PART TWO

ON THE KING'S PROGRESS ROSIVITA of Korvei, the least of the servants of Our Lady and Our Lord, to her most imperial majesty, Queen Mathilda, sends the most humble protestations of her complete devotion and heartfelt greetings in the Name of Our Lady, Whose renowned wisdom and singular glory illumines you, our gracious queen, mother to our most glorious King Henry, second of that name.

The message from her father lay on top of the next page, covering the words she had written yesterday before being interrupted first by a messenger from the north and then by the news of the argument that had erupted among the king's counselors. She slipped the parchment into the pocket sewn in her outer tunic. Her fingers slipped down the smooth silk of her gold vestment, worn by all the king's clerics. It was very fine to the touch. Like all worldly pleasures, she reminded herself wryly. The gold vestment, symbol of the king's

service, covered the coarse cloth she wore underneath, the black robe that marked her as coming, originally, from Our Lady's Convent of Korvei.

She returned her attention to the book.

At your request I undertake to write of the deeds of the great princes and in addition I have taken pains to write a few words concerning the origin and condition of the Wendish people over whom King Henry, first of that name, was the first to reign, so that in reading of these deeds you may delight your mind, relieve your cares, and relax in pleasant leisure.

Here, yesterday afternoon, she had broken off. It was a relief to return to the quiet of the scriptorium after the uproar last night, which had lasted until King Henry retired from the feast. She consulted her wax tablet, with its worked and reworked sentences, crossed out and scratched over, then set her quill to ink and began writing again.

/ confess, however, that I could not encompass all their deeds, but I am writing them briefly and not at length, so that their narration may be clear and not tedious to my readers. Therefore may Your Highness read this little book, being mindful of us and of the piety and devotion with which it was written.

Here ends the Preface to the First Book of the Deeds of the Great Princes.

Rosvita shifted on her stool. Her back was sore already. When she had first come to the King's Chapel as a twentyyearold fresh from Korvei Convent, she had been able to sit up long into nights broken only by the call to prayer and work by candlelight at the copying and recopying of old texts and, indeed, at texts she had herself composed despite the lack of humility such composition betrayed in one so young. But after twenty years of labor, first in the service of King Arnulf the Younger and now for King Henry, her body was no longer as supple and strong.

But she smiled as she readied a new page. It was as her old Mother Abbess always said: "The pains of age remind us of the wisdom we have won through our trials." Since Mother Otta of Korvei had then been a vigorous old woman past her seventieth year who had never known a day's sickness in her life and who was yet the gentlest, most amiable, and wisest person Rosvita had ever met, the words resonated with a charming and most appropriate humility. Mother Otta yet lived, incredibly approaching her ninetieth year, a sign of Our Lady and Lord's Grace, although she was now frail and almost blind.

For ten years Rosvita had labored, taking notes, speaking with ancient courtiers and biscops, studying old records in the archives of the monasteries and convents through which the King's Court traveled on its endless progress. Now she had begun to write. She hoped she would complete this great project in such good time that Mother Otta might have it read to her before she died.

Here begins the First Book of the Deeds of the Great Princes.

After twenty years of labor in the scriptorium, Rosvita knew well how difficult it would be to make changes once she had begun, the time it would take to recopy an entire page or, worse, a whole chapter. But she had decided at last on the order of chapters, and it was truly time to plan no longer but simply compose.

. First of all I will set down a few things regarding the origin and condition of the Wendish people, following in this matter only hearsay, since the truth of those times is too thickly obscured in antiquity.

Some hold that the Wendish people lived first in the northlands, from which they were driven south by the incursions of those whom we name the Eika, the dragonmen. Others believe that the Wendish came originally from Arethousa, and that they were the remnant of the great army led by Alexandras, the Son of Thunder, which after its final defeat by the armies of the Dariyan Empress Arkuaknia was scattered throughout the world. This opinion I heard in my youth from an old scholar. For the rest, it is commonly accepted that the Wendish were an ancient and noble people, known to the Hessi peoples and written of in their most ancient books, and referred to in Polyxene's History of the Dariya.

We are certain, however, that the Wendish people first came to these lands in ships, and that they landed at the town known as Hathelenga, which lies west of the city of Gent. The natives who lived in those lands at that time, said to be Ostravians, took up arms against them. The Wendish fought valiantly and took the shorelands for their own.

There was a sudden eruption of noise at the entrance to the scriptorium. Clerics and monks, lost in their copying, now started up or turned their heads as old Cleric Monica appeared at the head of a loud and, for the moment, unruly band. But it was not an invasion of the Wendish tribes. It was merely the inconvenient arrival of the youngest members of the king's schola. i Rosvita sighed and set down her pen. She then berated herself for her exasperation and rose to help Cleric Monica herd her charges onto benches at those of the desks which were free. As she sat back down at her own bench, eyeing fresh parchment with the longing of one who knows she will not be able to work any further this hour, a young man slid onto the bench beside her.

"I beg your pardon," he whispered.

It was young Berthold Villam. He smiled winningly at her; he was one of those rare young men who are utterly charming without being the least aware of it. Indeed, of the children and young persons who attended the king's progress, he was her favorite. He had turned fifteen last winter and had, as was customary, been given a retinue of his own. Thus, he was too old for the schoolroom, but he genuinely loved learning or, at least, was desperately curious.

He reached out diffidently and touched the parchment, ink still wet on it, with a forefinger. "This is your HistoryT Rosvita nodded. Other children, she noted, were sharing benches with the clerics who had been at work in the scriptorium. In the last half year the number of children on the king's progress had doubled. This by itself was a sign there was trouble in the kingdom.

Her gaze settled on the girl who sat, silent and with a mulish expression, on the bench nearest Cleric Monica. This latest arrival was the eldest child of Conrad the Black, Duke of Wayland; though she was only eight years old, she knew she was being held hostage for her father's good behavior.

"Now, children," said Cleric Monica. She was quite bent with arthritis but a formidable presence nevertheless. She glared the children into silence and raised a hand. "Attend. There are enough tablets that you must only share with one another person. Some of you boys need only listen."

Berthold fidgeted, fingers toying with Rosvita's stylus. Like many of the boys and young men who were fated to marry and then spend most of their life riding to war or protecting their wives' lands, he had not been taught how to write, although he could read. He noticed what he was doing and, embarrassed, ducked his chin.

"You may use it," she said. He flashed her a smile and laboriously impressed a "B" into the tablet.

"Attend," said Cleric Monica. "To read the works of the ancients you must know Dariyan, for that is the language in which they wrote and spoke in the old Dariyan Empire. Though there is much knowledge we may gain from those works left to us after the fall of that great empire, there is a greater knowledge yet: that the old Empire, the union of elves and men, was fated to fall because its emperors and empresses would not receive into their hearts the truth of the Unities and the blessing of the Light.

That is why, when the great Taillefer restored the empire in the year , he called it the Holy Dariyan Empire."

"But no one faults the piety of Taillefer," muttered Berthold, trying to write an "E" that had straight lines, "and yet his empire collapsed and no king or queen has been crowned Holy Dariyan Emperor in Darre since Taillefer. How is that explained?"

"A good question," murmured Rosvita, aware suddenly that Cleric Monica's hard gaze had turned their way. It was too bad, really, that the boy must marry. He would have made a fine historian.

Cleric Monica coughed meaningfully and went on with her teaching. Berthold sighed and essayed an "R." Rosvita found her gaze wandering over the assembled children.

The great magnates of the realm were each expected to send a child to attend the king's progress. Some, usually younger siblings, would be educated as clerics and in time join the King's Chapel and Greater Schola. Other children might only pass through for a year or two as part of their education, to get a taste of life in the everchanging, always moving court as it traveled through the lands ruled over by King Henry.

And a few, whose parents were of suspect loyalty, might stay for a much longer time. Although no one ever spoke the word, these children were hostages, although welltreated ones.

That was not true of Berthold, of course. His father, the margrave Helmut Villam, was King Henry's favored counselor and most trusted companion.

Of the great princes of the realm, the four margraves were usually the most loyal to the king. Of all the princes, the margraves most needed the king's support. As administrators of the marchlands, those lands that bordered the easternmost territories controlled by the Wendish peoples and their allies, they were always at the forefront when the barbarian eastern tribes raided civilized lands for loot and slaves.

From their lands missionaries set out into the wild lands to convert the heathens. Into their lands came the most intrepid settlers, willing to risk the assaults of the heathen tribes in return for good lands to farm clear of obligation to any lord except the king or prince.

For three years the borderlands had been quiet, and because of this the margravesor their heirswere able to spend part of every year in attendance on the king. This spring, besides Villam, the king's progress boasted the presence of the illustrious Judith, margrave of Olsatia and Austra.

She had left her marchlands in the capable hands of her eldest daughter and brought her two youngest children to court. One of them, a sallow girl of about fourteen years of age, sat with a slackjawed expression, staring at Cleric Monica as if the elderly woman had just sprouted horns and wings.

Werinhar, margrave of Westfall, had sent his youngest brother to court. This young man was destined for the church, and like a good clericintraining he was at this moment diligently copying down Monica's speech.

As usual it was the dukesthe most powerful princes of the realmwho posed the greatest problem.

The three dukes whose lands lay in the old kingdom of Wendar remained loyal: Saony, Fesse, and Avaria. All of them had either children or young siblings here now; Rosvita had seen many young people from those families come and go in the last twenty years.

But the dukedoms of Varingia, Wayland, and Arconia lay in the old kingdom of Varre, and the loyalty of their dukes was less constantand more suspect. So Duke Conrad of Wayland's daughter sat at the front of the class and laboriously copied letters under the strict attention of Cleric Monica. So, half a year ago, Tallia, daughter of Sabella and Berengar, had come of age and left the king's progress to return to Arconia. No one had thought anything of it then; it was a natural progression.

But two months ago Rodulf, Duke of Varingia, had recalled his youngest son Erchanger from Henry's side. And now they heard daily the rumors that Sabella meant to rebel again against Henry's authority.

Berthold snorted under his breath, amused. "Ekkehard's fallen asleep again."

"Ai, Lady," murmured Rosvita. She did not at first have the courage to look. When she did, she saw that the only son of King Henry and Queen Sophia was, indeed, asleep, head basketed on an arm, tunic pulled askew to reveal the gold torque around his neck. He was snoring slightly. Ekkehard was a good boy but prone to staying up late at banquets listening to the poets and musicians rather than studying his letters, as he ought.

Monica, blessedly, had not yet noticed the boy was asleep. Most of her attention was reserved for Duke Conrad's daughter, a slender girl who had inherited a full share of her grandmother's blood: She was as black as a Jinna merchant. On her, the gold torque reserved for the direct descendants of kings shone beautifully against black skin.

Berthold, following the line of Rosvita's gaze, muttered slyly: "She'll be very handsome when she grows up."

"So was it said of her grandmother, a great beauty despite that her complexion isn't what we are used to. But the blessed Daisan himself lived in the lands now conquered and ruled by the Jinna, so who is to say he was not himself as darkcomplexioned as she?"

' 'For a person is not accused because she is tall or short of stature, because he is white or black, because she has large or small eyes, or because he has some physical defect,' " quoted Berthold.

"Hush," said Rosvita mildly, covering her lips to hide her smile.

"Lord Berthold," said Cleric Monica. "I trust you will attend to my words or absent yourself so the rest may work in peace?"

He bowed his head obediently. Monica lectured for a while more, the words so familiar they sounded a drone in Rosvita's ears! She stretched and rubbed her back, trying to be surreptitious about it, but Berthold, noticing, grinned at her before he finished writing his name.

Abruptly Rosvita became aware of voices from the garden outside, heard through the opened shutters of the window that let light wash over her desk. The others, children and clerics alike, concentrating on their work or

on Monica's lesson, seemed oblivious. Rosvita could not be.

Blessed Lady! The king's daughters were quarreling again.

"I merely said I think you are unwise to allow such a man so much influence over your councils."

"You're jealous he chose my company over yours!"

"Of course that isn't true. I am only concerned for your reputation. Everyone knows he is a charlatan."

"He's nothing of the kind! They're all envious of his wisdom."

"I thought they were all annoyed by his arrogance and his terrible manners."

Rosvita sighed, laid down her quill, and wiped her fingers quickly on a rag, then rose from her stool, rubbing her aching back. Berthold looked up, startled; she signed to him to stay where he was.

Cleric Monica merely nodded curtly at her, acknowledging her leavetaking; no doubt Monica knew and approved what she was about.

Rosvita hastened down the aisle of the scriptorium, cut through the sacristystartling the aged brother in charge who had fallen asleep by the vestmentsand came out into the rose garden in time to see the two sisters in their full glory by the fountain.

They were a strange admixture of their parents. Sapientia was, like her mother, small and dark and neat, but she had in all other ways the look of her father about her, including the unfortunate tendency to flush a bright red when she lost her temper.

Theophanu had the greater height and the finer figure, robust and wellformed, but also her mother's unnatural coolness of temperament; Eastern wiles, the courtiers called it, and had never entirely trusted Queen Sophia, although they had wept as grievously as any when she was laid to rest. No doubt, thought Rosvita uncharitably, because they knew the accepted order of King Henry's court, molded over the sixteen years of Henry and Sophia's rule, would be thrown all into chaos when he married a new queen.

"You're furious because Father wishes to name me as margrave of Eastfall and give me those lands to administer. You want them yourself!" Sapientia's complexion by now rivaled that of the bright pink floribundas twining up the stone wall that bounded the private garden, although the color did not become her as well as it did the roses.

In eighteen years Rosvita had never yet seen Theophanu lose her temper, not even as a small child. Unnatural girl! She had many more effective ways of making her elder sister angry. "I trust that Father will add to my j estates when he deems it time. I have never found it worthwhile to beg for duties before he is willing to settle them on me."

Rosvita hurried forward. Poor Sapientia, in the face of this insult that so pointedly must remind her of yesterday's tempest, was about to succumb to one of her famous rages.

"Your Gracious Highnesses," said Rosvita just as Sapientia drew breath, "I have found you at last!" The bright statement had its intended effect: Sapientia, [ caught in the moment before speaking, lost hold of her thought.

Theophanu arched one eyebrow provocatively. "You bring news?" she asked politely, although Rosvita knew perfectly well the princess was not fooled by this transparent ploy.

Rosvita recalled the message from her father and blessed Our Lady for the inspiration. "It is only a small family matter, nothing important, but with great humility I venture to speak of it before you, Your Highnesses."

"You must confide in us at once." said Sapientia, coming forward to take Rosvita's hands in hers.

"We will do all we can."

Theophanu simply lifted a hand in assent.

"I have a brother, named Ivar, who has just been sent into orders. He is to become a monk at the monastery ruled over by Mother Scholastica, at Quedlinhame. I had I hoped you might show some favor to me and my family by asking your Aunt Scholastica to watch over him in his early days there. He is very young, perhaps two or three years younger than you, Your Highness." She nodded at Theophanu.

"And I believe from the tone of my father's letter that it was not Ivar's intention to enter the church."

"He is a younger son," said Sapientia. "What else might he have wanted?"

"I cannot know his mind. I have only met him twice. He was born at least ten years after I left home to become a novice at Korvei. He is the child of my father's second wife, who is a daughter of the countess of Hesbaye."

"Ah, yes, she had three daughters by her third husband." Sapientia released Rosvita's hands and paced over to the dry fountain. Four stone unicorns, rearing back on their hind legs, regarded her calmly, their stippled surface streaked with old water trails from the spray that had coursed out from their manes and horns. Damaged by winter storms, the fountain had not yet been repaired. Father Bardo had apologized most profusely when the king and his court had arrived at Hersford Monastery to find the garden's charming centerpiece not working.

It was a warm day for spring, going on hot. Without a cooling spray to refresh the courtyard, Rosvita felt the heat radiating up from the mosaic tile that surrounded the broken fountain.

"Her daughter, who is now the wife of Helmut Villain, spoke in my favor last night," Sapientia continued, then laughed. "It will be interesting to see who buries more spouses before they themselves die, Helmut Villam or the countess of Hesbaye. But Villam is on his fifth wife now, is he not? The countess' fourth husband is still alive. She will have to send him away to war as she did with all the others."

