The Manse of the Late Ollo Tregario

[brigida]

"It is not a matter of how little my life means, but a matter of how much my Kingdom does," she answered without the slightest hesitation.

[Horas]

"And you have given up on having both..." Horas says softly, though more to himself than Tristeza.

[brigida]

"Our son will have Dorne," she said, looking at him for the first time, "does that not please you?"

[Horas]

"There are a great many people I would kill for my child to inherit Dorne, but you are not among them, Tristeza." He meets her gaze. "Is there nothing I can say to dissuade you?"

[brigida]

"If you could give me Dorne, I would be dissuaded--but I do not believe that is an offer you are able to make in good faith."

[Horas]

"I cannot make that offer yet," Horas replies, "But no man can know what the future may hold."

[brigida]

Tristeza looked at him a long time, as though she were gazing into a memory. "I am not the same woman who left the Red Keep swollen with your child," she said, perhaps with some sadness, perhaps with some shame.

[Horas]

"No," Horas says. Neither his expression nor his voice change, but his eyes become perceptably colder. "You are not."

[brigida]

"I am not a lesser woman," she said, "In many ways I have finally become the leader I should have been when I was too young, and too frightened to know better--but the path to growth has brought me through experiences for which would disdain me...it has brought me, indeed, farther from you than I thought I would ever be--perhaps you mourn for my impending death without so much a warrant as you think you have."

[Horas]

Horas takes a sip from his silver flask, still watching Tristeza. "And what do you mean by that statement?" Horas asks.

[brigida]

"Do you know Timm Vikary is dead?" she asked.

[Horas]

"I have heard."

[brigida]

Tristeza nodded, apparently having decided against elaborating.

[Horas]

"And what relevance does Timm Vikary have to this conversation?" Horas asks. The small amount of warmth that occassionally appears on Horas' face when he is alone with his wife has entirely disappeared. He fears he already knows the answer to his question.

[brigida]

Tristeza took a deep breath, waging an internal war between her desire to purge herself of the deceit she had so long weaved at her husbands expense, and her desire not to lose him--somehow, she could not bear to think of dying when she conceived of the possibility that she would be utterly alone in her last moments--unable to think of dying without a single man to mourn her.