"Stop!" cried Liath, but Hugh rode up beside her and set his hand on her arm. Her voice vanished.

Theophanu was still turned, raising a hand in acknowledgment; there was an instant when her face registered the tableau behind her. Her expression froze in horror.

Amalfred shot. Another lord shot. The arrows sped toward their target.

She would not be powerless this time! She wrenched her arm out of Hugh's grasp. Please God let her bring fire through her eyes alone. Let the fire in the vision of the burning stone pass through her as through a doorway, as though a daimone of the fiery sphere above had reached down below the moon and pressed its blazing touch onto the speeding wood of the arrows.

Both arrows ignited in midair. Theophanu threw herself off her horse. The wailing and shouting that deafened Liath now was its own conflagration.

"My God, the princess!"

"A miracle! A miracle!"

"Lord Amalfred, what meant you by this?"

"But I saw a deer. These others-!"

As all protested that they, too, had seen a deer, Sapientia began to sob noisily. Liath threw her reins over the horse's head, dismounted, and ran forward; she stubbed her toes on a log, jumped over another only to have her boots sink into the dense litter of fallen and rotting leaves in her haste to reach Theophanu.

The princess' hair lay in disarray, braids fallen loose, her riding tunic twisted at her hips, her gold-braided leggings ripped at the knees, her face scraped and stained with dirt. She shoved herself up and reached for her knife as Liath dropped down beside her. "Have you come to finish the job at her bidding?"

Liath threw up her hands to show she was empty-handed. "Your Highness! Are you hurt?"

"Your voice." Theophanu's eyes flared with astonishment. "Your voice is the one I heard warning me. What treachery is this?"

"They saw a deer where you rode, Your Highness."

"I am no deer to be hunted and slain. Was this an accident, Eagle?"

But now a forester had come up, and the crowd like a mindless writhing creature moved across the wood to engulf them. Back on the path, Hugh comforted a weeping Sapientia.

By now the king had come up to the others, and in their babble of voices Liath heard repeated over and over that all dozen or so there and even in addition the foresters had seen not Theophanu but a deer.

"Witchcraft," someone said.

"A miracle," said another.

"Too many damn fool young hotheads hunting for prizes and seeing visions in the mist," said Villam with disgust.

"This day's hunt ends now," said King Henry. A groom helped him dismount. He came up to his daughter and extended a hand. She took it, and he raised her up off the ground. "You are unhurt?" he asked. Villam by now had forced order into the milling mob behind them, pressing them back from the frightened horse. Far away, hounds bayed wildly. Henry released Theophanu's hand and beckoned a huntsman forward. "Follow the hounds," he said, "and bring back to the lodge whatever meat you take."

The man nodded. Soon, foresters and huntsmen went on alone, though some of the young nobles clearly wished to go with them.

"May I have a moment alone to collect my wits, Father," Theophanu. asked, "before I ride again?"

He gestured to his attendants to back off and himself moved away. Liath began to retreat, but Theophanu signed to her, and Liath hesitated, afraid to be seen with her, afraid not to obey.

"Was it an accident?" the princess repeated, her gaze hard, her mouth a thin line. "Did my sister devise this treachery?"

The thought of Sapientia concocting any kind of intrigue made Liath's mouth drop open in amazed disbelief. "Your sister? No! But it was not an accident-" Then she broke off. She had revealed too much.

Theophanu said nothing for a long while. Slowly, one scratched and bleeding hand came up to touch the panther brooch that held her cloak closed. "Was it sorcery? And from whose hand?"

"I can prove nothing, Your Highness. I know only what I saw."

"Or did not see." She looked up at a sight behind Liath's back, and away quickly, as if she was ashamed. "Am I any better than those who saw a deer in the forest, which is only what they wished to see?" With a jerk and a sudden grimace, she ripped the panther brooch off her cloak and flung it behind her into the leaves. "I am in your debt, Eagle. What reward can I give you?"

She blurted it out, not meaning to say it, but it was more impassioned for its rash honesty. "Get me away from him, I beg you."

" 'The meekness of the dove with the cunning of the serpent,' " Theophanu muttered. "But I need proof." Still pale, she groped through the leaves until she found the brooch again. Gingerly, as though it were poison, she tucked it in between belt and tunic. "I will do what I can. Go now. It is not wise that you be seen with me, if what I suspect is true. Say nothing to anyone until I give you leave."

JriJcIN Jtv Y was furious. The hunt came clattering back early in an uproar to upset the quiet tenor of a day that Rosvita had hoped would be a productive one for her clerics. But the stories she heard, from so many different sources, were alarming enough that she was relieved when Princess Theophanu rode in unharmed. Strangely, for all that her dress was in disarray, her hair disordered, and her skin scratched and stained with loam and dirt, the princess was herself perfectly composed.

"So eastern," muttered Brother Fortunatus. "You know these Arethousans are inscrutable."

"Spare us these false wisdoms," said Sister Amabilia. "Poor Theophanu! To be mistaken for a deer!"

The king was not to be mollified by the testimony of all who had been present. Everyone, even the foresters and huntsmen who had raced ahead with Sapientia's party, had seen a deer in place of a princess.

"The rain confused our eyes." "The mist confused our eyes." "It was the shape of the branches above her head." On they went, all of them grievously shocked at the accident.

"Or there was a deer behind her in the woods and in your rashness you shot without looking closely! Lord Amal-fred. Lord Grimoald. You are no longer welcome at this court. You will be gone by nightfall. We will all of us leave this ill-omened place tomorrow. One of my children I have already lost. I do not intend to lose any more."

No protest, even by Sapientia, could mitigate the king's judgment. The two young lords left the hall in disgrace. Henry spent the rest of the day at Mass led by Father Hugh. In particular, the king prayed and gave thanksgiving to St. Valeria, whose day this was and whose miraculous intervention had spared his daughter worse harm than the fall she had taken. Before the feast he handed out bread with his own hands to the usual supplicants who had gathered outside the palisade. Hearing of the king's arrival at this southernmost of his royal hunting lodges, they had come from villages at the forest's edge. Some of them had walked several days on rag-clad feet hoping for food or a blessing.

At the feast, Theophanu begged a boon of her father. "I pray you, Your Majesty, let me undertake a pilgrimage to the Convent of St. Valeria to offer a proper thanksgiving for my deliverance from harm. Surely her hand lay over me this day."

He was reluctant to let her leave after such an incident, but the miracle had been attested by a dozen or more persons.

"I will take an Eagle," she said, "and thus any message can be sent quickly from my hand to yours."

"As a sign of my favor," he said, "you may take my faithful Hathui, daughter of Elseva, as long as you and she return in one piece to my progress by the end of the year. It should take you no more than two or three months to complete the journey."

"I would not take such a loyal servant from you, Your Majesty," she replied, as calm as if no arrows had sped toward her head and breast that morning. "But if I could take another Eagle-" Here her gaze came to rest on the young Eagle who stood several paces behind Sapientia's chair.

Sapientia leaped to her feet, the gesture of anger made ungainly because of her increasing girth.

"You just want what is mine!"

"Sit down," said the king.

Sapientia sat.

"It is true," said Henry, "that Sapientia has an Eagle, one whose service I gave into her hands, which I will not now take from her. But it is only right, Theophanu, that you be given an Eagle as well.

Since you are going on a journey, two would be better. Hathui will choose among those who attend me now, at your pleasure."

The feast went on. But the damage had been done to Rosvita's peace of mind, for she suddenly recalled that Sapientia enjoyed the novelty of having an Eagle in constant attendance. Liath had been on that hunt and, surely, had seen the whole; someone had mentioned seeing her go to the princess after the fall. But no one had called her to testify when even the king's foresters and huntsmen had given testimony after the noblefolk had finished speaking. How could such a lapse be possible? Why did the young Eagle not come forward on her own?

Why should Theophanu, inscrutable Theophanu, notice her now and, even, attempt to take her into her own retinue? Only to provoke her sister?

For that matter, why should Theophanu undertake a pilgrimage across the winter landscape when she could as easily send servants with gifts of gold and silver and an altar cloth to grace the convent's church and treasury?

Two arrows bursting into flame in midair. Any soul would agree that it was a miracle wrought by the hand of a saint. But Rosvita did not believe in coincidence.

"In the guise of scholars and magi," Brother Fidelis had said to her last spring, "tempting me with knowledge." Why did his words come back to her now?

Theophanu knew as well as any why the Convent of St. Valeria was renowned: Its Mother Abbesses were known for their study of the forbidden art of sorcery.

was raining, again. Rain made Sapientia irritable; she was only happy when she was active "Fetch me wine, Eagle," she said, although she had servants to fetch her wine. "And milk. I want milk." Leaving the Thurin Forest had made Sapientia irritable. Riding south into the duchy of Avaria had made Sapientia irritable. Being pregnant made Sapientia irritable. "Read to me, Hugh. I am so bored. It isn't right I'm not allowed to ride out to the hunt just because I have a little fever." She yawned. "I am so tired always."

Hugh turned away from the great hearth of the king's hall in the palace of Augensburg. More restless than usual, for he was usually as smooth as cream resting in an untouched bowl, he had been shredding leaves and tossing them into the blazing fire. He did not look toward Liath nor even appear to notice her. He did not need to.

"I rather like Lord Geoffrey," Sapientia continued, rattling on despite her protestations of being tired. "He's a good hunter and he has very good manners. Father likes him so much he asked him to ride beside him on today's hunt. Poor Brigida. I suppose you wish he wasn't already married!"

"He's from Varre," retorted Brigida. "I don't know if my uncle Burchard would want me to marry a Vanish lord, not after what happened to my cousin Agius. And I don't know what kind of inheritance Geoffrey would bring as his dowry."

"Poor man. He lost his inheritance to a bastard!" The princess giggled.

Hugh looked up abruptly. "Isn't Lord Geoffrey heir to the Lavas count?"

"Indeed not!" Sapientia smiled with the satisfaction of a slow child who has, at long last, won a footrace against its rivals. "But you weren't at court then. Father pardoned Count Lavastine for his treachery and allowed him to name his illegitimate son as his heir."

"His heir," murmured Hugh with such an odd inflection that Liath actually paused to stare at him.

He knelt beside a clay bowl filled with dried herbs. A strip of linen marked with a writing she could not read lay over his thighs, and as Liath watched, his hands tied the linen strip into a complex knot.

Binding.

The word leaped unbidden into her thoughts. A fragment of The Book of Secrets-which she had herself copied out of a penitential from a monastic library in Salia-rose up from the city of memory and stirred on her tongue. She murmured it under her breath.

" 'Hast thou observed the traditions of the mathematici, that thou shouldst have power through the binding and loosing made by that woven fabric formed out of the courses of the moon and the sun and the erratica and the stars, each in relationship to the others? These are the arts known to the daimones of the upper air, and it is written, "Whatsoever ye do in word or in work, do all in the name of Our Lord and Lady." If thou hast done this, thou shall be judged before the skopos herself.'''

But Ihere had been more, which she had not written down because it did not concern the astronomical arts. "Hast thou made knots, and incantations . . ."

Hugh looked up at her as if he could sense her Ihoughts, and she flushed, afraid, when a smile touched his lips. He had not addressed a single word to her since the incident in Ihe forest, and that was worse than anything that had come before . . . because she knew, and he knew, that he was only biding his time.

"That Ungrian ambassador is so uncouth." The princess continued on obliviously, just as all the others seemed oblivious to Hugh's actions by the fire-as if he had shielded himself from their curiosity.

"The way he picks at his food as if it isn't fit for him to eat! You don't suppose Father means to marry the son of the Ungrian king to me, do you?"

"I think not, Your Highness." Hugh dumped the last of the herbs into the fire and stepped away, dusting white ash from his otherwise spotless tunic. The linen strip had vanished. "The LTngrian king is newly converted to the Faith of the Unities, praise God, and I believe he wishes L for a woman of Wendish kin to settle there so that she may bring her knowledge of the Circle of Unity and the example of her faith to his people."

"That might be a useful occupation for Theophanu when she returns from her pilgrimage. Where is my milk?"

A steward fetched wine and milk. Hugh left the hall for the guest rooms beyond. With the shutters closed, it was dim and smoky within the hall. The tapestries carried on the progress by King Henry had been hung over the frescoed walls for warmth, creating an odd mosaic of images, painted and woven, all jumbled up together. Freshly cut rushes smothered the floor. Three hearthfires burned, and lamps glowed on the far table where a dozen clerics worked. The rest, even Sister Rosvita, had gone out on the hunt.

Candles sat in clay bowls on all the mantelpieces; lit this morning, they would burn all day and through the night. It was the first day of the month of Decial, called Candlemass: the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. The heathens called it Dhearc, the dark of the sun, and on this day it was traditional to go hunting no matter what the weather was like, because on this day the sun and light, in the person of the regnant, at last defeated darkness and disorder, in the body of the wild game which would be killed and feasted upon. St. Peter the Discipla, whose feast day this was, had been martyred by being burned alive by unbelievers.

In The Book of Secrets, Da had written: "When the sun stands still, certain pathways otherwise hidden become clear and certain weavings otherwise too tangled to unravel become straight. Thereby with what power you can bind a small spell into life on other days, you can bind your wish into life in an altogether greater manner at the hinges of the year. Therefore, be cautious."

Bind your wish. Therefore, be cautious. She crouched by the fire. Two stone posts framed the hearth, carved with the forelegs and heads of griffins, and she touched the one nearest her, tracing its lion's claws. Tiny singed fragments of flowers lay scattered at the base and on the bricks; she rolled them between thumb and finger and sniffed. Lavender. A single apple seed lay on the flagstones. The scent from the fire was heady and thick, and she had to step back to let her head clear.

Was Hugh working magic? Ai, Lady, she could not regret saving Theophanu's life, but what if Hugh suspected-what if the others discovered-that she had made those arrows catch fire? Would she be taken before the skopos to stand trial? And yet the thought gnawed at her, like a nagging pain: // you can bring flame and see visions through fire, then why not other magics? Why did Da lie?

She was not deaf to magic. She was protected against it: against the magic of others and, perhaps, against her own. But she had no way to discover the truth, she had no one to confide in, no one to teach her. Suddenly Wolfhere's hints and gentle suggestions, his attempts to convince her to trust him, seemed both more sinister and more welcome. If only he were here now.

Hugh returned, carrying a book. She recognized Poly-xene's History of Dariya at once. The binding was almost as familiar to her as her own skin. He had stolen it from her as he had stolen so much else. He seated himself beside Princess Sapientia, and two servants stood over him with lamps. The dozen clerics at the other end of the hall set down their pens, turning as flowers toward the sun, eager to hear him read.

