Impulsively, she raised a hand to touch his face. No trace of beard chafed her fingers. This close, she could smell him: sweat, dust, the fading scent of recently-dyed cloth, all of it sharp and overwhelming. Nothing of his Eika prison remained. In the wild lands beyond the city of memory, frozen under ice, the summer sun flooded the wilderness smothered in ice with a heat so intense that it ripped through her with the power of liquid fire: A torch flared across the yard, surprised murmurs rose from inside the hall, and she staggered under the hideous memory of the palace at Augensburg going up in flames.

He drew her hand down to his chest. His touch was like the wash of cool water, soothing, quieting, healing. Where he held her hand pressed against his tunic, she felt the beat of his heart. He was not less unsteady than she was.

Lady Above! This was madness. But she couldn't bring herself to move away.

Suddenly, Sanglant threw back his head and half-growled, pushed her brusquely aside as he stepped forward. Surprised, turning, she saw Hugh behind her with an arm outstretched to grab her. She yelped and began to bolt, but Sanglant had already put himself between her and the enemy. She began to shake, could do nothing more than press a hand weakly against Sanglant's back.

"Hugh," said Sanglant in the way that a devout man utters one of the thousand names of the Enemy.

"She is mine." Hugh looked so consumed by rage that for an instant she scarcely recognized the elegant courtier who graced the king's progress. Then he controlled himself. "And I will have her back."

Sanglant snorted. "She belongs to no man, nor woman either. Her service as a King's Eagle is pledged to the regnant."

Hugh did not back down. Sanglant was taller, and broader across the shoulders; certainly Sanglant had the posture of a man well-trained at war. But Hugh had that indefinable aura of confidence of a man who always gets what he wants. "We may as well set this straight now so that there are no further misunderstandings between us, my lord prince. She is my slave and has been in the past my concubine. Do not believe otherwise, no matter what she tells you."

The words fell like ice, but Sanglant did not move to expose her. "At least I do not number among my faults having to compel women to lie with me."

The difference between them was that Hugh made no unstudied movement, allowed no unthought expression to mar either his beauty or his poise, while Sanglant made no such pretense—or perhaps he had simply forgotten what it meant to be a man, a creature halfway between the beasts and the angels.

The smile that touched Hugh's lips fell short of a sneer; rather, he looked saddened and amused as he slid his gaze past Sanglant to fix on Liath. She could not look away from him. " 'Whoever has unnatural connection with a beast shall be put to death,' " he said softly.

She grabbed the cup of ale and dashed the liquid into his face. Shaking, she lost hold of the cup. It thudded onto the bench, rolled, and struck her foot.

But the pain only brought her fully awake, out of the blinding haze of desire that had surged over her when she first walked into the hall and saw Sanglant waiting for her.

Someone laughed; not Sanglant. The prince's fingers touched her sleeve, to rein her back.

Hugh laughed, delighted, even as he licked ale from his lips. He did not wipe the ale from his face or blot it from the damp front of his handsomely-embroidered tunic, grape leaves entwined with purple flowers. She was so painfully alive to the currents running between them that Hugh's laughter came this time with revelation: Her defiance excited him physically. He laughed to cover it, to release an energy fueled of fury and lust.

"I am an Eagle." The hate she felt for what he'd done to her spilled into the words. "I pledged my service to King Henry." But with each of her defiant words, his fury built; she could feel it like an actual hand gripping her throat. He would hit her again. And again. No matter how much anger she spat at him he was still stronger. If Sanglant's fingers had not steadied her, she would have fled.

But Hugh liked the chase.

"I'm not your slave!"

"We shall see," said Hugh, all elegance and hauteur even with the last traces of ale trickling along the curve of his jaw. "We shall see, my rose, whether King Henry judges the matter in my favor—or in Wolfhere's." With a thin smile, confident of victory, he left them.

It took five heartbeats for the words to register, and when they did, she went weak at the knees and collapsed onto the bench. "He'll take it before the king. He'll protest he didn't consent to give me up, that Wolfhere bought off the debt price unlawfully. You know how the king hates Wolfhere!" Her chest felt caught in a vise. "I'm lost!"

"Liath!" His hand cupped her elbow and he lifted her up. "I beg you, Liath, look at me."

She looked up. She had forgotten how green his eyes were. The wildish underglaze in them had not vanished entirely, but it had fled back as if to hide, leaving him with a clear gaze, determined and dead stubborn.

"Liath, if you consent to marry me, then I can protect you from him."

"You're half mad, Sanglant," she murmured. "So I am. God Above! I'd be nothing but a beast in truth if you hadn't saved me! No better than those dogs that bite at my heels. But you waited for me all that time. Knowing that, I kept hold of what it means to be a man instead of becoming only a chained beast for him to torment."

"I don't understand you. Ai, Lady! It's true what Hugh said of me, made his slave and his—" The shame was too deep. She could not get the word out.

He shrugged it away as if it meant nothing to him, then drew her aside.

"Let us move away from here. Half the crowd is watching us instead of the entertainers." But he paused abruptly, glanced back. A not inconsiderable number of the folk gathered outside the hall, having no good view in to where the tumbling troupe entertained king and company, had turned to watch a scene no doubt as entertaining, as well as one sure to make them the center of attention at every table and fire for the next few days when it came time to gossip about court. Some pointed; other simply stared, servants beside wagoneers, grooms and doghandlers, laundresses with their chapped hands and serving-women with trays wedged against their hips, giggling or whispering although they stood too far away to hear words. Had they all seen her throw the ale into Hugh's face? Could they possibly wonder what Sanglant's interest in her betokened? Hadn't he been famous for his love of women? That had al been before Bloodheart.

"Nay, let them see," he muttered. "Let them know, and carry the tale as they will in any case." He took her hands in his, fingers curling over hers, enveloping them. "Liath, marry me. But if you will not, I will still protect you. I so swear. I know I am—am—" He winced, slapping at his ear as if to drive off an annoying bug. "—I am not what I was. Lord in Heaven! They whisper of me.

They say things. They ridicule me. If I only— Ai!" He could not get words out. He seemed helpless, and furious at his helplessness like a captured wolf beating itself into a stupor against the bars of its cage. "If only my father would give me lands, then there I could find peace. Ai, God, and the quiet I pray for, with you at my side. I only want healing." His voice was ragged with heart's pain; but then, his voice always sounded like that.

But to whom else would he have made such a confession? To no one but her.

Hadn't she turned away from the Aoi sorcerer for this? She kissed him.

It didn't last long, her lips touching his, although it was utterly intoxicating.

He jerked back, stumbling.

"Not out here!" A flush suffused him.

"Wise counsel, Your Highness," said a new voice, flatly calm and wry along with it. "Liath!" Hathui walked toward them out of the gloom. She stopped neatly between them, fittingly so: taller than Liath, she was not of course nearly as tall as Sanglant but substantial nevertheless. "Your Highness." The bow she gave him was curt but not disrespectful. "The king your father is concerned that you have been absent for so long. He asks that you attend him."

"No," said Sanglant.

"I beg you, Your Highness." She faced him squarely. "My comrade is safe with me. I will keep an eye on her."

"Liath, you haven't yet—

"Nay, she's right." It was like struggling to keep your head above water in a strong current. She had to stroke on her own. "Just—now—it would be better."

It had al happened so quickly.

He stilled, took in a shuddering breath. "I have the book." He strode off.

"He looks like he's headed down to the river for a long cold swim,"

observed Hathui. She made a sign, and half a dozen Lions took off after him, keeping their distance.

Liath nudged the empty cup with her toe and bent to pick it up.

"Rumor flies fast," added Hathui, taking the cup out of Liath's hand and spinning it around. It had a coarse wood surface, nothing fine—but sturdy and serviceable. She snorted. "Did you really toss ale in his face?"

"What am I to do?" she wailed.

"Courageously spoken. You, my friend, stick next to me or to Wolfhere.

Else I fear you'll do something very foolish indeed."

"But Hugh means to protest the debt price. He'll take the case before the king, and you know how the king hates Wolfhere. What if he gives me back to Hugh?"

"You don't understand King Henry very well, do you?" said Hathui coolly.

"Now come. There's a place above the stables set aside for Eagles—and well protected by Lions. You'll be safe to sleep there. Perhaps your head will be clearer in the morning."

She followed Hathui meekly. "Prince Sanglant has nothing, you know," said Hathui suddenly. "Nothing but what the king gives him, no arms, no horse, no retinue, no lands, no inheritance from his mother except his blood—and that is distrusted by most of the court."

"Nothing! " Liath retorted, furious on his behalf that he could be judged and found wanting in such a crass material manner, then faltered. Hathui spoke truth in the only way that mattered outside the spiritual walls of the church. "But I don't care," she murmured stubbornly, and in response heard only Hathui's gust-ing sigh.

In a way, it was a relief to find the stables tenanted by dozing Lions, a few Eagles, and by Wolfhere sitting outside on a log with a lantern burning at his feet while he ate supper. He looked mightily irritated but mercifully said nothing, only touched Hathui's shoulder by way of greeting and whispered something into her ear which Liath could not hear. But she didn't have Sanglant's unnaturally acute hearing.

"Go to sleep, Liath," he said stiffly once he deigned to acknowledge her. He was still angry. "We'll speak in the morning."

Shouts rang out from the distant hall, followed by laughter and a burst of song.

"They're carrying bride and groom to their wedding bed," said Hathui.

"Bride and groom?" asked Liath, startled. "Who is wed this night?" She could have been wed this night, by the law of consent. But it had happened too fast. She had to catch her breath before she took the irrevocable step.

Hathui laughed but Wolfhere only grunted, still annoyed. "I like this not,"

he muttered.

"That there's a wedding?" she asked, still confused.

"That you were blind to it and everything else going on hereabouts," he retorted. "Go on, Hathui. The king will be looking for you."

She nodded and left, her proud figure fading into the gloom.

Liath did not like to be alone with Wolfhere. He had a way of looking at her, mild but with a grim glint deep in his eyes, that made her horribly uncomfortable.