"That was a tactless thing to say," said Theophanu. "It is no wonder Father won't send you on your progress."

Sapientia whirled away from her contemplation of the fountain, took two strides to her sister, and slapped her.

"Lady preserve me," Rosvita muttered, hastening forward.

Theophanu neither smiled in triumph nor cried out in pain; her face was as flat as polished wood.

"Their loss should not be fodder for your amusement."

"Now, now," said Rosvita, hurriedly placing herself between the two young women. "Let us not argue and strike out when we feel the heat of our passions on us. 'It is well to speak first,' as the blessed Daisan said when his disciples asked him what to do when false accusations of sorcery were laid against them."

" 'For the truth shall make us free,' " finished Theophanu.

Sapientia burst into noisy sobs of thwarted anger and fled the garden. From a halfhidden bench a maidservant jumped up and followed her inside.

"I am not sure it is wise to bait your sister in this fashion."

"If she would only think before she speaks " Theophanu broke off, turned, and took several steps forward to greet the man who emerged at that moment into the courtyard. Like the two young women, he wore a gold torque, braids of solid gold twisted into a threequarters circle, around his neck.

Theophanu knelt. "Father."

He laid a hand on her dark hair.

Rosvita knelt as well. "Your Majesty."

"You must rise, my most valued cleric," said the king. "I have an errand for you, which I am assured only you can accomplish."

Rosvita rose and faced King Henry. As a young man he had been, like his elder daughter, rash at times; now, as always these days, he wore a grave expression that contrasted well with the bright lights of his silvering hair. "I am your servant, Your Majesty." She could not quite restrain a smile. "Your praise honors me."

"No more than it should, my friend. You will indulge me, I hope, by carrying out this errand at once."

gli "Of course."

"Father Bardo tells me there is a hermit, a holy monk, who lives in a cell in the hills above the monastery. He is old and was once, I am told, a scholar."

Despite herself, Rosvita felt her heart beat faster. An old man, and a scholar as well! Always there were new things to be discovered from the testimony of such people.

"He is known to be well versed in the 'laws of the Emperor Taillefer, to have knowledge of capitularies of those times that have been lost to us. But he is reluctant to break his contemplation, so says Father Bardo."

"Then ought we to ask him to break his contemplation, Your Majesty?"

"There are some things I need to know about inheritance." His tone, barely, betrayed agitation.

Theophanu looked up sharply at her father, but said nothing. "As for you, Rosvita, Father Bardo says this holy monk has heard of your work compiling a history of the Wendish people for my blessed mother and might be willing to speak with you. Perhaps his curiosity outweighs his serenity." He said it with the secular lord's fine disregard for the pursuits of those sworn to the church.

Or his meditations on the Lady's and Lord's Holy Works had not yet quieted his passion for learning. But Rosvita did not voice this thought out loud.

"You are thinking the same thing," said the king, with a smile.

"I am, indeed."

"Then you must speak your mind freely in front of me, or how else will I benefit from your wise counsel?"

Now, Rosvita did smile. She had always liked Henry, as much as one allowed oneself to like the heir and later king; in recent years, however, as he had drawn her more tightly into his orbit, she had also come to respect him. "Then I must ask you if there is some certain thing you are hoping to discover from such an interview."

The king lifted his hand from Theophanu's head and glanced around the courtyard. Behind a hedge of cypress, Rosvita saw two courtiers waiting in discreet attendance: One, the elder man, was Helmut Villam, the king's constant companion and most trusted adviser; the other was hidden by the leaves.

"Where is your sister?" Henry said to his daughter. "I was told the two of you walked here together."

"She has gone inside."

"If you will wait, then, with Villam, I would have you come riding with me."

"I will attend you, Father." She rose and retreated obediently to stand with the others. Rosvita caught a glimpse of Berthold Villam. Evidently he had slipped out after her to find out what all the fuss was about. The other person in attendance, now visible, was the formidable Judith, margrave of Olsatia and Austra. Behind the margrave hovered several servants.

The spring sun, glaringly hot in the enclosed garden of stone and hedge and roses, suddenly vanished, cloaked by a cloud.

"You know what is whispered," said Henry. "What none of them will say aloud."

The dukes and margraves, counts and biscops and clerics and courtiers who populated the king's progress spoke freely and volubly of the great concerns of the day: Would Henry's sister Sabella break into open revolt against him? Was this to be a summer of raids along the northern coast, or would the Eika land, as was rumored, with an army? What did the skopos in Darre mean to do about the whispers of heresy taking root inside the church?

But on one subject they were silent, or spoke in circles that surrounded but never touched the heart of the issue. In the terrible arguments that had raged yesterday afternoon and in the tense feast that had followed, where whispers and glances continued the dispute, one name had not been spoken so that it could be heard.

"Sanglant," she said, pronouncing it in the Salian way: sahnglawnt.

"And what is it they say about Sanglant?"

"They speak not of Sanglant but of you. They say your sentiment has overreached your reason.

They say it is time to send Sapientia on her progress so she may be judged worthy or unworthy of being named as your heir. And if not Sapientia, then Theophanu."

"Theophanu is not as well liked."

"Not in general, no."

"Yet she is the more capable, Rosvita."

"It is not my place to judge such matters."

"Then whose is it?" He sounded impatient now.

"It is yours, Your Majesty. Such is the burden laid on the sovereign king by Our Lady and Lord."

He arched one eyebrow; for an instant she saw how much Theophanu resembled him, in wit and intelligence if not feature. The church bell began to toll, calling the monks to the service of Sext. She smelled charcoal in the air and the stench of meat being seared over hot coals in preparation for roasting and the night's feast. After a long pause, Henry spoke again. "What do they say about Sanglant?"

Better to tell him the truth he already knew but chose, out of sentiment, to ignore. "That he is a bastard, Your Majesty. That he is not a true man. Whatever other fine qualities he certainly has, and which are fully acknowledged, can never compensate for his birth and his mother's blood." She hesitated, then went on. "Nor ought they to."

He looked annoyed but he did not respond at once. The bell fell into silence; she heard the whisper of monks' robes as the last stragglers made their way to the chapel within the cloister where they would pray.

"I will attend service," he said. "But you will visit the hermit nevertheless, Rosvita. And you will discover whether this holy monk knows of precedent for a child born to a concubine or other unofficial union being named as heir."

His voice dropped even as he said the fateful words. Only she heard them. But surely every man and woman who followed along on the king's progress knew what was in his mind: that his eldest child, the bastard son of an Aoi woman who had emerged from unknown lands to enchant the young Henry on his heir's progress, was and always had been his favorite, though he had three legitimate children by Queen Sophia who were each possessed of a sound mind and body.

She caught a glimpse in his face then of an ancient longing, a passion never extinguished, never fulfilled. But quickly it was covered by the mask of stone worn by the king.

"I will do as you ask, Your Majesty," she said, and bowed her head to the inevitable. Although surely nothing good could come of this obsession.

THE DRAGONS

TEN days after leaving Heart's Rest, Liath sat on the old stone wall and enjoyed the spring sun.

She was tired, but not overly so; free of Hugh, she had recovered her strength quickly.

This moment of respite she used to study the layout of the holding of Steleshame: the dye vats sheltered under a leanto; the henhouse; two cauldrons spitting with boiling water attended by three women who stirred wool cloth as it shrank; felters at work in the sun; two of the blacksmith's boys linking tiny iron rings into mail; furs stretched and strung to cure.

Here, within the large courtyard protected by a palisade of wood, lay the remains of an older structure. The Eagles had thrown up an outpost and used the old dressed stone to build a tower for defense. The householder and her relatives lived in a timber longhouse, and the stables were also built of wood. Only the skeleton of the old fort was left, straight lines squared to the equinoxes and the solstices, the map of the sun. She could trace these bones with her eyes, and read, here and there, inscriptions in old Dariyan cut into the stone by the soldiers and craftsman who had inhabited this place long ago.

Lucian loves the redhaired woman.

Estephanos owes Julia eight quiniones.

Let it be known that this outpost has been erected by the order ofArkikai Tangashuan, under the auspices of the Most Exalted Empress Thaissania, she of the mask.

Liath knelt to wipe dirt from this last inscription, graven into a block of stone half sunk in the ground next to the watering trough. For how many years had it lain here, trampled by horses and cattle, scoured by wind and dust, drenched by rain? She coughed, sucking in a mouthful of dust blown up by a gust of wind. Her fingers, scraping, reached beaten earth; the inscription extended farther yet, buried in the ground.

" 'She of the mask,' " said Wolfhere, behind her. "The heathen empress before whom the blessed Daisan stood without fear and proclaimed the Holy Word and the saving Mercy of the Lady and Lord of Unities."

Surprised, Liath bolted up unsteadily. Wolfhere smiled, a baring of teeth.

"Do not deny you can read it, child. Both your father and mother were church educated, and when you were but six years of age you could read old Dariyan texts with the skill of a scholar bred in the convent."

"Surely not," she blurted out, embarrassed.

His smile now seemed less forced. "Not with the skill of an adult perhaps, but astonishing in one so young. Come, now. There is an armory here, and we must find you weapons that are suitable.

Mistress Gisela's niece is sewing borders on new cloaks for you and Hanna."

Hanna was already at the tower, trying the weight of swords. She handled the weapons awkwardly. They had traveled for ten days and during that time Hathui and Manfred had tested Liath and Hanna in swordcraft and found them sorely wanting.

"Eagles are not soldiers," Hathui was saying to Hanna as Liath and Wolfhere paused at the heavy ironribbed door that led into the round chamber at the base of the tower. "But you must know how to defend yourself against bandits and the king's enemies. Ai! What do you know how to do, woman?"

"I can milk a cow, make butter and cheese," puffed Hanna, "feed twenty travelers a good meal, chop wood, build a fire, salt and smoke meat, ret and spin flax Hathui laughed, lowering her sword. She was not winded. "Enough! Enough!" The two women had been sparring, circling while Manfred used a staff to fend off the stray children and dogs and chickens which infested the yard. "The Lady honors those who are chatelaine to a hearth, for is She not Herself Chatelaine to us all? But you're hamfisted with the sword, Hanna. Manfred, give her a spear." He obliged, and Hanna had only time to look longingly toward Liathas if to say "/ wish you were here and I there at the door"before she handed him the sword and took up the spear.

"This is like a staff." Hanna settled her hands into a comfortable grip on the haft. She tried a few whacks at the stout post sunk in the ground in the middle of the yard. To Liath's surprise, Hanna grinned suddenly. "Thancmar and I have crossed staves a few times. When we were younger, we sparred with staves to pass the time while we were out with the sheep."

Hathui did not look impressed. "When you've learned to handle a spear on horseback, you'll be able to boast. But an Eagle unhorsed in bad company is most likely a dead Eagle. What the sheep admired will do you little good here."

Hanna only laughed. "I have ridden hard for ten days and not given up, although the Lady alone knows the blisters I have, and where I have them! I can learn this, too, by Our Lord."

"And you'll still have to learn swordcraft, even so," continued Hathui as if Hanna hadn't spoken.

The hawknosed woman still looked dour, but there was almost a smile on her face.

"Come inside," said Wolfhere.

Liath ducked under the lintel, built low as an added means of protection, and immediately sneezed. She wiped watering eyes and blinked as Wolfhere lit a brand and searched back into the far shadows of the chamber. Everything was neatly stored away here: sacks of onions and carrots; baskets of beans and peas and apples; jars of oil; wooden barrels of chops packed in lard. Something had gone rancid. Beyond the foodstores of the householder lay five chests closed with hasps of iron. One was inlaid with brass lions. This one Wolfhere opened. The hinges were well oiled, opening without a squeak.

Liath picked her way across to him, once stepping on something that squashed under her boot and sent up the sickly sweet scent of rotting fruit. A fly buzzed in her ear.

"Hathui notes you are adept at knifefighting, which skill I suppose you picked up from your father Bernard as you traveled. I believe there is an old sword here, still serviceable. It was recovered from the fort."

"Which fort?" she asked, then knew what he meant: This fort, the old Dariyan fort built by order of Arkikai Tangashuan seven hundred years ago, reckoning by the calendars she knew. Now of course it was known as Steleshame, a small estate under the authority of the freeholder Gisela that was also an official posting stop for the King's Eagles and thus under the king's protection rather than that of the local count.

Wolfhere lifted out a bundle wrapped in cloth and slowly unwrapped it. "It's shorter and blunter than the swords we are used to, but perhaps you will find it a good tool to use as you become accustomed to swordcraft. Hathui mentioned you wield a butcher's knife with great skill."

As he pulled the last layer of oilcloth off, she looked down into the chest and caught her breath.

On yellowed linen lay a bowcase, in it rested an unstrung bow. The case was made of red leather.

Worked into the leather was a portrait of a griffin, wings outspread. The creature held in its beak the head of a deer, but the tines of this deer's antlers were transformed into the heads of crested eagles, as if, being devoured, the deer was in the act of transforming into the predator that had killed it. "May I?' she asked.

"What is it you see?" Wolfhere asked, but she had already reached in and drawn out the bowcase. "Ah," he said. "Barbarian work. Look at the shape of the bow."

The unstrung bow curved the wrong way. But Liath knew this kind of bow well enough. She turned the leather case over. ISo decoration adorned One ot\\eT s\<ie of the bowcase, but there were ten symbols pressed in a circle into the leather, like runes. "Are these letters?" she asked. Wolfhere shrugged. "This is like the bow my father had. He said it came from the east. Da always said this kind of bow had the greatest range and the odd property of being effective from horseback. He taught me to use it, because when we were traveling" She broke off and looked down at Wolfhere, who still knelt on the dirt floor, a short sword laid on oilcloth at his knees.

"You were traveling?" he asked quietly. "You and Bernard journeyed for a long time, Liath, and never stayed in any one place for too long."

"Until Heart's Rest," she said bitterly. Until she had begged him to stay just one more season, and then another, until what Da rightly feared had happened: His enemies caught up with them. Why not tell Wolfhere the truth? He had not been there when Da was killed. She was in his power now, in any case, if he wished her ill. "We were running. Always running." "What from?"

His calmness only made her terrible angerat losing Da, at all the years of fear and hiding that had come to

nothing in the end stand stark in contrast. "Maybe from you."

Wolfhere considered her words for a while, then shrugged his shoulders and rose, lifting the short sword in both hands. "It was said of Bernard that he roved to far and exotic places as a young frater. He was sent out into the dark lands to bring the Holy Word to those who live in night, but I know little of those journeys." "Da was a frater?" Startled, she gaped at him. "You did not know this, child?" She shook her head.

"Where do you think he was educated? Do you not know his kin?"

Again, a mute no. She had wondered if Wolfhere knew her father's history, but she dared not ask in case he asked questions of her in his turn and she had not expected him to volunteer any information.

"Not a strong lineage but known to be of a family that came east in the time of Taillefer's empire, when the emperor set out to bring Wendar under his authority. That Taillefer failed is not to his discredit, for the Wendish tribes in those days were lawless and had not yet come into the Light of God. Bernard's people built estates in what were then wild lands even as King Henry sends freewomen and men into the lands beyond the River Eldar so he can extend the kingdom eastward, into "I have kin living?" She had been alone for so long, first, in faint memories, in the villa with her mother and father and then on the long road with Da, that she could not imagine having kinsmen and women to whom she was bound by ties of blood and obligation.

"Most of that lineage went into the church, so they did not produce many children. In the succession crisis of the elder Arnulf they supported, alas, a claimant against Arnulf and thus lost the royal favor and a not insubstantial portion of their lands. Bernard has a cousin yet living, though the estates she administers are sadly diminished from what they were under their common grandmother. She has a son who rides with the King's Dragons, whom I imagine we shall soon see. Another son is a monk at St.

Remigius Cloister. There was also a daughter, who surely is married by now."

"Where is this estate? How do you know all this?" And the question she could not ask: Why did Da never tell me any of this?

"Near Bodfeld. It has long been my business to know of your background, Liath." The way he said the words, sternly, almost mercilessly, made her shiver and pull a step back from him. "But I was your mother's sworn comrade in other pursuits, and thus I am bound to her in ways you do not yet understand."

"What ways?" she asked, not wanting to ask but unable not to ask. There was so much she wanted to know about her parents.