"I shall read today from Polyxene," he began.

"What should I care about such an old history, and written about heathens, at that?" asked Sapientia.

He raised one eyebrow. "Your Highness. Surely you are aware that the Dariyans, who were said to be half of humankind and half of elvish kin, conquered and ruled the largest empire the world has ever known. Only in the myths and tales of the ancient Arethousans do we hear of older and greater empires, that of Sai's which was swallowed by the waves, or of the wise and ancient Gyptos peoples across the middle sea. After the destruction of the Dariyan Empire the many lands they had once held together in greatness became the haunts of savages, and uncivilized heathens fought over the spoils. It was only a hundred years ago that the great Salian Emperor Taillefer restored the empire, by the grace of Our Lord and Lady, God of Unities. He had himself crowned Holy Dariyan Emperor, but at his death his empire was lost to the feuding of his successors."

Sapientia's expression cleared, and she looked oddly thoughtful. "Father believes that it is the destiny of our family to restore the Holy Empire of Dariya."

"And so your family shall," murmured Hugh, "and be crowned in Darre before the skopos, as was Taillefer."

Liath shivered. Was this why Hugh had tried to murder Theophanu? So Sapientia would have no rival for the imperial throne, not just for the throne of the kingdom of Wendar and Varre?

He cleared his throat, took a sip of wine, and began to read out loud in his beautiful, almost hypnotic voice. " 'The fact is that we can obtain only an impression of a whole from a part, and certainly neither a thorough knowledge or an accurate understanding. It is only by combining and comparing certain parts of the whole with one another and taking note of their resemblances and their differences that we shall arrive at a comprehensive view.''

Was that what Da was doing all along in the first part of The Book of Secrets? In that first part he had written down so many snippets from so many different sources, compiling them so that he could better understand the knowledge hidden in the heavens. She yawned, feeling a sudden sense of numbing lassitude, then shook herself back awake.

" 'By what means and in what time the people we know now as the Dariyans first came to Aosta rests outside my consideration. Instead, I shall take as my starting point the first occasion on which the Dariyans left Aosta, crossing the sea to the island of Nakria.'>: Sapientia snored softly. She had fallen asleep, as had two of her servingwomen; her other servants, seated around her, also nodded off. Liath had a sudden desperate fear that if she did not get up and get outside this instant, she, too, would fall asleep.

The youngest cleric spoke up from the other end of the room. "I beg you, Father Hugh, read to us of the seige of Kartiako."

The distraction gave her cover. She crept out the door but took a wrong turn and at once was confused. The Augensburg palace boasted two reception halls, a solarium, courtyards, barracks, guest rooms, chambers for the regnant and for the duke of Avaria, a safe room for the king's treasury, and a dozen cottages for envoys and servants. All this was built out of timber felled from the surrounding forest Only the bathing complex and the chapel were built of stone.

Liath had left her saddlebags in the barracks, but Sapientia held her on such a tight leash that she'd had no time to commit the palace layout to memory. She retraced her steps. In the hall, everyone was asleep-and Hugh was nowhere to be seen. Backing out of the room, she tried again to find the barracks by cutting through a side corridor, but it only let her out through a tiny fountain courtyard where an old gardener sat dozing in the cold air on the lip of a frost-encrusted fountain. No water ran.

The reception room opened before her. Frescoes gleamed on the walls, splashes of color in the dim chamber. Great wooden beams spanned the ceiling. A languor hung over the hall. Two servants, brooms in hand, snored on the steps that led up to the dais and the regnant's throne, itself carved cunningly with lions as the four legs, the back as the wings of an eagle, and the arms as the sinuous necks and heads of dragons. A woman had fallen asleep by the hearth fire while mending a seat cover; she had pricked herself with her needle, and a tiny drop of blood welled on her skin.

Suddenly uneasy, Liath climbed spiraling wooden stairs to a long corridor. Built above the north block of buildings, the corridor was reserved for the king, his family, and his messengers; it provided a way for him to proceed from one quarter of the complex to another without walking through the common rooms below or setting foot in the muddy alleyways. She hurried down the narrow corridor, not wider than the width of her arms outstretched. Now she remembered; the barracks lay in the northeast corner of the palace complex.

She became consumed with the fear that something was following her. She felt breathing on her neck, spun around. The far end of the corridor, down which she had just come, lay blanketed in darkness except where spines of light shone through cracks in the wooden shutters. A footstep scraped on the stair.

"Liath," he said, his voice muted by the distance and the narrow walls. "Why are you still awake?"

She bolted.

She ran down the length of the corridor, scrambled, half falling, down the other stairs, banging her knee, wrenching a finger as she gripped a smooth square railing and shoved herself forward. It was dark in the palace, all the shutters closed against winter's chill. Most of the nobles were out on the hunt.

In every room she came to, every corridor she escaped down, those who had stayed behind slept.

Even in the barracks the soldiers rested, snoring, on straw mattresses on the floor. Her friend Thiadbold and a comrade slumped in chairs over a dice game and cooling mugs of cider. Beyond them, a ladder led up to the attic loft where she and the other Eagles slept. But as cold seeped in through the timber walls and the single hearth fire burned low and flickered out, she could not bring herself to go up the ladder. Once she climbed that ladder, she would be trapped.

She ran to Thiadbold. His Lion's tunic folded at odd angles, creased by the twist of his body in the chair and the way his right arm was flung back over the chair back. His head lolled to one side, mouth open. She shook him.

"Please, I beg you, comrade. Thiadbold! Wake up!"

"Nothing you do will wake them, Liath," he said behind her. He stood in the doorway, perhaps twenty paces away. He held a lamp in one hand. Its soft light gilded him, as gold does a painting or the favor of the king does a virtuous man.

"I'm very angry with you, Liath," he added kindly, without raising his voice. "You lied to me."

Indeed, he sounded more hurt than angry. "You said you knew nothing about sorcery, and yet..." He lifted his free hand in a gesture of puzzlement. ". . . what am I to think now? Arrows bursting into flame in mid-flight. You are not asleep with the others."

"Why do you want to kill Theophanu?" she demanded.

"I don't want to kill Theophanu," he said, as if disappointed she would think he did. He took a step forward.

There was another door at the far end of the barracks. But if she ran out now, he would get the book. Surely the book was what he had wanted all along.

"Liath! Stop!"

She did not stop, but when she reached the ladder, she scrambled up it, panting, heart so frozen with fear that her chest felt as if it were in the grip of some great beast.

Heaving herself up over the top, she turned on her knees, grabbed the legs of the ladder, and yanked up.

And was jerked forward almost falling back down through the opening as Hugh caught the ladder from below and dragged it back down.

"Don't fight me, Liath. You know it makes me angry."

She fought him anyway, but though she was physically strong, he had the advantage, braced on the floor. It was a losing battle. It had always been a losing battle. And once he fought the legs back into their braces and settled his full weight on the bottom rung, it made no difference. The opening was too small for her to cast the ladder off and drop it away.

She scrambled back, scraping palms against the rough-hewn plank floors, rising and bumping her head against the low pitch of the ceiling. Her feet got tangled in gear, but she knew her own gear, knew it as well as the feel of Da's hand holding hers when she woke at night from a bad dream. She grabbed the leather saddlebags, draped them over a shoulder. Her quiver caught on a beam above, and she stumbled.

"Liath." He had no lamp, but she needed no lamp to see his shadow emerge into the loft and swing onto the floor.

Bent over, breathing in gasps more like whimpers, she drew her short sword.

"Now we shall have this out. And you will put away your sword, my beauty." He walked forward two steps, one hand held out. "I have no doubt you can thrust that blade through me, but what will you tell them when they find me dead? You will be condemned for murder, and executed. Is that what you want? Give me the sword, Liath."

"I'll tell them you used sorcery to spell everyone to sleep and then tried to rape me."

He laughed. "Why would anyone believe you? Can you imagine such a story coming to my mother's ears and what she would say about it? A mere Eagle accusing a margrave's son?"

Theophanu would believe her, but Theophanu had charged her to keep silence on the matter of sorcery. Theophanu had her own plans and, to a royal princess, an Eagle was simply another servant.

"I am right, as you know," he added, his tone coaxing. "Put down the sword."

"Get away from me," she whispered. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

"That is the choice given you after your da died. Be mine, or be dead. Which will it be?" He stopped, shifted, then fumbled with something unseen. A moment later he unlatched the shutter and opened it. The dull light of winter's sky flooded into the loft, searing her eyes. And when she had done blinking and had finally, truly, to look upon him, he smiled. Cold air boiled in past him, a wind of ice drawn in to this, her prison, for her prison was any place where she was confined with him. The cold was itself the shackles, binding her as it curled around her, freezing her heart.

"Hush, my beauty," he murmured softly. "Do not be scared of me. I won't hurt you. I found a book at the monastery at Firsebarg, locked away in a chest which only the father abbot is allowed to open. I learned much from that book, as you see. 'Lavender, for sleep.' How did you make those arrows burst into flame? Do you even know? I can teach you what it means to have power, to know what is within yourself that you can use. I want only what is best for you. For you and for myself."

The hilt of her sword felt like ice in her hand. He crossed the low attic to her, ducking his head, and took the sword out of her lax hand. His touch was warm, but his eyes were cold.

At last, she recognized that peculiar deep tone in his voice; she had learned well what it presaged, in the depths of winter in Heart's Rest.

"I can't wait any longer, Liath. And there is no one here to witness."

"I'll give you the book," she whispered, voice half caught in her throat. Ai, Lady, she was begging. She was offering the only and most precious thing she had left to her, but losing that would be better than this again.

He shook his head impatiently. "You already gave me the book, and your submission, last spring, before Wolfhere stole them from me. I have been waiting a long time to get them back."

She was too numb to resist when he gently stripped her of bow and quiver and saddlebag, when he lay her down on the hard plank floor. But when he kissed her, when his hand sought and found her belt, loosening it, she remembered finally through terror and numbing weakness one thing. Wood burns.

IJrUc road back to the king's progress had proved so miserable and so full of hardships, appalling detours, and frustrations that Hanna had begun to wonder if Wolfhere might have gotten back with the news about Biscop An-tonia before her. She had never seen the palace-at Augens-burg, of course, but two of her three remaining Lions had slept in the barracks there only two years ago while attending the king.

Now, with clouds sweeping in low over hills glazed with a thin crust of snow and with the last forest crossing behind them, they could see in the distance the market village and sprawling palace complex of Augensburg.

"That," said Ingo, the most senior of the Lions, "is a lot of smoke. Even for Candlemass."

"Lady's Blood!" swore Leo. "Fire!"

Hanna had been walking in order to spare her horse. Now she mounted and left the Lions behind. Soon she came upon traffic that slowed her down as people rushed out away from Augensburg and others-farmers and foresters-rushed in, coming to aid the king against an implacable foe. They made way for her as best they could in the crush, but despite this she was forced to pull up just inside the low outer wall. Here she stared past river and market village, which lay to her left, and up at the palace, which lay on a low rise protected by its own inner palisade and the steep bluff on its other side. Her horse laid its ears back, trying to back up. The stench of burning was caustic as she breathed in.

Hanna had seen fire before, but never anything like this.

The fire roared. The hot wind streaking off the flames baked her where she stood, though the day was cold and beyond town a thin blanket of snow covered field and forest. Half the palace was on fire, sheets of flame rising into the heavens, a second wall that mirrored the wooden wall of the palisade.

In the town, ash rained down on women loading their valuables into carts, on children carrying infants out of houses, on men and women hauling buckets of water up the rise toward the burning palace. Gaping, she sucked in ash; the sharp bite in her throat made her hack.

"Too little water!" shouted Folquin, the fastest runner among the Lions. Panting hard, he came up beside her and leaned, coughing, on his spear. "They'll never put that out! Pray to the Lady it doesn't catch the roofs in town."

Hanna dismounted and thrust reins into the Lion's hands. "Let young Stephen take the horse and hold it for us," she said. "Then you and Ingo and Leo follow me up. We must aid those we can."

"I pray the king is not inside-" he said, but she gave him a look, and he drew the Circle of Unity at his breast and shut up.

She ran up the hill, easily outpacing people burdened with buckets. A ragged procession filed past her down the hill, some with empty buckets, some with handcarts heaped with furniture and books and chests and every kind of item salvaged from the fire. A cleric clutched an ancient parchment codex to her chest; her face was streaked with ash and she had a weeping red welt on her right arm where her cleric's robe was ripped open. Other clerics followed behind her, each holding something precious. One man had pressed unbound parchment sheets against him, hands struggling to keep them all together. A woman held her robe out as a basket, full of quills and inkpots, stands and styluses and tablets all jumbled together, ink leaking through the fine gold fabric of her rich vestment. The youngest of them stumbled behind, looking stunned, carrying a magnificent eagle's feather quill and a little pot of red ink that, tipping, had stained his fingers. A child cried. Servants staggered under loads of bedding salvaged from the blaze.

"Make way!" cried a man in Lion's tabard. "Make way for the princess!"

Hanna stepped aside as Princess Sapientia was carried past reclining on a camp bed. She looked only half conscious, but both of her hands clasped her swollen abdomen and she moaned as she passed Hanna. Behind her, sobbing or gabbling like panicked geese, more servants hauled chests, tapestries that kept coming unrolled, even the splendid chair carved with lions and dragons and an eagle's wings that Hanna recognized as belonging to King Henry.

At the palace gate, grim-faced guards forced back the curious and only admitted those persons carrying water-as though such a trifle could stem the inferno. The wind off the fire singed her skin, and her eyes stung with heat and burning ash.

"Make way!" she cried, pushing forward to the guards. "Where is the king?"

"Out on the hunt, thank God!" shouted the one nearest her. He had no helmet; part of one ear was missing-but it was an old scar. His red hair was stained with ash. "There were few enough therein, by Our Lord's Mercy, but surely some have perished."

"Is there anything I can do?" she yelled. She had to yell to be heard above the roar of flames.

Already her voice was hoarse from heat and ash.

"Nay, friend. This is one foe we can't fight. Ah!" he exclaimed, a gasp of relief. "There's one of your comrades who's run mad. Can you calm her?"

Shifting to look past him, she saw a crowd of some twenty people, a handful of men in Lion tabards, servants, and one man in noble garb who directed the others. He had golden hair, and as she watched he reached to help two figures struggling out of the smoke: a dark-haired young woman in an Eagle's scarlet-trimmed cloak who half-dragged and half-led a man in a singed and dirty Lion's tabard.