"I beg you, Liath," he said, his voice made harsh by an emotion she could not identify, "don't be tempted by him."

Torches flared distantly and pipes skirled as drums took up a brisk four-square rhythm. Dancing had begun out in the yard. No doubt the celebration would last all night. Wolfhere scuffed at the dirt and took a sip of ale, then held out the cup as a peace offering.

"Hugh will ask the king to give me back to him," she said abruptly.

Wolfhere raised an eyebrow, surprised. "So he will, I suppose. He threatened as much in Heart's Rest the day I freed you from him."

"The king hates you, Wolfhere. Why?"

The smile that quirked up his mouth was touched with an irony that made his expression look strangely comforting and, even, trustworthy: A man who faces his own faults so openly surely cannot mean to harm others for the sake of his own vanity or greed.

"Why?" he echoed her. "Why, indeed. It's an old story and one I thought had been put to rest. But so it has not proved."

Still she did not take the cup from him. "It has to do with Sanglant."

"Everything has to do with Sanglant," said Wolfhere cryptically, and would say no more.

I HE day passed in quiet solitude. A heavy mist bound the circle of stones, cutting them off from the world beyond. The Aoi woman meditated, seated cross-legged on the ground, her eyes closed, her body as still as if no soul inhabited it. Once, Zacharias would have prayed, but he no longer had anyone to pray to. For part of the day he dozed; later, he plucked and gutted the two ) grouse the Aoi woman had shot at dawn.

It had been a great honor for his kinfolk when he, a freeholder's son, had been ordained as a frater in the church by reason of his true singing voice, his clever tongue, and his excellent j memory for scripture. But none of these were qualities the Quman respected in a man. They had cut so much from him that he could scarcely recall the man he had once been, proud and determined and eager to walk alone into the land of the savages | to bring them into the Light of the Unities. It had all seemed | so clear, then. He had had many names: son, nephew, brother. Brother Zacharias, a title his mother had repeated with pride.

His younger sister had admired him. Would she admire him now?

At twilight the mist cleared off, and he walked nervously to the edge of the stone circle, but saw nothing, no one, no sign of Bulkezu or his riders on the grass or along the horizon.

"We need a fire."

He started, surprised and startled by her voice, but she had already turned away to rummage in one of her strange five-fingered pouches. He checked the horse's hobble, then descended the hill to the stream that ran along the low ground. With the moon to light him, he found it easy enough to pick up sticks.

The night was alive with animals, and each least rustle in the undergrowth made him snap around in fear that one of Bulkezu's warriors waited to capture him and drag him back to slavery.

It seemed mere breaths ago that he had heard Bulkezu's howl. The sound of it still echoed in his ears, but slowly the gurgle of the stream and the sighing of wind through reeds and undergrowth smeared the memory into silence.

He sloshed in the stream, testing reed grass with his fingers until he found stalks to twist together into rope as his grandmother had taught him. But he was still skittish, and he made such a hasty job of it that no sooner had he returned to the stone circle than the reed rope splayed and unraveled, spilling sticks everywhere.

The Aoi woman merely glanced at him, then indicated where to pile the wood.

"I will be worthy of you," he whispered. If she heard him, she made no answer.

She crouched on her haunches to build the fire, sparked flint until wood lit.

As she spoke lilting words, odd swirls of light fled through the leaping fire, twining and unraveling to make patterns within. Reflexively, Zacharias began to trace the Circle at his chest, the sign to avert witchcraft. But he stopped himself.

If the old gods had been good enough for his grandmother, they would be good enough for him. The old gods had protected his grandmother; she had lived to an incredible age, and she had outlived all but two of her twelve children. Her luck had always held.

And anyway, if the Aoi woman meant to harm him with witchcraft, then there was nothing he could do about it now.

"Blessed Mother!" he whispered, staring as the fire shifted and changed.

He crept forward and stared into the whip of flames. It was like looking through an insubstantial archway of fire into another world.

A figure, tall, broad-shouldered but thin at the ribs, shed its clothing and dove into the streaming currents of a river. He was, manifestly, male. That he would willingly enter water meant he was no kin of the Quman tribe, and although the flicker of fire gave Zacharias no clear picture of the figure's features, the man somewhat resembled his Aoi mistress. But his clothing, lying in a careless heap on the shore, betrayed his origins: It was what civilized men wore, the rich clothing of a lord. A moment later six men scurried down to the river's bank as if on his trail. Bearded and armed, they wore tabards marked with a black lion: Wendish solders, serving the regnant. And if that was so, then who was the man who had gone into the water, and why were they following him?

The Aoi woman whispered a word, "Sawn-glawnt." The fire whuffed out.

She rose and lifted her staff, a stout ebony length of wood scored with white marks along its length, and measured the staff against the stars above.

Then she grunted, satisfied, gestured to him, and Zacharias had to unhobble the horse and mount quickly. She strode out of the stone circle, heading north, and as soon as they were clear of the stones, she broke into a steady lope which he had perforce to follow along at a jarring trot.

In this way they ran through half the night. She never let up. He wanted finally to tell her that his rump was sore, or that the horse needed a rest, but in truth woman and horse seemed equally hardy creatures. He was the weak one, so he refused to complain. The moon crested above and began to sink westward. Light spilled along the landscape, a low rise and fall of grassland broken here and there by a stream or a copse of trees, roots sunk into a swale.

Grass sighed in the middle night wind, a breath of summer's heat from the east.

He could almost smell the camp-fires of the Pechanek tribe on that wind, the sting of fermented mare's milk, the damp weight of felt being prepared, the rich flavor of a greasy stew made of fat and sheep guts, the spice of kilkim tea that had been traded across the deep grass where griffins and Bwrmen roamed, all the way from the empire of the Katai peoples whose impenetrable borders it was said were guarded by rank upon rank of golden dragons.

Suddenly, the woman slowed to a walk and approached a hollow of ragged trees, stopping just beyond their edge. "We need a fire," she said, then crouched to dig a fire circle.

Zacharias groaned as he dismounted. His rump ached miserably. Just inside the ring of trees he paused to urinate. Ai, God, it still hurt to do so; perhaps it would always hurt. But he stil had his tongue, and he meant to keep it. So much tree litter covered the ground that it took him little time to gather enough for a fire. He dumped it beside the pit she had dug into the earth, then turned to the horse. "Can we bide here long enough to cook these grouse?" he asked.

"Sawn-glawnt." Her voice rang clear in the silence.

He spun in time to see in the archway of fire the same man, now fully clothed and cast out on the ground in an attitude of sleep while the six Lions stood back in the gloom, standing watch around him. Then the archway unfolded and vanished into the ordinary lick of flames.

His mistress stood, lifted her staff again, and again measured it against the stars. Her smile came brief, fierce, and sharp. "Co-yoi-tohn," she said, pointing northwest.

"You're looking for him," said Zacharias suddenly.

From behind, a panther coughed and then, more distantly, wings whirred.

Zacharias yelped, drew his knife and peered eastward, but saw nothing—

no winged riders among the silver-painted grass. The woman cast a glance over her shoulder. She scented the wind, then shrugged her pack down from her shoulders, pulled out a hard, round cake, and sat to eat. She offered none to him. Zacharias sharpened a stick and spitted the grouse, careful to make sure the viscera he had cleaned out and stuffed back in did not fall out of the cavity.

He was too hungry to wait long. He offered the first grouse to her; she sniffed, made a face that actually made him laugh out loud.

Then he caught himself, cringing, but she took no offense. She tore off a strip of meat, fingered it, touched it to her lips, licked it, chewed a corner, grunted with surprise, and finished it off, then extended a hand imperiously for more. He was starving, and he ate every bit of his own grouse even though it made his belly ache. She went so far as to crack the bones and suck the marrow out.

But when they were done, they did not rest. She rose, licked her fingers a final time, kicked dirt over the fire, and indicated the direction she had earlier pointed out.

"Co-yoi-tohn," she repeated. "What you would call, west of northwest."

"But where are we going?" he asked. "Who was the man we saw in the fire?"

She only shrugged. Light tinged the east, the first herald of dawn. "Now we begin the hunt."

S U RJEJLY, wicked souls consigned to the pit could not have spent an evening's span of hours in more torment than did Alain at his wedding feast.

The merriment he could stomach, barely, but the constant laughing toasts and crude jokes made him want to curl up and shrink away, and he was acutely conscious of Tallia beside him so still and withdrawn that he felt like a monster for wanting so badly what she clearly feared.

But surely, when all was quiet and they were alone, he could persuade her to trust him. Surely, if he could gentle the ferocious Lavas hounds and win the trust of Liath, he could coax love from Tallia.

She had on a blue linen gown fantastically embroidered with gems and the springing roes that signified her Varren ancestry. A slim silver coronet topped her brow, Henry's only concession to her royal kinship except of course for the delicate twist of gold braid that circled her neck. She wore her wheat-colored hair braided and pinned up at the back of her head; the style made her slim neck seem both more frail and more graceful. Wanting simply to touch it, to feel the pulse beating at her throat, made him ache in a peculiarly uncomfortable spot and even when he had to go pee he dared not stand to leave the table for fear of calling attention to himself in a most embarrassing way.

He and Tallia shared a platter. He tried hard not to dip the elaborate sleeves of his tunic into the sauces that accompanied each course of the meal.

Tallia did not eat more than a crust of bread and drink two sips of wine, but he was ravenous and though he feared it made him look gross and slovenly in her eyes, he could not help but eat heartily until a new toast would remind him—like a kick in the head from a panicked cow—that later this night he would at long last meet his heart's desire on the wedding bed, where nothing more could come between them. Then he would be so stricken with nausea that he was sorry he had eaten anything.

Likewise, he gulped down wine one moment out of sheer nerves only to refuse the cup the next when with sick fear he recalled jokes he had heard at his Aunt Bel's table about bridegrooms who had drunk themselves into such a sodden fog that they could not perform their husbandly duty.

Lavastine spoke little and then only to respond laconically to congratulations thrown his way. He needed to say nothing; this triumph had cost him plenty in the lives of his men, but he had gained a nobly-connected bride for his heir together with a seat, by virtue of her lineage, among the great princes of the realm.

