Nevertheless, I stubbornly hold on to the glass, and try to appear more interested in it than in anything else in the hall. I've already found out that the minute I put it down, someone will come and pester me, fussing around me, try to coax me out to dance, or to other places which suddenly seem less inviting than they did a few years ago. I don't want to get sympathy dances from my older relatives, or be badgered into giving them to my younger relatives. All the native women are horrors, fierce and aggressive. And the less said about the moronic native men, the better. So I hold on to my glass, like a drowning man to a piece of jetsam, and play up my injury for all it's worth. I smile politely, and I murmur the right words, and I try not to let any hint of my unhappiness touch my mind.

I bring my wine glass to my lips and hold it there, without drinking, looking over the rim at the people gathered here for my brother's wedding. People, everywhere, which he can't like, but it's a family affair, so everyone has to be here. And in our family, everyone is enough to populate a small town. His family is here too, and friends, and the friends of His parents - those who could look beyond their own noses and grace us with their presence - and they're milling about, lost among our family, toning down the intense sexual overtures from one corner, and the fights approaching the point of drawing blood.

The priest is gone. I think he was a little unnerved to find so many people in the wedding party wearing murderer's black. Wearing a murderer's black and admitting it without a trace of shame in their eyes, anyway. I knew he wanted to refuse to do it as soon as he saw Da and realized who he was, and as soon as he saw that He picked Cousin Cori as his second, Cousin Cori proud and cheery and all in black. The very presence of a murderer is supposed to bring down bad luck on a wedding, and I'm sure it must be even worse when murderers are directly involved in the ceremony. Even He was wearing a thick, black piece of silk tied around his upper arm. Not that He could have any idea what it means.

I admit, I not only wish the priest had refused to do the ceremony, but his ship had been lost at sea. Anything to prevent this. I love my brother more than anything, and I want him to be happy, but for some reason, I can't make him understand that just because someone saves your life is no-good reason to marry them. Especially if that someone is the guy who broke your heart just a few years earlier, and is obviously total scum. There are some things brothers never seem to realize though, no matter how smart they are the rest of the time, and this is one of those things. No amount of gentle prods and hints could change my brother's mind, and anything more . . . well. I'm still surprised that he was able to get through his own wedding without collapsing. I had to stand behind him the entire time, offering him nothing but support.

No matter how maddening it is, sometimes there's nothing you can do but give them your love. Because anything else will break them.

I can see them both, now, they're sitting down, off in a private little corner, and no one's bothering them. My brother's in a chair, looking like death, not even thawed out yet, with dark shadows under his eyes, and visible scars on his too-pale skin. The green and blue of his clothing make him look even more ghostlike, except for his eyes, which look far too bright. But they're smiling, almost glowing with happiness, and the sight of my brother, with his eyes full of happiness after so long, and a soft smile tugging at his lips, makes this entire mess almost worth it. The image he makes is barely even marred by the fact that He's standing behind my brother's chair, His hands gently brushing my brother's short hair away from his face, and rubbing his shoulders. He puts His lips near one of my brother's ears and whispers something, a wicked smile on His face, making my brother's lips curve and part in soft laughter.

I take a sip from my wine glass.

It's not, I tried to point out to my brother, like He's even attractive. He's short, He's all-over freckles, His hair is a truly awful shade of red, and He probably weighs more than my brother, despite the fact that we're both at least half a foot taller than He is. My brother just laughed at me, softly, and kissed my cheek, saying something ridiculous about things like that not mattering when there was love.

No one seems to take my worries seriously. Not even Mum, who just looks rather unhappy about the whole thing, but that's for different reasons than mine, I'm pretty sure. It hurts, a little bit, to see the look in her eyes whenever it came up before the wedding. But at least she showed up for the wedding. It wouldn't matter if she hadn't, though, the ceremony would have proceeded without her.

I stand and watch a few minutes longer until it's too much to watch someone so unworthy at my brother's side, someone who'll never be able to protect him properly from everything awful in the world that might ever hurt him.

When it mattered most, I wasn't able to protect him, so how's He supposed to be able to?

I turn away, slightly, so I don't have to watch them together, and I try not to think about it, in case my brother overhears and it upsets him. Really, I just want him to be happy.

I tip my glass up, pretending to drink, and the liquid slides up to my lips, then back down to the bottom of the cup. I lick the sugar slime off my mouth before lowering the glass again.

I think, with practice, I could become remarkably good at this dark and silent brooding thing. I'm sure I must be upholding some kind fo family tradition.

