both unsettling and confusing.” His gaze became clouded and distant as he said, “When you took me . . . I know it had something to do with a pillar. We went to . . . somewhere. A beach. But now when I try to recall that passage, or the events that occurred there or immediately afterward, it is like trying to recall a dream from childhood. The ends of it don’t meet somehow, if you know what I mean. I thought I understood all that had happened to me. Then, when I tried to discuss it with Chade and my mother, it all fell to tatters. I felt like an idiot.” He lifted one hand to rub his wrinkled brow. “I cannot make the pieces go in order to make a complete memory.” Then he fixed me with a direct stare and said, “I cannot live with that, Tom Badgerlock. I have to resolve it. If this magic must be a part of me, then I must control it.”

His words were far more sensible than my reluctance to deal with it. I sighed. “Tomorrow, dawn. In Verity’s tower room,” I offered, expecting him to refuse me.

“Very well,” he replied easily. An odd smile curved his mouth. “I thought only Chade called the Seawatch tower ‘Verity’s tower.’ Interesting. You might have at least referred to my father as ‘King Verity.’ ”

“Your pardon, my prince” was the best reply I could think of, and he merely snorted at it. Then he fixed me with a truly royal look and added, “And you will make every attempt to be at my ceremony tonight, Tom Badgerlock.”