Certain distractions gnawed at the edges of the feast: Liath returned, and Prince Sanglant made such a spectacle of himself that Alain was briefly diverted from his fear that Tallia would faint dead away at the high table; the tumblers caught Tallia's attention with their tricks, and for a happy if short span of time he got her to smile at him as he admired—not her, never her, let him show no interest in her or she would retreat as totally in spirit as a turtle pulls into its shell—but rather the lively cart-wheelers and rope-balancers, thin girls of about Tallia's age who had a kind of hard beauty to their faces composed of equal parts skill and coarse living.

The tumblers retreated. Wine flowed. Toasts came fast and furious and then—Ai, God!—it was time.

Servingwomen cleared off their table, he hoisted Tallia up and climbed on after, and eight young lords actually carried the table with the pair of them on it to the guesthouse set aside for their bridal night; crude, certainly, and boisterous as every person there laughed and called out suggestions, but Alain didn't mind the old tradition if only because Tallia had to hold on to him to keep from sliding off. She looked terrified, and actually shrank against him when he put an arm around her to pull her firmly to his side. She was as delicate as a sparrow.

"Here, now," he whispered. "I'll hold you safe." She trustingly pressed her face against his shoulder.

The crowd roared approvingly.

Ai, Lady, Perhaps it was he who would faint. He was deliriously happy.

They let the table down unsteadily by the threshold, and he helped Tallia down. She still clung to him, more afraid of the crowd than of him.

"Who witnesses?" cried out someone in the crowd.

A hundred voices answered.

The king himself came forward to speak the traditional words. "Your consent having been obtained, let this marriage be fittingly consummated so that it can be legal and binding. Let there be an exchange of morning gifts at this door after dawn to signify that consummation." He laughed, in a fine good humor after enough wine to soak a pig, a good meal, and the company of thrilling entertainers and al his good companions. "May you have God's blessing this night," he added, and as a mark of his extreme favor offered Alain his hand to kiss. Alain bent to one knee, took the king's callused hand, and kissed the knuckles. Tallia, sinking to both knees beside him, pressed her uncle's hand to her lips with a faint sigh. The lantern light made their shadows huge along the wall, like elongated giants.

Lavastine stepped forward to open the door for them, an unexpected gesture more like that of servant than lord and father. Alain caught his hands as well and pressed them to his lips.

Everything seemed so much larger and fuller this night: the noise of the crowd, the brush of wind on his face, his love for his father which suddenly seemed to swell until it encompassed the heavens, the joyous barking of the hounds, who had not been allowed to escort them for fear that they would frighten Tallia and become too unruly among such a large and boisterous crowd.

Lavastine took him under the elbow and raised him up. This close, Alain saw a single tear snaking a path down the count's face. Lavastine paused, then took Alain's head gently between his hands and kissed him on the forehead.

"I beg you, Daughter," he said, turning to Tallia. "Make him happy."

Tallia seemed ready to swoon. Alain put an arm around her to support her and, with cheers and lewd suggestions ringing out behind them, helped her in over the threshold.

Servants waited within. A good broad bed stood with its head against one wall of the simple chamber, made comfortable with a feather bed and quilt and a huge bedspread embroidered with the roes of Varre and the black hounds of Lavas. Obviously the bedspread had been in the making for some months. At the other wall stood a table and two handsome chairs. On the table sat a finely-glazed pitcher and a basin, for washing hands and face, and next to them a wooden bowl carved with turtledoves that held ripe berries, and also two gilded cups filled with a heady-scented wine. A wedding loaf, half-wrapped in a linen cloth, steamed in the close air of the little chamber, making his stomach growl.

The shutters had been put up to afford privacy for this one night.

The servants unlaced his sandals, untangled him from the complicated knotwork that belted his tunic, removed her blue linen gown, and quickly enough they both stood silent, she in a thin calf-length linen shift and he in knee-length shift and bare legs.

"Go on," he said, giving each of the servants a few silver sceattas as they slipped out. "May God bless you this night."

At last he was alone with Tallia.

She sank down beside the bed in an attitude of prayer, lips pressed to her hands. He could not hear her words. She shivered as at a cold wind, and he saw briefly the shape of her body beneath her shift, the curve of a hip, the ridge of her collarbone, the slight fleeting swell of a breast.

Ai, Lord! He spun to the table, poured out some cold water, and splashed it in his face. He had to lean his weight on the table while he fought to recover himself. Distantly he heard the hounds barking wildly. From the great yard he heard music, the nasal squeal of pipes and the thump of drums. No doubt the celebration would go on all night.

At last he turned. She had not moved. On a whim, he poured more water into the basin and earned it and a soft cloth over to the bed. Setting it on the floor, he knelt beside her.

"I beg you, my lady," he said as softly as if he.were coaxing a mouse out from its hiding place beneath St. Lavrentius' altar in the old church at Lavas Holding, "give me leave to wash your face and hands."

She did not respond at first. She still seemed to be praying. But at last she turned those pale eyes on him as a prisoner pleads wordlessly for a stay of execution. Slowly, she uncurled her hands and held them out to him.

He gasped. Down the center of each palm an ugly scar, still suppurating on her left hand, scored the flesh. Her skin was like a delicate parchment, thin and almost translucent but for those horrible gashes.

He touched them gently with the damp cloth, letting the water soak in to soften the scabbing and the hard runnels of pus. "These must be tended, Tallia!

How did you come by these?"

He looked up to see a faint blush stir on her pallid cheeks. Her lips parted; her eyes were very wide. He shut his eyes and swayed into her, caught the scent of her, the dry powder of wheat just before harvest and a trace of incense so fleeting that it was as if it retreated before him. Their lips did not touch.

She whimpered, and he opened his eyes to discover that she had recoiled from him and now, with a hand caught in his grasp, had begun to cry.

"God's mercy! I beg you! Forgive me!" He was a monster to force himself on her in this way. But he could not bear simply to let go of her. Without looking her again in the face, he tended her hands, patiently wetting the scars and gently swabbing the pus from them. When he finished, he dropped the now-dirty cloth into the basin. She was still crying.

"It hurts you. I'm sorry." He could only stammer it. He could not bear to see her in pain.

"Nay, nay," she whispered as he imagined a woman might who, having been violated, is compelled to grant forgiveness to the one who assaulted her.

"The pain is nothing. It is not for us to tend the wounds given to us by God's mercy."

"What do you mean?"

The blush still bled color into her cheeks. "I cannot speak of it. It would be prideful if people were to think that God had favored me, for I am no more worthy than any other vessel."

"Do you think this a sign from God—?" He broke off as understanding flooded him. "This is the mark of flaying, is it not?"

"Do you know of the blessed Daisan's sacrifice and redemption?" she asked eagerly, leaning toward him. "But of course you must! You were privileged to walk beside Prater Agius, he who revealed the truth to me!" She was very close to him, her breath a sweet mist on his cheek. "Do you believe in the Redemption?"

He scarcely trusted himself to breathe. Her gaze on him was impassioned, her pulse under his fingers drumming like a racing stag, and he knew in his gut that she had unknowingly revealed to him the means to soften her heart.

But it would be a lie.

"Nay," he said softly. "Prater Agius was a good man, but misguided. I don't believe in the sacrifice and redemption. I can't lie to you, Tallia." Not even if it meant the chance she would open fully to him.

She pulled her hands away from him and clasped them before her, resuming an attitude of prayer. "I beg you, Lord Alain," she said into her hands, her voice falling away until the mice scrabbling in the walls made a greater sound. "I beg you, I have sworn myself to God's service as a pure vessel, a bride to the blessed Daisan, the Redeemer, who sits enthroned in Heaven beside his mother, She who is God and Mercy and Judgment, She who gave breath to the Holy Word. I beg you, do not pollute me here on earth for mere earthly gain."

"But I love you, Tallia!" To have her so close! Her hands pressed against an embroidered golden stag, covering its antlers and head. A pair of slender hind legs, a gold rump and little tuft of a tail peeked out from under her right wrist.

"God made us to be husband and wife together, and to bring children into the world!"

The sigh shuddered her whole body. She climbed onto the bed and lay on her back, utterly still, arms limp at her side. "Then do what you must," she murmured in the tone of a woman who has reached the station of her martyrdom.

It was too much. He buried his face in his hands.

After a long time, still hearing her ragged breathing in anticipation of the brute act she expected, he lifted his head. "I won't touch you." He was barely able to force the words out. "Not until you get used to the idea of— But I beg you, Tallia, try to think of me as your husband. For—we must in time—the county needs its heir, and it is our duty—Ai, God, I—I—" His voice failed. He wanted her so badly.

She heaved herself up and knelt on the bed, offering him her hands. "I knew Prater Agius could not be wrong, to speak so well of you."

He dared not clasp her hands in his. It would only waken the feelings he struggled to control. "Agius spoke well of me?" That Agius had thought of him at all astonished him.

"He praised you. So I always held his praise for you in my heart, he whom God allowed a martyr's death. Here." She patted the bed beside her. "Though I am the vessel through which God has sent a holy vision, do not be afraid to lie next to me. I know your heart is pure."

She arranged herself so modestly on her side of the bed that he knew what she meant him to endure, although perhaps it did not seem like endurance to her. But he must do what would please her if he meant to teach her to trust him—and to love him. Wincing, he lay down stiffly on his back and closed his eyes.

Her breathing slowed, gentled, and she slept. He ached too much to sleep, yet he dared not toss and turn. He dared not rise from the bed to pace, for fear of waking her. If he woke her, so close beside him, and she opened her eyes to see him there, limbs brushing, fingers caught in unwitting embrace, lips touching-Madness lay that way, thinking on in this fashion. He did not know what to do, could not do anything but breathe, in and out, in and out. A plank creaked in the next chamber. Mice skittered in the walls, and he could almost taste the patience of a spider which, having spun out its final filament in one upper corner of the chamber, settled down to wait for its first victim. He had forgotten about the bread. Now, cooling, its mellow scent permeated the room and tickled his nose. Tallia shifted on the bed, murmuring in her sleep. Her fingers brushed his.