My eyes roam a bit more, making contact and quickly breaking it with one of His sisters, a horrible creature, tall and aggressive, with painfully red hair. She tried to dance with me before I latched onto my wine glass. I bring it back up to my lips again and move my eyes away from her. I see my older brothers, who look even more devastated than I am at the taste of the native alcohol, and my sisters . . . well, one of my sisters. Probably a good thing. Things are dangerous enough when you get two different parts fo the family together in the same room. I can hear Cousin Kitto already, being restrained before he breaks some native's face, and there's a temporary silence over the hall, as the native makes his escape. Then idle banter resumes, as though nothing had happened.

My family likes to ignore problems in the hopes they'll go away.

I sigh and wander down the long table, covered in food, in hopes of finding something familiar that I'll know is not only edible, but tastes of something besides pig and salt. I pluck warily at a thin pastry with my bad hand and sniff it before popping it into my mouth. The plain, misleading little packet of white dough was innocently disguising something made with octopus and pepper, and I let myself smile in relief at the taste, like a little bit of home in this foreign land.

My slow, steady, barely interested exploration of the table comes to a halt when I reach a knot of native boys my own age, tall brutes with more muscles in one arm than brains in their collective heads. Odds are in favour that they're knights and squires - obviously young, because none of them have any kind of look to give away that they were serving in the war. They're boisterous and making loud jokes, and I wonder why they're here. They don't look the type to be His friends - even He isn't this bad - and they don't seem to be the sort who'd be supportive of this kind of union. The squires are probably serving, that's the only explanation I can think of. And the knights . . . I clench my teeth as I hear a comment about the women in my family being notoriously loose. They're gesturing at my cousins, and my sister, and, Mercus and Zamta help them, at my mother. My fingers tighten around the stem of the glass, my muscles painfully tight.

Just give me an excuse, you bastards . . .

Someone else approaches, from the other side, and the knot of boys' predatory attention switches malicious gears. One twirls the stem of his glass idly between two fingers.

"Hullo, Birdy," another murmurs, and continues with a string of words, too low to be properly heard. I don't think I would have known what they mean, either, but I can imagine.

There's a mumble, quiet and unhappy, of someone trying to put off the inevitable, and a few quick, swift movements, involving elbows and large feet, the casual toss of the large one's wine glass, and a spray of sickly red liquid onto the one called Birdy.

It's an excuse.

I put my wine glass down very carefully so I can use my good arm, and lash out, grabbing the biggest one, the one who threw his wine glass, by the collar of his tunic, and jerk him toward me. He's bigger than I am, but that hardly matters. He's just a stupid kid who plays with swords like my little cousins play with blocks and plush animals.

"Tha' weren' very nice," I hiss, and I can tell from the look in his eyes that he's preparing to push me away, to call me common scum, because his language falls from my tongue in a heavy jumble. I won't let him. I move my hand and wrap it around the back of his neck, and I squeeze it in just the right place to make his knees fall out from beneath him.

Most of his companions have already made their escape. One of the few that remains stares at me warily. "We were just having a bit of fun. Just a joke between friends, you know . . ."

I put my bad hand over the pommel of my sword, and caress it casually. "I love jokes. I ‘ave some great ones I can show yer friend ‘ere." I move my good hand down and press it fiercely between his shoulder blades. He whimpers like a puppy.

"Well, you see, he's, er, not really a friend of mine. Barely know him, in fact. Just, you know, one of those people you see around. I, uh, was just trying to get a drink, actually. For, uh, my mother." I watch him coldly. "I'll just, uh, get that now, shall I? And I'll be out of your way, no worries, nope, none at all. Just getting a drink . . ." He grabs my wine glass in a flash, and vanishes into a group of people.

I push the big one over. "Yer makin' me sick. Get lost, and I'll forget this ever ‘appened." I watch, my adrenaline and anger and smug satisfaction washing away my depression, as he crawls on all fours, getting away from me as quickly as he can. Pathetic.

I bend down, my knee soaking in the puddle of red wine, and touch the boy they mockingly called Birdy's shoulder. "They're gone," I murmur, uncertainly, and the boy lifts his head.

Round blue eyes stare at me from a face that's painfully white, except for the large splash of pealing sunburn across the bridge of his nose, and onto his cheeks. Curls, the same deep, dark red as the wine on the floor, frame the youthful face as he smiles his thanks at me, looking horribly embarrassed.

