“Marriage seems to agree with you, my prince,” I said inanely.
That flustered him. “In some ways,” he conceded as a boyish flush rose on his cheeks. He turned back quickly to his window. “Come and see my ships,” he commanded.
It was my turn to be baffled. I stepped to the window beside him and looked out over the harbor, and then over the sea itself. “Where?” I asked in bewilderment. He took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the shipyard. A long barn of a building of new yellow pine had been erected there. Men were coming and going from it as smoke rose from chimneys and forges there. Dark against the snow were several of the immense timbers that had been Kettricken’s bride offering to him.
“Sometimes, when I stand up here on a winter morning, I look out to sea and I can almost see the Red-Ships. I know they must come. But sometimes, too, I can see the ships we shall have to meet them. They will not find their prey so helpless this spring, my boy. And by next winter I intend to teach them what it is to be raided.” He spoke with a savage satisfaction that would have been frightening, had I not shared it. I felt my grin mirror his as our eyes met.
And then his look changed. “You look terrible,” he offered. “As bad as your clothes. Let’s go somewhere warmer and find you some mulled wine and something to eat.”
“I’ve eaten,” I told him. “And I’m much better than I was a few months ago, thank you.”
“Don’t be prickly,” he admonished me. “And don’t tell me what I already know. Nor lie to me. The climb up the stairs has exhausted you, and you’re shivering as you stand there.”