He could not bear it.

He slid off the bed and lay down on the floor. The hard wood gave him more welcome than the luxurious softness of the feather bed, and here, with his head pillowed on his arms, he finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

He arrived back at Rikin Fjo d f

r irst of all the sons of Blood-heart—those

who survived Gent—and Rikin's OldMother welcomed him without surprise.

"Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter." An OldMother never forgets the smell of each individual blind, seeking pupa tha bursts from her nest t

s. But she will stand aside

once the battle is joined, as all OldMothers do. She does not care which of her sons leads Rikin's warband now that Bloodheart is dead, only that the strongest among them succeeds. Yet the WiseMothers know that the greatest strength lies in wisdom.

Now he waits in the shield of the Lightfell Waterfall whose ice-cold water pours down the jagged cliff face into the deep blue waters of the fjord, where stillness triumphs over movement. He waits, watching six ships round the far point and close in on the beach. Beyond them in the deepest central waters a tail flips, slaps, vanishes. The merfolk are out; they have the magic to smell blood not yet spilled, and now they gather, waiting to feed. Eighteen ships have so far returned from Gent and the southlands. Tonight when the midnight sun sinks to her low ebb, OldMother will begin the dance.

Has he built enough traps? Are his preparations adequate?

That is the weakness of his brothers: They think strength and ferocity are everything. He knows better.

He tucks the little wooden chest that he dug out from the base of the fall tight under his elbow and slips out from h

t e ledge. Water sprays him and slides

off his skin to fall onto moss and moist rock as he picks his way up the ladder rocks to the top of the cliff. There the priest waits, anxious. He wails out loud when he sees the box.

"I would have found it eventually," Fifth Son says, but not because he wishes to gloat. He merely states the truth. Gloating is a waste of time. He does not open the little casket. He doesn 't need to. They bo h t know what lies inside,

nestled in spells and downy feathers. "You have grown lazy, old one. Your magic cannot triumph over cunning. "

"What do you want?" wails the priest. "Do you want the power of illusion, that Bloodheart stole f om me? Y

r

our heart hidden in the fjall to protect you from

death in battle?"

"My heart will stay where it is. Nor do I want your illusions. I want immunity."

"From death?" squeaks the priest.

"From your magic. And from the magic of the Soft Ones. For myself and the army I mean to build. Once I have that, I can do the rest."

"Impossible!" says the priest emphatically.

"For you working alone, perhaps. " The priests keep their arcane studies a mystery even from the OldMothers, such as they can. "But there are others like you. In concert, you can surely work a magic that has a practical use. And once I triumph, you can share in the booty."

The p iest laughs

r

, a reedy sound like wind caught in stones. "Why would you think I and those like me want booty? What good does it do us?"

"Then what do you and those like you want?"

The old priest leans forward. Hands trembling, he reaches for the casket, but Fifth Son merely draws it away. He does not fear the priest; his magics seem mostly show, but he knows that a keener mind could wreak havoc with them.

He does not trust magic.

"Freedom from the OldMothers," whispers the priest hoarsely.

Fifth Son lets out a breath, satisfied and surprised by this confession. The jewels drilled into his teeth glint in the sun as he bares his teeth. "I can give you that. After you and those like you have given me what I need."

"But how am I to convince them?"

"That problem is yours to solve. "

He leaves the old priest behind then, and runs ahead. The priest will search, of course, and use his magic to call to his hidden heart. But there are other magics that know the power of concealment. Before he goes to the OldMother's hall to assemble with the others, he takes the chest to the homesteads of his human slaves and there he gives it into the care of Ursu-line, she who has made herself OldMother among the Soft Ones.

She has assured him that the circle-god has magic fully as strong as that of the RockChildren 's priests—this will prove the test of her god's magic. And in any case, no RockChild will imagine that he might entrust a mere weak slave with something so powerful and precious.

She is curious but not foolhardy. She takes the casket from him and without attempting to look inside—-for he has told her what it contains—confines it within the blanket-covered box that she calls the holy Hearth of their god.

Then she places withered herbs, a cracked jug, and a c ude carved circle on the r

altar and sings a spell over it, what she calls a psalm.

"Our bargain?" she asks boldly. She is no longer afraid of him, because she has seen that when he kills, he kills quickly, and she does not fear death. He admires that in her. Like the WiseMothers, she understands inexorable fate.

"Our bargain," he replies. She wants a token. The Soft Ones are ever like that, needing things to carry with them, objects to touch, in order to keep their word. He traces the wooden circle that hangs at his chest, his gift from Alain Henrisson. "I swear on my bond with the one who gifted me with my freedom that I will give you what you ask for if you keep this chest safe until I need it. Do that, and I will keep my bargain—as long as I become chieftain. Otherwise I will be dead, and you will be as well."

She chuckles, but he knows enough about the Soft Ones to see this laughter does not insul him

t

but is instead a compliment. "You are differen th t an

the others. God give Their blessing to the merciful and the just. They will guide you to success. "

"So you hope," he agrees.

He leaves her hovel, whistles in his dogs, and heads down the long valley to OldMother's compound. The path runs silent before and behind him; only a few slaves mewl and whine in their pens, dumb beasts shut away until the great events of the next hand of days have played out their course. His slaves, un-confined, are at their work—or hidden in certain places according to his plan. He has entrusted them with a great deal, but they know that if he does not succeed, they will die at the hands of the victor.

OldMother's drone rises up, a low rumble that lies as close along the steep valleys of Rikin as the blanket of spruce and pine and the mixed thickets of heather and fern; her song makes the lichen quicken and grow on rock faces, a pattern readable only by the SwiftDaughters. He strolls out onto the dancing ground of beaten earth alone but for his dogs.

His brothers howl with derision when they see him.

"WeakBrother, do you mean to be the first one to bare your throat? "

"Coward! Where were you when the fighting came to Gent?"

"What treasures did you give to Bloodheart, tongueless one?"

So they howl, taunting him. Their warbands cluster in packs, each pack striving to be the loudest—as if loudness denotes strength. He has ordered his soldiers to remain silent, and they do so. He, too, remains silent as OldMother slides the knife of decision out of the pouch in her thigh and raises it to point at the fiery heart of the sun, now riding low along the southern range. With a slashing motion, she brings their noise, and her drone to

, a sudden end.

Six of Bloodheart's sons come forward into the center of the dancing ground, and when he steps forward last of all, there are seven. All the other RockChildren have chosen not to contend but instead to bare their throats to the victor. No doubt those who choose submission are showing wisdom in knowing just how weak they are.

The seven who will contend turn thei backs t

r

o each other, and kneel.

SwiftDaughters glide fonvard over the dirt and form the net of story, hands linked, gold and silver and copper and tin and iron hair gleaming as they begin to sway, humming.

Silence except for that low humming permeates the clearing. Even the dogs do not bark. Distantly, he can almost hear the WiseMothers hearing that silence as speech, turning their attention to this mortal instant.

Do they know how momentous this day will be? That one day the SwiftDaughters will weave it into their song of history? Or do they laugh at his ambition?

Soon he will find out.

The heavy tread of OldMother shudders the ground beneath his knees. She alone judges the worthiness of the contestants. The SwiftDaughters part to let her bulk through. He, with his brothers, bows his head.

She makes a slow circle. Suddenly, there comes a grunt, the sharp copper taint of blood, and a thud as one of Bloodhe

art's sons topples over. His blood

soaks into the soil of the dancing ground. Dogs growl, and a few bark and are hushed, or killed.

He feels the knife of decision brush his head, his throat, and linger a t t he

girdle of shimmering gold he wea s at h

r

is hips: the girdle woven of the hair of a

Hakonin SwiftDaughter.

Then it moves away. Six sons remain.

The SwiftDaughters rock back and forth, foot to foot, and begin the long chant, the history of Rikin 's tribe. It will take three days to tell, and when they are done, only one of Blood h

- eart's sons will stand on the blood-soaked ground

and claim victory.

The circle parts. He leaps up, knowing better than to be caught by one of the other five and forced into a brute fight: they all outweigh him, they are bigger, brawnier, and stronger.

But he has strength of a different kind.

With the dogs and the war iors

r

yammering and howling and barking

behind, he races up toward the fjall where the first of his traps lies waiting.

Alain woke to frenzied barking, the Eika dogs going crazy—

Only it wasn't the Eika dogs. Rage barked at his door, scratching insistently, and he heard the others howling and barking from Lavastine's chambers as if they had gone mad.

He scrambled to throw his tunic on over his shift. Without bothering with hose he flung open the door. Tallia called out behind him, but he ran on, to Lavastine's chambers.

The servants parted before him. They had not dared come too close. One had been bitten, and his arm wept blood. Alain waded into a seething whirlpool of hounds, all of them tearing around the chamber like a dog chasing its tail; only old Terror stood, legs up on the embrasure of the window, growling menacingly. Alain stuck his head out the window, but he saw only worried servingmen and a few curious onlookers who had paused to stare at the commotion. Wind stirred the flowering bushes just outside. A rodent—or an unseen bird—rustled in the leaves, and Fear, Sorrow, and Rage bolted out of the chamber and raced around the long building. People scattered from their path.

"Peace!" Alain cried, leaning out of the window, as they skittered to a halt on the other side. They sniffed in the bushes. "Sit." They sat, but they still growled softly at wind and leaves. Behind him, in the chamber, the barking settled and ceased, and the silence that weighed down made his ears ring. He turned to see Lavastine sitting on the bed, half clothed, examining Ar-dent's paw. She whimpered as he spread the pads and examined the flesh with a frown.

Alain crossed to him at once and knelt beside him, then set a hand on Ardent's flank. Her nose was dry and her breathing came in a labored pant.

"Bitten," said Lavastine, "but I know not by what."

Alain sat on the bed to examine her paw. She nipped at him weakly when he probed at the flesh, but she trusted him too well to bite him. At first he felt only how hot her paw was; a swelling bubble grew between the pad of two toes.

Finally he found the wound, two tiny red punctures.

"Was she bitten by a snake?"

