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particularly stupid, been threatened with a thrashing, chased into the family’s private quarters, then picked up, swung around and praised for his inventiveness.
    Not that, as a child, he hadn’t gotten into some trouble for taking advantage of his position. He’d been soundly thrashed, and more than once, for exceeding the bounds of what was permitted in his mischief and foolery. He was not as a child, and was not now, any kind of an angel.
    “You skirted very near the pale today, my son,” his father growled, an expression of mixed pride and irritation on his bearlike, bearded face. “That business with the boyars—one more prank and I would have been forced to thrash you in public.”
    “That business with the boyars” had involved Sasha getting tangled up with their huge fur cloaks, tumbling among them, tripping them up and destroying their dignity and tempers, all the while easily dodging the blows they’d aimed at him.
    “Yes, but you got to soothe their tempers with vodka, and got them to sympathize with you. You had them eating out of your hand, Father.” Sasha had known what he was doing—they had entered the doors of the Palace hating one another and determined to do nothing to cooperate. He had forced them together, and given them something else to vent their ire on.
    Well, all right, the truth was that they were a lot of pompous windbags and he had wanted to see them deflated. He’d counted on vodka and his father to smooth things over again.
    King Pieter aimed a mock blow at his head. He ducked. “Now I am going to have to chase you out to give credence to the tale that I am angry with you,” his father said. “Don’t do that again, or it will be more than pretense. These men are touchy, and I’m negotiating for a bride for your brother. I don’t want that to fail because of your mischief.”
    Instantly, Sasha was abashed. “I didn’t know, Father,” he said apologetically. “I wouldn’t have been so irritating if I had.”
    “Hmph,” his father grunted. “Keep in mind that I don’t tell you everything. Nor should I. Now—wait, let me find something I can throw at you without harm.” His eye lit on an old boot one of the Wolfhounds had dragged to the fire to chew on, and picked it up. “All right, out you go.”
    Sasha kicked the door open and tumbled out it, looking from outside as if he had been thrown at the door and it had sprung open under the blow. He rolled to his feet and ran off, arms and legs flailing, while his father flung the boot at him.
    “Sleep in the pigsty!” the King shouted. “It’s all you’re fit for!”
    He had landed out in the main courtyard, beside the stables, and all the boyars were there, mounting their horses to go to the guesthouse outside the Palace walls. There were no guest quarters in the Palace itself; there was only the inner building for the family, and the barracks built into the fortifying walls that surrounded it. In less gracious times, guests would have been housed in the Great Hall, sleeping on the benches and under the tables there. But for at least four generations now, life had been a good deal more gracious than that. There were guesthouses enough to hold up to a hundred important folk, with their servants and guards, and nothing could possibly be wanted from the accommodations. There was even a steam bath attached to each, and from the stink that had come off some of those rancid old men, they could well use it.
    The boyars hooted and tossed insults after him. He was laughing as he ran; he used Beast-Speech to call the Wolfhounds to him, so that it looked as if he were being pursued by the pack, when in fact, they were running with him.
    He hoped that his father would get the bride that he wanted. But if he didn’t—it would not be because of Sasha; it would be because The Tradition didn’t want that girl married into this family at this time.
    In order to keep up the pretense, he had to flail his way past the guesthouses,