"Liath!" Hanna bolted toward the fire.

A sudden pop sounded, followed by a low thundering gasp of air, a thousand breaths drawn in.

People stumbled back from the courtyard, crying out, as the roof of the back portion of the palace collapsed in a huge unfolding bloom of flame and smoke and stinging red hot ash. Four men grabbed the harness shaft of a wagon loaded to bursting with iron-bound chests: the king's treasure.

"Liath!" shouted the golden-haired nobleman as Liath turned and vanished back into the boiling smoke, back into the burning palace. He started after her. Three soldiers broke forward, grabbed him, and dragged him away from the raging fire.

"Liath!" Hanna cried, running forward. She hopped awk wardly sideways to avoid being run over by the wagon, which had now gathered speed as the men at the shaft got momentum. One small chest jolted, bounced, and fell out, splitting open at Hanna's feet to spill delicate cloissone clasps and buckles onto the cracking mud.

"My lord! There is nothing you can do! You must come away, my lord!" So the Lions shouted at the nobleman, and he cursed them once, without feeling, and then began to weep.

Ai, Lady. Surprise brought her to a jarring halt while fire blistered the timber walls of the palace and parched her lips. It was Hugh. He dropped to his knees as if he meant to pray, and only when the Lions hoisted him up bodily could he be persuaded to move back to safety as the fire scorched the peaked roof, spit, leaped the chasm of an alley between buildings, and kindled a new fire on the roof of the fourth quarter of the palace-the only quarter as yet untouched. Everything would go. Everything.

"Lady forgive me," said Hugh as he stared into the blaze. "Forgive me my presumption in believing I had mastered the arts you gave into my hands. Forgive me for those innocent souls who have died needlessly." He looked up, saw Hanna, and blinked, for an instant examining her as if he recognized her.

She almost staggered under the weight of his stare. She had actually forgotten how glorious he was.

Then he shook his head to dismiss her and spoke to himself-as if to convince himself. "Had I only known more, it would not have happened this way. But I cannot let her go..."

"Come, my lord," said a servant, but Hugh shook him off.

"Father Hugh!" A new man had come running up; he was clearly terrified to stand so close to the blaze. "Princess Sapientia calls for you, my lord."

Torn, he wavered. Rising, he could not bring himself to follow the servant.

"She is having pains-"

Clenching a hand, he glared at the raging fire, cursed under his breath and then, with a last-beseeching?- glance at Hanna, spun and followed the servant.

Liath had gone back inside the inferno.

"Keep your wits, Hanna," she muttered to herself, recalling the first Lion's words: "Your comrade has run mad." Pulling her cloak tight over her mouth and nose, she pressed forward into the blaze.

"Come back!" they shouted, those Lions who remained. "Eagle!"

Her skin was aflame, but no flame touched her. She crossed into a great hall ragged with smoke and blowing ash. Heat boiled out. She saw nothing, no one, no figure struggling through the smoke. The thick beams supporting the ceiling above smoldered, not yet in open flame. A far wall cracked, splintering, burst by heat.

She heard the scream. It was Liath.

"Help me! God save us, wake up, man!"

Hanna could not take a deep breath, for courage or for air. But she ran forward anyway into the fire. Ash rained on her head. The boom and surge of fire raged around her as harshly as the tempest of battle. Smoke burned her eyes and the air tasted acrid.

She found Liath in the corridor behind, dragging a man so big and so burdened with armor that it was a miracle Liath had managed to get him this far.

"Hanna!" That she had breath to talk was astounding. "Oh, God, Hanna, help me get him free.

There's two more, but the beams have fallen-" She was weeping, although how could she weep when the heat should have wicked all moisture away?

Hanna did not think, she merely grabbed the Lion's legs and together they tugged him out of the corridor while the fire blazed closer. They had dragged him halfway across the hall when beams began to fall and the far walls to crack and disintegrate.

Just out the door her three faithful Lions were waiting, together with the red-haired Lion; Ingo and Leo grabbed their limp comrade and yanked him free as Liath turned and started inside again.

"Stop her!" screamed Hanna. Folquin wrapped his arms around the young Eagle and lifted her as she kicked and pleaded and wept, trying to get free-but he was a brawny, farm-bred lad and as strong as an ox.

"Liath!" Hanna shouted.

But there was no time to reason with her. They retreated in awkward haste as the great roof beams collapsed in the hall. The gates remained open but stood now deserted, and they paused outside the gates to look behind. Everyone had fled to safer ground. Townsfolk carried their buckets of water to the houses closest to the palace wall, dousing their roofs with water to stop the flaming ash from setting a new blaze. The market village was all there was left to save.

On the wind, a faint counterpoint to the blaze, she heard a hunting horn.

"Let me go back! Let me go back! There are two more- at least two more-" Liath struggled and fought and even tried to bite poor Folquin, whose leather armor had protected him from worse attacks.

"Hush, friend," said the red-haired Lion sternly. "This one is dead, though you tried valiantly to save him. I doubt not the others have already died. No use risking yourself to drag out their bodies. May God have mercy on their souls, and may they come in peace to the Chamber of Light." He bowed his head.

Gingerly, Folquin set Liath down, glanced at Hanna and, with a nod from her, let Liath go. Liath collapsed to her knees but simply sat trembling as the palace burned and ash drifted down like a light rain of snow upon them. Despite her forays into the raging fire, she had nary a mark or burn on her.

"We are still too close," said Ingo.

There was a commotion on the road below. Hanna turned to see Hugh striding up toward them.

Seeing Liath, he stopped dead. Such an expression transformed his face that it chilled her to her bones and yet made her want to weep in compassion for his pain. But he said nothing. He only looked. Perhaps that was worse. Then, wincing at a pain in his shoulder, he turned to limp away along the path. Servants and townsfolk and clerics swarmed him. Someone brought a chair on which to carry him, but he waved it away. Closer now, the hunting horn sounded again, high and imperative.

Liath broke into gulping sobs, so racked by them she could hardly breathe. Hanna gestured to her Lions to step back, and they ranged out, helping other Lions and guards pick up any detritus that could be saved without venturing too close: items lost from wagons or thrown down from the wallwalk; swords, shields, spears; clothing, saddlebags, scattered jewelry; a browned and blistered book, two carved stools, a sandal, a trail of ivory chess pieces. The fire burned on, but already the flames seemed less furious- or perhaps she had become accustomed to the heat searing her face. Her hands were red with it, her lips so dry that licking them made them bleed.

"Liath." She crouched down beside her friend. "Liath, it's me. It's Hanna. You must stop this.

Liath! There was nothing you could do to save them. You tried-

"Ai, Lady. Hanna! Hanna! Why weren't you here before? Why didn't you come? Oh, God. Oh, God. I lost everything. Where is he? Please, Hanna, please get me away from him. You don't understand. I did it. / caused it. Why did Da lie to me?" On she went, more sobbing than words and all of them incoherent.

The horn blasted close at hand, and Hanna looked over her shoulder to see the magnificent train of the king and his hunting party emerge from the forest west of the blaze with the setting sun at their backs.

On Dhearc, the shortest day of the year, light triumphed at last over the advance of night.

Candles were lit to aid in that battle. Some fallen candle, surely, had kindled this fire; the bitter irony did not escape her. But Hanna could only sniff back tears, feeling the heat of fire blazing on her cheek as she held Liath and tried to get her to stop shaking and babbling and crying, but Liath could only go on and on about fire and rape and ice and power and sleep as if she had truly lost her mind.

"Liath," said Hanna sharply, "you must stop this! The king has arrived."

"The king," whispered Liath. She sucked air in between clenched teeth. She struggled more fiercely than she had against Folquin's hold, but in the end she fought herself out of hysteria and into something resembling control. "Stay by me, Hanna. Don't leave me."

"I won't." Hanna looked up as she tasted a new scent on the wind. "Is it raining?" But there were only a few clouds. "Look at the fire. It's as if all the timber's gone." Indeed, the fire was ebbing, although it was as yet far too hot to venture close.

"Don't leave me, Hanna," Liath repeated. "Don't ever leave me alone with him, I beg you."

"Ai, Lady," murmured Hanna, suddenly afraid. "He didn't-"

"No." Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible. Her hands gripped Hanna's so tightly it hurt. "No, he didn't have time to-" Her hands convulsed, her whole body jerking at some horrible memory. "I called, I reached for fire- ' Shaking again, she could not go on. The wind had come up, fanning the flames. Beyond, king and retinue approached. Already a small entourage had gone out to meet him and give him the terrible news, although surely he could divine the worst from any distance. The air stank of burning.

"Hanna, don't desert me," Liath breathed. "I need you." She rested her head on Hanna's arms.

Her hair was caked with soot, as were her arms and hands, every part of her. She was so grimy that anything she touched came away streaky with soot. "I didn't know-I didn't know what Da was protecting me from."

"What was he protecting you from?" Hanna asked, mystified.

Liath looked up at her, and her bleak expression cut Hanna to the core. "From myself."

>XER Amabilia had saved the Vita of St. Radegundis.

This single thought kept leaping back so insistently into Rosvita's mind that it became hard for her to attend to the council at hand. Brother Fortunatus sat at her feet, hands still gripping the loose pages of her History, which he had grabbed instead of the cartulary he had been working on. She had thanked him profusely, as he deserved, poor child. But though it would have been a blow to lose the History, she could write it again from memory.

Sister Amabilia had saved the Vita. Had it burned, it could never have been restored. Brother Fidelis was dead. Only this copy remained, except for the partial, also saved by Amabilia, which the young woman had herself been copying from the original.

Rosvita felt sick to her stomach just thinking about it. What if the Vita had been lost? Gone up in smoke to join its creator, Fidelis, where he rested in blessed peace in the Chamber of Light?

"But it did not," she murmured.

Her clerics glanced at her, surprised to hear her comment while the king was speaking. She smiled wryly at them and made the gesture for Silence just as Amabilia opened her mouth to reply.

"...to the efforts of my faithful clerics who rescued my treasury and much of the business of the court, and mostly to Father Hugh. He stayed to the end until all who could be brought out of the fire were saved. He risked his own life with no thought for himself. Where is Father Hugh?"

"He is still with Princess Sapientia, Your Majesty," said Helmut Villam.

They stood or sat, all in disorder, in the hall of a well-to-do merchant. Even so, most of the court could not crowd in. They had slept out in the fields and forest last night, in barns and hayricks and under such shelter as could be found, safely away from the fire. Rosvita had been glad of straw for bedding; most of the court and the townsfolk rousted from their homes had been glad simply to have a roof of some kind over their heads. It had rained half the night. Now, in the morning, with the palace smoldering and a light rain still falling, Henry had felt it safe enough to venture back into town and take shelter there while he held council.

Burchard, Duke of Avaria, and his duchess, Ida of Ro-vencia, sat beside the king. Burchard had the look of a man who has touched Death but not yet realized it; Ida looked stern, tired, and very old, as befit a woman who has seen her two eldest sons die untimely.

The king himself looked tired. Though his tent had been salvaged from the fire, he had not passed a restful night. Last to sleep, sitting by his pregnant daughter's bed, he had been first to wake and with a number of attendants had walked to the palace to investigate the remains.

It was still too hot to enter. A few pillars stood, the remaining roof sloped precariously, about to cave in, and the stone chapel was scorched but otherwise intact. All the chapel valuables-a reliquary containing the dust of the thighbone of St. Paulina, the gold vessels for holy water, and the embroidered altar cloth-had been saved.

"What of the cause?" asked the king now.

A palace steward came forward. He had obviously slept in his clothing and himself risked his life in the fire, for his sleeves were ripped and stained with soot and the hood of his cape was singed and blackened. "No one knows, Your Majesty. All the Candlemass candles were carefully watched. We always set them in clay bowls so if they spill there won't be danger of fire. Alas, the Lions have testified that some among their number fell asleep while gaming in the barracks. Perhaps they knocked over a lamp."

Henry sighed. "I see no point in casting blame, not when a dozen souls lost their lives, may God grant them peace. Let us consider this as a sign that we take our leisure at our peril, as long as Gent remains in the hands of the Eika. Thus does our sport blind us to our duty. Let greater care be taken in the future."

Sister Amabilia bad saved the Vita of St. Radegundis from the fire.

The book lay on Rosvita's lap, swaddled in a lamb's wool blanket, the softest cradle Rosvita had found for it. She had slept with it clasped to her breast last night, though its presence had triggered strange dreams, and she would not let it out of her grasp today.

Was this obsession unseemly? Perhaps it would be best to give the original to the monastery at Quedlinhame and keep only Amabilia's copy for herself, to keep herself free of the sin of esurience-that greedy hunger she had for the knowledge that had died with Brother Fidelis: his knowledge, some of which was retained in the Life he had written.

Henry sat forward suddenly, his expression lightening. "Here is Father Hugh. What news?"

Hugh knelt before the king. He looked ragged and unkempt. Possibly he had not slept at all. Yet his lack of concern for his appearance, under these circumstances, could only reflect well on him. He alone of all the nobles had remained behind beside the conflagration; he had directed the rescue efforts; he had made sure all who could be brought safely out of the palace were gotten free.

Perhaps it had been a wise choice when Margrave Judith had sent Princess Sapientia on her way, directing her to visit first with the young abbot of Firsebarg, Judith's bastard son. Poor Sapientia, whose name meant wisdom, had never shown much of that quality; perhaps, with such a name, she had been bound to become sensitive to comparisons to her clever younger sister. But she had chosen wisely when it came to Hugh.

Truly it could be said, as the court wits said now, that he was the ornament of "wisdom." Even in such a state as this.

"Princess Sapientia sleeps, Your Majesty," he said, his voice as calm and well-modulated as ever. "Her pains have gone away, but she still feels poorly. With your permission, I will send a message to my mother. Her physician-

"Yes, I am acquainted with Margrave Judith's physician." The king gestured toward Villam. "The man saved my good companion Villam's life, if not his arm. Very well, send for her-or for the Arethousan, if her business keeps her in the marchlands."

"What business?" whispered Sister Odila.

"Oh, come," muttered Brother Fortunatus, "don't you recall? Judith had to return to Olsatia because she is to marry again."

"Again?" squeaked young Brother Constantine.

"Hush," hissed Sister Amabilia, but a moment later she, too, could not contain herself. "I thought she meant to celebrate the marriage here on the king's progress."

"Indeed," said Fortunatus smugly, certain of his sources of information and pleased to have knowledge Amabilia lacked. "But the young bridegroom never showed up. His family made peculiar excuses, so the margrave journeyed back to find out for herself."