Lavastine rose and went to speak to a servant, who quickly left. "We'll speak with the stablemaster." The count paced over to the window and stood there, silent, with a hand resting on Terror's great head.

Alain swung a leg over Ardent to pin her down, cut the pad of her paw with his knife, and sucked out what of the poison he could, if indeed she had been bitten by something poisonous, then spat it out onto the floor. Her blood had a sour, metallic taste, and it clotted at once, did not even bleed—only seeped from the cut. He offered her water in a basin, but she would not drink.

Lavastine returned from the window and signed to a servant to help him dress. Another left to get Alain's clothing. Then Lavastine sat down beside Alain on the bed. He considered Ardent, stroked her head while she lay shuddering and panting hoarsely, not moving otherwise.

"it is time we returned to Lavas," he said, "since we have what we came for. I will ask my cleric to name a day propitious for a long journey, and on that day we will take our leave of the king and ride west."

"Father." Alain stuttered to a halt. His blush certainly had as much heat as the infection on poor Ardent's paw. He glanced up to see the servants busy at their tasks, pouring water to wash in, sweeping the steps outside. "I didn't—we didn't—" He could not continue, and yet he could not lie to his father.

Lavastine raised a pale eyebrow. "She has just come from the convent. She might still feel some hesitation." Terror padded over from the window and sat stiffly beside the count, on guard. "Still," he continued, "the practical thing for a woman is to get herself with child as quickly as possible so that she has an heir."

Even thinking of Tallia lying pale and fragile on the bed beside him made Alain flush, and he felt all over again the ache of last night. "But it would be—"

He dropped his voice to a whisper because he could not bear for anyone else, even the servants, to hear. "—a lie to exchange morning gifts."

Lavastine massaged Ardent's foot. He wore his most intent look as he focused on the hound's paw. "Perhaps. But I lied to you about my intentions, at the battle at Gent. I had to, knowing you could see the Eika prince in your dreams and that he could, perhaps, see yours. Others envy us what we have gained here. If they believe that the marriage has gone unconsummated, some may even begin to whisper that it is invalid, even though a biscop blessed your union and the king himself gave his consent. We cannot afford to give them a weapon to strike against us." All but one of the servingmen had retreated from the chamber, responsive as always to Lavastine's moods. He glanced at the one man remaining, gave a brief nod as at a job well done, and turned to look directly at Alain. "Therefore, exchange morning gifts. She is a woman, and even if she is timid now, women above all things want heirs for their lands and titles."

Alain wasn't so sure, but he nodded obediently, and as if his nod had summoned her, there came a swell of voices outside the door, and then Tallia entered the chamber, stopped short, and cowered back against the wall away from the hounds.

Lavastine stood but not before glancing at Alain as if to say: "And so here she is."

Alain's servingman came in behind her, and Tallia covered her eyes with a corner of her shawl as Alain, settling Ardent comfortably on the bed, stood to dress. When he was decently clothed, he coaxed her over to sit on the bed beside Ardent. Once she saw that the huge hound was too weak to snap at her, she gingerly sat down, clinging to Alain's hand.

She trusted him. That much he had won from her.

Lavastine smiled slightly and, with hands clasped behind his back, nodded to his servants to fetch the morning gift which Alain would present to his bride.

Alain waited nervously, half on fire from the innocent clasp of Tallia's hand in his, half terrified that she would find inappropriate the gift he had himself commissioned. It was not his place as the one of lesser rank to attempt to outdo her gift to him. He could not in any case, since Henry had already settled rich estates on Lavas as part of the dower. But neither could the heir to the count of Lavas permit himself to appear like a pauper before the assembled nobles of the king's progress.

Many people had gathered outside to witness the morning gifts. When the king arrived, Alain coaxed Tallia to her feet, and they went outside to greet him.

What raucous and lewd comments greeted their appearance Alain tried not to hear. Tallia had pulled her shawl almost over her face, and she huddled against him, which only made people laugh and call out the louder, seeing it as a sign of the very transaction that had not taken place last night.

Henry was generous with his disgraced sister Sabella's lands: together with the estates marked as part of Tallia's dowry yesterday, the full extent of the gift in lands made as the marriage settlement doubled the size of the Lavas Holdings. Lavastine had a thin smile on his face, the closest he came to outright glee. Henry gestured, and his stewards brought two chests forward: silks, a magnificent fur-lined cape, silver plate and gold cups, handsome vestments for the Lavas clergy, rich clothing for Tallia and Alain, and brass dog collars embossed with springing roes and sportive hounds.

The crowd murmured in appreciation for Henry's generosity. Lavastine had known better than to attempt to outdo a king. His own servants brought forward chests filled with good cloth suitable for a noblewoman of royal lineage to clothe her servants in, silver-and-gold vessels for her to present to her clerics, and handsomely carved small chests that contained enough coins to grace an army of beggars. Last, Alain himself gave her the tiny ivory reliquary inlaid with jewels that he had commissioned. Unlocked by a delicate silver key, it contained dust from the shawl worn by the holy discipla, St. Johanna the Doubter, together with a perfect jeweled replica of a rose.

Tallia wept over the holy relic and kissed the petals of the jeweled rose.

She gave the reliquary into the keeping of Hathu-mod, the young woman who had come with her from Quedlin-hame. Lavastine gave Alain an approving nod, but her reaction troubled Alain. He had meant the jeweled rose to represent the Rose of Healing—the healing grace granted every soul by God's mercy—but now he feared she saw it only as the symbol of her heretical belief, the rose that bloomed out of the blood of the blessed Daisan.

But when she thanked him so earnestly and with her eyes so untroubled by any memory of their awkward night together, hope surged again in his heart—

and not least an uncomfortable tingling elsewhere. He need only be patient.

The crowd began to disperse. The king's steward announced that Henry would hold audience in the great open yard after the service of Terce. Lavastine ducked inside his chamber, and quickly Alain followed him with Tallia drawn along behind as if she wanted only to stay beside him—or did not know where else to go.

Ardent still lay on the bed, whimpering softly. Alain went over to soothe her. Under his hands, she quieted. Lavastine had drawn Tallia over to the window and was laboriously attempting to converse with her. Alain caught the eye of a steward.

"Christof, an Eagle arrived at the palace last night, one called Liathano.

Send for her to attend me."

The steward concealed his astonishment poorly. He was a jovial fellow, and too late Alain recalled that he was also a terrible gossip. "I know the one you speak of, my lord," he replied obediently, but not without a glance at Count Lavastine. He went out.

When he returned, he brought Liath with him. As soon as she crossed the threshold, the hounds began to whimper and growl, scrambling back to cluster around Lavastine like terrified pups. Ardent tried to shove her head under Alain's thigh.

"Peace!" said Lavastine sternly. They hunkered down nervously at his feet.

"Alain?"

"Your Highness," said Liath, seeing Tallia. Although she was obviously surprised, she did not stumble over the formalities. "My lord count. Lord Alain, I have come as you requested."

"Alain?" repeated Lavastine. He stood with one hand on Terror's head, but his intent gaze never left Liath. "What means this?"

Alain could not rise because of Ardent, and in any case he was lord and she a mere Eagle, not a person he could meet publicly on an equal standing whatever private confidences they had once shared. For an instant he didn't know how to answer because he saw Tallia's expression: Was Tallia jealous? Or did he only hope she would be?

"I am reminded of this Eagle's service to us at Gent," he said finally, and firmly, because everyone was watching him expectantly, "and I am minded to gift her with some token as a reward for her efforts there."

Lavastine took a step forward and stopped short as Terror nipped at him, took his master's hand in that great jaw, and growled softly while trying to tug Lavastine back. The count shook his hand free impatiently. "Resolve," he muttered under his breath, so softly that maybe only Alain heard him, and he continued to stare at Liath as a man stares at that woman with whom he discovers some deep kinship of blood, or spirit.

"Resuelto," he repeated, looking now at his servants.

"The gray gelding?" they repeated, dumbfounded that a lord would blithely give away his second best warhorse to a common Eagle.

"And the saddle and bridle from Asselda," he added. "Rope. And saddlebags. And the good leather belt crafted by Master Hosel, the one inscribed with salamanders so that as the Holy Verses say, 'if you walk through fire, the flame shall not consume you.' "

"I would give her a token as well," said Alain hastily to divert attention from the count, who seemed inclined to arm her as he would a relative. "A quiver of arrows and—" What he wanted to say to her, to ask, he could not communicate in front of such an audience. His gaze lit on one of his rings, a gold band set with a brilliantly blue stone. He pulled it off. "Let this ring of lapis lazuli protect you from evil," he said, giving it to her. "Know that you can find refuge here if you need it."

"I thank you, my lord count. Lord Alain." But her gaze was more eloquent.

He read gratitude in her expression, and yet he saw that she was still frightened, apprehensive of some event she feared would come to pass. Was Lord Hugh still stalking her? He had no way of asking, and even as he paused, a steward came in from outside.

"I beg your pardon, my lord count," the man said to Lavas-tine. "An Eagle stands outside with an urgent summons for her comrade—from the king."

One look she gave to Alain, nothing more. Then she was gone. As she left the chamber, the hounds rose unsteadily and shook themselves.

"My lord count, I have come as you requested." The king's stablemaster appeared at the threshold and Lavastine gave him permission to enter, although the man glanced nervously at the hounds. Still subdued, they growled softly and let him be.

The stablemaster examined Ardent, stroked his beard and looked puzzled.

Neither adders nor any poisonous snakes were commonly found in this district, he explained, but he sent men at once to beat the bushes around the complex and to warn the king.

"Come, Son." Lavastine gave Ardent a pat on the head and rose to collect gloves and spear. "We must attend the king." Alain hesitated. "I will do what I can to help the girl," added Lavastine softly.

"Then I pray you, Father, let me stay with Ardent." Lavastine glanced at Tallia, who still stood by the window, nodded curtly, and left.

"She's a strange-looking woman," said Tallia. "I remember seeing her before, when we rode to Quedlinhame." "She fought with us at Gent."

"Then she was given a handsome reward by you and your father. People will speak of your generosity, and you will be known as a Godly man."

