Chaldez was not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.
When Dan heard about it, his disappointment and frustration exploded into anger. He cursed the queen, he cursed Taigram and he cursed Chaldez, and stormed off. Chaldez, was astonished, and for the first time he realised how seriously Dan regarded his claim to kingship.
That night he was unable to sleep. He recalled what Lewvin had told him about Sair and about his mother and father; he thought of Lewvin herself; of telling her that he knew he was the son of Egmar and Shansi; he remembered her giving him the Roe Aada chain and locket; and he remembered her lying on the deck of The Serrin moments before they were both swept overboard. He thought of Doo. He hated himself for his disloyalty to her, and he hated the stavista for having made his disloyalty so easy. He wished he was with her at that very moment; he wished they could be together always; he wished he was free of the heavy obligations with which the gods had burdened him; he wished he was not Prince Chaldez.
As the night hours slipped passed he sank into despondency, and he experienced the old familiar sensation of approaching tears. It reminded him of the last occasion he had wanted to weep from self-pity; then he had been a wretched, snivelling little creature huddled on the floor of the potter's hut. But he had not given way to the tears; he had resolved, instead, to bear himself like a prince regardless of his circumstances.
His last thoughts, before he was snatched up by sleep, were that in adversity he had been more of a prince than ever he had been in the comfort of the stavista.

The next day he made up his mind: he would not betray his mother and father, or Lewvin; he would accept his responsibilities. He told Dan that they would both be on the expedition to Kroya; it did not matter thatTaigram was to be restored because he, Chaldez, was sure the gods would bring him to Sair, which had to be his main objective.
Dan became very excited then, and told him that he had been watching the harbour and that a number of ships were being fitted out to carry extra passengers - soldiers, no doubt.
To be consistent with his new resolve, Chaldez began to distance himself from the women at the court; or at least he attempted to. They were all of them very persistent, and began to suspect that he secretly favoured one of their number.
"Who is it?" Ardur demanded bluntly, and she was not convinced by Chaldez's protestations that he loved her as much as he had always done. "You're thinking of someone else," she accused him, and she added menacingly, "I'm going to find out who it is."
Chaldez was torn between wishing to protect Doo from her's and the others' spite, and his desire to see her as often as he could.
When they were together he sometimes regretted that she was not prettier, but when he looked into her large sad, seductive eyes he was bewitched, and everything else about her was unimportant.
He had not really expected her to be any happier in the house of Taigram and Hiyo than she had been with Draff, but she was happy, and Chaldez thought he understood why when she told him of the friendship between grumpy old Taigram and Deganz, the eldest of her four wards.
Deganz was by then a sturdy 12-year old, and it was amazing to Chaldez that he and Taigram should have made friends. Doo said "He likes all the children but he and Deganz get on best. You know how he stammers, well he talks quite normally when he's with them. He takes them for walks and plays hide and seek; I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. He's a different man."
Even more astonishingly, although she made no mention of it, the ex-king had allowed Deganz to see some of his secret treasures. Deganz had then shown the hiding place to Hagar, his little sister, and she had innocently told Doo. The former king, apparently, kept some rings and brooches in a compartment concealed in an arm of his State Chair, a highly ornate piece of furniture which he occupied when he was feeling depressed by the loss of his real throne.
After hearing about his grandfather's transformation in the company of Deganz, Chaldez tried to detect a change in the old man's normal demeanour, but found him as sour as ever. He complained endlessly about the slowness with which preparations for the invasion of Kroya were moving ahead. "I don't know what they're playing at," he grumbled over and over again.
His concern was curiously at odds with the impression he often gave of not being particularly interested in returning to his former kingdom at all. He never spoke of the rewards of kingship, only the burdens and frustrations. Hiyo did her best to sound positive. "He does grumble so!" she would say, "but I can assure you he was far happier in Kroya than he could ever be in exile. His place is in his own capital."
Taigram's complaints about the drawn-out preparations for his expedition were not, it seemed, without foundation. Dan was following developments closely, and as autumn hurried into winter and winter dragged into spring he was unable to report any visible progress at all from his observations at the harbour where a few ships were apparently being fitted out.
Chaldez asked the queen if Cregitzig had received the reports he had asked for from the Theigan traders and ships' captains who had business with Kroya, but she brushed the question aside with the comment that gathering intelligence was always a slow business.
"Your grandfather," she said, "grows impatient, but what does he know about undertaking military operations? He's never been to war once in his whole life. He should understand that these things take time."
Chaldez had thought that there was little contact between the stavista and his grandparents but he now realised he was wrong. More was going on than he knew about.
The days melted into months and there was little change except that the queen's indispositions became more frequent, and her temper sharper.
Chaldez was now 18. Since his arrival at the stavista he had seen nothing of his cousin Havil, and as for Prince Haz, who had been with Cregitzig on the punitive raid against the Lord Jedseg, Chaldez had no idea what had become of him.
High summer was approaching when Draff and a number of other noblemen were peremptorily arrested and beheaded for a supposed treason. Chaldez had known already that the queen was becoming increasingly irrational, but towards him she remained as affectionate as ever.
Shortly after the mid-summer festival, Dan reported a revival of activity among the ships in the harbour; it seemed that a fleet was indeed being assembled.
All Taigram said, when Chaldez told him, was that the queen was up to something, and that she was not to be trusted.
Chaldez was with her the following day and she was in the middle of a remark to him when she fell silent. Her face had gone waxy white. For a moment she looked surprised, and then she let out an alarming shriek.
Attendants rushed towards her from all sides. She had bowed her head down and was holding it in both hands.
"Stop the pain!" she howled. "I can't stand the pain. DO SOMETHING!"
Her physician was sent for, but by the time he reached her side she was unconscious.
She was carried to her bed. Five days later she was dead, Chaldez only occasionally leaving her side. He knew she was slipping away, but wanted to hold on to her; to stop her going. She was his security as well as his friend, and without her he feared to think what his future held.