"Your mother was one of those who are called magi. And so, in a meager fashion, am I."

"Then " She barely managed to get the words out through her choked throat. You are deaf to magic, Liath, Da always said. But she had burned the Rose into wood, without bearing flame in her hand.

"Then why are you in the Eagles?"

"A good question. I was sworn into the Eagles at much the same age you are now, child. Once given the the same with those men and few women sworn into the service of the Dragons, where it is said they are more likely to die than retire from that service. So it is said with the king's guard of foot soldiers, the Lions, although it is also said of them that an old Lion is likely to be found at rest in his fields while his wife administers the work."

"Then how did you come to know my mother and father?"

"Our paths crossed. What do you know of magic, Liath?"

"Nnnothing." But her tongue skipped betrayingly over the word.

"You must trust me, child."

"How can I trust you, or anyone?" Suddenly it poured out. She tightened her grip on the bowcase, felt the smooth wood of the bow pressing against her hip. "Da and I ran all those years, for nothing. I don't know who killed him. It might have been you, or people working for you. It might have been someone else, someone to whom you are opposed. But I can't know! Da only taught me a scholar's knowledge. He taught me little enough of the world. I didn't even know he had a cousin living, a home we might have fled to" She broke off, seeing Wolfhere's expression, his wry smile, his small shake of the head.

"When Bernard left the church, he was disowned by his kin. He left for a shameful reason, for the love of a womanyour mother, Anne."

She flushed with the heat of her own shame. "Many in the church claim to devote themselves only to Our Lady and Lord and yet do not hold to their vows." She had to look away into the shadows. She began to tremble all over, and her hands went cold. Hugh.

"But they rarely leave the church. We all are dependent on the Grace and Mercy of Our Lady and Lord for forgiveness from our sins. A lapse may be forgiven, if one does penance. But Bernard turned his back on the church. As I understand it, he became involved with the Heresy of the Knife, and then he met Anne. To his kin, who count many holy women and men among their ancestors, he may as well have said he denied the teachings of the blessed Daisan and the Circle of Unity altogether."

"That isn't truer "It is often whispered of the mathematici, those who observe the heavens and chart their movements and their influence on the plane of this earth, that they worship not Our Lady and Lord but the daimones of the air whose knowledge is greater than ours and whose vision is keener, but who are as ancient as creation, lower than the angels, yet too proud to bow before Our Lady and Lord or to take their place within the Chamber of Light."

"But it isn't true of Da! That he believed any such thing. He was a good man. He prayed, as any other man might."

"I did not say it was true. I only stated what other people often believe of those who are adept in the ancient knowledge of magic. You would do well to remember that, Liath."

"So Da always said," she murmured. "That people believed what they wanted to, whether it was truth or not." She blinked back tears, wiped her nose with the back of a hand. "But I am deaf to magic, Master Wolfhere. So it does not matter what I know."

"Does it not?" he asked softly.

"Are you not finished yet in there?" demanded Hathui from the door, peering in and turning her head to look toward the burning brand which Wolfhere had braced in an iron stand. "Poor Hanna is done for and needs to rest her bruises. Can you bring Liath out for me?"

Wolfhere rose, holding the short sword, and Liath followed him outside. She leaned the bowcase against the stone wall and took the sword, testing its balance. It was heavy, but not so heavy that she could not train herself to hold its weight.

"A good weapon," said Hathui, coming over to examine the sword. "Forged for killing, not to be pretty for some noble lord who has others to do his fighting for him."

"You are not of noble birth, Hathui?" Hanna asked from where she leaned against the wall of the tower. She looked tired but was clearly unwilling to sit down.

Hathui snorted. "Did you think I was? My mother is a freeholder, beholden to no lord. She and her sister and brother traveled east many years ago. That was when the younger Arnulf first offered land to those willing to cross the Eldar and build estates in heathen lands. My aunt is dead now. She was killed by Quman raiders. But

my mother and uncle still work those fields. They have gotten more land under cultivation than any of the other freeholders in our valley. What is this?" Distracted, she rubbed at the blade where it was bound into the hilt. The sheen of her sweat on the iron blade made letters stand out for a moment.

" 'This good sword is the friend of Lucian, son of Livia,' " read Liath before she knew she meant to. Had this sword belonged to the same Lucian who had cut into stone his love for a redhaired woman?

Then she realized the others were looking at her, surprised, all but Wolfhere. The three children who had been watching crept closer, staring at the strange sight of an exoticlooking young woman not in deacon's gown who could readand read such ancient words. Liath thought at once of Wolfhere's words: "I only stated what other people often believe."

"I did not know you were church educated," said Manfred, so startled by this revelation that he actually spoke.

Hathui coughed abruptly and moved to chase the children farther back. "Church education won't save your life when the heathen attack you." She beckoned to Liath to step out into the stable yard, which Mistress Gisela kept almost as well swept as Mistress Birta kept her inn yard. "Bear in mind, girl,"

Hathui added, perhaps sympathetically, "that a cherished weapon is the best kind. Now stand against me.

I'll run trials against you."

Hathui was quicker, stronger, taller, and had by far the better reach with her broadsword, but after a few passes she announced herself satisfied that Liath would in time become proficient enough with the short sword to defend herself. Liath was breathing hard, sweating, and had a terrible braise on her rump from a blow delivered by the flat of Hathui's blade.

"Manfred will cut some wooden staves to the length of the weapons you've chosen," added Hathui as Liath and Hanna exchanged grimaces, "and every day when we stop to rest the horses, we will practice with those."

Liath limped back to the wall, nudging chickens out of her way with her feet, handed the sword to Hanna, and drew the bow out of the bowcase. Hand on the grip, she turned the bow slowly, examining it, then pulled it close. She could discern three layers, a wood core with two strips of horn glued to the belly and sinew layered along the back. The back had been painted crimson; many fine lines and cracks disturbed the sheen of paint. The tips of the bow wore bronze caps, molded into the shape of griffins' heads. These beaks, a thin gash, held either end of the bow string. The bow looked sound.

Nestled in the bowcase she found a silk bowstring. She licked her fingers, then pulled the string through them to smooth down any frayed ends. Finally she braced the bow between right knee and left thigh and, with a grunt, strung it.

She tested the draw by sighting toward the palisade gate. And saw suddenly, on the inside, that the innermost layer of horn was carved all along its length with tiny salamanders twined together like interlinking rings, their eyes flecked with blue paint. Woven into them were ancient letters. She read them falling like the flow of water down the belly of the bow:

/ am called Seeker of Hearts.

Hathui had gone over to the water trough to sluice water down her hair and face. Dripping, she returned and motioned Hanna to go do the same, but stopped to examine the bow as Liath lowered it.

"That's a Quman bowcase," said Hathui, not admiringly. "I recognize its type. We took enough of them off dead Quman soldiers. Then we'd scrape them free of the taint of their heathen hands, all that ugly decoration. The bow must be of their make as well. Their bows were shorter than ours and curved backwards. But they were deadly all the same. And their arrows poisoned, like as not. Savages!" She spit on the ground.

Certainly they resembled old Dariyan letters, but these letters were altered in subtle ways from the letters carved into stone in the old fort or scratched into the hilt of her new sword, from the letters written in old crumbling scrolls she had seen in the scriptoria of monasteries where she and Da had taken shelter as they traveled.

Seeker of Hearts. The words came to Liath's lips, but she could not speak them out loud. No one else seemed to have noticed the strange delicate carvings. The back of the bow was unmarked except for the paint; only on the inner curve, facing the archer, did the bow speak. So did Liath also keep silence. For as Da always said: "Words spoken rashly can be used as weapons against you," and also, many times, "Keep silence, Liath! To speak out loud your secrets is like to a merchant opening a chest of jewels to every passerby on the road and thereby announcing his wealth to bandits."

Like The Book of Secrets. She did not glance toward the stables, where their riding gear was stowed. Surely Wolfhere suspected she carried the book with her; he had seen Hanna with it. He had never mentioned it, never asked any questions about it, and to Liath, this in itself was suspicious.

"Where did it come from?" she asked, indicating the bow.

"I haven't seen this bow before," said Wolfhere, "but it has been five years since I've ridden through Steleshame."

"I was here two years ago," said Hathui. "I remember nothing like. Manfred?"

He shook his head and extended a hand to take the bow. Liath hesitated an instant, then forced herself to give it to him. He turned it this way and that, examining it, took an arrow from his own quiver, and sent a shot at the palisade. The dull thunk of the arrow burying itself in a log sent the chickens scattering and set the dogs to barking and the children to shrieking.

He grunted, looking satisfied, and gave the bow back to Liath. He said nothing about the carvings.

Mistress Gisela emerged from the longhouse. Her courtthe womenfolk of her holdingtrailed after her. Liath had seen men and boys and other women at work in the village and fields surrounding Steleshame when they had ridden in that morning. Gisela was a stout woman with the bold gleam of authority in her blue eyes. She was holding a spoon still wet with broth. The smell made Liath's mouth water. Behind her, half grown girls dropped spindles down, then pulled them up again, spinning thread from flax.

"I hope, Master Wolfhere," said Gisela sternly, "that you do not intend to have sport within these walls. Sword practice I do not frown on, but archery belongs outside. My chickens and these children are very valuable to me."

"I beg your pardon, Mistress," said Wolfhere. He gestured toward the bow and case. "Do you recall when this came to Steleshame?"

She frowned. "I haven't seen it before, but you'd best ask the blacksmith. He knows more of which weapons come in and which go out."

That Steleshame had its own blacksmith was a mark of the prestige granted it by the king's protection. But the blacksmith, a short, burly man stained almost as dark as Liath by years of working in fire and ash, did not recognize the bow or the case, nor did he recall when or how the weapon had come to Steleshame. Indeed, no one did, and Gisela soon chased the children back to their chores and the women back to their weaving and spinning.

She presided over the midday meal of roasted chickens, leeks, bread, cheese, honeyed mead, and apples. When the meal was finished and all had toasted St. Bonfilia, whose day this was, Gisela allowed her niece, a handsome young woman with pale blonde hair, to bring forward the two new cloaks.

"Spun last winter," she said, "of Andallan wool from the Pyrani Mountains. The wool from that region is particularly strong and warm. My cousin's husband brought me four bags of it from Medemelacha."

"Medemelacha is a long way from here," said Wolfhere, "He travels by ship every other year,"

explained Gisela, not without pride. "We have a prosperous holding, enough to feed the king should his progress ever ride this way!"

"Be careful what you wish for," muttered Hanna. "I can only imagine what it must take to feed all the people who travel with the king."

"It has been six years since the king visited Gent," said Wolfhere calmly, not seeming to scorn Mistress Gisela's boast. "And with the current troubles we have heard of, perhaps you will get your wish."

She nodded briskly. "The Dragons rode through not twelve days ago, as I told you. But they rode in great haste, and I could do no more than give them provisions while the blacksmith checked over their armor and gear. Then they were on their way."

As Gisela spoke, Liath noticed to her surprise that the niece blushed a bright red and lifted the bundled cloaks up to conceal her face.

Mistress Gisela clucked, shaking her head. "Ai, yes, I hope the Dragons can drive the Eika away.

Gent is only three days' ride from here, if the rains haven't been bad. It is out through Gent that my cousin's husband travels, down the Veser River and out by the northern sea west along the coast of Wendar and then west and south along the coast of Varre and farther south yet to Salia, to the emporia there. If the Eika continue to raid, or if they invade, as some say they have this spring, thenwe//!" She threw up her hands in distress, but Liath suspected that Mistress Gisela relished having an audience to appreciate her family's importance and farranging connections. "How will we trade by sea if the river is in the hands of savages?"

"How indeed. Your hospitality had been most gracious, Mistress." Wolfhere now rose, and Gisela rose with him. "But we must ride."

At this command, the others rose as well, moving away from the table.

"Come forward, child," said Gisela curtly. The niece, hesitant and still blushing, presented the cloaks to Wolfhere. He took them, turned, and handed one to Hanna and one to Liath.

"This is very fine work!" said Hanna, taken quite by surprise.

"I thank you," said Gisela. "You will certainly hear as you travel that Steleshame is renowned for its weaving. I only keep in the weaving room those of the women who are in good health and particularly adept at the craft. The others I sell or put out into the fields with the men. And any of my relatives'

daughters who show skill in needlework are fostered here with me until they marry."

Liath merely smiled, stroking the thick gray cloak. It was bordered with a scarlet trim, a length of cloth as deep a red as blood, which had been embroidered with gold eagles from top to bottom. She edged past Wolfhere to stand beside the niece.

"Is this your needlework?" she asked. The pretty girl nodded, flushing again. "It is very fine. I will always think of you when I wear it."

The niece smiled tentatively, then spoke in a voice so muted Liath could barely hear her: "You will see the Dragons?"

"I suppose we will."

"Perhaps you could ask" She broke off, looked mortified, then finished in a murmur. "No. He won't be thinking of me."

"I beg your pardon?"

But the others had already moved outside, and Liath had to follow them. Boys from the stable had saddled new horses. Hathui was already mounted, looking impatient to be gone.

"I can ride well enough," Hanna was saying. "But I worry that Liath isn't strong enough yet." She glanced toward the door, saw that Liath had emerged. "You know it's true!" she added snappishly.

"I'm strong enough." Liath did not want to stay on at Steleshame while the others rode to Gent. She wanted to see the Dragons, to see the soldiers whom Ivar had dreamed of fighting withnot that he ever would now. She wanted to meet Da's cousin's son. A kinsman.

And anyway, she couldn't leave Hanna or Wolfhere. They were all that protected her from Hugh.

If she stayed in one place, vulnerable, Hugh would catch up with her. He would know.

"I think Liath is strong enough," said Wolfhere mildly, "though she has recovered even more quickly than I expected. Now." He crossed to them and, with a sign, showed them that he expected them to stand still. With a bronze clasp he closed the new cloak about Hanna's shoulder, then did the same for Liath. His hands were firm and decisive.

"This cloak marks you as riding under the protection of the Eagles," he said, then gestured to them that they should mount and be ready to ride.

"The Eagles also carry the King's seal as a badge," said Hanna, who like her mother always pointed out these essential details.

"You have not yet earned the right to carry this badge." He touched a hand to the brass badge he wore pinned to his tunic, at his throat. "You must learn the precepts which govern the conduct of an Eagle. And you must swear to abide by them." He paused, glancing toward Hathui and Manfred. Both of them carried the seal, stamped into circular badges. But though they were younger and obviously newer to the service of the Eagles than Wolfhere, the badges they wore did not look newly made, not like Hanna and Liath's new cloaks.

From out in the fields, Liath heard singing. The gate stood open, and now two boys drove two squealing and grunting young pigs in toward the small hut by the far corner of the compound, where they would be slaughtered for the night's feast. Hathui, unable to wait any longer, urged her horse forward, heading out the gate.

"And lastly," Wolfhere said, "no man or woman is given the Eagle's badge until she has seen a comrade die. Death is ever at hand. We do not truly become Eagles until we accept and understand that we are willing to pay that price for our service and our king."

days after leaving Steleshame, Liath rode with Wolfhere and the small party of Eagles down into the bottomlands to the west of Gent pushing against a tide of refugees. They came on carts, on foot, leading donkeys and cows or carrying crates that confined chickens and geese. They hauled children and chests and sacks of withered turnips and jars cushioned by baskets of rye and barley. The old road was littered with their castoff baggage, those who had managed to leave their homes with any of their possessions and not merely their lives. The damp ground was churned to mud by their passage. Where the forest retreated from the road, trails beaten down through grass appeared as the refugees made new paths in their haste to flee.

Wolfhere spotted a lord astride a horse, dressed in a good linen tunic and attended by two wagons, five servants, and ten fine cows. He left the others and drew the lord aside. Their conversation was brief, and the lord and his party left at once, continuing west. When Wolfhere returned, he looked graver than ever.

"Are these the townsfolk of Gent?" Liath asked, staring. There were not hordes of people, but the flow was steady: She had never seen so many people on the move before. Always, she and Da, the occasional merchant who plied his wares between one town and the next, and the fraters, clerics, and messengers about their business for church and king were the only travelers on the roads.