So was he reproved however gently for that brief desire that envy would prick her until she bled and, bleeding from jealousy, fell into his arms. He would have to win her over in a nobler manner than this. Ardent burrowed her head more deeply into Alain's lap and whimpered, and he stroked her ears and scratched her head, giving her such comfort as he could, knowing that his presence itself was comfort to her.

"Poor suffering soul," murmured Tallia. "I will pray to God for healing." She knelt, bent her head, and lapsed at once into a melisma of prayer.

Several young nobles stuck their heads inside the chamber to check on the progress of the hound. They all had their own dearly-loved hounds, and Alain could not help but be touched by their concern. But though they urged Alain to join them in their hunt for snakes, he would not. He could not bear to leave Ardent's side all through that long, hazy morning as she struggled to breathe and by degrees her leg turned, seemingly, into stone.

SANGLANT woke stiff and sore somewhat after dawn. After twenty-nine days sleeping in the second finest bed on the king's progress, his limbs had grown used to comfort. Now, rising from the ground, he ached everywhere, but he didn't mind it. The pain of freedom is never as harsh as that of slavery.

"My lord prince!" said one of the Lions in an urgent whisper.

He heard them coming down the narrow footpath that led from the bluff's height far above to the river's shore below: the king and a small entourage.

"Prince Sanglant." The Lion had a shock of red hair and part of one ear missing, the lobe sliced cleanly off and healed into a white dimple. "If we may—

your clothing—

Only now did he glance at himself to see in what disarray he stood; tunic skewed around his body and stained with dirt; sandals scuffed; leggings half unwound on his right calf; his belt lying like a sleeping snake, all curves and loops, on the ground by his feet. Two of the Lions ventured forward—he smelled their caution—and tidied him up so that by the time his father appeared, skirting an old fall of rocks that had half obliterated the last bend in the footpath, he looked presentable.

Henry shaded his eyes against the rising sun. "Sanglant." Sanglant knelt obediently. Henry's hand, coming to rest on his hair, had uncomfortable weight.

"You did not come in last night."

"I slept outside."

Henry removed his hand. Sanglant looked up in time to see the king gesture to the others and, together, entourage and Lions moved away until they waited out of earshot. "We must talk, Son, before I hold my morning's audience.

Walk with me."

Sanglant rose. Though he was half a head taller than the king, he never felt he dwarfed him; Henry used his power too well.

"You are restless," observed Henry as they strolled down along the river, away from his entourage, which consisted of the six Lions who had guarded Sanglant through the night, four serv-ingmen, Margrave Villam, and Sister Rosvita. "You heard the news brought last night, that both regnants in Aosta are dead. There is a single heir, the Princess Adelheid."

Sanglant shrugged. He had not heard the news; once Liath had entered the hall, everything else had become a roar of meaningless chatter. She had a distinct way of walking, that of a person who has covered many leagues on her feet and found no weariness from walking as would a man or woman used to riding. The quiver rode easily on her back; she was used to its weight, and confident with it. Her braid had a distracting habit of swaying as she walked, drawing the eye down her back to the swell of her hips. She had looked at him over her shoulder. And then, when he had followed her outside, she had kissed him despite his confused confession that would have made another woman scorn him. Surely that kiss—however greatly it had disturbed him bodily—revealed the wish of her heart.

"Sanglant! You are not listening."

It took him a moment to remember where he was. He bent, scooped up a long branch, and commenced snapping it in half, and the halves in half again. It was the only way he could keep his attention from wandering back to her.

"You will lead an army to Aosta. There, you will place Lady Adelheid on the queen regnant's throne, and you will marry her. Once that is accomplished, and with my power behind you, the Aostan princes will not contest your election as king regnant. You will reign beside Adelheid, as her equal. No one can doubt your worthiness for the Aostan throne, since it is as often claimed by force as by inheritance. That is what the Aostan princes prefer, to keep their regnants weak and dependent on their power as queenmakers. Once you have established yourself in Aosta, with a royal wife and a child to prove your fertility, then it is only a small step for me to name you as my heir here in Wen-dar and Varre as well. Who will contest us then, if the prize is the restoration of the Holy Dariyan Empire? The Empire lies within our grasp at last. With you on the Aostan throne, I can march south and have myself crowned as emperor and you as my successor and heir."

The branch lay in pieces at his feet. An osprey soared above, heading upriver. The river flowed steadily along behind him; he could almost hear each least grain of dirt being spun off from the shoreline and washed away downstream, caught up in an irresistible current that would drag it all the way to the sea. He was suddenly tired. Henry, like the river, was an unstoppable force.

"Liath," he whispered. It was the only word he knew how to say.

Henry grunted in the way of a man prepared for the blow that strikes him.

"As Villam warned me," he muttered. "I swear that Wolfhere sent her to plague me and ruin you."

Henry regarded the river with a frown, and Sanglant watched him, caught up without meaning to be in that strong attraction that a regnant must necessarily wind around himself, like a cloak. A regnant is no regnant without it.

Henry had a strong profile, most often stern, with the dignity appropriate to the responsibility God had given him. He had as much silver as brown in his hair now, and a neat beard laced with white. Sanglant touched his own—beardless—

chin, but the movement brought Henry's attention back to him.

"Very well." Henry could not conceal his annoyance, but he attempted to.

"Take her as a concubine, if you must. You won't be the first man—or woman—

to keep a concubine. The Emperor Taillefer was known to keep concubines while between wives. But—"

"I don't want to marry Princess Adelheid. I intend to marry Liath."

Henry laughed as if Sanglant had made a jest. "A common-born woman?"

"Her father's kin have estates at Bodfeld."

"Bodfeld?" Henry had a capacious memory; he exercised it now. "The lady of Bodfeld sends only twenty milites when called to service. Such a family can scarcely expect a match with a man of your position, and it isn't clear if the girl is of legitimate birth."

"All the better," said Sanglant sarcastically, "for one such as me. Why do you refuse to understand? I don't want to be king with princes all biting at my heels and waiting for me to go down so they can rip out my throat. I endured that for a year. I want a grant of land, Liath as my wife, and peace."

"Peace What man or woman of royal blood can expect peace with the Eika plaguing our northern shores and Quman raids in the east? Since when have the princes of the realm allowed us to luxuriate in peace? Even the lowliest lady with her small estate and dozen servants must contend against bandits and the depredations of her ambitious neighbors. If we live our lives according to the teaching of the blessed Daisan, then we can expect peace when our souls ascend to the Chamber of Light. Not before."

Henry paced to the river's edge, where water swirled over a nest of rocks the size of eggs. Picking one up, he flung it with some impatience into the center of the current. It vanished into the slate-gray waters with a plop. He heaved a sigh; from this angle Sanglant could not see his face, only the tense set of his shoulders. He wore this morning a linen tunic of intense blue, its neck and sleeves and hem embroidered with gold lions curling around eight-pointed purple starbursts, the sigil in needlework of his wedding to quiet, cunning, luxury-loving Sophia, dead these three years.

"You have not yet recovered from your captivity," the king said finally, addressing the streaming waters. "When you do, you will regret these rash words and see the wisdom of my plan. Sapientia is brave and willing, but she was not gifted by God with the mantle of queenship. Theophanu—perhaps—if she lives—" Here he faltered, one hand clenching. "She has a cool nature, not one to inspire soldiers to follow her into the thick of battle. And Ekkehard—" The shake of his shoulders was dismissive. "Too young, untried, and foolish. He belongs in the church so that he can sing praises to God with that beautiful voice. That leaves you." Now he turned. "You wear the mantle, Sanglant. You have always worn it. They follow you into battle. They trust and admire you. You must be king after me."

"I don't want to be king. Or heir. Or emperor. Is there some other way to state it so you understand?"

The red tinge to Henry's cheeks betrayed that one of his famous rages was descending, but Sanglant surveyed the king dispassionately. Rage never frightened him in others, only in himself. Ai, Lady, but the revelation hit hard enough: Henry could do nothing to harm him, nothing worse than what Bloodheart had already done. By making Sanglant his prisoner, Blood-heart had freed him from the chains that bound him to his father's will.

"You will do as I tell you!"

"No."

Now, at last, Henry looked surprised—so surprised, indeed, that for an instant he forgot to be furious. For an instant. A moment later the mask of stone crashed down, freezing his face, and the father intent on his son's rising fortune vanished to be replaced by the visage of the king whose subjects have unexpectedly cried rebellion. "If I disinherit you, you will have nothing, not even the sword you wear. Not even a horse to ride. Not even the clothes on your back."

"Did I have any of those things before? The only thing a man can truly claim as his own is the inheritance he receives from his mother."

"She abandoned you." Henry touched his own chest at the heart. Sanglant knew what lay there, tucked away between tunic and breast: a yellowing scrap of bloodied cloth, the only earthly remains of his mother, who had left him, and Henry, and human lands long ago. "She abandoned you with nothing."

"Except her curse upon me," hissed Sanglant.

"She was not meant to live upon this earth," said Henry, voice ragged with old grief.

They looked at each other, then: the two who had been left behind.

Sanglant sank down abruptly to his knees before his father, and Henry came forward to rest a hand—that careless, most affectionate gesture—on his son's black hair.

"Ai, Lady," Sanglant whispered, "I'm tired of fighting. I just want to rest."

Henry said nothing for a while, but his hand stroked Sanglant's hair gently.

Wind made ripples in the water, tiny scalloped waves that shivered in the sunlight and vanished. Henry's entourage stood out of human earshot, but in the eddy of silence that lapped around the king's affection and forgiveness, Sanglant could hear them speaking to each other as they watched the scene.

"I still think it unwise." That was Sister Rosvita.

"Perhaps." That was Villam. "But I think it wise to strike for Aosta when they are weakest, and there is no question but that the prince can lead such a campaign. What comes of it in the end once Aosta is in our hands and Henry crowned emperor...well, we cannot see into the future, so we must struggle forward blindly. We must not undercut the support the other princes and nobles will give Sanglant while they do not yet know Henry's full intentions."