"Hush, children," said Rosvita.

"...Sapientia has become fond of her Eagle," Hugh was saying, "and I fear it would upset her at this delicate time to send the young woman away. If another Eagle could be found to ride..." He smiled gently.

The king's Eagle, Hathui, now leaned forward. "Your Majesty. You have not gotten a report from the Eagle who rode in yesterday."

The king nodded. Hathui gestured and a young woman walked forward from the back of the hall to kneel before the king.

"Give your report," said Hathui to her.

The young Eagle bowed her head respectfully. "Your Majesty, I am Hanna, daughter of Birta and Hansal, out of Heart's Rest."

Heart's Rest! Rosvita stared at the young woman but could see no resemblance to any person she recalled from her childhood; it had been so many years since she had visited her home and her father's hall. Perhaps her brother Ivar knew the family-but it was unlikely unless Count Harl had himself brought the young woman to the notice of the Eagles.

"You sent me south with Wolfhere, escorting Biscop An-tonia, late last spring after the battle of Kassel."

"I remember."

"I bring grave news, Your Majesty. While in the Alfar Mountains, a storm hit St. Servitius'

Monastery, where we took shelter for the night." She described a rockfall and the destruction of the monastery infirmary. "Wolfhere believes it was no natural storm. He believes Antonia and her cleric escaped."

"He found no bodies?"

"None could be found, Your Majesty. The rocks were too unstable to move."

"Where is Wolfhere now?"

"He went on to Darre to bring the charges against Bis-cop Antonia before the skopos. He does not believe she is dead, Your Majesty."

"So you have said."

At this, she looked up directly at him. "And so I will say again, Your Majesty, and again, until you believe me."

He smiled suddenly, the first smile Rosvita had seen since their return from the hunt yesterday into the chaos attendant on the disastrous fire. "You believe Wolfhere is correct?"

She hesitated, bit her lip, then went on. "I myself witnessed such sights that night...I saw things, Your Majesty, creatures in the storm such as I have never seen before and hope never to see again!

They were not any creatures that walk on earth unless called from-other places, dark places."

Now he leaned forward. She had caught his interest. "Sorcery?"

"What else could it be? We saw the guivre, such as only a magi could capture and control. But these were not even creatures of flesh and blood. Wolfhere called them galla."

Every person in the hall shuddered reflexively when the word came out of her mouth. Rosvita had never heard of such a thing, and yet some tone, some intonation, made her flinch instinctively. But as she glanced round the room she saw Father Hugh look up sharply, eyes widening-with interest? Or with distaste?

"I have no reason," said the king wryly, "to distrust Wolf-here in such matters. Well, then, Eagle, if this happened while crossing the Alfar Mountains in the summer, why has it taken you until winter to reach me?"

She lifted a hand. "If I may, Your Majesty?" Curious, he assented.

She gestured behind, and three Lions walked forward and knelt beside her, heads bowed. They, too, looked travel-worn, tabards and armor much mended; one had a newly healed cut on his left cheek.

"These Lions were my escort, and they will witness that all that I say is true. When we turned back from the monastery, we found the pass was closed, blocked by another avalanche. Therefore we had to keep going south into the borderlands of Karrone until we could link up with the road that led back north through the Julier Pass. But here, too, we could not get through."

"Another storm?" demanded Villam, and Father Hugh leaned forward as if he feared the Eagle's answer would be too faint for him to hear.

"No, my lord. Duke Conrad closed the pass."

Henry stood up, and immediately any persons in the hall who were sitting scrambled to their feet as well, including poor Brother Fortunatus, who had sprained his knee in the conflagration yesterday.

"Duke Conrad has closed the pass? On whose authority?"

"I do not know the particulars, Your Majesty, only what I could learn from the border guards. It seems there is a dispute about borders between Queen Marozia and Duke Conrad, and neither will back down. So to spite her, Duke Conrad refused to let any traffic through the pass."

"To spite himself," muttered Villam. "That pass links the duchy of Wayland to Karrone and to Aosta." He shook his head, looking disgusted.

"Nevertheless," she replied, still sounding offended at the memory of the incident, "we were not let through although I carry an Eagle's ring and badge, the seals of your authority."

There was a silence while Henry considered this news. A few whispers hissed through the hall, then hushed. Abruptly, he sat down. Rosvita could not read his expression. "What then?" he asked, his voice level.

"We had to ride farther east until we came to the Brinne Pass, and farther east still, once we had crossed over the mountains. We came into the marchlands of Westfall where Margrave Werinhar fed us most handsomely and gave me a new horse and all of us generous supplies. But so many of the paths and roads had been washed out by heavy rains that we had to go even farther east into the marchland of Eastfall before we could find a good road leading west." Again she hesitated and looked toward Hathui, as for courage. The older Eagle merely nodded crisply, and the younger went on. "Every person there sent word by me, Your Majesty. They beg you to set a margrave over them for protection. The Quman raids have been more fierce this year than in any year since your great-grandfather the first Henry fought and defeated the Quman princes at the River Eldar." She turned and signed to the Lion, eldest of her companions-the one with the scarred cheek. He presented a broken arrow to the king. Fletched with iron-gray feathers, the arrow had an iron point; it looked innocuous enough for a tool meant for killing, and yet a kind of miasma hung about it as if it had a rank smell or some kind of repelling spell laid on it.

Those feathers resembled none of any bird she had ever seen.

But in the eastern wilderness, griffins hunted. Or so books said and report gave out. But Rosvita rarely trusted the reports of credulous folk who might see one thing and believe it was another-as had the lords and ladies out hunting, seeing a deer instead of Theophanu. It was stuffy in the small hall with so many people crammed in, even with the high windows thrown open. A restlessness plagued them all at the sight of the arrow. A few slipped out the door, but even as they left, others shouldered in to take their place.

Henry took the arrow from the Lion's hand and at once cut a finger on the hard edge of the fletching. He grunted in pain and stuck his finger in his mouth, sucking on it. Immediately, the Lion took the arrow out of Henry's hand. "Let me hold this for you, Your Majesty," said the man. "I beg you."

"Where did you get this arrow?" asked the king as he pressed on the finger with his thumb to stop the bleeding. "At a village called Felsig," continued the Eagle. "We arrived hours after dawn, when they had repulsed an attack of Quman raiders. We helped fight off the last of them, some of their foot soldiers who I swear to you are so unsightly that they could be born of no human mother, though they are nothing like the Eika. Our comrade Artur died of wounds taken there. We brought with us a lad, named Stephen, who fought bravely in that skirmish. He wishes to swear himself to the service of the Lions."

"And I, as senior among us, deemed him fit to serve," added Ingo.

"Do as you see fit," said Henry. "Such a brave fighter is welcome in my Lions."

"Whom will you nominate as margrave of Eastfall?"

asked Lady Brigida from the crowd. As niece of Duke Burchard and Duchess Ida, she might expect to be named.

Several voices spoke. "Princess Theophanu. Prince Ekkehard."

Henry raised a hand for silence. "I will think on it. It is not a decision to be made rashly. Duke Burchard." He turned to the old duke. "Can you send a force into the marchlands from Avaria?"

The duke coughed before he spoke, and his voice was weak. "I have no sons of an age to lead such an expedition," he said slowly and pointedly-thus reminding all listeners that his second son Frederic had died fighting in the marchlands and his eldest son, Agius, just last spring, had sacrificed himself to save the king from the dreadful guivre. "It is my experience that the Quman riders must be met by cavalry. Foot soldiers cannot defeat them. You must reform the Dragons, Your Majesty."

"I have no sons of such an age either," said Henry harshly, not even looking toward poor Ekkehard who sat unnoticed in the corner behind Helmut Villam. "Not any more. Nor any soldiers as brave as those who died at Gent."

No one spoke or ventured an opinion, for Duke Burchard had thrown the meat among the dogs and everyone waited to see how ugly the fight would be for the spoils. But no one dared contradict the king, not even Burchard. "What other news do you bring for me, Eagle?" Henry demanded, turning his attention back to the young woman kneeling before him. "There has been enough of bad news. Pray you, tell me nothing more that I do not want to hear." She had been pale before. Now she blanched. "There is another piece of news," she began, almost stuttering. "I heard it when we halted at the Thurin Forest, where we had come searching for you. They had it there from Qued-linhame." Then she broke off. "Go on!" said the king impatiently. "N-news from Gent."

"Gent!" The king stood again.

"Ai, Lady," muttered Brother Fortunatus, wincing as he got up.

"What news?"

"Only this: that two children escaped from the city. The children said that a daimone imprisoned by Bloodheart showed them the way out through the crypt, but there was no trace of such a tunnel when the foresters thereabouts went later to look."

"Such a tunnel," said Villam, "as the other refugees from Gent claimed to have used to flee to safety?"

"I don't know," said Hanna, "but Liath-"

"Liath?" asked the king.

"My comrade in the Eagles. She would know. She was there."

"Of course," said the king. "I will question her later. Go on." His interest was keen and his attention, on the young Eagle, utterly focused.

"There is little else to report. The Eika still infest the city. They have brought in slaves who work the smithies and armories and in the tanneries, so the children reported. They saw-" She made a kind of hiccuping sound, then got the words out. "According to the report I heard, they saw the bodies of fighting men in the crypt below the cathedral. Tabards sewn with the sigil of a dragon."

"That is enough." The king signed her to silence. She looked relieved to be free of his notice. "I am weary. Today my stewards will organize the train. Tomorrow we ride toward Echstatt. Duke Burchard, you will give me fifty soldiers to send to Eastfall. Young Rodulf of Varingia and ten companions attend me. He can prove himself loyal to me and cleanse his family honor of the stain laid there by his father the late duke by fighting well and bravely in the east. Let them be called Dragons." The words came hard, but he spoke them. "In time, others will be added to their number."

He shut his eyes a moment, seemed to be praying silently; then he shook himself free of memory and went un. "God guide us in this hour of loss." He touched a hand to his chest where, Rosvita knew, he kept an old bloodstained rag-the birthcloth of his bastard son Sanglant-nestled against his skin. "Now we must consider Gent. We have recovered from our losses at Kassel. There has been time to get the harvest in, and by the mercy and grace of Our Lord and Lady, the crop has been good. Sabella remains safely in the custody of Biscop Constance. I need only an army sufficient to attack Gent."

Many people in the hall, mostly young and male, clamored at once. "I will go! Let me ride, Your Majesty! The honor of my kin-!"

The newest arrival at court, pleasant and able Lord Geoffrey, shouldered his way to the front.

"Grant me this honor, Your Majesty," he said, kneeling.

Henry raised a hand to cut short the outcry. "Winter is a poor season for Eagles to ride, but ride they must for my purposes. Hathui. Send one hardy soul to Margrave Judith, to inquire if she will lend her physician for the care of my daughter until she gives birth to the child. Send one with the expedition to Eastfall. Send another to Duke Conrad in Wayland with these words: 'Attend me on my progress to explain your conduct toward my Eagle at Julier Pass.' And choose a fourth carefully, to send to Count Lavastine, in Varre."

Lord Geoffrey glanced up, surprised.

"You, my young friend," said Henry to him, "I will keep by my side for a few more hunts at least.

Let the Eagle ride now to your kinsman. You can return there later."

"Why to Count Lavastine?" asked Burchard querulously.

Villam, who had been listening carefully to the king, smiled softly as at a joke only he understood.

"He has gained a son. I have lost one. Let Lavastine prove his loyalty to me by meeting me with an army at Gent. If God grant us victory over the Eika and restore the city to our hands, then I will grant him the reward he seeks."

llN the end it bad mattered not. And she had, besides, brought death to a dozen or more people.

Could God ever forgive her? Could she forgive herself?

"Please, Da," she prayed, hands clasped tight before her lips, "please tell me what to do. Why didn't you teach me, Da?"

"I will teach you, Liath."

She jerked away just before he could set his clean, white hand on her shoulder. Stumbling up to her feet, she jumped out of his reach. Mist curled around them, a low-lying fog that shrouded trees and the market village, just out of sight of the king's encampment. Hugh had worked some terrible magic on Sapientia's mind, such that the princess would not let Liath out of her sight, as if she were a talisman for the safety of the unborn child. So Liath had risen early and come outside to relieve herself, and afterward lingered in the bitter cold of a fog-bound winter dawn, hoping to have one moment of solitude, of respite.

But Hugh could not let her be. He would never let her be. He had known long before she had what Da was protecting. And he wanted it for himself.

"Have you learned your lesson, Liath?" Hugh continued. "So many dead." He shook his head, clicking his tongue with disapproval. "So many dead."

"If you hadn't spelled them to sleep-" she cried.

"It's true," he said, amazing her. She broke off. "I thought too well of what little I had learned. I will pray to God for wisdom." His lips curled up. He seemed, for an instant, to be laughing at himself; then the moment passed and, as quick as an owl strikes, he grabbed Liath's wrist. "Don't be a fool. The longer you ignore it, the less able you will be to control it. Is that what you want?" He gestured toward the rise where the blackened hulk of the palace scarred its height. "Liath, whom else can you trust?"

"I'll tell the king I set the fireHe laughed curtly. "Imagine what the king and his counselors will say when they discover they have harbored a maleficus in their midst. Only the skopos can judge such as you-a monster!"

"I'll go to Wolfhere-"

"Wolfhere! We have had this discussion before. Trust Wolfhere, if you will. But I have The Book of Secrets now. I have seen what you can do, and I do not hate you for it. I love you for it, Liath. Who else will love or trust you once they know what you are? / have the trust of the king, and Wolfhere does not. I can protect you from the king's wrath, and the church's suspicion. And when Sapientia gives birth to our child, I will be guaranteed the place of her closest adviser for as long as she reigns."

"Not if she miscarries-"

He hit her, hard, on the cheek with an open hand.

"I carried your child," she gasped, jerking away, but she could not get free. "Ai, Lady, I am glad you beat it out of me."

He hit her again, and then again, harder, and the fourth time she staggered and fell to her knees-but this time she drew her knife.

"I'll kill you," she whispered hoarsely. Tears stung her eyes and blood dripped from her nose.

He laughed, as if her resistance delighted him.

"My lord Father!" A servingman ran out of the mist, leaping between her knife and Hugh's body.

He jumped in to grapple with her, but she flung the knife away before he could touch her. What use was a knife against Hugh's magic-if it even were magic? Hugh wielded his earthly power as effectively as any magic.

"My lord Father, are you unhurt?" Numb, she listened as the servingman fawned over Hugh.