Thinking of fraters she thought of Hugh, shut her eyes

against the thought of him. Felt sick, for an instant, and stopped herself from looking behind to see if he was dogging their trail. Somehow, somewhere, he knew where she was; she could feel it.

"Nay, child. These are the farming folk from the estates and villages surrounding the city. Gent has walls." Wolfhere's voice steadied her.

"Then why haven't these people fled inside the city?"

Wolfhere shook his head. "That I can't say. But if they have not, then I fear it bodes ill for those inside Gent."

On they rode, and people walking west called out to them:

"Do you bring word from the King?"

"What of Count Hildegard? Has she come yet? They say she has gathered her kinsmen together and rides to save the city."

"When will the Eika leave? When will it be safe to return to my farm?"

"Is King Henry coming himself with an army?" This from an old woman, her skirts spattered with fresh mud.

"Are the Dragons not here?" Wolfhere called back.

"They are so few, and the Eika so many."

"How many?" he asked, but she dragged her cart onward and her six children ran behind, faces pinched with fear.

After midday there was no one except stragglers. They came finally upon a deacon, walking like any common woman, her white robe and tabard flecked with mud and grit. Her servants led two mules, one laden with the massive silver Circle which had once adorned the Hearth, the other with a hastily folded altar cloth embroidered with gold thread and with the chalice and holy books, all saved from the church she had abandoned.

"Go no farther, honored ones," she said to Wolfhere, signaling her servants to halt. "Turn back while you are still safe. Tell the king that Gent is besieged."

"Why have you not fled into Gent?" Wolfhere asked.

"They are laying waste to the countryside all around."

She was, Liath thought, impossibly calm in the face of such disaster. "They are everywhere, good messenger. Gent is surrounded. I minister to the lands and estates west of Gent, so I was able to flee once I saw all my parishioners safely gone. East of the city and the river I cannot say, except that smoke has risen for twenty days, as if many fires are burning."

Hathui inhaled deeply, scenting. "Fresh fires and old," she said. "And dust, as of a great host moving." She swung her head to look west, then back to view the eastern horizon. "You see," she said to Liath and Hanna, "the sky and clouds have a different color. Mark this well, and learn." She inhaled again. "And another smell, like air too long shut within stone walls. Strange."

She made a gesture toward Manfred. The young man rode forward, past the deacon and her servants, and took up a station some fifty strides ahead on a rise, surveying farther toward the east. They could not yet see the cathedral tower above the trees.

Liath could only smell the heavy scent of rain coming from the north, off the distant sea. There, clouds lowered grayblack over the land, though patches of blue still showed through to the south.

"The storm comes from the sea," said the deacon, brushing mud off the sleeve of her robe and then sighing, as if she had just that moment realized it was a pointless endeavor. "I must go, good man. I carry with me a fingerbone of St. Perpetua. Such a holy relic must not fall into the hands of savages."

"Go, then," said Wolfhere.

"And you, with my blessing." The deacon granted each one of them the sign of blessing before she trudged on, her nervous servants glad to be moving again.

Wolfhere's frown was, if possible, deeper than before. They had not ridden more than two hundred strides farther on when Manfred's horse, in the lead, shied suddenly and tried to bolt back. Both Wolfhere and Hathui drew their swords the next instant, while Manfred fought his gelding. The other horses caught the scent and began to sidestep, ears flicking back. Liath braced herself on her stirrups and looped her reins loosely around the pommel. She pulled her bow from the bowcase and nocked an arrow.

The road looped past a knoll of trees which formed part of the eastern horizon, fields half grown with rye lying below within the broad curve of a stream that flowed toward the east and the Veser River.

"That's where they'll be," said Hathui, nodding toward the knoll.

Too calmly, Liath thought.

"Ai, Lady, I'm terrified," whispered Hanna, pressing her horse up beside Liath. She had loosed her spear from its sling and now rested it against the top of her right boot.

"Out into the fields," said Wolfhere. "In the open, we can outrun them."

They turned left and started out across the fields. Green rye grass bent under the hooves of their horses and sprang up behind. Liath kept looking over her shoulder toward the knoll, one hand on her reins, one gripping bow and arrow. A misting rain began to filter down, wetting her hair, but she dared not pull her hood up for fear she would not be able to see as well. At once, as the wind shifted, she caught the scent that had spooked the horses.

It had a dry taste to it, what one might taste in a heat made dry by dust and wind. It smelled like stones heated until they cracked or the musk of a cave inhabited by dragons.

"Hai!" shouted Hathui.

There! Out of the trees came three irongray dogs the biggest, ugliest dogs Liath had ever seen.

Five Eika loped after them. The Eika held spears and suddenly as with one thought they threw their weapons. Most skidded harmlessly over the rye, but one spear stuck, quivering, in the ground at the feet of Hanna's horse; the animal bolted back, rearing. Hanna fell from the saddle and hit the ground hard.

Hathui was off her horse in an instant.

"Liath!" shouted Wolfhere. "Ride for the city!"

From out here, with the knoll no longer blocking their view, Liath could now see the distant tower of Gent's cathedral, gray stone rising toward gray clouds and beyond them, eastward, ribbons of darker smoke.

Hanna scrambled to her feet, then cried out, holding her knee. Manfred had already galloped past Hathui, sword held high, heading to cut off the Eika. The creatures had halved the distance between them already. The dogs broke forward, muzzles to the wind.

/ can't go.

Liath knew it in that instant, knew that she could not leave until Hanna was safe. Without Hanna .

..

"Without Hanna I might as well be dead," she said aloud. Hanna was the only person she could really trust. "My only protector," she said, and lifted her bow and nocked the arrow and drew.

Sighted on one of the dogs. Staring so, she saw it clearly. Saliva dripped from its jaws and from its long, dangling tongue. It was truly monstrous, with great fangs, a hollow belly, and lean, long flanks.

She shot.

The dog tumbled, yipping with terrible shrieking cries. Its two companions crashed into it and to her horror began to tear into its flesh.

This altercation, slowing the Eika, gave her time to nock and draw again. She caught the Eika who ran out in front in her sight down the length of the arrow, had an instant to register the icewhite glare of its braided hair. And shot.

The Eika dropped like a stone, her arrow buried in its bronze chest. Was it armor, or skin? She stared, horrified, and could not act. Her hands groped blindly toward the quiver for another arrow. A terrible wailing rose as the Eika paused to sniff at their dead comrade, but first one, then the second and last the third leaped up again, charging for Manfred. The fourth Eika laid into the dogs and beat them back from the stilltwitching corpse.

Another dozen Eika and perhaps four more dogs emerged from the knoll of the trees. Their keening, their highpitched barking, hurt her ears, though she could not tell which sound came from which creature. They darted down the hill toward the five Eagles.

"Liath!" Wolfhere pulled up beside her. "Go!" He made a gesture with one hand, something meaningless that she did not understand. For an instant she felt the merest tugging at her heart: I should go. I am meant to ride to Gent. Then shrugged it off, found that her hands had grasped an arrow. She nocked it and drew.

This Eika, too, had that startling white hair, bleached like bone. His torso wore a garish pattern of painted colors, blue, yellow, and white, and beneath the paint she caught the suggestion of copper, as if his skin was sheeted by a thin coating of metal. She shot.

The Eika went down, arrow sunk in its chest.

The other three had reached Manfred, who thrust and slashed with his spear. Hathui shoved Hanna up onto her horse and grasped the reins of her own. Thrown spears rained in on them, and Hathui staggered back, her left thigh torn open. Wolfhere pressed forward to aid Manfred. Hanna extended her hand to Hathui, but Hathui gripped her saddle's pommel and threw herself up over the back of her own mount.

Liath nocked an arrow and drew. There! An ax slanted toward Manfred's back. She loosed the arrow.

An Eika staggered back and fell, ax dropping out of its limp hand. Only two were leftexcept for the dozen racing down on them from the hill, and the murderous dogs. A dog leaped in and nipped at the hindquarters of Manfred's horse; the gelding lashed out, kicking hard. Manfred grabbed at his saddle's pommel, almost losing his grip on his spear.

It was all too quick to register anything except her own fear and their utterly inhuman faces, the long lope, faster than any human man might run, the hands bristling with white claws like sharpened bone, and their strange horrible skin more like scaled metal than flesh.

Too quick to register anything except that there were too many Eika and not enough Eagles. She nocked and drew and shot, but her hands were shaking so badly the arrow went wild, skidding over the ground twenty paces from the skirmish flurrying around Manfred. There was no time; in twenty more breaths the rest would be on him.

A horn.

It rang clear and steady. As if to herald its sounding, the drizzle let up and the sun broke through the clouds. Liath heard horses.

There! Breaking around the knoll from the east came six riders in mail and heavy iron helmets trimmed with brass, their bright gold tabards marked with a menacing black dragon, black cloaks thrown back over their shoulders. The two Eika harassing Manfred scuttled back and retreated toward their comrades. From the knoll came a shrill, loud whistle. Liath winced and almost dropped her bow. One of the dogs broke away toward the hill. The other hesitated, then rushed the horsemen, who cut it down almost casually.

The Dragons cantered up and pulled in beside Wolfhere, who had ridden ahead to meet them.

Liath came up behind him, Hathui and Hanna behind her, Manfred still away in the field, watchful.

"Eagles!" cried the lead rider. He did not remove his helmet; Liath could just make out blue eyes, blond beard, and a grim expression behind the nasal and cheek guards of the helmet. "That whistle will be a signal for reinforcements. We'll escort you into the city."

"There's a deacon," said Wolfhere, gesturing west. "She carries a holy relic and only left her church after all her people were safely gone. She and the relic must be protected."

The Dragon nodded stiffly. "We will escort her west as far as we are able."

"What of Gent?" asked Wolfhere.

of the road. Manfred lifted his spear upright and twisted it to unfurl the banner of the Eagles: an eagle with wings outspread carrying an arrow in its beak and a scroll in one talon. But the Eika were closer to the river. Already they ran at a steady lope that ate up the ground between them and their intended victims. Even Liath could see that the Eika would reach the bridge before the three Eagles could get there. She reined in her horse, wheeling around, but behind, back by the now distant knoll, another group of Eika had gathered, more than there had been before. Manfred passed her and kept riding, seeming oblivious to their inevitable fate.

Wolfhere came up beside her and slapped her horse on the rump. She started forward again, following him. To what purpose? At least, she thought bitterly, ifHanna survives she will be invested fully into the Eagles, a right earned by my death.

Wolfhere had sheathed his sword; he drew his left arm, hand clenched, across his chest, and then made a sharp sweeping gesture outward, toward the advancing Eika.

There came a flash, a glittering of light like a fire's light seen from inside a dark room. Liath blinked; the horses staggered, whinnying in terror, and she clung helplessly as her gelding bucked once before calming. Manfred, a hand flung over his eyes, was almost thrown.

The Eika faltered, but only from a lope to a trot. A moment later, far away, a rumbling sounded that ended in a sharp clap as loud as a peal of thunder.

"Lady's Blood," swore Wolfhere, "there's sorcery at work among the Eika. Liath, you must get in to the city, whatever happens to us. Do not hesitate or falter. When you win free, if I am dead, take yourself to the convent of St. Valeria and there throw yourself on the mercy of the Convent Mother. She will give you safekeeping."

The outrunners of the Eika force had reached the bridge, and they gathered, forming a wall with their shields. She was still too far away to see the walls clearly, to see if anyone moved there, if anyone had noticed their plight.

Manfred settled his horse. He and Wolfhere exchanged a glance, and then the young man pressed his horse forward, galloping hard for the line.

"Straight after him!" cried Wolfhere. "And mind you not what you see."

But she saw nothing, though she felt a tingling on her back and a slap of cold air against her cheeks. Manfred's head and shoulders were abruptly invested with the tiny winkings of a thousand firebugs, but the sight faded against the red serpent shields, the Eika setting their trap and awaiting their prey, raising their spears.

She saw behind the Eika soldiers the stone and timber bridge, the gulf of air beneath, where the steep banks fell away to the river's edge, and beyond, so close now that she could see figures standing along the parapet, the walls of Gent.

Without warning, the gates of Gent mawed open with a horrible screeching din.

And out from the city rode Dragons.

Thy charged at full tilt, lances lowered, teardrop shields as metalgray as the lowering clouds, all blended together with the steady rain. The only colors were the red serpents and yellow shields of the Eika, the gold tabards of the Dragons as bright as if the sun had emerged, and the brass fittings on their helms like the masks of war.

The Dragons hit with an impact Liath felt as a shuddering in the air. A few broke all the way through and, rather than turning to aid their fellows now struggling with sword and ax against the Eika who had not gone down, they kept coming, heading for the three Eagles. Behind them, the second wave of Dragons hit the disintegrating Eika line. They did not bear lances but rather struck with swords and heavy axes. More Eika swarmed up from the river's banks, and the melee swirled off the bridge and spread out into the fields on either side, a terrible ringing clash. Dogs leaped and ripped at Dragons and horses alike.

Six Dragons pounded up and wheeled round, forming into a loose wedge.

"Behind us," shouted the man who was surely their leader. The broach which clasped his cloak at his right shoulder sparkled with jewels. A golden torque encircled his neck: the mark of a prince of the royal line. His gaze touched on Liath.

She stared, though she could see nothing of his face except his eyes, as green as jade. His helmet was not fitted with brass decoration, like those worn by his soldiers. It was inlaid with gold to form the aspect of a dragon, terrible to look on and yet, together with the other Dragons, all iron and gold and black, beautiful to look on.

Then they were moving back toward the fight. The two soldiers in front of her lowered their lances as Eika sprinted out into the roadway to block them. The weight of their horses drove them through. An Eika sprang up from the roadway and flung itself forward, ax raised high, toward the unarmored Wolfhere. The prince leaned right and cut across Wolfhere's path, swung so strong a blow he cleaved the creature's head from its neck. But more Eika came, and more yet, swarming toward the prince like bees drawn to honey or wild dogs to the hope of a fresh kill. The fighting pressed close all around them, and Liath hunched down, mumbling silent prayers. Manfred stuck one with his spear and then, as another climbed closer and the horses got bogged down in bodies and in the melee, lost it as the Eika fell away off the raised roadway.

They were almost at the bridge, but more and yet more Eika scrambled up, even up and over the stone braces, and formed a thick, living wall.

Dogs poured through their ranks, breaking through the line to spring at the Dragons and the Eagles in their midst. They were horrid beasts, slavering, mad with rage and utterly fearless.

One lunged, barreling against Manfred's horse, thenheading straight for her. In that instant, she saw its eyes. They were the color of burning yellow.

Too close to shoot. It sprang.

The prince turned halfway round in his saddle and struck it down, across the back, with a single stroke. It crumpled, and her horse jumped to clear its body. That fast. Too fast.

Eika swarmed everywhere, closing, tightening the noose.

With loud cries a new sally of Dragons hit the line of Eika from behind, riding down on them from out of the gates. Eika fell and were trampled or were carried off by the weight of the charge. The Dragons, still in formation, broke ranks, splitting to either side as the Eagles and their escort pounded through. Stone drummed beneath the horses' hooves; then a shift, a slight jarring drop, and they clattered over the metaltrimmed drawbridge. They rode into the shelter of the walls.

The rain stopped, started again as they came out from under the guardhouse into the open space that fronted the gates. The remains of market stallssome half burned, others in disarray, but all emptystood in haphazard lines in the great square.

Behind a great keening and wailing arose. Together with the sudden pounding of hooves and a great chorus of shouts, it deafened Liath. She heard no commands, only saw the prince peel away from the escort and ride back out through the gates. Dragons raced through, four abreast, coming back within the walls, and with a winding of gears the gates began to close.

She battled her way through to a vantage point: On the bridge the last dozen Dragons fought a rearguard action to retreat as the Eika hounded them. One soldier had been thrown over a horse.

Another lay limp over his mount's neck. But beyond, on the stone and timber span, in the trampled field, she saw no gold tabard, no soldier left lying in the field. The dogs had begun to rip into the Eika dead.

Many of the Dragons were already racing up the stairs to the parapet; the city militiamen rained arrows down onto the bridge from above. The gates swung closed behind the last rider: the prince. He kicked his mount forward just as spears, aimed at his back, darkened the air. The gates slammed shut to a chorus of howls and the peppering smacks of spears hitting harmlessly against the metalplated gates. A new grinding sounded: the men of Gent were drawing up the drawbridge.

