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“What have you been doing with yourself, you young fool?” he rumbled, shaking his head.

Renlow grinned. “Came unseated in the melee, like the biggest dullard in all Karadok.”

“This seat should be comfortable, my lord,” Ursula murmured, gesturing to a bedside chair. “I will leave you to exchange your greetings while I fetch some refreshment.” She sent a beaming smile their way and swiftly left the room.

Kentigern lowered himself into a chair, noticing the way Renlow’s eye followed his wife as she exited the room. He turned back to Konrad with a rueful smile. “I couldn’t have laid myself up at a worse time,” he groaned.

“Not true,” Konrad corrected him. “For there are no tournaments of note held from now until September. You have a good two months for your bones to knit.”

Renlow scratched his nose. “Aye, true enough,” he agreed absently. “Though I was not thinking of the tournaments precisely.”

Coming from someone who lived and breathed solely to compete, as Renlow did, his statement was an astonishing one. Konrad beheld him speechlessly. As though what he had said had only just dawned on him, Renlow coughed and reddened. “You are going to Beres Caple, my lord?”

“I am.”

Renlow looked a little wistful. “I hope you find sport worthy of you there.”

Konrad shrugged. Beres Caple was a minor tournament, ill attended by the more celebrated knights. “Wherever I go, there seems to be a target marked on my chest plate and someone thirsting for my blood.”

Renlow laughed. “Everyone wants to beat you, my lord. You should not take it as an insult, but as a compliment.”

Konrad grunted. It was true, he never took it personally, and even some unknown, local knight could put up a good fight if you caught them on a good day in front of a home crowd.

“Who else goes?” Renlow enquired.

“Probably a lot of obscure yokels. You know the sort.”

“Like me?” Renlow said without rancor.

“You may have started out that way,” Konrad acknowledged. “But you’re well established as part of the tournament crowd now. Even the king knows your name.” A slight frown marred Renlow’s brow. “What?”

Renlow shot him a curious look. “You did not say ‘southern’.”

“Pardon?”

“You did not say ‘even the southern king knows your name’. All you northern knights do that.”

Konrad paused to consider this. No, he realized with surprise. No, he had not. “Magnur is dead,” he shrugged. “We all need to move on with our lives.”

Renlow eyed him thoughtfully. “You are finding married life to your taste, then, my friend?” he said simply. “I’m glad.”

Konrad bit back a splutter. He had no idea where Renlow had drawn that conclusion from. He gazed back at him in bemusement. “What of you?” he barked to hide his discomfiture.

“How could it otherwise?” Renlow asked simply. “Ursula is an angel. I am the most fortunate of men.” His clear blue eyes were without guile, and Konrad guessed he would simply have to take his words entirely at face value.

“Did you know you were getting the elder sister?” he asked on impulse.

Faint color stole into Renlow’s cheeks. “No,” he admitted. “But it made sense, I thought, on reflection.”

“It did?”

Renlow smiled faintly. “Your wife has a strong personality. I think she has ruled the roost in her father’s house for a long time, while mine went overlooked.”

Konrad found himself bristling. “What do you mean by that?”

Renlow’s smile grew. “I meant no offence,” he said. “But have you not heard, my lord? How Aimee decided last summer that they should both be married? It took her a mere four months to wear her sister down. There is a reason, I think, that Ankatel did not buy us neighboring homes on the same street.”

Konrad shot him a shrewd look. “You think Ankatel is that discerning?”