"It wasn't - it's not - they do that sort of thing all the time. It doesn't mean anything." I can feel my eyebrow raising helplessly in disbelief, even as I take his hand to help him up. He smiles again, and blushes lightly where he isn't sunburnt. "Thank you very much, though, sir."

"It weren' no problem," I smile gently as I help him to his feet. "Did they get any on ye?"

"Ah . . . yes . . ."

I look down at the huge splash of red wine trickling from his shoulder to drip off the bottom of his bunched up shirt and onto the cuffs of full, soft brown pants and the toe of dull black boots. I remove a handkerchief from my pocket and dab rather pointlessly at the stain, showing no effect beyond the fact that now my handkerchief is a rather dark shade of pink. "Not a very good day t' wear white," I try to make light conversation as I realize, much to my embarrassment, that I'm still holding his hand. I let go, and fold up my damp handkerchief.

"No, I suppose not." He smiles up at me, and blushes. "I should have known. They've done this sort of thing before, but I didn't think they'd be here . . . Or that such a small amount of wine could go so far."

"It were probably a magic glass," I answer stupidly.

The soft smile that appears on the boy's face says my comment was anything but stupid. "Perhaps." He lifts a hand and brushes a stray curl of wine-red hair behind his ear.

He's dressed like the boys back home dress. Well, some of the boys dress. The ones who aren't trying to be thieves or pirates, blacksmiths or guards, or tavern boys. The soft, plain sort of clothes that are rather too big, but allow the wind to keep the entire body cool. He dresses like some of our young scribes do, sensible and plain, in white and brown, but he talks like one of the natives, and from the look of the brutes, current fashion is back to long tunics and unflattering hose. "Are . . . ye from ‘round ‘ere?"

The boy nods and smiles. "You aren't, though."

"Uh . . . no . . ." I look him up and down, trying not to make it look like I'm actually looking at him, which is even harder than it sounds. "Are ye a," my lips twist at the word, "a friend o' Luke's?"

"Not particularly. Uh, our families are very good friends, though, from our grandparents day."

"Ah . . ." I murmur, and try not to sound as relieved as I am.

"Are you?"

"Are I what?"

"A friend of Sir Luke's?"

"No!" I answer sharply, then go hot with embarrassment at the loudness of me voice. "No," I repeat, quietly, "I'm, uh, Kegan's brother." I realize that I haven't made any attempt at a proper introduction and hold my hand out. "I'm Jonathan. Uh, Jonathan Alcazar Rendar-Startredder."

He takes my hand and I bring it to my lips, kissing it lightly and trying not to feel too ridiculous about it. He smiles. "It's an honour to meet you, Sir Jonathan. You're quite the war hero, around here. I'm sure there's already a dozen songs about you. I'm Prince Wren."

"It's not Sir. We don't ‘ave knights . . ." I trail off when my mind catches up with my ears. "The king's son?"

He nods rather uncertainly. "Yes . . . I didn't think anyone from the prominent Startredder family would be one to be overawed by nobility."

Well, of course we aren't, I'm a prince in my own right, but, well, this is somewhere where they've had kings and princes and things from the same family since forever. I've seen gods who are held in less awe by the people. Seeing one of the princes being pushed around by brain dead bullies isn't something you'd expect to happen. "Just surprised tha' yer ‘ere, yer ‘ighness."

"Wren," he corrects with a soft smile. "I always expect people to be talking to my brother when they start ‘your highnessing' me."

"Oh, well . . ." I shrug and smile in vague apology.

He changes the subject with ease. "I would love to hear about how you helped Sir Luke win the war, Sir - Prince - er . . ."

"Jonathan," I suggest helpfully.

"Jonathan." He smiles. "Yes. It's been almost a year, and still no one seems to know anything."

"Er, well, I weren't much in it fer the whole war thin'. I just - ye see - the thin' is, they kidnapped me brother . . ."

"And you wanted to save him."

"‘ad to save ‘im," I corrected, staring at the little white hand still held in mine. "I'd be ‘appy to tell you ‘bout it, somewhere away from all these damn people."

He smiles and leads me away from the table of food and to a fall of soft curtains, leading out to a balcony, and it's quite deserted, peaceful, and, when the curtains fall again, closing out the party on the other side, it's quite like being utterly alone.

It's the easiest thing in the world to forget about what's going on inside, and I settle myself down to the task of telling Wren the story, and of getting him to speak of himself.

Suddenly, the night's a lot less depressing.