The prince's horse stumbled, dropped, and threw him, stumbled again, and went down, kicking hard, trying to get up. He jumped to his feet, pulled off his helm and tossed it to the ground with an astonishing lack of regard for its rich decoration. He grabbed the horse's bridle and yanked its head down onto the ground. Then, while he cursed loud and long, four of his men ran forward to examine the horse. A spear protruded from its belly, sunk deep. Blood spilled onto the packed earth, mixing with rain. The horse thrashed feebly, then stilled, its side rising and falling in shallow breaths. From outside, Liath heard the last howls and frustrated wails of the Eika as they finally retreated. The men stationed along the parapet jeered after them.

The prince's hand fell to his belt. He drew a knife and cut the horse's throat. Its blood poured onto his feet, staining his boots red, but still he knelt there, silent now. His black hair was plastered down on his skull from the rain. He had strange smooth skin, bronzecolored, and a striking face that betrayed by its lineaments that his mother was truly not of human kin.

Strangest of all, he had no beard nor any trace of beard.

He looked up, sought, and found with his gaze a man dressed in a rich tunic, head shielded from the rain by a capacious scarlet cloak held like a canopy over him by four servants.

"Butcher it and salt it," the prince said, standing up and turning his back on the dead animal. He had a hoarse tenor; it carried with the authority of a man who expects obedience. "Or so I suggest, my lord mayor."

"Eat horse meat?" The man could not seem to find a place to rest his eyes: on the prince, on the dead horse, on the Dragons calmly drawing the spear from the body, on the last gush of blood and entrails.

"It will seem like a delicacy come winter, if the Eika lay in a true siege." The prince saw Wolfhere, gestured to him, and stalked away. A Dragon grabbed the prince's helm from the mud and hurried after him.

Wolfhere quickly handed his horse's reins to Manfred and, without comment, followed.

JLLA. Jtl dismounted and huddled close to Manfred, shaking from the aftermath of battle as the rush of energy left her.

"I've never seen a man without a beard before," she whispered. "I mean, except a churchman, of course."

Manfred ran a finger along his own closecropped beard. "Eika don't have beards."

She laughed nervously. Her hands trembled and she thought her heart would never stop racing. "I didn't notice. Did Hanna and Hathui escape, do you think?"

He shrugged.

"What do we do now?"

They took the horses to the barracks where the Dragons had stabled their own horses, rubbed them down, and gave them oats; the activity calmed her. She slung her bedroll and saddlebags over her shoulder and followed Manfred up steep stairs that led to the long attic room above the stables where the Dragons had settled in. Fresh straw covered the plank floor, and bedrolls lay neatly lined up along the walls. The smell of horse and stall was pervasive but not overpowering. Men lounged at their ease, dicing, carving wood, oiling or polishing their gear, making small talk. They glanced at the two Eagles, curious, but made no attempt to speak to them.

Was one of these men her kinsman? She tried to examine their faces surreptitiously, looking for some resemblance to Da.

Manfred led her to the far end of the long, low room. There, shutters opened to admit the gloomy light of afternoon. The rain was coming down harder now, but it was already stuffy inside the loft, sticky like summer heat. The prince and Wolfhere sat on bales of hay, facing each other across a table. The prince had a chess set carved of ivory laid out in front of him, eight squares wide, eight across. He toyed with the pieces as he and Wolfhere spoke, picking them up, setting them down in new places: the eight Lions, the Castles, Eagles, and Dragons andprotected by the othersthe Biscop and Regnant.

Behind the prince, the only woman besides Liath in the loft sat with the prince's helmet on her lap.

She polished the helmet with a rag. She wore the tabard of the Dragons, and her arms were muscular, her jaw scarred by many small white lines, and her nose looked as if it had been broken and healed wrong.

Manfred hunkered down onto his haunches, prepared for a long wait. Liath knelt beside him.

Now and again a cooling mist of water touched her face from the rain outside. Straw tickled her hands.

Her nose itched.

"I judge the city can withstand a siege. But my Dragons alone cannot lift the siege, not with the numbers of Eika who have invested Gent. We have no news from Count Hildegard, whether she or her brother Lord Dietrich mean to lead an army to aid us. And you say now the king will not bring an army."

"I don't know what King Henry intends, Prince Sanglant. But he may not be able to bring an army here, even if he wishes to."

The prince picked up a Dragon and placed it between two Castles, as if trapping it there. This close, Liath could study the line of his jaw. He had either just shaved or else he did not grow a beard.

But then how could he truly be called a man?

"I have heard these rumors, that Lady Sabella means to gather adherents and ride against King Henry. But she swore before the Biscop of Mainni eight years ago never to trouble the king with her false claims again."

"So she did," agreed Wolfhere, "but the Biscop of Mainni is rumored to be among her counselors now. And all three dukes of Varre as well as five counts from Varre have refused to appear before King Henry on his progress."

"This is certainly grave news, but what am I to tell the people of Gent? Given enough time, the Eika army outside will burn and batter down Gent's bridges, and when they have done that, they will have free passage up the Veser whether we will it or no. If they sail far enough up the Veser, then it will scarcely matter what the Lady Sabella demands, since the heart of Wendar itself will be at risk."

"You would counsel your father to consider this the greater threat? But always in other years, Prince Sanglant, the Eika have raided and left, content with whatever gold and slaves they could carry away in their ships."

The prince glanced out the window, although only rain and the timbered roof of the mayor's palace were visible. Distantly, Liath heard drums. "This is not 'other years.' This is not a raid. Already the envoy for the Eika general has refused Mayor Werner's offer of ten chests of gold and one hundred slaves as payment for them to leave."

Wolfhere chuckled suddenly. "I hear two things in your words I can scarcely credit. One is that a man sits as mayor in a city. The other is that the Eika have a general. They are bandits, nothing more, with perhaps a captain to lead each ship, if we can even dignify their packs with such a word. More like the strongest beast

who keeps the others obedient by threat of claw and teeth."

Sanglant turned his head to look directly at Liath. She squirmed, horribly uncomfortable; his eyes were so bright and his features so strange and sharp. He examined her with obvious curiosity for so long that she felt the stares of his men, behind her, on her back, as if they, too, wanted to know what interested their captain. For so long that Wolfhere finally glanced over to see what the prince was looking at.

What crossed Wolfhere's expression Liath had never expected to see: He was angry.

Sanglant smiled slowly at her, perhaps with invitation. When he smiled, he had a sudden bright charm, so powerful she felt herself blush. Beside her, Manfred muttered something inaudible under his breath. Sanglant grunted, almost laughing, as if in response. Then, with a shrug and a stretch of his shoulders, he looked back at Wolfhere. The older man's expression was now entirely bland.

"Mayor Werner is an interesting man, overly fond of his family's riches. Is it not said Our Lord judges the worth of his earthly sons by the measure of their generosity to their companions and to the poor? So King Henry would say. Werner's mother was mayor of the town before him, and he was her only surviving son. And, it is said, always her favorite, though certainly the staff of authority should have gone to one of her daughters, his half sisters." He said these words with a trace of bitterness, and yet he also seemed to be laughing at himself. "So far the people of Gent have found no reason to be displeased with his stewardship and thus throw him out in favor of a woman whose authority is, as you say, more likely to receive Our Lady's Blessing. As for the other" He put out a hand, and the woman handed him his helmet, now bright, the gold face of the dragon like cold fire burning on the hard surface of iron. As he spoke, serious now, he ran his hands over the helmet, tracing the delicate gold work with long, dark fingers.

"There is an intelligence out there which directs these Eika. I have felt it. It knows of me just as I know of it, and we are bent, each of us, on the other's destruction."

"A human man, do you think?"

"I think not. And who better than I to know, my friend. Is that not right?"

Wolfhere bowed his head in acknowledgment.

"But whether it is an Eika unlike in mind and craft to the others, or some different creature entirely, I cannot say. I have fought King Henry's wars for eight years now, since I came of age and was given my Dragons to be captain of. As is my birthright, the child born to prove the man worthy of the throne of Wendar." His tone was as cold as a stinging winter's wind. "But the others were ordinary wars, raids by the Quman horsemen, Duke Conrad's rebellion, Lady Sabella's revolt, which I saw the end of."

"Her first revolt," said Wolfhere quietly.

"Rumors do not a revolt make," said Sanglant, equally quietly, then raised a hand to forestall Wolfhere's comment. "But I trust your judgment in these matters, Wolfhere, if you say she is again fomenting rebellion against the king. You have served the throne of Wendar faithfully. Or so I have always heard."

"As have you," said Wolfhere, baring his teeth. "Or so I have always heard."

There was a hiss, an intake of breath, from those of the Dragons close enough to hear the comment. But Sanglant smiled his charming smile, tossed the chess piece carved into the likeness of a King's Dragon up toward the rafters, then grabbed it out of the air as it fell. The movement made the helm roll off his lap, and the scarjawed woman caught it before it struck the floor.

The prince opened his hand and displayed the chess piece. Its ivory gleam, oiled from much handling, set off the bronze tone of his skin. Half human, Liath thought, and then was ashamed of herself: Was she not also different from the rest, with her skin always burned so brown? But at least slaves who worked all day in the fields were burned as brown as she was at summer's end, if they were not burned to blisters. And Da had told her of people living in lands far to the south, where the sun was hotter and brighter, who had skin burned darker even than hers. Was it then better to be fully human but a slave or a heathen, rather than a halfhuman prince who could never be fully trusted?

/ have already been a slave. She wrung her fingers through each other. Her back prickled, as if thinking of those days meant Hugh was watching her. He is watching me. Like the intelligence that waited, out among the Eika, dueling with Prince Sanglant, so Liath knew Hugh waited, always aware of her no matter how far away she might be from him. He waited only until she came again into his grasp.

I am still a slave, because I fear him. Tears burned her eyes and she ducked her head down so no one would see. But Manfred's hand brushed her leg, as if to reassure her. She swallowed, gathered courage, and looked up. No one seemed to have noticed her lapse.

"Like this chess piece," said Sanglant, "I exist only to be moved by another man's hand."

Wolfhere smiled thinly. He looked very old, suddenly, as he lifted the piece out of the prince's hand. "You are young to be so old in wisdom, Sanglant."

"You flatter me. I am but four and twenty years of age, by the calendars of my father's people."

This was spoken tartly, almost defiantly.

"In the ruins of the old empire there is another calendar," said Wolfhere, "one that marks its time by the journey of bright Somorhas, who is both evening and morning star, and by the ascension of the seven stars that make up the seven jewels in the Crown of Stars. A child reaches for that Crown. Who knows what will happen when the Crown of Stars crowns the heavens?"

Sanglant stood up stiffly, regally, like a king about to pronounce judgment. "I have never known my mother, Wolfhere. Nor has she appeared to me, in mist or in night or by any enchantment I know of.

She abandoned me when I was not yet two months old. If she left me here, if she allowed my father to get me on her, for her own purposes, for some plot spun and set into motion by her people, then I am ignorant of it and of them and of my place in their plans. Indeed, there is little enough trace of the Lost Ones in these lands, though I have heard that in Alba they are more likely to walk abroad in the deep forests. You have said these things to me before, or hinted of them, and I am tired of it and I am tired of your insinuations. I am a soldier. I am captain of the King's Dragons, as is my right, as was the right of those who served as captain before me, Conrad the Dragon, Charles Wolfskin, and the lefthanded Arnulf, all of us bastards of the reigning sovereign. In that service I have left behind me fields covered with blood, so I might prove myself worthy of the name my mother gave me at birth. I have watched my own men die as they fought to protect me and to protect the king's interests. I have killed the king's enemies without mercy and spared none I could find. Hear me now: I serve the king and no one else.

Believe in your plots and plans and in the secret workings of the heavens, if you will. But leave me out of them."

He grabbed his helmet, tucked it under his arm, and walked the length of the attic and down the stairs. Only two Dragons followed him: the scarjawed woman and a blond man who walked with a limp.

When they had gone, it was silent except for the sound of rain and the sloppy clop of ox hooves on the wet street outside. Then there was a rustling, a sigh as of letout breath, and the men went back to their tasks.

Wolfhere set down the chess piece. Manfred rose, brushed straw from his tunic, and moved to stand beside the old Eagle, who looked out the window for a long time. Then Wolfhere also rose. Liath scrambled up and, keeping her head down, followed Wolfhere and Manfred to the stairs and down to the stables below. She felt as if every man there watched her pass. She wanted desperately to ask about her kinsman, but after the accusations Sanglant had made, she dared not.

She was, for the moment, afraid to ask Wolfhere anything, for fear she would not be able to resist asking him about the ancient calendar he had spoken of. The Crown of Stars she knew; it was a cluster of seven bright stars just outside the grasp of the constellation known as the Child, Second House in the zodiac, the world dragon that bound the heavens. She knew many of the names given by the ancient Dariyan mathematici to the stars, names different from those in common use in these days. But that the old Dariyans had marked time by a calendar markedly different from the one she knew . .. that knowledge Da had never taught her, if indeed he even knew it.

But the stars move in a fixed pattern. Given time and The Book of Secrets and paper to make the difficult calculations on, she could work out when next the cluster of stars known as the Crown of Stars would "crown the heavens." She wasn't sure what he meant by the phrase, but surely it had to do with a star reaching the zenith, the point on the sphere of the fixed stars where that star was seen as directly above the observer.

She kept silence as they walked through the stables. How many days had it been since she had been able to observe the heavens? During spring, as Da always said, the Lady clouds the skies so we remember to keep our eyes on the sowing. How many days since Wolfhere had freed her from Hugh?

One day short of a month.

She shuddered. It was as if Hugh was speaking, braced outside the wail of the invisible city that protected her heart. Like the Eika who had thrown up earthworks against Gent, he besieged her, only she could see no end.

Thirty days since you were stolen from me.

"Are you well?" asked Wolfhere.

His tone was so gentle she started. They had reached a door. Manfred was about to dash outside; he hung back, looking at her with concern. He had kind blue eyes and a solemn face, not handsome, not ugly, just steady and quiet. A good comrade.

"A little hot." She draped her cloak over one arm and shifted her saddlebags over her shoulder.

Manfred darted out into the courtyard, running hard for the doors that led into the mayor's palace. She pulled a corner of her cloak over her hair and started out after him. Wolfhere pulled her back.

"No need," he said, "to bring your gear. We'll be sleeping in the stables."

She had to turn around and go back, of course. She dared not tell him she had the book. He already knows you are educated as a mathematici, she told herself as she slunk along, hoping no one would notice her. But it was quiet in the stables. The Dragons were either upstairs, taking their ease, or elsewhere, on guard or out in the city. But what if Wolfhere simply took the book away from her? There would be nothing she could do to stop him or to get it back, once it was out of her hands.

Next to their horses was an empty stall, well padded with straw. Manfred and Wolfhere had left their gear here, neatly stowed, leaving room for them to sleep. She heaped straw up, shoved the saddlebags underneath, frowned. Too obvious. Could not help but reach inside the leather bag and feel the cold smooth grain of the leather binding, the raised letters along the spine. She traced the letters, reading them with her fingers, and felt like the dry wings of a moth the parchment and paper leaves of the three books bound inside the cover.

"What happened to Sturm and his company?" asked a deep voice. "They never came in from patrol."

"You didn't hear that part? They stayed outside the walls to escort the two wounded Eagles and a deacon conveying a holy relic to a place of safety."

"No, I didn't hear." This spoken a bit peevishly. "I was just coming up. Unlike you, I fought a few Eika in this melee and had a bit of cleaning up to do." The other man snorted. "You mean you let a few get some blows past your guard. I'm as clean as a saint, and the more likely to be blessed by Our Lady with a willing helpmeet for my efforts."

"Hah! These Gentish women are as friendly as wild boars. Do you think he'll pursue the pretty young Eagle?"

It took her a heartbeat to realize that they spoke of her.

"What? After arguing with the old master? I think not."

"How can you say so? He plucked the young Villam heiress unbruised from the vine, and that after she was betrothed and her father had warned him off twice."