"Did you hear about the adder?" This voice belonged to one of Henry's stewards who stood somewhat away from Villam and Rosvita; Sanglant recognized the voice but not the name.

"Nay. An adder? Here?" That was a Lion, the red-haired one.

"Ach, yes. Bit one of Count Lavastine's hounds and then vanished.

Stablemaster sent men to beat the bushes all round and smoke out any snake holes, but the local folk say they've not seen vipers 'round here for years and years. Still. It weren't no rat that bit that hound."

A thrill of alarm stung him. He staggered up to his feet, surprising his father. "What is this talk of an adder and Lavastine's hounds?"

Henry recovered his composure quickly, mingled affection, grief, and surprise smoothing back into the mask of stone, an expression that gave away nothing of his inner thoughts: Henry at his most cunning. "Indeed." He related the story, what he knew of it. "It happened at dawn. Men have beaten through the palace grounds. But none have scoured these slopes or this land here along the river." He sighed expansively. "Nay, what use? The creature has long since escaped into earth or brush."

"Not if I hunt it." Sanglant flung back his head and took a draught of air, but he smelled nothing out of the ordinary: sweat-tinged men, an aftertaste of frankincense from the dawn service, a dead fish, the evanescent perfume of lavender and comfrey growing along the far bank, manure and urine from the distant stables, the dense, faint underlay of women's holy bleeding, cook fires from the palace and the searing flesh of pork.

"Go, then," said the king quickly. "Send those Lions back, for they've been at their watch all night, and they'll send others to take their place. Where will you start?"

"Here at the base of the bluff. It may have come down through the brush."

"Take care you're not bitten, Son."

"And if I am?" he retorted bitterly. "Female and male God created them. It can't kill me."

"Search with my blessing, then."

But Sanglant had already begun the hunt, and gave no further thought to his father's swift retreat.

HANNA waited for Liath outside Count Lavastine's chamber. Liath was still stunned from the rain of gifts that had been showered on her inside. Ai, God, had Count Lavastine really given her a horse? She clutched Alain's ring in her hand and stared at Hanna, speechless.

"You've been called before the king." Hanna kissed her, they embraced, and then Hanna pushed back to survey Liath critically. "Everything looks in place."

"Called before the king?"

"Liath!" Hanna's tone made her jump. "Run if you want, or face it with courage. How you present yourself to the king will make a difference in whether he rules in your favor—or in Father Hugh's."

It was good advice, of course, but Liath had a claw stuck in her throat and could not get any words out.

As they walked to the great yard, they passed several Lions loitering as if waiting for her, among them her acquaintance Thi-adbold. He winked at her and said, "You know where we are if you've need of aught, friend."

Did everyone know or suspect? But it took far more caution than she and Sanglant had shown to keep something secret on the king's progress. That Hugh had hidden his interest in her, until now, only betrayed how cunning he was.

"You've gained their regard," observed Hanna. "But then, you saved the lives of Lions at Augensburg."

Yet killed more than she had saved.

It was midmorning, just after Terce. The king held court out in the yard, his throne set up in the shadow of the great hall. From the kennels she heard barking as huntsmen readied hounds. Hugh and Wolfhere knelt in front of the king, Hugh somewhat closer to Henry than was Wolfhere, as befit his higher rank. Wolfhere marked her briefly; his composure irritated her. Hugh did not look toward her as Hanna walked forward beside her

and then peeled away to go stand in attendance on Princess Sapientia, but Henry examined her keenly as she knelt. She was careful to keep Wolfhere between her and Hugh. Nobles surrounded Henry's seat, spread out like wings arching away from his chair: Sapientia, Villam, Judith, Sister Rosvita, and others, faceless to her dizzied sight. The eager crowd stirred like a nest of hornets swept by a gust of smoke.

She did not see Sanglant.

Trembling, she slipped Alain's ring onto a finger.

"So this is the Eagle who has caused so much agitation in my court. You are called Liathano. An Arethousan name." Henry had a leash in one hand, studded with brass fittings, and he played with it as he studied her. "What am I to do with you?"

"I beg you, Your Majesty," said Hugh. "This woman is my slave. She came to me because her father died leaving a debt, which I purchased. As his sole heir, she inherited the debt and could not pay it—"

"I could have paid it if you'd not stolen Da's books—!"

"Quiet," said the king without raising his voice. "Go on, Father Hugh."

She clenched her hands but could do nothing.

Hugh inclined his head graciously. "As his sole heir, she inherited the debt, which she could not pay, and because I paid the debt, she came legally into my keeping. I knew very well that a young woman left alone without kin to watch over her would be in danger, especially in the north. I did what I could to make her safe."

"What are these books she speaks of?" asked Henry.

Hugh shrugged. "All acknowledge the right of the church to confiscate books that may prove dangerous." Unexpectedly, he sought approval from a new quarter. "Is that not so. Sister Rosvita? It was first stated at the Council of Orialle, was it not?"

The cleric nodded, but she was frowning. "This right the church has kept in its own hands."

"And in my capacity as an ordained prater, a servant of God, I judged these works dangerous to any not educated in their use. I acted as I thought proper. In any case, it is not yet clear to me that the books rightfully belonged to her father at all."

"That's not true—.'"

"I have not given you leave to speak," said Henry without looking at her.

"But her charge of theft is a serious one, Father Hugh."

He sighed, with a tiny, sad frown. "It is indeed a serious charge, Your Majesty. But there remains another charge as serious: that I purchased her father's debt price, and thus her bond of slavery, illegally. I am sworn to the church. It is slander to suggest that I dealt dishonestly or unfairly in such a transaction." For an instant, she heard real anger in his voice, honor stung by false accusation. He did not look at her. She looked away from him quickly and became aware all at once that many people in the crowd were watching her watching him. What had her face revealed? More than his did, surely. He went on. "As for the books, to whom could she have expected to sell books? And for what price? To a freeholder to burn in the hearth for heat over the winter? I must point out that after the sale of his remaining belongings, her father still left debts totaling fully two nomias—

Murmurs arose in the crowd. People pointed. Whispers buzzed.

"Two nomias! For a slave! That's as much as for a fine stallion!"

To one side, she glimpsed Count Lavastine slipping into place among the crowd of nobles.

"In truth, Your Majesty," Hugh went on smoothly, "she could not have met the debt price, books or no books, no matter what she believes—or wishes to believe. I kept her safe, clothed, fed, and housed. And I was repaid in this manner: Your Eagle, Wolfhere, stole her from me without my consent—and, evidently, without yours."

"I pray you, Your Majesty!" The words burst out of Wolfhere. "May I speak?"

The king considered for a long time. Finally, he lifted a hand in consent.

Wolfhere spoke crisply. "Liath came with me freely. I paid the full debt price that Father Hugh had taken on himself: two nomias. The transaction was witnessed by Marshal Liudolf of Heart's Rest, and sealed with your own mark—

the mark of the Eagles which you grant to each of us who serves the crown of Wendar and Varre. It is well known that your servants hold the right to take what they need when they need it. I had need of more Eagles, in such troubled times. Liath and Hanna served me well, and indeed I lost two Eagles at Gent, one of them my own discipla. I did not purchase Liath's freedom trivially, but you to take tver service, into account."

"But she was still taken without my consent," said Hugh quietly. "I did not take the nomias that were offered me. I did not agree to the transaction."

Henry shifted in his chair. "Do you begrudge me a gift as insignificant as this girl?"

"Not at all, Your Majesty," he replied without missing a beat. His golden-blond hair gleamed in the sun, as did he. "But I dislike seeing such disgrace brought onto your Eagles, for isn't it true that Eagles must be free men and women to ride in your service?"

"Freedom men and women," said Wolfhere quickly. "It was no fault of Liath's that her father died in debt. But she is free-born."

"How do we know that ?" asked Hugh.

"/ will swear it on the Holy Verses'." cried Liath fiercely.

"Peace," said the king softly, and she winced, cursed herself. Could she never just keep quiet? This was not the way to win the king's favor. He regarded Hugh and Wolfhere with a frown, but she could not guess at his thoughts.

Finally, he gestured toward Sister Rosvita. "You wish to speak, Sister?"

"Only in this way, Your Majesty. I advise you to send this young woman to the convent of St. Valeria."

That surprised him. "I begin to think there is more here than meets the eye. St. Valeria! Why should I send her to St. Valeria? To see why Theophanu is delayed for so long there?"

"A good enough reason, Your Majesty. One that will serve the purpose."

"You speak in riddles, my good counselor. Is there more you would say?"

Rosvita hesitated. Liath's heart beat so hard she thought everyone around her could hear its hammering. Rosvita knew what was written in The Book of Secrets; her testimony alone could condemn Liath.

"Nay, Your Majesty," she said at last, and reluctantly. "There is nothing more I would say in such an assembly."

Whispers threaded through the crowd like a weaving gone awry. Hugh's eyes narrowed as he gazed at the cleric; then he recalled himself and bowed his head modestly. He did it so well. Never a hair out of place, never a smile too many or a frown at the wrong time.

Henry chuckled, but more in exasperation than good cheer. He gestured expansively. "Are there others who wish to speak?" he demanded.

That brought silence. No one was foolish—or brave—enough to speak into such silence.

Until Count Lavastine stepped forward, unruffled although he immediately became the center of attention. "I see that this Eagle has caused a great deal of disturbance on your progress, Your Majesty. But she served me well at Gent. If you wish to be rid of her, I will take her into my retinue."

"Would you, indeed?" The king quirked an eyebrow, curious, not entirely pleased. "So many show such an interest in a simple Eagle," he mused. His tone made her nervous, and as if her fear attracted him, he looked right at her, the gaze of lightning, blazing, bright, and overwhelming. "Have you anything to say to this, Eagle?"

She blurted it out without thinking. "Where is Sanglant?"

"Sanglant is not here, because I have ordered it so." There was nothing more to be said, no petition, no recourse. She bent her head in submission.

What else could she do? "Wolfhere leaves today to ride south to Aosta. You have served me well, Liathano."

