“Makes you wonder,” said Enkors, slightly tipsy, “if maybe that Prince o Potcher didn’t have it right. About some lords bein’ a bit old for the job.”
Aufors suggested it wasn’t the thing to say where it might be overheard, and Enkors had looked guiltily around himself, saying, “Right, Colonel. Oh, right.”
It took Aufors two days and nights to get back using post horses, after which he went about his usual work, quite aware that the Marshal was watching him a good deal of the time. Aufors was not himself and did not pretend to be so. Though he had made a pretence of jollity during Enkors’s wedding feast, he was not a happy man. He accomplished his duties commendably, as always, but his downcast eyes and strained expression betrayed his distress. He blamed the Marshal for what had happened, and he was not of a mood to make the old soldier feel less guilty, presuming he felt guilty at all.
The Marshal had found himself itched by an unfamiliar feeling of disquiet, though it had nothing to do with his daughter but rather with Aufors himself. Why had he suspected Aufors Leys, a man who had done him nothing but good? Why had he suspected a man who was obviously just as upset as the Marshal himself? After all, it wasn’t Aufors’s fault if the stupid girl had fallen in love with him!
In this mood of forgiveness, the Marshal found the Colonel in the stable yard with the farrier, looking over the horses to see which needed shoeing. When the farrier started his work, the Marshal invited the Colonel to join him at luncheon. Surprisingly, the Colonel begged off, saying he wasn’t feeling all that well.
“Come now, Colonel. You and I must talk.”
“About what, sir?”
“About these recent happenings, Colonel. All this about . . .”
“About Genevieve? What can I say about Genevieve? She is lovely, generous, and intelligent. She has a good deal of kindness about her, and what good will it do us for me to say that?”
“What I want you to say,” snapped the Marshal, “is why Yugh Delganor’s expression of interest in her sent her over the wall that way.”
“She cannot bear him, sir.”
“So? So she cannot bear him. She would be Queen, Colonel! Isn’t that enough to make up for being unable to bear him?”
Aufors found himself simmering with a rage he could barely conceal. “She may suspect, as do I, that she would not be Queen for long or, indeed, might not survive to be Queen at all. The wives of Haven’s royalty do not thrive.”
“That’s treasonous!” the Marshal shouted, guilt forgotten in a sudden ecstacy of fury.
Aufors said stubbornly, “It’s a simple statement of fact. None of Yugh’s wives have lasted longer than a year or two, and few members of their families remain alive. The same is true of the Lord Paramount’s wives, except for this last woman, whom he married when he was already aged and so was she, a political match, as was said at the time. Heaven knows what the others were.”
“What are you alleging?”
Aufors drew himself up to his full, haughty height, confronting the Marshal at eye level. “I do not allege. I describe a condition that exists. If I say that most of the people who walk along the Great Falls Trail in Tansay end up dead at the foot of the cliffs, I am stating a fact. I don’t know why they end up there. Rock slides, perhaps. Collapses of terrain. Attacks by beasts. Slippery footing coupled with drunkenness. I don’t allege, I simply say the trail is demonstrably dangerous. If I cared about someone, I would have her view the Falls from some other place. Because I care about Genevieve, I would rather see her as a live Marchioness than a dead Queen.”
The Marshal huffed, like a bull, working himself up toward another explosion. “You’re saying I don’t care about her.”
“I’m saying nothing of the kind. I have no idea whether you care about her or not. How would I know?”
“You certainly have reason to know!” he shouted. “She has always been well-cared-for, in accordance with the covenants. She has been given her youth. She has enjoyed the house and gardens in Wantresse. She has been well dressed, well kept and fed, well trained—”