She saw, faintly, their shadows drawn on the wall by the weak light shining through the stable doors.

"Nay, lad, you've come from outside the world of the court and don't know its ways yet. What is said and what is done can be two different things. What the heiress and old Villam wanted was marriage to the prince, but King Henry can never allow the prince to marry. It makes the boy look legitimate, does it not? So words were said in public and a betrothal sworn to another family, and the girl got what she wanted and, so they say, a child to boot that was born after her marriage to another man."

"And the prince? Did he get what he wanted?"

"Who can say?" replied the other man, who had the higher voice and the more confidence. "The prince does what his father the king tells him to do. I doubt he minded that engagement."

"He did look," blustered the first speaker. "At the young Eagle. She's a fetching piece, all bright and warm. Why shouldn't he pursue it? I didn't like the way the old master spoke to him."

"Nor did I. There is no better man than our prince."

The other grunted angry agreement.

"But there is a world outside the Dragons, lad, which is easy enough to forget as a young hatchling like you. And harder work it is to know the rules for those battles than for the ones we fight against King Henry's enemies.

So. Listen to what I say. Never anger an Eagle. Never sleep with a woman if the price, in whatever coin, is higher than what the pleasure was worth. Now. In payment for those words of advice you can oil my harness tonight while I go out hunting wild boars."

"Oil your harness!"

The other man moved. Liath shrank against the wall, tight in a corner, one hand still on the book, and thought hard of shadows and silence and invisibility. The two Dragons walked past the stall without noticing her, the younger man still complaining.

A moment later she heard Wolfhere calling her name. She shoved the saddlebags under straw and set her saddle and bedroll over them, then hurried out. Manfred had returned; his cloak was wet but the rest of him was reasonably dry. He actually smiled, seeing her. Conscious of his gaze, embarrassed by it, she picked at her hair, sure there must be straw caught in it. If only Hanna were here with her. If only she were sure Hanna was still alive.

"There you are," said Wolfhere. "Mayor Werner asks us to sit down with him at this night's feast.

He honors usor has no new and better guests to entertain."

"Will the prince be there?"

Wolfhere raised his eyebrows. "I suppose he will. Mayor Werner would not dare not to invite him, even if they do not get along. Sanglant is too much a lover of good food and drink to stay away."

And it was good food, an astonishing feast for a city under siege: a side of beef braised with spices Liath had never tasted before; a pudding; apple tarts; two roasted pigs; white bread; and a great deal of wine. Liath followed Wolfhere's lead and drank sparingly, cutting her wine with water. The prince sat at the other end of the table from her and matched Mayor Werner cup for cup.

Manfred looked disgusted.

"What's wrong?" she whispered to him.

"Come winter townsfolk will starve for want of these scraps."

It was the longest string of words she had ever heard him speak at one time. "Surely they have their own food stores."

"Enough for a long siege?"

"Do you think the town will be besieged for that long? Surely Count Hildegard will lift the siege."

"If she can."

The eating and drinking went on for what seemed to Liath an interminable time. An old man recited poetry in what he evidently conceived to be the style of the ancient Dariyans; Liath had read a copy of Virgilia's Heleniad and cringed to hear him. But there were other poets who sang songs of their own devising that were more pleasing, songs about heroes of days gone by and episodes from the great epic, The Gold of the Hevelli. Musicians played on lyres and zithers. There was a juggler, and two girls who balanced and did tricks on a long rope held taut by two men. But all in all, it was hot, smoky, noisy, and dull. She excused herself, pleading a need for the privy. After she used it, she did not feel like venturing back inside. It had stopped raining, even cleared partially, so half the sky was stars. Liath clung to the shadows, breathing in the night air, the solitude; it was quiet except for the muted noise of the feast from the great hall and the distant tremor of drums. A quartet of women walked by, laughing merrily, headed for the kitchens, trays resting against their hips.

"A man's a man because he grows a beard," said one. "But fraters and monks have no beards."

"To make themselves more like women and thus more pleasing to Our Lady! They pledge their bodies and their honor to the church, by cutting off their beards. It is the mark of their service."

"Is that what you say, then? A man's no true man who has no beard and is not a churchman?"

"Well, my dear Fastrada,'" said one who had been silent up until now, "that may well be true, but I speak truly when I say the prince is a man like any other. Or so it seemed to me."

They all laughed heartily and demanded more details, which she refused to give them.

Liath slunk across the courtyard, praying she would not be noticed, and sneaked into the stables.

No one had disturbed the empty stall; all was as she had left it. She went back outside.

The mayor's palace stood on a rise near the eastern bank of the river, itself ringed by a smaller stockade of posts. Climbing the ladder that led to the small parapet, she found herself looking over the city of Gent, the eastern shoreline, and the dark line of the Veser River. The moon was almost at the quarter, waxing; it lent a pale glamour to the night. There were no guards. She supposed those who might once have stood watch here at the palace walls now were out on the city walls. East she saw the fires of the Eika camp stretching both north and south along the river as far as the eye could see. Gent was darker, only a faint gleam of light from the great hall and the distant bobbing torches that marked watchmen on their rounds in the city and guards posted along the city wall. Two dark lines, one east, one west, broke the line of the river: the two bridges that led to the broad island on which lay the city of Gent.

She was alone.

She stared up, thinking of Wolfhere's words. The cluster of stars known as the Crown, toward which the constellation known as the Child reached, had passed out of the sky around the beginning of the year, at the spring equinox. The Lion was fading. Now the Dragon and the Serpent ruled the Houses of Night. The red planetJedu, the Angel of Warstill shone in the house of the Archer, the bright quester.

But soon within seven daysred Jedu would pass into the house of the Unicorn: ambition joined to will.

That foretold a time of advancement, when people with a strong will could take advantage of the power of their will and their clear sense of ambition to get ahead in the world.

Yet Da had always told her to be skeptical of those astrologia who claimed the ability to foretell the future from the movements and positions of the planets along the fixed sphere of the stars. There was a real power to be had in the knowledge of the heavens, but it was not this. She had long since memorized these teachings though she did not have the ability to use them herself.

"The movement of the wandering stars in the heavens is one of the markers by which the magi and mathematici know the lines through which they can draw down power from the heavens to wield on the earth. By this means they may also distinguish those of the daimones of the upper air who, with their greater knowledge of the universe, are most susceptible at any given alignment of the heavens to coercion or persuasion."

From below she heard low voices, startling her out of her reverie. Footsteps sounded, moving softly up the ladder to the parapet walk. She retreated into shadows, drew her cloak more tightly around her as if it were also a shadow, transforming her into just one more element of night and stillness and darkness.

"It was not a debate of my choosing," said the first as he came up onto the parapet walk and leaned out to look east. It was the prince. She recognized both his voice, which had that odd scrape in it, and his bearing. He was quite tall and had the strong shoulders and confident posture of a man who has trained long and well with weapons.

With him, to her surprise, was Wolfhere. They spoke with apparent cordiality despite their argument in the barracks earlier. "But it affects you nevertheless. I have heard it said more than once that King Henry refuses to let Sapientia leave on her progress, as is her right should he choose her over Theophanu. She is almost twenty years old."

"By which age King Henry had already been named as heir by right of fertility, of which I am the result." Sanglant's tone was flat, almost mocking.

"Then you must speak."

"It is not my place to speak. King Henry has counselors. He has companions, men and women of his own age who have their own birthright, their lands and estates."

"Surely these great magnates cannot counsel the king without some prejudice toward their own advancement."

"Do we not all counsel in such fashion, Lord Wolfhere, not unaware of what would best benefit ourselves? Save for the rare few, who are wise without any selfish intent."

"And who are those, in your opinion, Prince Sanglant?"

"Of them all, I would only trust the cleric, Rosvita of Korvei. She has an elegant bearing that sits well with her affability and benevolence. She is both humble and patient, and she is very learned. All this makes her a wise counselor."

He shifted, turning slightly. Liath pressed back farther into the shadows, round wood posts hard against her back. But there was not enough light from moon and stars for them to see her.

Finally, the prince sighed. "What do you want of me, Wolfhere? Some seek my favor. Others speak ill of me in the hope of turning my father against me. You hint of terrible plots devised by my mother's people and suggest that I conceal from my father and the rest of you my part in those plots. But I am not bookeducated like you are. I cannot puzzle such things out from hints and fragments of words and phrases in languages I cannot read. It is said you were invested as an Eagle the year the elder Arnulf died and left Wendar and Varre to the younger Arnulf and Queen Berengaria. But it is also said of you, my friend, that the year Queen Berengaria died in childbed you were taken into the confidence of those who secretly learn the ways of the magi, the forbidden

arts. And that it is for this reason, despite your wisdom and experience, that you do not walk among those who name themselves counselors to King Henry."

"An Eagle serves the sovereign by carrying messages and decrees and by observing and reporting back what was seen. Not by giving counsel. We are eyes and ears, Prince Sanglant, nothing more."

"And yet you chance to bring the most beautiful young Eagles into your nest, or so / observe." He sounded as if he meant to provoke the older man.

Wolfhere did not reply at once. The drums that beat incessantly in the Eika camp changed rhythm, adding a hiccuping beat in the middle of what had been a straight pattern of four.

Wolfhere spoke so lightly the words resonated like a hammer blow. "Stay away from her, Sanglant. She is not meant for you. Nor are you meant for your father's throne."

Sanglant laughed. "Does anyone expect me to live that long? I am captain of the Dragons, after all. Of all the captains, only Conrad the Dragon served his king for more years than I have so far served mine."

"You can influence King Henry's decision."

"Can I?"

Wolfhere appeared incapable of losing his temper, no matter how annoying Sanglant meant to be. "There is not one soul who moves in the orbit of the king's progress who cannot see he prefers you to his three legitimate children."

"You want me to say I do not want the throne."

"I am not alone in this wish. We must settle the affairs of the kingdom before worse catastrophes befall us because the king and his court are not united."

Sanglant turned his back on Wolfhere and leaned even farther out over the parapet, as if to catch sight of the distant Eika camp or to reach out and grasp the stars in his hands. But he did not look likely to fall. "I refuse, as I always have and as I always mean to do. You must speak to the king on this matter.

I am only the King's Dragon, his obedient son and servant. As I always have been."

"That is your only answer?"

"That is my only answer."

Wolfhere bent slightly at the waist, although Sanglant could not see the gesture. "Then I will leave you to your meditations." If he was vexed, he did not show it in his posture or his tone.

"When do you leave?" asked Sanglant.

"My comrade Hathui even now rides to King Henry with news of the siege. We will abide here a while to see what happens, and to see if I can search out this intelligence among the Eika you speak of."

"You trust my instincts?"

"I would be a fool not to."

"That is praise from you, Wolfhere." They seemed, more than anything, like two soldiers sparring.

"As it was meant to be. I bid you good night."

"As I fully plan it to be."

The intent was unmistakable. Wolfhere moved his head as if looking around the parapet walk, the grounds, and the long roof of the palace. Liath stayed as still as ever, sure she had made no sound.

Wolfhere did not notice her. He moved down the ladder and soon even the faint noise of his footsteps was lost to her.

There was a long moment of silence, except for the distant drums. She prayed Sanglant would move soon.

Suddenly he said in a low voice, to the empty air: "You've been here all along."

She did not move, dared not breathe.

He pushed back from the edge and walked with perfect confidence in the blackness down the walk to the corner, where she hid. Because she could see so well in the dark, she saw him lift a hand and beckon to her to rise. She dared not disobey.

Standing, coming forward, she halted a safe arm's length from him. "How did you know I was here?"

"I have keen hearing. Don't you know what is said of my mother's people?" His tone was so bitter she suddenly realized that much of what he had said to Wolfhere was born out of a deep resentment she could neither place nor understand. "That they are the spawn of fallen angels, those known as the daimones of the upper air, who mated with human women. That like their unsightly fathers they have the gift of hearing even the unspoken wishes of a man's heart, and then taunting him with them."

"But that isn't what the blessed Daisan taught," she blurted out, and was aghast she spoke so freely.

"What did the blessed Daisan teach?" She could not tell if he spoke with true curiosity or if he was merely humoring her for his own reasons.

"The prince is a man like any other," the servingwoman had said. He moved a step forward toward her, and had she been able to, she would have bolted and run away. But she could not.

Not knowing what else to do, she talked fast. "He taught that elves were born of fire and light.

For all things arose out of the four elements, fire and light and wind and water. It is only when darkness rose out of the depths that the universe became tainted with evil. So if elves are tainted by the darkness it is only because all things are that exist in this world. Only in the Chamber of Light has all darkness been burned away by the fiery truth of the gaze of Our Lady and Lord."

Because she could see so well in the dark, she saw him blink several times as if at a loss for words. He moved again, coming close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. "So. I am to stay away from you, am I?" He bent, as if to kiss her. Thought better of it and instead touched his own lips with a finger as if seal himself and her to silence. "It's too bad I have always been an obedient son."

He left her there, again alone, walked away and descended into the courtyard, vanishing into the night. Hugh. Hugh had seen them. Hugh would know. Ai, Lady. It wasn't Hugh she was thinking of. It was desire. She was bitterly ashamed of what stirred in her own heart. What was wrong with her, that such a feeling could come to life in her breast after the winter she had endured?

Out of a lake has grown an island. The city rises on the island, ringed by seven watts. At the height sits a tower of stone. In that tower are five doors, each locked by the same brass key. But in the door that opens to the north there lies the shade of a secret door that leads to the wilderness. It is bright in the wilderness now, warm and inviting, in those trackless lands where she has thrown away the key.

Only she can walk safely there.

But it is never safe.

She sank down onto her knees, head bowed and resting in her hands. She must not be tempted.

The king's son. Sworn to the Dragons, and forbidden. Caught in the intrigues of the court. It was too dangerous to even think of such a manas if such a man could ever think of her with an honest heart.

She must put all such thoughts away.

She must stay hidden in every way she could. She must be careful, because she had no one she could trust, no one but Hanna, who was gone from her now, perhaps not even alivesurely not thatand who had no power in the world in any case.

"Ai, Lady, protect me, your daughter," she whispered. Yet, as bitter as her shame was, she could not stop thinking about the prince. Desire is like a flame, a torch burning in the night. A traveler in darkness cannot help but be drawn toward it.

Liath shut her eyes. She saw torches along the walls in her mind's eye, saw fires burning all along the shore as if they were the temptation that ate away at her heart. Hugh would see them and, seeing, use them to find her.

In her mind's eye she put them out. In the wild lands beyond the city she had built in her mind the sun ceased shining. It was, like a cool spring evening, soothing on her frozen heart. She was still safe; she could make herself safe by not feeling.

On the eastern shore, though she could not see it, fires vanished, snuffed out although there was no onset of rain. Along the walls of Gent a third of the torches blew out, though there was no wind.

X THE SIN OF PRIDE FIRES burn, thick smoke rancid with the scent of human fear. He stops, licks the air. In the tangled smell of charred wood, dead men, burning thatch, and dust kicked high by the trampling of many feet, he finds the familiar dry musky scent of his own kindthough it is not marked with the peculiar piquancy of his own litter, his own tribe, his home shore.

Beyond, the sea surges below a distant headland, soughing up more softly along the strand where the clean wooden boats lie beached. They smell of seawater and barnacles and the good strong scent of oak flavored with ash and willow.

Shouting and crashing come from the wood beyond. He darts back into a thicket. Some of the soft ones, the humans, are running; their terror and pain are sweet on his tongue, tasted from the air. But he lets them pass. Two are children, carried by a strong mother whose tears smell like the salt of the sea.

He senses a new weakness in himself, brought on by his contact with Halane, Son of Henri. He thinks of OldMother, who is already beginning the slow trek up the fjall where she will take her place with the WiseMothers. She speaks of the soft mothers with scorn because they cannot bear litters with the strength and numbers of the RockChildren. But Halane had a mother such as this. He lets them run by untouched before he crawls out from the thicket and starts his descent toward his cousins.

Will these cousins greet him with peace in their hearts ? Or will they set their dogs on him?

He shrugs off these doubts. OldMother's scent is strong on him. She promised him much before her joints began to stiffen and she passed the knife of decision to the new YoungMother. Even if these warriors are not true cousins, they will not harm one who bears this sign of favor. Nor will any dogs, of any pack, eat one who has been marked by the scent of an OldMother.

