But they had been his undoing.

He felt that he might have kept his head a little longer but for the blaze of the gold brocade in the last light of the sun.
Laughter made her lovely.

Ah, there Brian had been right.

But then, he reflected sadly, Brian was always right.

That, he could surely concede, when Fate had put an end to his quest and doomed him to linger here in the home of a miser, waiting, waiting, yes, waiting in impatience for word of his son.