"God Above! That an Eagle should threaten you so! I'll take her into custody until the king-"

"Nay, brother." Hugh broke in with a gentle smile. "Her mind is disordered by the minions of the Enemy. I thank you for your watchfulness, but God are with me and I need not fear her, for I intend to heal her instead. You may go on, but be sure I shall remember you in my prayers." He nodded toward Liath. "As you must pray for her soul."

The servingman bowed. "As you wish, my lord." He shook his head. "You are all that is generous." Clucking softly under his breath as if with veiled disapproval, he walked away.

Hugh's gentle demeanor vanished as soon as the man was out of earshot. "Don't provoke me, Liath, and don't mock God." His tone was as hard as the rocks digging into her knees. He picked up the knife and used the point to lift her chin so that she had to look at him. "Now go in. The princess wants to see you." Then, in an action meant to flaunt his power and her weakness, he flipped over the knife and handed it to her, hilt first.

Still numb, she sheathed it. Her nose still bled. She pressed one nostril with a hand, to stem the blood, and walked stiffly back to the princess' tent; Hugh walked right behind her. Her eyes stung and her head pounded, but her heart was frozen. Nothing she could do mattered. She had no recourse.

Perhaps it was true that she could stop him physically should he try again to rape her...but he was still her jailer, and she was in every other way his prisoner.

Sapientia did not even notice Liath; she was gossiping with Lady Brigida about who might be named as the next Margrave of Eastfall. But Sister Rosvita was there, attending the princess.

"Good child," she exclaimed as she noticed Liath. "What happened to your face?"

"I tripped on a stump. I beg your pardon, Sister."

"No need to beg my pardon, Eagle. Your Highness, your father has sent me to get news of your health."

"I'm feeling better," said Sapientia. "I can ride today."

"Perhaps not today," said Rosvita gently, glancing curiously over at Liath again. "Your father wishes you to remain here resting another week before you attempt the journey to Echstatt."

"I don't want-!"

"Your Highness," said Hugh softly.

Sapientia stopped dead, looked up at Hugh with a most disgustingly exultant expression, and smiled. "What do you advise, Father Hugh?"

"Heed the king's advice, Your Highness. You must conserve all your energy to bring this child safely to term."

"Yes." She nodded soberly. "Yes, I must." She turned back to the cleric. "Tell my father I will abide by his wishes."

"I will. There is one other thing. King Henry wishes to interview your Eagle about Gent."

Liath waited stupidly, stripped of purpose, until Sapientia gave permission for her to go. Hugh begged leave to attend the king. Together, Liath, Rosvita, and Hugh left and crossed to the king's tent.

Not even in such a small way would Hugh leave her alone. Henry was awake, seated in his chair while his servants packed what remained of his possessions into chests for the journey.

"There is the Eagle," said the king as he looked up from a consultation with a steward about the outfitting of the new Dragons. He indicated Hathui, who stood over to one side of the tent with Hanna and a redheaded Eagle named, of course, Rufus. "You will give your report to your comrades. One of them will be riding to Count Lavastine. Father Hugh! How may I aid you?"

Hailed by the king, Hugh could hardly follow her over to the others.

"What happened to your face!" exclaimed Hanna.

"I beg you, Hathui," pleaded Liath in a whisper, grasping Hathui's hands. "I beg you, if you have any influence with the king, let me ride with Hanna, get me out of here."

"I'm sorry, Liath. It's already been decided."

"But if you all go today, if you leave me alone-" She was suddenly so nauseated, head pounding, eyesight blurring, that she knew she was going to be sick.

"This way," said Hathui briskly, and hustled her outside.

She retched, heaving up mostly spume for she had taken nothing to eat or drink since last night's sparse dinner, and hacked and shuddered until she thought she might as well die now and be rid of this misery.

"Child!" Rosvita appeared out of the mist and touched her gently on the shoulder. "What ails you?"

Hysterical with fear, she no longer cared what she said or did. She could not endure this any longer. She flung herself down and clasped Rosvita's knees like a supplicant. "I pray you, Sister. You have influence with the king! I beg you, ask him to send me away, anywhere, to take any message, anywhere, only away from here. I beg you, Sister."

"You are from Heart's Rest," said Rosvita suddenly, in a tone of surprise. Liath looked up, but the cleric was examining Hanna, not her.

"I am."

"And this one, too," said Rosvita slowly, looking from Hanna to Liath and then back to Hanna.

"Is it possible, Eagle, that you also know my brother Ivar?"

Hanna blinked, then dropped like a stone to kneel before the cleric. "My lady! I beg your pardon for not knowing-

"Never mind it," said Rosvita. "Answer my question."

"Ivar is my milk brother. He and I nursed from the same breast-my mother's. My lady, I beg you." Coming from Hanna's lips, the pleading sounded freakish. Hanna never begged. Hanna could always handle any emergency that came her way. Hanna was so calm. "It is presumptuous of me to claim kinship with you, my lady, but I beg you by that bond of kinship I hold with your brother, that if you can help her, please do."

Liath gulped down a sob, she was so desperate, so hopeful, so stripped of hope.

"But why are you so eager to leave the king?" Clearly Rosvita was groping for answers and having trouble finding any. "You were with Wolfhere in Gent. Has he poisoned your mind somehow against Henry? Any dispute Wolfhere had with Henry was not of Henry's making."

"No," gasped Liath, "it was nothing Wolfhere said. He never said anything against King Henry."

"True-spoken words," muttered Hathui.

"It isn't the king at all." Ai, Lady, how much could she say? How much dared she say?

"Come, now, daughter, take hold of yourself." Rosvita set a hand, like a benediction, on Liath's forehead. "If it is the service of Princess Sapientia you chafe under-

"Yes!" Liath leaped at this. "Yes. I don't-I can't-We don't suit, I-"

"An Eagle serves where the king commands," said Rosvita sternly.

Having freed himself from the king, Hugh came out of the tent. Liath began to sob. She had lost.

But Rosvita took her by the hand and lifted her up. "Come, daughter, dry your eyes and sit yourself down here, where there is shelter. It has begun to rain."

Indeed, it had begun to rain. Liath only noticed it because the sleeting rain slid under the neck of her cloak and straight down her spine.

"I will take her back to Princess Sapientia's tent," said Hugh softly. "I fear the fall she took earlier has disordered her mind."

"Let her rest here a moment," said Rosvita. For a miracle, Hugh did not press the issue while Rosvita left Liath's side and went into the king's tent. Hathui followed the cleric in, leaving Hanna and a confounded Rufus to stand beside her. She swallowed tears and, through the fabric of the tent, heard Rosvita speaking to the king.

"Would it not be wisest, Your Majesty," she asked, "to send the Eagle who has come from Gent to Count Lavas-tine, so that he may question her directly?"

"There is wisdom in your words, Sister," said the king. "But my daughter is fond of the Eagle, and I wish to keep her spirits up."

"I trust Father Hugh and her other companions can keep her spirits up, Your Majesty. But Count Lavastine will need the best intelligence if he is to have any hope of retaking Gent, surely, and you cannot afford to leave Gent in the hands of the Eika. Not when it comes time for them to raid again, and they have control of the river."

"It is true," spoke up Hathui, "that Liath led the refugees through the hidden tunnel so many have spoken of. If any can find it again, she can."

Liath heard no reply from the king. Beside her, Hugh cursed softly under his breath. "Eagles," he said curtly. "Withdraw." Rufus did at once, but Hanna hesitated. "Go!" She backed away. "Look at me."

She kept her head down. "Liath!" he hissed, but she would not look. Let him strike her where everyone could see, even his noble peers. Let her at least have that satisfaction, even if it would make no difference in the end.

From inside the tent the king spoke. "It is good advice, Sister. Hathui, see that the young Eagle who came from Gent rides with the message to Lavastine. You may dispose of the others as you see fit."

"Do not think you have escaped me," said Hugh in a reasonable tone. "I will go in now and tell the king which Eagle Sapientia wishes to replace you. You know which Eagle I will choose..."

She could not look up. He had won again.

He smiled. "Your friend will be my hostage until you return. She, and the book. Remember that, Liath. You are still mine." He turned and walked into the tent. So, with his honey-sweet words, did he convince the king.

"Liath." Hanna laid a hand on her arm. "Stand up."

"I've betrayed you."

"You've betrayed no one. I am an Eagle. That means something. He can't harm me-"

"But Theophanu in the forest-

"What are you talking about? Liath, stop it! He doesn't care about me, he only cares about you.

As long as I behave myself, he won't notice me. Lady and Lord, Liath, I have survived Antonia, an avalanche, creatures made of no flesh or blood, two mountain crossings, a Quman attack, flooded rivers, and your bawling. I think I can survive this!"

"Promise me you will!"

Hanna rolled her eyes. "Spare us this!" she said with disgust. "Now go collect your things."

Liath winced, remembering. "Burned," she whispered. "Everything burned in the attic."

"Then tell Hathui and she'll see new gear is issued to you. Oh, Liath-did you-did you lose the book, after everything?"

"No." She shut her eyes, heard the soft flow of words from inside the tent, heard Hugh laugh at a jest made by the king, heard Rosvita answer with a witty reply. "Hugh got the book."

"Well, then," said Hanna sharply, "it's just as well I stay behind to keep an eye on it, isn't it?

Wasn't it I who got it away from him at Heart's Rest?"

Liath wiped her nose with the back of a hand and sniffed, hard. "Oh, Hanna, you must be sick of me. I'm sick of myself."

"You'll have no time to get sick of yourself when you're traveling all day and just trying to keep alive! That's what you need! Now go on. The king wants his Eagles sent out as soon as they can get horses saddled."

Liath hugged her and went to find Hathui.

But in the end, when she left the king's encampment, the road swung back by the market village and, curious, she took a quick detour up to the rise to see the burned palace. Hathui had found no bow to replace the one lost, and there were no swords to spare with so many having been lost in the burned barracks. She had a spear, a spare woolen tunic, a water pouch and hardtack for the road, and a flint to make fire. She had not told Hathui she needed no tools to make fire.

She could not help herself. She dismounted at the charred gates and led her horse into the ruined complex. Already human scavengers tested the blackened timbers nearest the edge of the fire, those that had cooled; they searched for anything that could be salvaged. Liath threw the reins over the horse's head and left it to stand. She trudged through wreckage, boots collecting soot, her nose stinging from the stink. A sticky trail of blood from her nose tickled her lip, and she licked it away and sniffed hard, hoping the bleeding would finally stop.

She knew where the barracks stood. Though confused about the palace's layout in her first days at Augensburg, she now knew the route well because of the fire, when she had plunged in more times than she could count in her vain attempt to drag all the sleeping Lions to safety.

There, at that spot, in that courtyard, she and Hugh had jumped to safety. He had had the presence of mind to grab her saddlebags before he jumped. That he still limped from a twisted ankle gave her some pleasure, but not enough.

She had been too horrified to think. The flames had come so fast, so fierce, and she had not meant them to come into being at all. They had come to her as fire leaps to any dry thing within its reach.

She had scrambled to safety after him, and only then had she remembered all the people lying asleep in the palace.

/ will not blame myself. He sent them to sleep. He drove me to the act, whose consequences I could not imagine.

But that was no excuse.

Da had been right to protect her. But he should have taught her, too. She had to find some way to teach herself. She had to find a way to keep Hugh away from her.

Light winked, a jewel flash among ash and fallen timbers. She stepped forward over the crumbled threshold into the main portion of what had once been the barracks. Everything had caved in and she could not tell which planks came from the walls, which from the attic floor, and which from the roof. Her boot broke through a plank and she fell, foot hitting the ground a hand's breadth beneath. She tugged her boot out of the hole and gingerly stepped over two fallen beams, skirted a litter of swords and spear points and shield bosses, all chary and still glowing, and stopped where three planks composed more of charcoal than of wood lay in perfect alignment, one, two, three in a row like the lid to a chest.

She nudged one aside with her boot.

There, lying amidst cinders and ash and blackened wood, rested her bow in its case, untouched, unharmed except for a thin layer of soot streaking it. Amazed, she lifted it off the ground to find her good friend, Lucian's sword, beneath it, still sound, as if together they had weathered the firestorm.

"Liath."

She started back, grabbing bowcase and sword to her, and spun, stumbling over a fallen beam and the detritus of the blaze.

But there was no one there.

XI the soul:

THE AJN OJN JLA, had become heartily sick of staring into fire. The smoke stung her eyes and chapped her cheeks. But she knew better than to complain. At this moment, as the heat chafed her skin, she watched with her five companions. She had not yet mastered the art of opening such a window, a vision drawn through fire, but she could see with the others. In her first days in the valley she could not even do that, and Heribert, who had tried many times, still could not see through fire or stone.

She saw shapes as insubstantial as flames, but the others had assured her that these shapes were the shadows of real forms, real people, real buildings; they had assured her that every incident they saw through the window made by fire occurred somewhere in the world beyond their little valley. By this means, through their power, they could see what transpired in the world beyond-although there were limits to their ability to see.

Right now, in a distant place whose outlines were limned by the hearth fire, a young noblewoman and her retinue arrived at the gates of a convent and requested admittance to pray and offer gifts.

"That is Princess Theophanu," said Antonia, amazed.

"Hush, Sister Venia," said she who sat first among them, caput draconis. "Let us listen to their words as she speaks to the gatekeeper."

Antonia did not want to admit she heard nothing. She never heard anything through the flames, only saw shapes and people as they moved and spoke in a kind of dumb show. The conversation within the fire went on and on as the elderly gatekeeper questioned the princess at length.

Antonia examined her companions.

She disliked their habit of addressing each other in the clerical way: Sister and Brother. It suggested they were equals. And yet, in truth, she had to admit that Brother Severus was an educated man of obvious noble blood and proud bearing; his name reflected his severe manner and ascetic ways.

Sister Zoe spoke with the accent of the educated clergy of the kingdom of Salia, precise and clean. A lush beauty with evident charms that had, alas, attracted Heribert's notice, she looked more like a courtesan than a cleric. Brother Marcus was older than Zoe but younger than Severus; small, tidy, and arrogant, he had unfortunately encouraged Heribert in his obsession with building and had soon involved Heribert in a complicated scheme to rebuild the admittedly dilapidated cluster of buildings that housed their little community. Sister Meriam looked more like a Jinna heathen than a good Daisanite woman; old and tiny, with slender bones that looked as fragile as dry sticks, she nevertheless carried herself with a fierce dignity that even Antonia respected.

None of these names were true names, of course. Like Antonia, they had all taken other names when they came to the valley. She did not know what they had once been called or who their kin were, although any fool could see that Sister Meriam came from the infidel east. They did not volunteer such information, nor did they ask her about herself. That was not their purpose here.