Still, though, he carries his new weakness with him as he descends through the forest. The weakness rests within him, but he also conceives of the wooden circle which hangs at his chest as the physical sign of that weakness, a tangible reminder. Other humans flee past, but he avoids them. This new weakness has taught him a lesson: The soft ones are not true people, of course, but they are a kind of people. People can talk. It is the lesson the WiseMothers teach. It is what they whispered to him when he was a halfgrown pup and dared venture up the mountainside to the sacred place tended by the SwiftDaughters to see whether the WiseMothers would speak to him or else kill him for his presumption.

"The knife and the tongue are equally strong weapons."

The WiseMothers had spoken twice, and he had always remembered.

"Face your weakness and it can become your strength."

He steps out of the wood and into a landscape torn by wind and sea spray. The soft ones'

houses are all burning now. The scent of fire mingles with the pungent smell of sea and sand and shore.

The dogs bark, smelling him. Alerted, a Watcher sees him and whistles to question him. He whistles back, sees the sign given for free passage. With new confidence, he strides down to the sea.

Alain woke, cold and shivering, on the ground. He did not stir. The horrible images of his dream swelled in his mind. He still smelled the sea, and the fire burning. He still heard the screams of children and the grunts of men falling beneath the spears and axes of Eika savages. He still saw the monstrous dogs, their hollow bellies and tireless rage, their yellow eyes shooting off sparks. Always they panted, tongues hanging out, salivaor worse thingsdribbling down their fangs.

He shuddered and shifted. Rage and Sorrow pressed against him on either side. Their solid presence made him feel safe.

Unlike the foot soldiers who marched in Lavastine's train, he now had a decent bed to lie on: the carpet that was always thrown down in front of the entrance to Count Lavastine's tent. Every night after watering and feeding the other hounds and sending them in to sleep beside their master, Alain bedded down here. Though it was absurdhe had a spear and a knife and was barely trained in eitherhe thought of himself as protecting the count despite the fact that two guards stood watch at all times. But no one had demanded he move. Most likely no one dared to, not when he moved with hounds always at his side and Count Lavastine remained oblivious to all but his goal of aiding Lady Sabella.

Rage whimpered and stirred in her sleep. Sorrow was the quieter sleeper, but he would wake instantly if Alain moved. And now, of course, thinking of this, Alain simply had to get up.

Yesterday Count Lavastine and his army had caught up with Lady Sabella. The impressive retinue Alain had first seen at Lavas holding almost two months ago was now a formidable army. Rodulf, Duke of Varingia, and a number of counts and lords had joined with Sabella. Lavastine's arrival with one hundred and twenty more fighting men had been a convenient excuse for celebration. The feasting had lasted long into the night, and Alain had drunk more than he should of the ale passed around to the common soldiers. Indeed, his mouth was dry and sourtasting, and he had a headache. And he really, really had to urinate.

One of the guards was asleep. The other yawned, disinterested, as Alain got to his feet. Sorrow woke at once as Alain ventured into the sparse cover of wood that lay twenty paces behind the camp.

The hound followed, whining softly.

Alain relieved himself. The moon had already set, but a thin line of red rimmed the eastern sky.

From the far side of camp he heard the sound, muted by distance, of clerics and fraters singing the service of Lauds, first light. As he turned to move out of the trees, Sorrow closed his jaws over Alain's wrist and tugged. Alain tripped over undergrowth.

"What's that?" A harsh whisper sounded from deeper in the wood.

Sorrow leaned so hard on Alain that the young man fell to hands and knees. Now he was partially screened by low bushes. He peered out through their branches to see two figures carrying between them a bulky weight. They had stopped to rest. "Hush," said the other.

Alain was silent. Sorrow was silent. The two mysterious men were silent. The clerics and fraters sang, distant voices blending in the chill air as the sky faded from black to gray.

"Nothing," said one of the men. "We'd best hurry before camp wakes." He hoisted the thing they carried up higher against his chest and they moved away through the curve of the wood toward the eastern end of camp.

They were carrying a body.

Alain's heart went cold. Sorrow licked his hand. Together they crept after them, Alain keeping one hand on the nape of the hound's neck. To reassure himself, he slipped a hand inside his tunic to touch the rose, still alive, still in bloom. The prick of its thorns gave him courage.

He could not tell if the body was man or woman, alive or dead. They carried it all the way round to the outskirts of Lady Sabella's encampment, where the kitchen tent was set up, and then even past that and past the livestock, to where a shrouded cage rested fifty paces away from any tent or fire. A man, face hooded, arms bound in heavy leather wrappings, met them.

They spoke in low voices. At first Alain could not hear; no man would have been able to. But an Eika . . .

Alain strained, stilling himself until he heard Sorrow's soft panting, heard each individual voice, some true, some off, as the clerics sang the final cadences of Lauds. He heard the scraping of claws against wood, the clack of twigs in the dawn breeze, heard even the loam as it crushed down beneath his fingers.

". . . will have no questions being asked."

"Brought him from the estate by Autun. Them are the Biscop of Autun's lands, and so they be the false king's lands. So does Biscop Antonia say, that false king's men are fair game."

The keeper grunted. "As long as we get no trouble of it. You must have walked all day, then, from the lands outlying Autun. Is he still alive?"

"Seems to be breathing. I gave him the drink, just as much as you said. Hasn't woken or eyes fluttered once. What's it for? Make him taste better?"

The keeper's voice radiated his distaste. "No need to make him suffer more."

"You feel mercy for the false king's man?"

"I do my job. Now stand back."

"We can't watch?"

The keeper snorted. "Watch all you wish. You'll regret it."

Some tone in his voice made the other two back away. But Alain knew suddenly he could not stand by, not this time.

He jumped up. Sorrow nipped at his backside but missed, and Alain crashed out of the undergrowth. "Stop!" he cried.

The two men grabbed him at once and wrenched his arms behind his back. He struggled briefly, but together they were much stronger than he was alone. A thud sounded, inside the cage, as if something had thrown itself against the slats.

"We could throw this one in," said one of the men. "He's fresher and younger."

Sorrow bounded, growling, out of the trees. The two men instantly let go of Alain and backed off, drawing long knives.

"That's one of Count Lavastine's hounds," said the keeper nervously. "Do naught to harm it."

Sorrow sat himself down, leaning against Alain's legs. "Don't do it," pleaded Alain. "It isn't merciful. It isn't right."

This close, Alain saw the keeper had but a stump of one hand; his face was scored with old deep gashes on forehead and jaw, one of which had torn out his right eye, now healed as a mass of white scar tissue. A bronze Circle of Unity hung at his chest. "It must be fed, boy. Fed with fresh blood. Or do you volunteer to throw yourself in?"

Alain shuddered. But the memory of Lackling's terrified mewling and sobbing was still strong in him. His fault. His to atone. He thought suddenly of Prater Agius and his dangerous, heretical words: that the blessed Daisan offered himself as a sacrifice in order to redeem us from our sins; that by sacrifice we make ourselves worthy. Driven by this memory, by the intensity which pervaded Agius's speech and prayer, Alain took a step toward the cage.

Sorrow butted Alain so hard from behind he fell onto his knees. Sorrow got a good grip on his arm, tight enough that his teeth pressed painfully into flesh but not so hard that they drew blood. The two men sidled closer, knives up. Sorrow growled but did not let go.

"There's one as disagrees with you," said the keeper with rough amusement. He bent to the body that lay limp at his feet, hooked his elbows underneath the sleeping man's armpits. Despite his lost hand, the keeper was a strong man; he dragged the body easily to the cage, fussed with some kind of attachment, and rolled up a small barred door not more than the breadth of a big man's shoulders in both height and width.

"Let me go!" said Alain fiercely. Heedless of the pain, he wrenched his arm out of Sorrow's grip and flung himself forward. He would stop this murder. He must.

The keeper jerked up his head and then, the movement an extension of his surprise, yanked the shroud half off the cage, revealing

The two men behind Alain cried out in fear before their exclamations froze in their throats. , The great eye slewed roundfor it had only one eye; the other was a mass of putrefaction, worms writhing in infected flesh, maggots crawling out from the pus to wriggle down its beaklike snout. Its gaze struck him like the sword of God.

He could not move.

But he could stare, throat choked with horror. With pity.

It was a sickly creature, however monstrous its appearance. Like a huge bird, it had two taloned feet and two wings, molting now. Feathers and waste littered the cage's floor. Like a dragon, it had a sinuous tail and a featherless head, scaled to an iron gleam, but with a yellowishgreen cast beneath, the sign of a creature that is no longer healthy. It heaved its great body awkwardly across the cage toward its meal.

The keeper began to shove the body in, but suddenly the body shuddered and a tiny gasp escaped the unconscious man, the gasp of a man coming awake out ofor intoa nightmare. The huge foot scraped at the body, sunk its talons into flesh, and yanked it inside the cage.

Mercifully, the keeper threw the shroud back over the bars. Alain heard a muffled moan and then the sounds of an animal feeding voraciously. The grip of the guivre's eye let him go. He fell forward, shivering convulsively, and began to weep. But he still did not move, though now he could. What he had seen was too horrible.

The keeper closed the tiny door and chained it shut. He peered at Alain with his one good eye.

"You'd best go with them, lad. Biscop will want to see you."

Biscop Antonia. It was she, of course, who was behind all this. Prater Agius had refused to confront her in the ruins that night or in Lavas holding on the following day. Now, it seemed, Alain would have no choice but to do soor else, with Sorrow, fight a foolish skirmish he could not win.

The knowledge left him with a sudden feeling of peace as he was led away, Sorrow padding obediently at his heels.

That feeling of peace, of resignation to God's will, seeped away as he waited in the antechamber of the tent while outside the biscop led the service of Prime, the celebration of sunrise and a new day. All the noble ladies and lords stood in attendance.

But when Biscop Antonia returned, still resplendent in her white vestments trimmed with gold, her biscop's staff held confidently in her right hand, and listened to the whispered explanation of one of her clerics, she merely said:

"This one again? Brother Heribert, take a message to Count Lavastine that the boy will march with my retinue for the time being. Lavastine will make no objection."

The cleric left. Alain knelt outside, miserable and frightened, while the tent came down and was packed into a wagon. Sorrow refused to budge from his side. No one spoke to him, only glanced at him sidelong, but two guards remained at his side.

Just as all was ready, the nobles mounting their fine horses, a commotion eddied through their ranks. A black shape darted tree from behind a line of wagons and Rage bounded over to him, taking up her station beside Sorrow. No one tried to stop her. Her presence heartened him as nothing else could, As the company started forward, two menatarms shoved him forward. He walked. What else could he do? Not knowing what to expect was, perhaps, the worst of it. Would he be punished? Executed? Fed to the guivrel He could not imagine what Biscop Antonia meant to do with him.

They marched all that day at a steady pace, stopping at midday to water the horses. They marched through hill country, mostly farm and pasture land with stands of forest topping the hilltops and long rides. It was easy country to move through, shallow fords, good grazing for the livestock that traveled with them, not a trace of any force loyal to King Henry.

But in the late afternoon the hills rolled into a long downslope that looked over the valley of the River Rhowne. From here, blurred by afternoon haze, Alain saw the stone tower of the cathedral of Autun, so far away it looked like a mason's tiny model. They had come to the border of the lands controlled by the Duke of Varingia; beyond lay the heart of the old kingdom of Varre, known as the duchy of Arconia. And beyond the duchy of Arconia lay Wendar.

Army and train came to a halt and began to settle in for the night. Alain was directed by his guards to enter the tent. There, at the biscop's order, he sat on a stool. The hounds followed him quietly and draped themselves over his feet.

She put him under the supervision of one of her clerics, a young man with pale blue eyes whom she named as Willibrod. Red lesions encrusted the cleric's hands and neck. While he sat, he shaved wood into holy Circles of Unity and carved letters into the backs of those Circles. Oddly enough, he also bound strands of hair and bits of leaves and some other thing, plucked from what looked like the fletchings for an arrow, onto the backs of these Circles and then strung each one on a leather cord, to make a necklace.

"You are a cleric in training?" asked young Cleric Willibrod. "You are cleanshaven, as befits a churchman."

Alain blushed, easy to see on his fair skin. It still embarrassed him horribly that he could grow nothing more manly than a bit of pale down on his chin. He had not shaved, and yet this cleric, who sat next to him, could not tell whether he was unshaven or cleanshaven.

"I was promised to the monastery," he stammered out finally, "but I serve Count Lavastine now as a manatarms."

The cleric shrugged. "It is not unknown for monk or cleric to serve in a lord's army, for is it not sung that while Our Lady tends the Hearth, Our Lord wields the Sword?"

Biscop Antonia came in. Servants surrounded her, bringing a pitcher of water and a fine brass basin and soft white linen so she might refresh her face and hands. Others brushed dust and travel dirt off her vestments while a woman braided Antonia's long silver hair, draping a shawl of white linen over the biscop's head when she was through. Atop the shawl two clerics placed her hather mitrethe mark of her rank as biscop. Tall, pointed both at the front and at the back, the mitre was made of a stiff white cloth and trimmed with thickly embroidered gold ribbons. Two white and gold tassels hung from the back of the hat all the way to her feet.

A cleric handed Antonia her crosier and she turned, surveying her retinue with a kindly smile on her face as if to show her gratitude for their service. Her gaze came to rest on Alain. He bowed his head swiftly, mortified he had been caught staring at her and her ablutions. So he did not see her expression, only heard her voice when she spoke.

"There is another I requested be brought to me many days ago. He has not yet arrived?"

"Not yet, Your Grace."

"I hope he can be with us by Compline." She spoke mildly, even hopefully, but Alain now recognized the undercurrent that eddied around her. For all that her aspect was kind and her voice gentle, she did not allow her will to be disobeyed. Clerics scurried away; others took their place, and as a united party they processed out so the biscop could lead the service of Vespers, the evensong.

Cleric Willibrod, left in charge, allowed Alain to kneel and pray as Vespers was sung in another part of the camp. During the final psalm, two soldiers appeared at the open tent entrance. With them, as if he were under arrest, came Prater Agius. His brown robes looked travelstained and rumpled, and he was limping. Alain was so surprised he jumped to his feet in midphrase.

Agius shook free of the guards. He knelt at once to finish the last lines of the psalm, and Alain, shamed by the frater's piety, copied him.

"I thought you had stayed behind at Lavas town," whispered Alain after the last Alleluia was sung. "I thought you did not intend to ride with Count Lavastine."

"I did not." Agius rose, glared at the guards, and limped over to wash his face out of the same fine brass basin used by the biscop. Alain was both astounded and entranced by this show of worldly vanity and arrogance on the part of Agius. The frater wiped his face and hands dry with the same soft white linen the biscop had used. "It is not my part in life to involve myself with the worldly disputes that tempt those who have been seduced by the glamour of earthly power and pleasures."

"Then why are you here?" Alain demanded.

"I was summoned against my will."

Agius promptly sat down in the cushioned chair which even an ignorant lad like Alain, unaccustomed to the ways of the nobility, could see was reserved for the biscop. This act of flagrant defiance set Alain shaking. The hounds, catching his mood, stirred restlessly, thumping their tails on the ground and lifting their heads to watch intently.

"I beg your pardon, Brother," said Willibrod nervously. He began picking at the scabs on his skin. "That is Biscop Antonia's chair. It is not fitting for a lowly brother to sit Agius glared the poor cleric into silence.

Through the entryway, Alain saw torches flickering. Biscop Antonia had returned.

it fitting," asked Biscop Antonia in her mild voice after the outraged gasps of her servants had quieted, "that a simple frater of the church presume to sit in the seat of one whose elevation was ordained by the hand of the skopos herself?"

"Our Lady has already judged my heart and found it wanting. It is Her mercy and Her forgiveness I strive to be worthy of. Not yours." Certainly Agius was furious, to speak so.

"You are angry, child. Is this the heart you display to Our Lady and Lord?"

The frater did not seem in the least moved by the biscop's soft words. "She knows what is in my heart." He stood up, no longer looking like a lowly churchman brought before a highranking biscop but rather like a nobleman made angry by a retainer's presumption. "You do not."

