Martin performed the introductions with his usual disregard for the niceties. "Gammy, this is Carrie Traven; Carrie, my grandmother, Lady Armstrong."

"Your ladyship," said Carrie, curtsying in that stiff-backed Darya fashion, "I'm honored indeed."

Kirsten held out her hand to the child, not missing Martin's incandescent smile--that, too, was Morgan in him, that and the charm. "Go away now, sweetheart," she said to him, laughing as his face fell. "Lady Carrie and I have things to talk about, and we don't need you underfoot." She stared at him firmly and added, as he started to protest, "Scoot!"

He did, then, laughing at the word she'd used to run him off since he was four, but looked back over his shoulder once, anxiously.

Martin, sweetheart, you'll just have to trust me,: she told him silently.

He nodded, saying, :I do, of course, it's just--Oh Gammy!

I know, dear. I know. Now run along.: Kirsten turned to Carrie, and proffered her hand again. "We do need to talk, Lady Carrie. We really do."

"All right, Lady Armstrong," she said, taking her hand. She was blushing badly but she was going to stand her ground; Kirsten approved. "We can go in one of the withdrawing rooms, I guess, or--"

"Let me," said Kirsten. "It's my daughter's house, after all. I'll find us a private place." And she led the young woman out of the ballroom and towards the apartments she and her family, such of it had accompanied her, at any rate, were staying in.

"Now," said Kirsten, after they'd settled in the parlor, "we have to talk, Lady Carrie."

Carrie had recovered her composure and was not going to give anything away. It was clear she wasn't entirely sure what the formidable Lady Armstrong wanted to say, whether to encourage her or to warn her off, and that she wanted to find out before she responded. It was also clear that she was finding Kirsten rather less formidable than expected. And it was clear that she was more a trifle confused by her own reactions to Martin, and the apparent ease with which he'd supplanted Bryan's lawful place. But she was calm, and only a heightened color betrayed her inner excitement, and only a skilled sorceror could have read her confusion. "Yes, Lady Armstrong?" she said politely.

"Your fiancé, Lord Bryan Brevard...," Kirsten began. "How do you feel about him?"

"Bryan?" Carrie was surprised, and trying not to show it. "Bryan's quite a lovely man, I'm very fond of him. Why are you asking, Lady Armstrong? He's certainly no-one you need warn Martin off."

"Oh, my dear," said Kirsten, laughing despite herself. "That's not what I'm concerned about, believe me. I think Bryan will be very good for Martin... it's you I'm thinking of."

"Me?" Carrie sounded puzzled, and then the red flared up in her cheeks. "Well! If that's what you think, Lady Armstrong, rest assured I'll most certainly never speak to Martin again!Not that I had any intention--" she broke off as Kirsten, helplessly, began laughing again. Her anger didn't die, not entirely, but she stared at Kirsten, clearly confused.

"I'm sorry, Lady Carrie," said Kirsten, regaining her composure. "That's not what I meant at all. And I truly don't mean to laugh at you, truly I don't. But we're at cross purposes--we have to be, really. So please, let me talk, and don't jump to any conclusions about where I'm going. I mean you well, you and Bryan both, and my grandson, for that matter. All right, Lady Carrie?"

"Well...," she began dubiously, and then surrendered. "All right, Lady Armstrong. And you might as well call me 'Carrie' -- I've a feeling this is going to be rather more personal than 'Lady-ing' allows."

"Yes; I think it will," agreed Kirsten, looking at the girl approvingly. Martin had chosen well this time around, anyway. "Now: you say you're fond of Bryan. I can see that's so. But how do you feel about Martin?"

"Well...." Carrie thought about that, but remained silent. Kirsten looked at her encouragingly, and she finally ventured, "I'm not sure. I mean, he seems sweet, and ... I don't know!"

"Don't you?" asked Kirsten, but didn't give her time to respond. "You wonder why Martin caught you so? Well, part of it is because you caught him--" she smiled at the kindling in the girl's eyes at that "--oh, yes, you did, Carrie, well and truly. But there's a lot more to it than that. It's also because you never caught Bryan. You know that, really: because he's kind and generous and amiable and because you've been thrown together and because you've never seriously thought about anyone else, you've been fooling yourself about how he feels, but you haven't fooled yourself completely. Bryan is... disengaged, isn't he? Not at all like Martin? Bryan doesn't want you, not like Martin wants you, and it's not just because he thinks of you as a little girl or anything else. It's in him, not you, Carrie, and it won't change when you're older, or married... except for the worse, that is. And you're right to wonder, too, about how long you'd stay fond of him. It's hard enough, but possible, to love someone who's not in love with you when he's far away, but to live with him, deal with him on a daily basis, fail to make him love you, have the relationship fall apart entirely ... no, that marriage is doomed from the beginning. You and Bryan wouldn't be fond of each other for long."

Kirsten paused; Carrie was crying, big tears gathering in her eyes and falling to roll down her face, but in silence. She was stricken too deeply for sound or histrionics. But she wasn't denying anything, either, she knew the truth when she heard it. Kirsten reached out and took the girl's hand in hers and continued, "You're right to worry and doubt about it. He is fond of you, but--"

Carrie interrupted, her voice firm, betraying no doubts. "He wants Martin, doesn't he? There was something about the way they were standing together when I first saw them...oh, my poor Bryan. What will he do? Daystar is everything to him... and Martin, oh my poor cousin." Now she began sobbing, and Kirsten gathered her into her arms to let her cry herself out, actually rather pleased with Carrie's quickness and with her acceptance. This might work out very well. Carrie was already there, or near enough, it would only take a little persuasion. Now it was going to depend on what Bryan did.

