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tighter, more restrictive than normal, and the sweat trapped beneath the polished silver left an unsightly green mark on his neck.

    A court’esa ’s baseborn daughter was about to be welcomed into the palace as a member of the High Prince’s family, and the dwarf wondered how the young woman would react to her sudden change in fortune. It was a scandal that would be the talk of Greenharbour for months. Which was probably the reason Marla was taking this unprecedented step at this particular time. Any day now she would be forced to announce where her son, Damin, was to be fostered. If people were busy talking about Luciena Mariner’s adoption, the announcement about Damin’s fosterage might slip by unremarked.

    It was Elezaar who had identified the elderly (and conveniently unmarried) shipping magnate as a likely consort for the princess more than eight years ago—not long after the tragic and unexpected death of Marla’s second husband, Nashan Hawksword. With limited power as a widow, Marla was anxious to remarry and had set her court’esa the task of finding someone suitable.

    The marriage had been laughably easy to arrange. No man in Hythria was going to turn down an offer from the High Prince’s only sister, and Jarvan Mariner was no exception. Despite his status as a confirmed bachelor, the owner of nearly a quarter of all Hythria’s shipping fleet was quite prepared to entertain the idea of a union with the newly widowed princess—especially when he learned the offer included a promise to legitimise his only child, arrange a noble marriage for her (an unheard-of boon for an illegitimate child born of a court’esa ) and to ensure his daughter inherited his considerable fortune.
    The old man had been well past sixty when they married. Slender and bald, with an unfortunate tendency to drool when he was tired, he had died peacefully in his sleep less than two years after the wedding, leaving Marla with a tidy bequest and, more importantly, control over his vast shipping empire, which the princess now held in trust for his daughter, until Luciena reached an age where she could marry and take control of the fortune herself.

    That age had now come and Marla had set in motion the necessary steps to introduce her into the family. Her adoption was to be a wedding present to the girl, conditional, of course, on her choosing a husband Marla approved of.

    “Elezaar!”

    The dwarf stopped, shading his eyes against the sun, and turned to find Xanda Taranger hurrying along behind him, his hand on the hilt of his sword to stop it banging against his thigh.

    Xanda Taranger and his older brother, Travin, were the sons of Marla’s long-dead sister-in-law, Darilyn. Orphaned as small boys, both of them had been raised in Krakandar by their uncle, Mahkas Damaran. Travin was still in Krakandar, preparing to take over his father’s estate in Walsark when he came of age. Xanda, as the younger son with no estate to inherit, had been invited by Marla to Greenharbour to take up a commission in the Palace Guard, an opportunity the young man had jumped at eagerly.

    “So, how did your little excursion to the Mariner house go?” Elezaar asked as Xanda caught up with him. He resumed his waddle towards the main house with Xanda at his side. The townhouse courtyard was quite busy this afternoon, filled with the departing guards who had just escorted Marla back from the palace, several hawkers waiting for the head steward to inspect their wares near the kitchen gate, and a couple of slaves beating a rug from one of the upper rooms with lazy, uninterested strokes.

    “She refused the invitation,” Xanda told him, panting a little from the exertion. It was hot this afternoon. And humid. In his smart dress uniform, Xanda would be feeling the heat even more than Elezaar.

    The dwarf wasn’t surprised. “Just as your aunt predicted she would.”

    “You’d think . . .,” Xanda began, then he hesitated and looked across the walkway