A shocked murmuring rose from the crowd of servants; Antonia stilled it with a gesture. "Who speaks now, Frater Agius? The humble frater?" Her voice grew suddenly hard and accusing. "Or the proud son?"

king's dragon He actually winced, though he did not back down. "I will do penance for my pride.

What do you want of me, Your Grace? Why have you had me brought here? I serve the world no longer."

"But you live in the world nevertheless. We cannot escape the world, Frater Agius, though we strive to do so. Even you have not yet learned to submit your will to that of Our Lady and Lord. Some part of your heart still lives in your old station, where you are accustomed to having your own way." "Our Lady will judge me," he repeated stubbornly.

"What do you want of me?"

If there had been any tiny line of harshness in her face, it dissolved now into a sweet smile made the more reassuring by her round, pinkcheeked face and her twinkling blue eyes. "To visit with your niece, of course."

"My niece\" He almost roared the word. "She is being fostered by the Biscop of Autun." Her placid countenance remained unmoved by his anger. "Did you know that?" "Of course I knew!" "It was by your suggestion, was it not?" He glared, refusing to answer. "You will remain here for the time being."

"Do you mean to make me a hostage?" She signed. At once her servants and retainers left the tent until only she, Alain, the hounds, and Agius remained. She glanced once at the hounds and evidently decided she was safe with themor with Alain, who controlled them. "I mean to make you a weapon."

"I am no longer a weapon to be used in worldly pursuits, Biscop Antonia. When I pledged myself to the church, I pledged myself to no longer care for the things of this world."

She smiled gently. "We shall see." She nodded serenely at Alain and left the tent.

Agius followed her, but his way was blocked by guards. For a moment, Alain thought Agius meant to

push past them, to force a confrontation. Abruptly he dropped to his knees to pray, wincing when his wounded legobviously not yet healed although it had been almost two months since Sorrow's bitetook his weight. It took Alain some time to distinguish words out of the mumbled flow of syllables.

"I am an unworthy son, Oh, Lady, please make me worthy of Your Mercy. Please judge me not harshly, Lady. Please grant Your Forgiveness to this sinner. Ai, Lady. Please grant me the serenity to accept humility and vanquish pride."

He went on in this way without seeming inclined to stop. Hearing voices raised outside in the short service of Compline, for sunset, Alain knelt and joined in the prayer.

Biscop Antonia did not return after the service was completed. Presumably she went to feast.

Cleric Willibrod brought bread and cheese and wine for Alain and Agius; then he, together with several of the other clerics, went back to making necklaces. The frater touched nothing although, in the end, Alain got him to swallow a few sips of wine.

Antonia returned later and went to her bed, her servants and clerics sleeping on pallets around her. Alain slept miserably, huddled on the ground with the two hounds pressed up against him. Questions nagged him through his restless sleep. What did Agius' niece have to do with Lady Sabella's revolt?

Agius was, after all, only a simple frateralthough a simple frater would never dare seat himself in the chair reserved for a holy biscop.

Every time Alain woke, he heard Agius, still whispering his prayers.

In the morning, Alain was allowed out under guard to let the hounds run. As he returned, he saw a retinue approaching, many finely dressed men and women in rich tunics hung with gold and silver chains. He hurried inside to Agius.

"The biscop and many others are approaching!" he hissed. "Noble folk are with her."

Agius rose, a bit shakily, but he straightened and faced the entrance proudlynot at all like a humble frater. Alain knelt, hounds on either side of him; he could not stand before such noble lords and ladies. He was only a simple merchant's son.

The light from outside was dazzling but not as dazzling as the rich clothing of Lady Sabella and the portly man who attended her: Rodulf, Duke of Varingia. Contrasted to their elegant clothing, studded with jewels and trimmed with gold and silver ribbons, and the handsome display of gold in chains and coronets and rings, Biscop Antonia's vestments, merely sewn with gold thread, appeared modest.

Rodulf barked out a laugh and addressed Biscop Antonia. "Blessed Lord! I would not have recognized the child, dressed in such rags, had you not warned me, Your Grace." He stumped forward on thick legs. Broadshouldered and heavy, he had the red cheeks of a man who eats heartily and never wants for food. Clapping Frater Agius on the shoulder, he shook him with evident good cheer. "What is this, lad? Some disgrace? Ai, I heard your father and mother were in a red rage when you turned your back on marriage to enter the church. But I thought you'd surely be a presbyter, sent down to that damned hot city of Darre to stand attendance on the skopos. What is this?" He grasped a handful of the old robe in one fleshy hand and tugged on it so hard Alain cringed, hoping the cloth would not tear.

"I serve Our Lady," said Agius stiffly. "I never intended otherwise." He made no obeisance toward Rodulf nor toward Lady Sabella, who stood quietly behind, looking stern and thoughtful.

"But you have come to aid our cousin," said Rodulf, indicating Sabella.

"I have not."

Alain dared not stir by one finger'sbreadth for fear of the outburst that would certainly come next.

Sabella appeared unflustered. She stepped forward. "You will serve our needs nevertheless, Agius," she said in her flat voice. "I do not have time to spare for a siege of Autun, and Biscop Constance will not give the city over to me willingly, nor can I march forward with Autun's militia and resourcesand hostilityat my back. In return for the safe passage of your niece, you will bring me the Biscop of Autun as a hostage by whatever means you must use."

This threat, if threat it was, did not sway Agius. He looked, if anything, more confident now. "If you do not have support enough to march against King Henry, then perhaps you would do better to retire to your own lands and administer them in a manner more fitting than this."

Sabella's thin lips turned up, though she did not really smile. She gestured to one of her servants.

At once, a serving woman entered the tent, bringing with her a girlchild of some five or six summers, a wellgrown girl with hair as pale and wispy as Agius' was dark and thick. Her face still wore tears, but she shrieked aloud when she saw Agius, tore herself out of the serving woman's grasp, and flung herself on him, crying, "Uncle! Uncle! They killed my nurse!" She burst into tears.

He held her tightly, hushing her with whispered words.

When she quieted, Sabella spoke again. "My outriders came across your niece and her retinue as they rode in toward Autun. There was a skirmish. Some number of her retainers refused to come without a fight."

"What do you mean to do with her?" he demanded. "She is meant for the church, as you must know."

Rodulf fidgeted, playing with the rings on his fingers. He looked as if this interview were distasteful to him. Biscop Antonia beamed sweetly on all concerned. Alain felt her gaze settle on him, and he shuddered as if spiders crawled up his back. Rage growled, and he set a hand gently on her muzzle.

"I mean to do nothing with her," said Sabella. "Unless I am forced to. I want Biscop Constance."

Agius was so pale his dark eyes stood out as if they had been painted black, as a whore might to attract men. The child clung to him, face buried in his robes.

"Constance will not suspect you, Agius," Sabella continued. "You were raised together, and of course, as I recall, there was even talk of a betrothal between you and her before it was settled she should enter the church and you should marry Duchess Liutgard." She touched the gold torque she wore at her neck, then lowered the hand to display her palm, a hand empty to the air. "But that betrothal did not end in your marriage to the young duchess but rather in your brother's. A kind and generous man was young Frederic. A good soldier, too. Alas. So many killed in Henry's wars in the east when he ought to have been paying better attention to the lands he claims already to hold. Now." She signed again to the servingwoman, who went forward to take hold of the girl.

The girl began to cry again, clutching at her uncle. He embraced her more tightly at first, a look of utter fury on his face, but in the end, his expression now twisted with selfloathing, he coaxed her into letting go of him. The servingwoman led her away.

"I see we understand each other," said Sabella to Agius. Without further discussion, she left the tent.

"You must see," said Rodulf abruptly, "that I will have no more Wendish kings and biscops set over my lands. You're of Wendish blood on your father's side, so you may have little sympathy for my views, but I hold strongly to them. But still, I do not like these methods.."

"Many lives will be spared thereby," said Biscop Antonia soothingly, "and the city of Autun will not be devastated by war. Surely we agree that peace is better than war."

"War is at least an honorable profession," mumbled Rodulf under his breath. "Deceit is not, even if approved by a biscop." He went outside.

"We leave tomorrow at midday, then," said Biscop Antonia. "I will escort you." She gestured toward the tent and its furnishings. "Prepare yourselves as you see fit."

When she had left, Alain and Agius were allowed privacy to bathe. Alain poured water from a pitcher into the plain copper basin reserved for the use of the biscop's servants. He stripped off his tunic and washed his chest and arms and face. The water was bitterly cold.

Agius' deep set eyes were red with exhaustion. He knelt and clasped his hands in prayer.

Alain felt a terrible compassion for the frater. Surely Our Lady and Lord did not intend for any one person to mortify themselves with this agony of selfdoubt? Was it not through Their Mercy that people were given the promise of being cleansed of darkness?

Taking the basin, he carried it over to Agius and knelt beside him. "Here is water to cleanse yourself, Brother."

Agius grimaced in pain. "I am tainted forever with the sin of pride," he said between clenched teeth, his eyes tight shut.

For the first time, Alain noticed the frater's feet, half covered by his threadbare robes. They were bare, covered with old, suppurated sores and fresh cuts caked with dried blood and dirt. Every step must hurt. Alain suddenly wished fervently to spare Agius any more pain, for he was so very full of pain, that was apparent by his expression of utter wretchedness. He dabbed cloth in water and gently wiped the other man's face.

"I pray you," said Agius without opening his eyes, "I am not worthy of your compassion."

"Surely every soul is worthy of compassion," replied Alain, surprised. He dabbed more water on the linen cloth and carefully began to wash the frater's feet. "Is kindness not what we are commanded to give freely to our sisters and brothers?" He glanced up. To his horror, Agius was weeping silently. He drew the cloth away at once. It was mottled with blood and pus and dirt. "I beg your pardon. I did not mean to cause you pain."

"I care nothing for my body's pain. It serves to remind me of my sins. Ai, Lady, in my pride I thought I had put aside the threads that bind me to the old ties of blood and earth. But it is not so. I cannot set my affection for my brother behind me. I cannot love him less than I love Our Lady, even though he is dead and in Her care. So now his child is put in harm's way and I am brought forward to be used, forced by that threat of harm, by those who seek power in this world. In my pride I thought I had put my birth behind me. Now I see it is not so. It can never be so, as long as I am bound by old affections. I am not willing to make the true sacrifice, that of unbinding myself from the ties of kin and giving myself entirely to Our Lady."

Not knowing what else to do, Alain went back to washing the frater's feet, dabbing carefully, trying not to break open freshly healed scabs. "Who are you?" he asked, then feared he was being presumptuous.

After a long silence, Agius replied. "I am the eldest son of Burchard, Duke of Avaria, and Ida, daughter of the due de Provensalle."

In Osna village, it was considered the duty of the eldest daughter to inherit her mother's goods and property and carry on her work and title, and the duty of the eldest son to marry well and thus weave a greater web of connection between households. Only younger children were sent into the church. Surely the great princes of the realm, men and women, expected the same from their sons and daughters.

"No wonder your parents were angry," said Alain as the full import of Agius' rebellion hit him.

The frater merely grunted. He sat back abruptly and ran a hand through his hair, tousling it, then fingered his chin to rub at the days'old beard now growing there.

"What will you do?" asked Alain.

"I will save my brother's daughter, for the love there was between us. So will the number of my sins become greater."

"But you said you would not aid them . . . and she is so young." Alain trailed off. The girlchild was only a little younger than Aunt Bel's youngest daughter, sweet Agnes. "What hold do they truly have over you? Surely they wouldn't

"Kill her?" Agius smiled sourly. "You are a good boy, Alain. You do not yet understand what we are capable of, we who still pursue the power held before us by the Enemy as a temptation. For the power given us to wield on this earth is an empty power compared to the sacrifice of the blessed Daisan and the promise of the Chamber of Light. But we are tainted by darkness, and so with clouded eyes we grasp at shadows," He clapped his hands once, imperiously. "Cleric! Bring me a knife. I am not worthy to call myself a good churchman with such a beard." His expression was ragged with despair, but he moved with the sure and decided movements of a man who has come to terms with a terrible destiny.

I walked, and Alain walked beside him, trailed by the hounds. Biscop Antonia rode at the front of the procession on her white mule, led by her servants. A cleric carried a green banner on a pole, marked with the badge of her city: a black tower at the confluence of two rivers. The black cloth of the tower was embroidered in gold thread with a biscop's crosier.

"There is so much talk of dukes and lands and biscops and allegiances," Alain confessed. "I can't make sense of it."

Agius smiled thinly. "You cannot make sense of why I am to be used as the snare to trap the white deer?"

"The white deer?"

"That is the name we gave Constance." When Alain nodded, trying to look as if he understood perfectly well what Agius was talking about, the frater gave a sigh of king's dragon frustration.

"Constance is King Henry's sister, his youngest sibling except for Brun."

"But why would Lady Sabella call you cousin? You do not wear" Alain drew his fingers around the curve of his throat.

"Only those descended from the house of royal kin are permitted to wear the golden torque. It signifies their royal blood. Both Sabella and her husband Berengar may wear the golden torque. Duchess Liutgard is so ornamented. I am not."

"But why would? And not you? If you are the son of a duke?" Clouds had come in from the east.

It was colder than it had been in the morning. Alain felt the dirt of the road under his boots. If it rained, the road would get muddy; how much rain, how much mud, would it take to prevent this plan from going forward? Yet he marched with Sabella's forces, under the aegis of Count Lavastine. Should he not wish devoutly for her victory? "As reading and prayer, so the ordering of the world," said Agius with a sigh.

"What?"

"I seem fated to teach you, Alain. I trust to Our Lady's Wisdom that you will take better to the great truth of Her Son's sacrifice and redemption than you have so far to your letters. Now. Attend."

They walked along a deserted road. The farmers and freeholders who owed allegiance to Autun had all fled inside the city walls at the approach of Sabella's army. Though clouds were their roof and the green fields their chamber, Alain felt transported back to the days of lessons with the frater at Lavas Holding. Agius was not an easy teacher, more often ruthless and impatient with mistakes than forgiving of lapses. What he knew he was determined others should know.

"There are ten great princes in the kingdom of Wendar and Varre. Six of these princes we know as dukes. Four we know as margraves, since they administer the marches that lie along the eastern border. The sovereign is first among these princes, not apart from them. It is by their consent and the sovereign's strength that a prince or princess of the royal line comes to be acknowledged as the next ruler of Wendar and Varre."

"But weren't Wendar and Varre once separate kingdoms?"

"I can't imagine what your father was thinking," said Agius with some exasperation, "not to educate you properly."

"My father taught me all the things a merchant's son needs to know," said Alain hotly, stung by this unwarranted criticism. "I can repair a ship. I know a bit about sailing and navigation. I know the worth of coins from many different kingdoms and peoples. I can barter."

"I did not mean your foster father."

Distracted, Alain forgot his anger momentarily. "Surely you don't still believe I might be Count Lavastine's bastard?"

Agius gestured eloquently toward the hounds, which padded faithfully after Alain. They were as meek as puppiesas long as Alain or Count Lavastine was next to them. Agius knew well enough what they would do to anyone else who approached them. "But that is neither here nor there. I will perform the task given me by our Lady. Attend."

They crested a rise. In the distance, Alain saw the city of Autun, the cathedral tower, the city walls, and the faint glimmer of the River Rhowne as it wound through fields lush with growing grain. Then the road dipped down into forest, and trees obscured the view.

"I will not trouble you with the story of the rise of the house of Saony. It is a long and complicated affair better left to the nuns of Korvei, who have for many years chronicled the deeds of the great princes of this realm. What you must know is that in the year , according to that chronicle, the young King Louis of Varre, known as Louis the Child, died. Two years later the elder Arnulf, king of Wendar, died. Arnulf the younger, his son, became king of both Wendar and Varre. What year is it now, Alain?"

What year'? It was spring. This particular day was St. Casceil's Day, as had been duly recited in the morning service. Since they had not yet celebrated the Feast of St. Susannah, it must not yet be the month of Sormas, but he could not recall now which day of Avril St. Casceil's Day fell on.

And as for yearsl Alain was not used to the marking of years. He dredged back into his memory, stumbled over a pothole in the road, and remembered.

"It is the year since the Proclamation of the Word."