The vision in fire faded to the orange-blue blur of flames crackling and the snap of wood. Antonia blinked smoke out of her eyes, and sneezed.

"Bless you, Sister," said Brother Marcus. He turned to the others. "Can this be true, that Princess Theophanu was mistaken for a deer? Does the princess suspect a sorcerer walks unseen in the king's court? Could it be she suspects our brother who walks in the world?"

She who named herself Caput Draconis answered. "She came to St. Valeria Convent because she suspects sorcery. But that she suspects our brother-I doubt it, just as I doubt Mother Rothgard suspects that her faithful gatekeeper is in fact our ally. We are not known, Brother Marcus. Do not trouble yourself on that score."

He bent his head in submission to her words. "As you say, Caput Draconis. What of this suspected sorcerer, then, whom Princess Theophanu wishes to make known to Mother Rothgard?"

"She is precipitate, this princess," said the caput draconis. "How can we be sure that the young folk in question did not simply see what they wished in their eagerness and mistake branches for antlers and mist for the flash of a deer's body? That is what the king suggested, is it not?"

"What of the burning arrows?" asked Sister Zoe. "Taken separately, I would put little credence in either incident. Taken together, I become suspicious."

It was dusk, but not chill, for it was never chilly here in this valley. The gold torque worn by the caput draconis winked and dazzled in the firelight. The woman's face remained calm; she alone Antonia could not put an age to. This difficulty puzzled her and made her fret at odd moments, waking at night, wondering, as she did about so many other things.

Above, the sun sank behind the mountains and the night stars emerged, brilliant fires burning beyond the seventh sphere, lamps lighting the way to the Chamber of Light. The stars and constellations had names and attributes. Like any educated cleric, she knew a bit of the astrologus' knowledge, but if she had learned one thing in the last six months, it was this: She knew nothing about the knowledge of the stars compared to her new companions. She and Heribert had come to rest in a nest of mathematici, the most dangerous of sorcerers. Antonia had learned more about the stars and the heavens in the last six months than she had ever before imagined existed.

She had thought to teach them, for had not the caput draconis admitted that she-Antonia-had a natural gift for compulsion? But her early demonstrations had not impressed her audience. Hers had been a study of magics used to bring people into her power, magics born from the earth, from ancient and fell creatures that waited, hidden, in the earth or in the deep crevices of the soul or of the land itself. Such creatures and spirits were eager to serve, if commanded boldly and given the right payment, usually in blood.

"Anyone can spill blood," Brother Severus had said contemptuously, "or read bones, like a savage." After that she had confined her study of such magics to times when she was alone.

Though she resented him for speaking such words out loud, even she had to admit-grudgingly-that he was right. Another power arched above all this, and her companions had studied long and fruitfully to master a sorcery which she had only now taken the first and tiniest steps toward understanding.

Why was it that spring lay always in the air here in this valley while winter's sky wheeled above them? How old, truly, was the caput draconis, who carried herself with the gravity of a woman of great wisdom and age and yet to judge by her face and hair might be any age between twenty and forty?

"The burning arrows," mused the caput draconis. "Our Brother Lupus brought the one we seek closer to us but not into our hands, as we had hoped. We have been patient so far, but this news of burning arrows makes me wonder if it is time to act."

"Act in what way, Sister?" Brother Severus raised an eyebrow in muted surprise. Even at night, he wore only the one thin robe, and he never wore shoes. His bare feet reminded Antonia at times of poor Brother Agius, whose heretical notions had led him in the end to the unfortunate death that had proved most inconvenient for her. But God, no doubt, would forgive him his error. God were merciful to the weak.

"It is time to investigate," said their leader. "There are gentler ways of persuasion, now that no obstacle but distance lies between us and that which we seek. Brother Marcus, you will journey to Darre to be our eyes and ears in the presbyters' palace once our brother must leave to return north. Meanwhile, I, too, must venture out into the world to see what I can learn there."

"Is that saie?" demanded Antonia.

"Why should it not be safe, Sister Venia?" asked Sister Meriam, speaking at last.

A good question, it was one Antonia could not answer.

"I do not suggest you go, Sister," continued the caput draconis. "You must not leave here yet.

But I am under no such constraints. I can walk in anonymity, as I have pledged to do."

"A prince is no prince without a retinue," said Antonia snappishly, indicating the gold torque the other woman wore.

But the other woman only smiled, her expression almost like pity. "I have a retinue." Lifting a hand, she indicated the darkened valley beyond them where uncanny lights winked into existence, burning without flame, and stray breezes wove their unsteady way through trees and flowers blooming in unseasonable splendor. "And my retinue is more powerful than any that exists in this world. Let us go, Sisters and Brothers. Let us bend our backs to this task."

They rose together, clasped hands in a brief prayer, and left the hearth.

Irritated, Antonia had to acknowledge the truth of what their caput draconis had said. No human servants lived in this valley, only beasts, goats and cows for milk, sheep for wool, chickens and geese for eggs and quills. No, indeed, their little community was not attended by human servants.

She left the small chapel behind Brother Marcus and crossed to the site of the new long hall.

Though it was growing dark quickly, Heribert was still out measuring and hammering, aided by certain of the more robust of the servants. Strangely, he had gotten used to the servants more quickly than she had, perhaps because he worked beside them every day as he designed and constructed his projects.

She still was not used to them. At times, she could barely bring herself to look at them.

It was one thing to use the abominations nurtured in the bosom of the Enemy to punish the wicked. It was one thing to harness the power of ancient creatures which had crawled out of the pit in the days before the advent of the blessed Daisan to frighten the weak into obedience.

It was quite another to treat them as honorable servants, to use them as allies, no matter how fair some of them appeared.

At her appearance beside the construction site, they fluttered away, or sank like tar into the ground, or folded in that odd way some had into themselves, vanishing from her sight. One, the most loyal of Heribert's helpers, simply wound itself into the planks which were set tongue to groove along the north wall of the long hall. It now appeared as a knotlike growth along the wood.

"Heribert," she said disapprovingly. "Your work finishes with sunset,"

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently, but he was not paying attention. He was setting a tongued plank into a grooved plank, clucking with displeasure at the poor fit, and planing the narrow edge carefully down.

"Heribert! How many times have I told you that it is not right that you dirty your hands in this way. That is the laborer's job, not that of an educated and noble cleric."

He set down board and plane, looked up at her, but said nothing. No longer as thin and delicate as he had once been-an ornament to wisdom, as the saying went, rather than to gross bodily vigor-he had grown thicker through the shoulders in the past months. His hands were work-roughened, callused, and scarred with small cuts and healed blisters. He got splinters aplenty now, every day, and could pull them out himself without whimpering.

She did not like the way he was looking at her. In a young child, she would have called it defiance, "You will come in now and eat," she added. "When I am finished, Mother," he said, and then he smiled, because he knew it irritated her when he called her by that title. As a good churchwoman, she should not have succumbed to the baser temptations, and in time she would have her revenge on the man who had tempted her.

"You would never have spoken to me so disrespectfully before we came here!"

A whispering came on the breeze, and he cocked his head, listening. Was he hearing something?

Did the abominations speak to him? And if so, why could she not hear or understand their speech?

He bowed his head. "I beg your pardon, Your Grace." But she no longer trusted his docility.

Had the caput draconis lied to her? Misled her? Did they mean to take Heribert from her-not by any rough and violent means but simply by allowing certain dishonorable thoughts to fester in his mind, such as the idea that he could turn his back on his duty to his elders, his kin, his own mother who had borne him in much pain and blood and who had bent her considerable power to protecting him against anything that might harm him? Would he disobey her wishes simply to indulge himself in the selfish and earthly desire to partake of such menial tasks as building and architecture? Was this the price she would have to pay: the loss of her son? Not his physical loss, but the loss of his obedience to her wishes?

Would she have to stand by and watch his transformation into a mere artisan-a builder, for God's sake!

She would not stand by idly while they worked their magics on him, even if they were the trivial magics of flattery and false interest in his unworthy obsessions. They were using him for their own gain, of course, since certainly the buildings they lived in were not fit for persons of their consequence. It was infuriating to watch as those who were supposed to be her companions in work and learning encouraged the young man in these inappropriate labors as if he were a mere artisan's child.

But she was wise, and patient. She bided her time. Her companions were also powerful, and it would not do to offend them as long as they knew more than she did about sorcery.

She bided her time, and watched, and listened, and learned.

Heribert stored his tools in a chest, ran a hand lovingly down the partially finished north wall, and with no further insolence walked away to the old stone tower where they now took their common meal.

Antonia waited until the door opened onto light and closed behind him. She lingered in the pleasant evening breeze, staring up at the sky. This knowledge did not come easily but, like all things in life, one had only to grasp and squeeze firmly enough to choke obedience out of that- human or otherwise-which was recalcitrant.

On this night high in the mountains whose breeze was that of spring, certain constellations shone high in the sky, betraying the proper season: winter.

"Name them for me, Sister Venia," said Brother Severus, coming suddenly out of the gloom to stand beside her.

"Very well," she said. She would not be intimidated by his solemn tone and dour expression. "At this season, the Penitent, twelfth House in the zodiac, rides high in the sky-" She pointed overhead.

"-while the tenth House, the Unicorn, sets with the sun and the Sisters, the third House, rise at nightfall.

The Guivre stalks the heavens and the Eagle swoops down upon its back. The Hunter begins his climb from the east as the Queen sets in the west and her Sword, her Crown, and her Staff ride low on the horizon, symbol of her waning power."

"That is good," said Severus, "but you have listened in your youth to too many astrologi. The Hunter, the Queen, the Eagle: These are only names we give to the stars, drawing familiar pictures on the face of the heavens. In heaven itself, they have their own designations whose names are a mystery to those of us who live here beneath the sphere of the ever-dying moon. But by naming them, even in such a primitive way, seeing our own wishes and fears among them as the young hunters saw Princess Theophanu as a running deer, we gain knowledge enough to see the lines of power that bind them together. With knowledge, we can harness the power that courses between them through that geometry which exists between all the stars. Each alignment offers new opportunities or new obstacles, each unique."

He raised a hand, pointing. "See there, Sister. How many of the planets do you see, and where are they?"

Her eyesight was not what it had been in her youth, but she squinted up. "I see Somorhas, of course, the Evening Star, lying in the Penitent. Jedu, Angel of War, entered the Falcon ten days ago. And Mok, mistress of wisdom and plenty, must still be in the Lion, although we can't see her now."

Whatever pride she felt in this observation he punctured with his next words. "There also find Aturna, who moves in retrograde through the Child, his lines of influence opposite the others. There-see you?-almost invisible unless you know where to look, lies fleet Erekes, just entering the Penitent. The Moon is not yet risen this night. The Sun, of course, has set. Yet within twenty days Mok and Jedu will also move into retrograde, so that only Somorhas and Erekes move forward. Thus the planets on this night as on every night form a new alignment in relationship to the great stars of the heavens. There you see the Guivre's Eye, and there Vulneris and Rijil, the Hunter's shoulder and foot. There are the three jewels, sapphire, diamond, and citrine, which are the chief stars in the Cup, the Sword, and the Staff. The Child's Torque rises toward the zenith, as does the Crown of Stars. Tomorrow we will send our companion on her way, aiding her swift travel through the halls of iron by such power as we can draw down to us through these alignments. Only with knowledge can we use the power of the heavens. Do not think it is fit knowledge for any common mortal soul who walks the earth. Only a few can truly comprehend it and act rightly."

"That is why God through the hand of Their skopos ordained biscops and presbyters, Brother, is it not? To guide and to shepherd?"

He considered this comment in silence while he studied the stars above, looking for something, some sign, some portent, perhaps. As she waited, she became lost in contemplation of the River of Heaven, the track of sparkling dust like a great serpent circling the sky, each faint light a soul streaming toward the Chamber of Light.

At last Severus spoke, slowly now and as if to himself as much as to her. "You are accustomed to power, Sister Venia. But you must forget all you have learned in the world. You must leave it behind, cut yourself off from it, as we did. That is the only way to learn what we have to teach you."

"How can we let go of the world when God have given us as our task the means to guide the mistaken back to the righteous way, to chastise the weak, and to punish the wicked?"

"Is that what God have asked us to do?"

"Is it not?"

"We are all tainted with the darkness which is the touch of the Enemy, Sister Venia. It is arrogance to believe we can see through the darkness that veils us and understand God's will better than any other mortal soul. Only there-" He gestured toward the River of Heaven, streaming above them.

"-will we be cleansed of that darkness and shine only as light." He lowered his hand. "Shall we go in to dinner?"

The River of Heaven," Da always said, "was called the Great Serpent by the heathen tribes who lived here before the Holy Word came to these lands."

"Why is the zodiac called the world dragon, Da?" she would ask, "when it's actually twelve constellations and not one creature at all? And if that's a dragon, then why is the River of Heaven called a serpent?"

"We have many names for things," he would answer. "It is the habit of humankind to name things so that we may then have power over them. The Jinna call the River of Heaven by another name: the Fire God's Breath. In the annals of the Babaharshan magicians it was called the Ever-Bright Bridge Which Spans the Chasm. The ancient Dariyan sages called it the Road of Lady Fortune, for where She sets her foot, gems bloom."

"What do you think it is, Da?"

"It is the souls of the dead, Liath, you know that. That is the path by which they stream onward into the Chamber of Light."

"But then why don't we see it moving-/ mean really moving, flowing, not just moving as the stars all do, rising in the east and setting in the west? Rivers flow. Water is always moving."

"That is not water, daughter, but the light of divine souls. And in any case, the aether does not follow the same laws as the elements bound to this earth, nor should it."

"Then is there fire in our souls, that they should light up like that once they reach the heavens?"

But at the mention of fire, he would get upset and change the subject.

Now she wondered. "Hindsight is a marvelous thing," Da would always say. "Every person sees perfectly with hindsight." She had done brushing down her horse and lingered outside the door, staring up at a winter sky unblemished with clouds. It was bitter cold, this night; snow had fallen yesterday, delicate flakes like the shedding of down from angel's wings, but there had not been enough to make more than a thin crust on the road today.

"Then is there fire in our souls?"

She built the City of Memory in her mind as she stood, arms crossed and gloved hands tucked under armpits for warmth, staring up at the sky. The city lies on an island, and the island is itself a small mountain. Seven walls ring the mountain, each one higher up on the slope, each one named by a different gate: Rose, Sword, Cup, Ring, Throne, Scepter, and Crown. Beyond the Crown gate, at the flat crown of the hill, stands a plaza, and on this plaza stand five buildings. Of the five buildings, one stands at each of the cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. The fifth building, a tower, stands in the very center, the navel of the universe, as Da sometimes said jokingly.

