Should he have explained it to them?
He shuddered involuntarily: opening old wounds is never easy, even if sometimes it is necessary to make them heal. But was it useful for the two boys to know?
No, he decided. It was not, and indeed it would upset them excessively. Besides, even if there had been so much talk, only he and the confessor had received the queen's last words and the real father, assuming he was a nobleman of the court, had never come forward to claim his paternity, on pain of death under lese majesty. So, they would never know. But he had to try to reconcile this including with the queen, who had often asked that he keep the two children close, even more sad, and lonely than his.
And now that the child had made him savor the joy of recognizing himself as a father, he felt