After a little while, Carrie's sobs quieted. She pulled away from Kirsten, looking a little embarrassed over her display of emotion. "I'm so sorry, Lady Armstrong..." she began, but Kirsten hushed her.

"You're to hear such news and not be upset?" she said. "Don't worry about it, child. What we have to do now is decide what we're going to do to fix it."

"Fix it?" said Carrie in amazement. "How can it be fixed? Oh, I could break my engagement to him, I suppose; I could run off with Martin, and break his heart as well as his pride..." She broke off as Kirsten shook her head. "No? What, then?"

"You're right; Bryan does want Martin. What you haven't realised is that Martin wants Bryan, too."

"Bryan? Martin wants... not me? I thought you said... oh!" she drew in a breath, staring at Kirsten with a look of amazed surmise in her blue eyes. "Martin can...? He does...? Both of us??"

"Yes, that's right," said Kirsten, very pleased with Carrie's reaction. "If you lived in Taleavlad, he could marry either one of you."

"But we don't. We live in Darien...where," said Carrie in wonderment and growing enthusiasm, "he can marry us both... if Bryan will."

"If Bryan will," Kirsten agreed solemnly.

"He will," said Carrie. "He must. There's nothing else to be done."

"Bear in mind," warned Kirsten, "Bryan doesn't want to admit his true nature. You can't just walk up to him and say, 'I know everything.' You'll panic him. And he's, well, not safe to panic at the moment--"

"I know what you mean," said Carrie solemnly. "Brevards are sort of reckless, they do dangerous things--oh! That's why! That's why he even scares his father with the crazy things he does." She gulped, looking scared. "We'll-- I'll have to be very careful; I can see that." She thought for a long moment; Kirsten was silent, letting her think. The more Carrie and Martin did of this on their own, the better. "I know!" she announced suddenly, with a brilliant smile. "Bryan is spending this winter at Greenhollow. I'll invite Martin, too: for Bryan, you see, so he'll have a friend. And Daddy won't mind, Martin's the Queen's own nephew! And Bryan won't be able to say anything, 'cause he just won't know until he gets there, and he won't be able to turn around and leave. That'll be all of Reed and Elder and Birch and Rowan and Ash... five months, Lady Armstrong! Surely we can wear him down in five months...or Martin can, anyway!"

Kirsten had to laugh even as she agreed. Oh, yes; turn her darling Martin singlemindedly loose on someone for five months, and, given that there was anything to build on in the first place, Martin would have a palace constructed in five months. "That's a very good idea, Carrie. Martin will enjoy it, I know--" which caused both of them to giggle helplessly.

They left it settled that Kirsten was to deliver Martin to Greenhollow on the 25th of Ivy. The Armstrongs had to go to the Dual Kingdom within a day or two, in order to attend Lord Archer Armstrong's wedding to Callin's distant (but not distant enough!) cousin, the Novari-Karelhi noblewoman Lady Camilla Devonane. Kirsten's husband, ethnically Novari, would just as soon have missed his son's Karelhi ceremony and would have snapped up the least excuse offered him, but Kirsten knew how bitterly he'd regret not being there later, so she intended to give him no choice and thus salve his Novari conscience. And she wanted Martin there, on his best behaviour, to silently demonstrate tammie personhood. (Silently, because the King-Emperor was taking huge steps forward, acknowledging first the Novari and now a completely "out-race" man like Archer, and she had no desire to antagonize Kareli Kanara.) And that entire process would take nearly a month.

But, as Carrie pointed out, that would work to their advantage: for by then Bryan would have come to think that Martin had gone out of his life as suddenly as he'd come into it, and the surprise factor would be considerable, and might even do the job. Kirsten cautioned her not to think that someone as formidably well-controlled as Bryan would give in so readily, but admitted that any edge would help.

And Martin himself was over the moon.

Kirsten told Callin that Martin had been invited to spend the winter in Darien. He thought briefly, and then nodded. "Oh, Bryan whats-his-name. Well, that's all right, isn't it? I mean, Darien. He won't get into any trouble there, will he?"

Merritt was, not surprisingly, more perspicacious. He looked at her out of his clear green eyes, eyes darker than his father's and less guileless, and said, "I hope you're sure of what you're doing. There's a limit to Martin's resiliency--there's a limit to his reach, though he doesn't believe that yet. He's capable of being hurt quite badly."

"Don't you want him to be happy?" asked Kirsten of her most obscure son.

"Happiness is rarely complete, rarely easy, never simple, not for one who, like Martin, is not--simple," Merritt responded to the real, underlying question. "Life sets limits. Constantly stretching between the fence bars for that greener grass only rubs your neck raw."

Kirsten sighed softly. Who Merritt sometimes reminded her of most strongly was his cousin Hunter, who had, until the day Dmitri had married the girl, railed at Kirsten for filling his son's mind with the notion that what he wanted was actually attainable. "Martin can have what he wants, Merritt," she said to him. "It's not out of his reach. Don't clip his wings and hold him back because of your own fears, even if they are for him."

"I'll let him go, Mother," Martin said, sighing in his turn. "I know you think this will work, and Pythias knows you're better at people than I am. It'll be hard on M'liss if he moves to Darien; it'll kill her if he's hurt by this. But I trust you." He smiled slightly, a shadow of the incandescent Morgan smile his son had inherited; Merritt was altogether darker, though reliable beyond doubts. "And I don't know that we could stop him now, anyway."

So Martin went to Darien.