But perhaps he had not meant it as a joke. Inside the topmost chamber of the tower stand four doors, one opening to each of the cardinal directions. But in the center of that chamber stands a fifth door, which neither opens nor closes because it is locked; because, standing impossibly in the center of the room, it leads to nothing.

Except there was something beyond it. If she, in her mind's eye, knelt and peered through the keyhole, she saw fire.

Da had locked the door and not given her the key. He had meant to teach her-she was sure of that-but poor Da, always running, always suspicious, always afraid of what might be walking up from behind, could never decide quite when the time was right. So the time had never come.

Some things cannot be locked away.

"I miss you, Da," she whispered to the night air, her breath a cloud of steam. Glancing up, her attention was caught by the River of Heaven, and she suddenly wondered if it, too, was a cloud of steam, warm breath on the cold celestial sphere of the fixed stars far above her. Like the zodiac, it was a circle banding the heavens, but it crossed the zodiac obliquely, cutting across at the foot of the Sisters and again, one hundred and eighty degrees round the circle, at the bow carried by the Archer.

Suddenly, with this vision of the sky bright above her, she realized that she had known all along which Eustacia Hugh had quoted from when he humilated her in front of the court. Of course she knew the Commentary on the Dream of Cornelia. But she had always skimmed over the bits about philosophy and virtue and the proper government for humankind. Those chapters didn't interest her. She had memorized the chapters in which Eustacia commented upon the nature of the stars.

Where was it stored? She searched, in her mind's eye, in the city, found the level, the building, the chamber, where Eustacia's chapters resided, those she had copied out years ago at the biscop's library in Autun.

"Concerning the River of Heaven, many writers have offered explanations for its existence, but we shall discuss only those that seem essential to its nature. Theophrastus called it the Via Lactea, the Milky Way, and said it was a seam where the two hemispheres of the celestial sphere were joined together. Democrita explained that countless small stars had been compressed by their narrow confines into a mass and that by being thus close-set, they scatter light in all directions and so give the appearance of a continuous beam of light. But Posidonos' definition is most widely accepted: Because the sun never passes beyond the boundaries of the zodiac, the remaining portion of the heavens gets no share in its heat; therefore the purpose of the River of Heaven, lying obliquely to the zodiac as it does, is to bring a stream of stellar heat to temper the rest of the universe with its warmth."

"Eagle! No need to stand outside. There's a fire and supper within!"

She shook herself free of musing and went back inside. A long-house with stables at one end and living quarters at the other, it was as warm and welcoming as its mistress.

"I admit to you, Mistress Godesti, that I have not always met with as warm a hospitality as you grant me, now that I ride on King Henry's business here in Varre." Her family had been at their meal at dusk when Liath had ridden in to this hamlet, but they had saved a generous portion for her.

The woman grunted and gestured to the children of her household to go back to their beds. A single lantern and the hearth lit them, all they could spare on a winter's night.

Her elder daughter hovered by the fire, pushing sparks and coals back within the brick circle; another girl ladled out stew. "Many resent the rule of King Henry, here in Varre," she replied in a low voice.

"You do not?"

A son set down the bowl of stew and mug of warm cider before Liath as his mother spoke. "I fear war if the great lords fight among themselves. So do we all. But I fear a bad harvest more. And I fear the invisible arrows of the shades of the Lost Ones, those who lingered behind when their living cousins left this world. They plague us with illness and festering."

"The shades of the Lost Ones?" Liath asked. This hamlet lay on the edge of forest, and everyone knew that many strange and ancient creatures preferred the shelter of trees.

"Go on, eat now. I would be a poor host if I were to make you talk instead of fill yourself up. We have nothing to complain of. This has been a good year for us, ever since our new master took control of these lands."

"Who is your master?"

"We tithe to the abbey of Firsebarg."

Liath choked on her cider, coughed, and set down the cup hastily. "I beg your pardon. It was hotter than I expected."

"Nay, I beg your pardon, Eagle. Careful of the stew."

Liath recovered her breathing and, now, blew on the stew, anything to distract herself. Would she never be free of reminders of Hugh? "Firsebarg is many days' journey north of here, isn't it?"

"It is, indeed. It happened in my grandmother's time that these lands were given into the care of the monks by a grieving lady, in memory of her only daughter. For the same reason my brother gives an extra tithe in memory of his dead wife so that the monks will pray for her during Holy Week. As for the rest of us, we pay what is due twice a year, without fail, and the abbot has always been merciful when crops were bad."

"And this year?"

"Nay, this year was no trouble at all with our new lord abbot. They say he's a good Father, for all that he's Wendish. He's generous to the poor, feeds seven families every Ladys-day in honor of the disciplas of the blessed Daisan, and lay hands on any who are sick. His rule is strict, but kind, they say.

The harvest was very good this year, for the weather was perfect-the proper portion of sun and rain, and no bad storms though we heard hailstorms wiped out the barley crop west of here. It must be God's favor, don't you think?"

Or weather magic. But Liath didn't say that aloud. Instead, she changed the subject. Just as Da always did, she thought wryly and with no little disgust. How many such little habits had she learned from Da, both for good and for ill? "Is there any resentment here, Mistress, that King Henry defeated Lady Sabella?"

"Defeated her? We heard no such tidings. When did he fight her?"

"She led a rebellion . . ." They listened with rapt attention as she told them the tale.

"What does the king look like?" asked the daughter from her station by the hearth. With her hair bound back and a shawl over her head, she looked modest and quiet, but her voice was bold. "Is he very grand and terrifying?"

"He is a man of good height, noble in bearing. He is merciful in his judgments, but his anger is as fierce as that fire you tend." Then, because she saw many pairs of eyes glinting from the alcoves, child and adult alike, she went on to tell of the king's progress and the noble lords and ladies who rode with him. She told them of the places she had passed through on her way here, places they would never see and had never heard of: Augensburg; the elaborate palace at Echstatt; Wendish villages much like this one; the Sachsen Forest; Doardas Abbey; Korvei Convent; the market towns of Gerenrode and Grona; the city of Kassel, where Duchess Liutgard herself had interviewed her about the proposed expedition to Gent to drive out the Eika.

"I've heard of demons called Eika." Godesti's brother had just come from checking on the animals. He hunkered down by the fire to listen. A small child crept from her bed and slunk into the shelter of his arms. "But I thought they was just stories."

"Nay," she said, "I've seen them with my own eyes. I saw-" Here she faltered.

"What did you see?" demanded the son, creeping up beside her, face alight with interest.

So she told them about the fall of Gent, and somehow, telling it to these simple farming folk whose farthest jour ney was to the market town two days' walk from here, it became more like a tale of ancient and noble deeds told a hundred times on a winter's night. Somehow, telling the tale drew the pain out of it.

"Ai, the prince sounds so brave and handsome," breathed the sister by the hearth.

Her young brother snorted. "That would be a cold lover for you, Mistress Snotty Nose, too good for your suitors."

"Now, you!" said Mistress Godesti sharply, chucking the boy under the chin. "Hush. Don't speak ill of the dead. His shade might hear you."

"But all souls ascend to the Chamber of Light," began Liath, then stopped, hearing a whispering from the alcove and seeing a certain furtive look pass among them all.

Mistress Godesti drew the Circle at her breast. "So they do, Eagle. Will you have more cider to sooth your throat? This food is scarcely fit payment for such tales as you have told us this night."

Liath accepted the cider and drank it down, its bite a fire in her chest. After eating a second helping of stew, she rolled herself up in her cloak near the fire on a heap of straw filthy with fleas. The house cat, as dainty a creature as ever prowled a longhouse for mice, curled up against her stomach, liking the warmth of her body. Waking on and off, restless, she saw one or another person kneeling beside the hearth, a chargirl, an old man, a woman dressed even more poorly than the others, each taking a turn tending the fire through the long winter's night.

In the morning, in a light fall of snow so insubstantial that little seemed to touch ground, she rode on. Mistress Godesti's brother walked with her a good hour or more beyond the hamlet into the forest, though she tried to dissuade him because he had no boots, only sandals with cloth tucked in to warm his feet. But when they reached the spot where the autumn rains had washed out the path as it twisted down a thickly wooded slope, she was grateful for his guidance. He showed her where the new cut lay, a detour that switchbacked down a ridge and back to the old road. This far out, there was deadwood aplenty and no felled trees marking where folk from the village came out to get firewood. He made polite farewells.

"Not all in Varre have been so friendly," she said, thanking him.

"Aid the traveler as you would wish to be aided were you in their place, that's what our grandmother taught us." He hesitated, looking troubled. "I hope you know my sister meant nothing by her mention of the dark shades walking abroad."

"I carry messages for the king, friend. I do not report to the biscops."

He flushed. "You know how women are. If the old ways were good enough for our grandmother, then-" He restlessly hoisted his threadbare tunic up higher through his rope belt.

"You live close by the forest. Why shouldn't you see the old gods of your people still at work here?"

This startled him. "Believe you in the Tree and the Hanged God?"

"No," she admitted. "But I traveled to many strange places with my da and-" She broke off.

"And?" Did he look curious or merely tired and worn out? By the age of his children she guessed he was only about ten years older than herself, yet he looked as old as Da had at the end, aged by constant work and worry and by grief at the death of his wife. "Godesti says that if my dear Adela had given gifts to the Green Lady at the old stone altar, then she wouldn't have died, for the Green Lady helps women through their labor. Is it because she did as the deacon from Sorres village commanded and turned her heart away from the old ways? She prayed to St. Helena when her birth pains came on her, but maybe the Green Lady was angry for not receiving any gifts. Is that why she died?"

"I don't know your Green Lady. But I lived in Andalla once, with my da. The Jinna women there didn't pray to Our Lord and Lady, they prayed to the Fire God Astereos, yet they survived and bore healthy children-many of them, at any rate. I'm sorry about your wife. I'll pray for her soul. Maybe it had nothing to do with God-except that God watch over us all," she added quickly. "Maybe the child didn't move right within her. Maybe it was breech and couldn't come out. Maybe some sickness got into her blood and made her weak. It might be any of those things, or something else, and nothing to do with God at all, just as"-she gestured at the path behind them-"this track was washed away by a combination of rain and rockslides, not because the creatures of the Enemy made mischief here to bedevil you-"

"I pray you!" He drew the Circle at his breast hastily, and then another sign, something she didn't recognize but which was clearly pagan. "The shades might be listening."

"The shades?"

"The souls of dead people too restless to board the ship of night and sail to the underworld. Or worse . . ." He hefted his walking staff, twirled it once, dropping his voice to a whisper. ". . . the shadows of dead elves. Their souls are confined in a dark fog. They have no body, but they weren't released from the earth either. They aren't allowed into the Chamber of Light, but they have nowhere else to go if they were killed on this earth. They haunt the deep forest. Surely you know that, you who have traveled so much."

"The shades of dead elves . . ." She stared at the forest around her: leafless winter trees stood dark against the gray-white sky with undergrowth of all shades of brown and dull green and the pale yellow of decay interwoven beneath; evergreens skirted the edge of open areas. All of it was dense with growth and fallen limbs and the tangle j of a wild land untouched by human hands. Had that been Sanglant's fate? To wander the earth as a shade, because he could not ascend through the seven spheres to the River of Heaven and thence stream with the other souls into the Chamber of Light? Was he near her now?

Then she shook herself roughly, and her horse stamped j and shook its head as if in sympathy.

"Nay, friend," she continued. "The blessed Daisan taught that the Aoi were made of the same substance as humankind. Some of the ancient Dariyan lords converted to the faith of the Unities. So why should the blessed Daisan turn elvish kin away from heaven if they served God faithfully? And even if they do live here, why should they concern themselves with us?" Suddenly, Liath realized she didn't believe the souls of dead people lurked in the forest. And she wasn't afraid of the shades of dead elves. Of course, many other things might lurk in the forest, wolves and bears least among them. "To be fearless is to be foolhardy and likely dead,"

Da always said. But away from Hugh, fear did not ride constantly on her shoulder.

"Who knows what lingers in this forest." The man looked around nervously, afraid even in a morning light that painted the gray-limbed trees and stubborn clouds of morning with the burnished light of pearls. "Near the ford there may be bandits. But by dusk tomorrow you'll come to a big town called Laar."

They parted. He seemed relieved, but whether to be returning to the safety of his village or to be rid of her and her uncomfortable views Liath could not be sure. She did not mean disrespect to the old gods or the saints. But it was not God or the shades of dead elves or the half-formed creatures who served the Enemy who had caused her to miscarry last winter. No, indeed. It was the very abbot whom these villagers praised.

Snow drifted down between the bare branches of trees. She walked most of the day to keep warm and to spare her horse. The road was good, considering what little use it must get. Two wagon ruts wide, it remained clear of undergrowth, and puddles hidden beneath a film of ice were the worst of its treacheries.

Was there really any point to being in a hurry? It had taken Hanna months to reach the king. No one would know why she had herself been delayed, and in any case, Count Lavastine would be unlikely to muster an army before summer. Spring, with sowing and swollen rivers and muddy roads, was not the time for an army to march. The Eika surely could make no attack down the Veser River in the full flood of springtide.

Yet she owed it to the people of Gent to make sure the message arrived as soon as it could. She owed it to San-giant's memory, so that his death could be avenged.

Late in the day, snow turned to sleeting rain and she escaped the downpour by sheltering under a huge fir tree; its limbs made a kind of cave where they arched to the ground. She tied up her gelding and piled twigs and sticks on the cold ground, surrounding them with a firewall of stones. Then, biting her lip, she reached through the window of fire that she could see in her mind's eye and called flame.

Flames shot up from the little heap of twigs, stinging the branches above. She jumped back. The horse snorted, kicked, snapped a rein, and bolted out of their shelter.

"Damn!" she swore. She ran after the horse. Luckily, it calmed quickly and waited for her. Wet and shivering, she led it back to the overhang. The fire had settled down, and now, half ashamed, she fed it in the normal manner. The horse ate such leavings as she could glean from the nearby undergrowth and she chewed on a hard end of bread and a sour handful of cheese.

It was cold, that night, but the fire burned steadily. Fir needles rained down on her at erratic intervals. Though she slept fitfully, this rough shelter with fir needles sticking through her cloak and the breath of winter wind chafing her neck and chilling her fingers was far better than any fine, warm, elegant chamber shared with Hugh. If winter harmed her, it would not be because it wished to but because of its indifference to her fate. Somehow, that vast and incomprehensible indifference comforted her. The stars wheeled on their round whether she died or lived, suffered or laughed. Against the eternity of the celestial sphere and the great harmony sung in the heavens, she was the merest flash, so brief in its passing that perhaps the daimones coursing in the aether above could no more comprehend her existence than she could comprehend theirs. After all those years running with Da, after what she had endured with Hugh, it was a great relief to be unworthy of notice.

Yet she was still not free. She so desperately needed a preceptor-a teacher.

Could Wolfhere see her through the fire? Was Hanna well? Coals glowed, and it was the work of a moment to feed sticks to the fire. Flames leaped up, bright yellow, and she pulled out the gold feather.

"Hanna," she whispered as she spun the feather's tip between thumb and forefinger, spinning the faint breath of air stirred by that turning into the licking flames of fire and twisting out of those flames a gateway through which she could see...

Sapientia sits restless in a chair, obviously unwell. Of all her attendants the only one whom she tolerates for more than a moment is Hanna, who speaks soothingly to her and gets her to drink from a silver cup. Of Hugh there is no sign.

The feather brushes Liath's palm, and fire snaps and wavers. Now she sees a dim loft carpeted with straw. A man stirs, and in his unquiet sleep she recognizes him. It is Wolf-here. He murmurs a name in his dream and, that suddenly, as if a voice called to him, he wakes, opening his eyes.

"Your Highness."

Liath's sight blurs and sharpens, and she sees a pallet on which a woman lies in a desperate fever, clothes soaked in sweat. She is no longer in the loft. Here a trio of women stand over the patient, tending her. By their clothing Liath recognizes them as a servingwoman, an elderly nun, and the Mother Abbess of a convent.

"Your Highness? It is I, Mother Rothgard. Can you hear me?"

Mother Rothgard wrings out a cloth and turns the sufferer over to press the damp cloth to her forehead. As the lax face rolls into view, Liath recognizes Princess Theophanu, but so changed, all vitality burned out of her, leached away by fever. Mother Rothgard frowns and speaks to the servingwoman, who hurries out. She unfastens the princess' tunic and eases it open to examine the young woman's chest: Beads of sweat pearl on her nipples; moisture runs down the slope of her shoulder to vanish into her armpits. The thunder of Theophanu's heartbeat, frantic, irregular, seems to resound in the small chamber. She wears two necklaces; one is a gold Circle of Unity, and the other- a panther brooch hung from a silver chain.

This brooch Mother Rothgard lays in her palm and examines. Turning it over with a finger, she traces writing too faint for Liath to see. The abbess has a clever face made stern by perpetual frowning.

"Sorcery," she says to her attendant. "Sister Anne, fetch me the altar copy of the Holy Verses, and the basket of herbs sanctified under the Hearth. Speak of this to no one. If this ligatura comes from the court- even if Princess Theophanu survives- we cannot know who are our allies and who our enemies. This bespeaks an educated hand."

Mother Rothgard speaks a blessing and Theophanu grunts, and the vision smears into the dull glow of fading coals.

The rain had slowed to a shushing patter, and as Liath replaced the gold feather against her chest and clasped her knees for warmth, the twilight faded into the chill expectation of dawn.

Sorcery. How powerful had Hugh become? Was she herself no longer immune to his magic?

Had she ever been?

With this disquieting thought like a burden weighing on her, she saddled her horse and made ready to leave. As she took its reins to lead it out from under the shelter of the overhang, a stabbing pain burned at her breast. She pressed a hand to the pain . . . where the gold Aoi feather lay between tunic and skin.

In that pause, standing motionless and still half-hidden by the hanging evergreen branches, she heard a twig snap. Mounting, she drew her bow and an arrow out of its quiver. She laid the bow across her thighs and started west on the forest road, one hand on the bow, one on the reins.

A covey of partridges took wing, a sudden flurry, startled out of their hiding place. She stared into the undergrowth but saw nothing. But the crawling sensation grew: Someone-or something-watched her from the shelter of the trees.

She urged her horse forward as fast as she dared. With the next town so far ahead, she couldn't risk exhausting her horse, and anyway the road was cut here and there with gashes, holes of a size to trap a horse's hoof. Nothing appeared on the forest road behind her, nothing ahead. In the forest, all she saw was a tangle of trees and little sprays of snow where wind rattled branches.

Abruptly, dim figures appeared in the shadows of the forest, darting around the trees like wolves following a scent.

A whoosh like the hiss of angry breath brushed her ear, and she jerked to one side. Her horse faltered. An arrow buried itself into the trunk of a nearby tree. As delicate as a needle, it had no fletching.

Pale winter light glinted off its silver shaft. Then, in the space of time it takes to blink, it dissolved into mist and vanished.

The scream came out of nowhere and seemingly from all directions: a ululating tremor, more war cry than cry for help. It shuddered through the trees like the coursing of a wild wind.

Maybe sometimes it was better to run than to stand and fight.

Galloping down the forest road, she hit the opening in the trees before she was aware that trees had been hacked back from either side of a wide stream. At the ford, a dilapidated bridge crossed the sluggish waters.

A party of men blocked the bridge and its approach. They raised their weapons when they saw her. She pulled up her horse and while it minced nervously under her, she glanced behind, then ahead, not sure what threatened her most. The men looked ill kempt, as desperate as bandits- which they surely were. Most of them wore only rags wrapped around their feet. A few wore scraps of armor, padded coats sewn with squares of leather. Only the leader had a helmet, a boiled and molded leather cap tied under his scraggly beard. But they stood in front of her, surly and looking prepared to run; they were tangible, real. She had no idea what had let loose with that scream.

"I am a King's Eagle! I ride on the king's business. Let me pass."

By now they had guessed that she rode alone.

"Wendar's king," said the foremost, spitting on the ground. "You're in Varre now. He's no king of ours."

"Henry is king over Varre."

"Henry is the usurper. We're loyal to Duchess Sabella."

"Sabella is no longer a duchess. She no longer rules over Arconia."

The man spit again, hefting his spear with more confidence. He cast a glance at his comrades, who were armed with clubs fashioned from stout sticks. Two came off the bridge and began to circle around on either side to flank her. "What the false king says of Duchess Sabella don't mean anything here. It's his mistake to send his people here and think his word protects them. We'll treat you better, woman, if you give up without a fight."

"I've nothing worth anything to you," she said as she raised her bow, but they only laughed.

"Good boots, warm cloak, and a pretty face," said their leader. "Not to mention the horse and the weapons. That's all worth something to us."

Nocking the arrow, she drew down on the leader. "Tell your men to pull back. Or I'll kill you."

"First rights," said the leader, "to the man who drags the rider off the horse."

The two men charged. The one to her right made the mistake of reaching her first. She kicked him, hard under the chin, and as he reeled back she turned just as the other man reached her. Her string drawn back, she held her arrowhead almost against his face as he grabbed for her boot. And loosed the string.

The arrow drove through his mouth. He staggered and dropped.

No time to think. They had no bows. She could outrun them.

As she pulled her mount around, she saw shadows in the forest. They moved like hunters and yet at once she knew they weren't men, no kin of these bandits come to aid them. They carried bows as slender and light as if they had been woven from spider's silk twisted and folded together a thousandfold to make them as strong as wood.

Caught between the one and the other. She had no reason to trust either side.

The man she had kicked struggled back, grunting, and jumped for her.

Living wood in damp winter cold burns poorly . . . she reached for fire and called it down on the old bridge.

The logs and planks caught fire with a burst, a snap and whuff of flame. The men on the bridge screamed, jumping to safety into the river's cold waters, floundering there or leaping for the shore. Her horse screamed and bolted. A thin silver arrow gashed its flank and fell to the ground. The man coming after her yelled in terror, then crumpled as he groped at a silver needle embedded in his own throat.

She rode for the river. Men scrambled away, fleeing from her-or from what pursued her, half hidden in the forest behind. The cold water came as a shock, coursing past her thighs as she urged her horse across the stream. The animal needed no pressing; it, too, was smart enough to run. The water flooded its rump and washed away the thin stream of blood that ran from the cut made by the arrow. For a moment, Liath felt the horse lose its footing; then they were struggling up the far bank, breaking through the film of ice that rimed the shoreline.

From behind she heard screaming; she did not pause to look. In the center of the road, stunned into immobility, stood one of the bandits. He stared in horror at the burning bridge and at his comrades falling on the other side or thrashing their way down the cold stream.

"Do you think King Henry leaves his Eagles unprotected?" she cried. He bolted into the woods, running from her-or from what lay behind her. She turned.

The burning bridge flared like a beacon. No shadows emerged from the forest, and the bandits had scattered. The bridge would be ruined. As she stared, she realized she could not put the fire out-she did not know how. She tried reaching, imagined a fire dying to embers and embers dying to dead coals, but the bridge burned on with the glee of a raging fire. It terrified her. She had no way to control it.

Then they came out of the forest. They had bodies formed in human shape, even the suggestion of ancient armor, hammered breastplates decorated with vulture-headed women and spotted lions without manes. But she could see the trees through them. They were more like a dense smoky fog forced into an alien shape, humanlike and yet not human at all-and they were coming after her. One raised its bow and shot at her, but the silver arrow, a wink against the sun, vanished in the flames. They came to the stream's bank, well away from the scorching flames that devoured the old bridge, but they did not attempt to cross the water.

She turned her horse and fled.

She rode, walked beside her horse, rode again, then trotted again alongside her tired mount. But though a winter's day was short, this one seemed to drag on and on. The forest would never end.

At dusk, at last and amazingly, it gave into scrub and overcut woods. Pigs scattered away from her. Fields which cut into stands of trees like gaping scars lightened her way. She was still shaking with reaction when she reached the town of Laar as the waxing gibbous moon rose behind her.

At the closed gates she called out. "I beg you. I am a King's Eagle riding on the king's business.

Give me shelter!"

The gate creaked open, and they let her in. Good Varren villagers, they were not sympathetic to Henry, but she was a lass riding alone and, when it came down to it, they were eager to hear what news she had.

I The village deacon led the horse away at once and applied a salve of holy water, dock, and stitchwort to the elfshot gash while singing psalms over the wounded beast. "It is clear you have been at your prayers, daughter," said the deacon, "for surely the intervention of St. Herodia- whose feast day this is-saved you from harm this day."

Liath left the horse in the deacon's care and let herself be escorted to a longhouse where the whole village gathered to watch her eat a cold supper. The villagers knew of the bandits and were glad to be rid of them, and it was clear that Laar's townsfolk had long ago resigned themselves to the depredations of the nameless creatures who lurked in the forest.

"Do you know what they are?" Liath demanded.

"The shades of dead elves," said the householder who had taken her in.

"They are doomed to wander the earth," said a village elder, "because they cannot ascend to the Chamber of Light."

"My wise aunt told me the Lost Ones ruled here once," added the householder. "Their shades can't bear to leave the scene of their great glory. So they haunt us and try to drive us away so that their kin can come back and rule again."

One tale led to another, and of course they wanted to know what message she took to Count Lavastine, whom they had heard tell of; his southernmost holdings lay not ten days' ride from here. A few of the villagers had even seen the count and his army when they had returned this way last summer after the battle at Kassel.

"He had his heir with him," said the householder. "A good-looking boy, tall and noble. What does the king want with Count Lavastine? Him being Varrish, and all, and the king Wendish. Maybe the king don't like Varrish counts."

So she told them about Gent.

"Ai, the Dragons!" said one old woman. "I saw the Dragons years ago! Very glorious, they was."

That night, lying rolled in her cloak before the hearth fire, she dreamed of the Eika dogs.

II READING THE AS winter dragged on and the Eika left in Gent grew bored, Sanglant began to lose his dogs. Like his Dragons, they fought for him when he was attacked. Like his Dragons, they died. He did what he could to save them, but it was never enough.

Eika needed to fight and the combats they arranged against slaves were terrible to watch. The few combats they arranged against him, they lost. It was beneath their dignity to fight him many against one or with a weapon while he stood unarmed, and he had honed his skills so well over the months that none of them, however stout or bold, could best him.

That some Eika still raided he knew when one of the restless princeling sons brought in a few pathetic slaves or a handful of baubles to parade in front of Bloodheart, but the pickings in the region around Gent were pitifully thin by now after three seasons of raiding. Others hosted gatherings during which one or another of the savages would tell a tale of butchery in their harsh language that sometimes included horrible reenactments with living slaves, poor doomed souls.

Such shows impressed Bloodheart not at all. He, too, was restless. He played his bone flutes. He played with his powers, such as they were-Sanglant had little experience with sorcery and did not know how to measure what he saw: webs of light caging the cathedral with brightness; keening dragons that filled the vast nave with slashing tails and searing fire before they dissolved into mist; glowing swarms of mitelike bees that tormented Sanglant, stinging him until his hands and face swelled-only, all at once, to vanish together with the swelling when Bloodheart grew tired of the game and put down his flutes.

When the madness threatened to descend, he took refuge in his manor house, built as painstakingly over the winter as if he had sawed the logs arid raised the roof with his own hands. The vision of the manor house saved him from the black cloud more times than he could count.

But it was never enough.

He smelled smoke on the wind, fires burning in the city, and then the acrid stench of charred wood. He heard the Eika play their game, day in and day out, in the square that fronted the cathedral.

Always the winning team howled and laughed as they threw their trophy, the sack containing its gruesome burden, down in front of Bloodheart. Perhaps they moved more sluggishly in the cold, but neither heat nor cold, not the bitter hard wind or the silence of a dense snow, not the lash of freezing rain or the dull ache of a cold that chills down to the bones affected them adversely, no more than it did a rock.

As winter eked its way toward spring and the days grew longer, he noticed a change in their appearance. More of them now wore leather armor cut from the tanneries of Gent or carried spears and axes and iron-pointed arrows forged in Gent's smithies. The cries of the slaves came to his ears day and night, but there was nothing he could do to help them.

There was nothing he could do but watch, and think. Spring was coming. The river would soon flow at floodtide. Few ships would sail upstream until late spring. But Blood-heart was mustering an army. Any fool, even a mad fool, could see that. Daily, Eika came and went. Some-for Sanglant could now tell certain ones apart from the rest-did not return, as if they had died on their errand or, perhaps, gone a much longer way away. Surely not even Eika dared to cross the northern seas in winter, but who could know? They were savages, and savages might try anything.

Chained here as he was, he could only watch. If he could keep the madness at bay, like the dogs, he could think. He could try to plan.