To hear her name pronounced so firmly in his resonant baritone made her shiver; Da would have said: "Beware the notice of those who can seal your death warrant; if they don't know you exist, then they'll likely ignore you." But the king knew she existed. He knew her name, and names are power. She waited, toying with Alain's ring, praying that it might miraculously protect her. What else could she do?

"You have served me well," he repeated, "so I offer you a choice. Remain an Eagle and continue to serve me faithfully, as you have done up to now. If you so choose, you will leave with your comrade Wolfhere this morning. Renounce your oaths as an Eagle, if you will, and I will return you to Father Hugh, as he has asked. This is the king's will. Let none contest my judgment."

He spoke the words harshly, and the instant he uttered them she could have sworn the words were meant for his absent son. A kick of rebellion started alive in her gut. What had the king threatened Sanglant with to make him stay away?

But as the silence spread, waiting on her choice, she heard Hugh's ragged breathing; she heard murmurs and the distant sound of dogs yipping. A horse neighed. A drover shouted in the lower enclosure, so faint that even the scuff of her knee on the dirt made a louder sound.

"I will ride with Wolfhere, Your Majesty." Each word stabbed like a knife in the heart.

Hugh stirred. She knew he was spitting furious, but nothing of his rage showed on his fine, handsome face. Ai, Lady! She was free of him at last. But all she felt was a cold emptiness in her chest.

"Take what you will in recompense from my treasury, Father Hugh,"

continued Henry. "You have served my daughter and my kingdom well, and I am pleased with your counsel."

"Your Majesty." Hugh rose gracefully and, as he stepped back, he bowed in submission to the king's decree. " 'In his days righteousness shall flourish, and prosperity abound until the moon is no more.' "

"You may go," said the king to the two Eagles in the tone of one who has been tried beyond his patience.

"Come, Liath," murmured Wolfhere. "We have outstayed our welcome."

But he did not look unhappy.

She was nothing, an empty vessel drained dry, all her hopes gone for nothing, but Da hadn't raised a fool. She insisted they stop at the count's stables, and here she took possession of her fine horse, her saddle and bridle, rope and saddlebags, a quiver's worth of arrows, and the beautifully worked leather belt by the renowned Master Hosel, whoever he was. Wolfhere was astounded by this largesse, but he raised no objections. He was too eager to leave.

She cried soundlessly when they rode down through the ramparts of Werlida and set their horses' heads to follow the southern road, but she dared not look back.

SCENT

THROUGH birch and spruce he runs, aware that another runs behind him: Second Son of the Sixth Litter, the least of his enemies because of all the brothers he is the first to stalk him. The others deem him so worthless that they will leave him until the end. But he has planned it out all carefully: the first, and least, of the traps will be good enough to dispose of the least of his opponents.

Along the ground a wealth of ferns shatters under him; sedge and bramble give way as he leaps up a slope. He hears the roar of his pursuer, who is tired of running and wishes simply to bring his quarry to bay and fight to the death. May the strongest win.

Ahead, a boulder painted with lichen shoulders up out of the undergrowth: his marker. Beyond it a thick stand of trees awaits. He can almost feel the breath of Second Son on his back, feel the swipe of a clawed hand stirring the delicate links of his golden girdle as Second Son lunges—and misses.

Too late. He cuts in among the trees to a clearing, hollowed out by dense growth shading away bracken. Old needles give him spring as he jumps, tucks, rolls in the air and out onto safe ground just as Second Son blunders into the clearing and roars triumph. . .

. . . and the ground shudders beneath him as ropes slither up on all sides, tugged into the trees by ten slaves hidden in the branches. The trap closes, a net sewn with fishhooks, and Second Son is tumbled into it. He writhes, howling in fury.

As he fights to free himself from the net, fishhooks bound along the rope catch against his skin with each twist and turn. Each barb finds purchase under the finely-layered scales that protect his hide. As he fights, more catch and tug and tear, yet it is not the pain that makes Second Son howl but the knowledge of defeat. He thrashes helplessly, gets a claw loose, and begins to rip at the rope, woven of kelp and flax and strips of bark and hair blessed by the Soft Ones'

deacon. But his arm catches on more fishhooks; as each one sinks in, it sticks stubbornly, and he must rip his skin free in order to begin again.

For one moment Fifth Son allows himself to watch the shuddering of the net in the air. Through the branches he sees his slaves straining to hold it taut while the net convulses around Second Son. Struggling in a net woven of ropes sewn with fishhooks is like struggling against fate: Resistance only sinks the barbs in more deeply.

He steps forward onto ground churned and disordered by the sudden hoisting of the net. Second Son spits curses at him bu has no pow t

er to make

those curses stick. He is helpless, and in moments he will be dead. Fifth Son steps close and unsheathes his claws.

Alain blinked, dizzy, and came abruptly awake out of an uncomfortable doze. He heard clerics singing the service of Nones, but the music rang in his ears like a dirge for the forgotten dead and he was pierced with such a vivid memory of Lackling joyfully feeding the sparrows that he thought his heart would rend in two from sorrow. Afternoon light splashed across the chamber.

Ardent lay still beneath his hands, and he moved to shift her gently off his legs—

only to bruise himself, crushed beneath her weight. She might have been stone.

"Son." Lavastine stood at the window and now hurried over to brush a finger against Alain's cheek. "Don't fight her weight.

I didn't want to disturb you before. She's rested so peacefully because she lay with you. There, you see. She's almost gone."

Ardent whimpered softly, but as he stroked her head, he could see the suck of her lungs grow shallow.

"Where is Tallia?" he whispered.

"When you slept, she took her attendants and went to pray in the chapel.

It is better so. God have mercy." Only the scrape in his voice revealed his grief; his expression was as smooth as Ardent's coat. He sat on the bed, rested fingers lightly on her muzzle as she stiffened entirely and, at last, ceased to breathe.

The other hounds, who had remained silent at their vigil throughout the day, began to howl. A musky odor seemed to steam up from their bodies, like the heavy scent of mourning. From across the palace grounds, all the other dogs and hounds joined in until their mourning became cacophony.

Lavastine sat on the bed with head bowed and chin resting on his folded hands. With some difficulty, Alain got out from under Ardent's weight and, with his legs tingling, grimaced as he knelt beside her. Tears came. He could not bear to take his hand off her cold head. Her ears had the same stiff curl as would a sheet of metal molded to form such a shape. The servants stayed back, well aware of the uncertain temper of the other hounds, who might lunge without warning.

Finally Lavastine stirred, and rested a hand on Alain's hair. "Hush, Son.

There is nothing you can do for her now."

Sorrow barked and the other hounds growled as the servants moved aside to make way for a tall figure.

"Your Highness." Lavastine stood.

Terror took two stiff steps forward to growl at the prince as he entered the chamber, and immediately all the hounds coursed forward protectively. The servants bolted back out of range. The prince lifted a gloved hand like a weapon and, seemingly without thinking, growled back at the hounds from deep in his throat, a hoarse sound as threatening as the one made by the hounds.

Prince and hounds faced off, not retreating, not attacking. Then, hackles still raised, Terror took a wary sidestep as if to signal to the rest that this foe was worthy of respect—if not friendship. The prince glanced once around to check their positions, then knelt beside Ardent. By every twitch of Prince Sanglant's body, by his very stance, Alain could see he would strike at any aggressive movement, but the hounds behaved themselves except for a low growl that escaped Rage at intervals.

Alain wiped his nose and tried to speak in greeting, but he could not get words past the grief lodged in his throat.

"I heard the tale," said the prince, "and I helped the huntsmen beat the bushes on the cliffs and down by the river, but we found nothing. The adder must have gone back into its den." He glanced again toward the hounds, aware of their least shifting movements. Rage growled again, all stiff-legged, but did not rush in: She knew a worthy opponent when she saw one. "May I look at the wound?"

"I thank you," said Lavastine.

Alain made to shift Ardent's right foreleg to turn over her paw . . . and for a moment could not, until he braced himself and heaved. She was almost too heavy to be moved.

"Strange," said Sanglant as he examined the paw. "It's as if she's turned to stone." He bent to sniff along her body exactly as a dog would.

Behind, the servants whispered as they watched him, and abruptly Sanglant jerked up, hands clenching at his side, as if he'd heard them. Bliss barked a warning. Outside, the baying and howling had subsided.

"She smells like the Eika." He shook his head as a hound flings off water.

He traced the curve of her ear and the grain of her nose, dry and as cold as stone. "Are you sure it was an adder that bit her?"

"What else could it have been?" asked Lavastine. "She was at the threshold, there—" He pointed to the door of the chamber.

"You saw nothing?" The prince looked at Alain. He had star-tlingly green eyes and an expression as guarded as that of a caged panther which, given room to bolt free, suspects a hidden weapon is poised to strike it down as it runs.

"I wasn't here—" Alain felt himself blush.

"Of course not," said the prince curtly. "I beg your pardon." He paced to the window, stared out as if searching for someone, then abruptly turned back.

"I saw a creature among the Eika that was dead and yet was animated by Bloodheart's magic." When he spoke the name of his captor, his gaze flinched inward. He touched the iron collar that ringed his neck, noticed that he had touched it, and jerked his hand down to his belt. A flush spread across his fine, high cheekbones, a dull stain over his golden-bronze complexion.

Lavastine waited, toying with Ardent's leash, tying it into knots and untying it again without once glancing at his hands.

At last Sanglant shook his head impatiently. "Nay, it is impossible that such a thing could live past Bloodheart's death. Or that it could follow us so far, when only sunlight animates it and we travel swiftly by horse and it is no bigger than a rat."

"What you speak of is not at all clear to me, Your Highness." Lavastine gestured to the servants and, as one, they retreated out the door to leave the count, his heir, and the half-wild prince alone with the living hounds and their dead companion.

Sanglant hissed between his teeth. "Lady preserve me," he whispered as if struggling against some inner demon. "It was a curse, that's al I know." He measured his words slowly, as if he did not quite have control of them—like a nervous horseman given an untried mount to ride. "A curse Bloodheart wove to protect himself from any man or Eika who wished to kill him. Let you and your people accompany me, Count Lavastine. I have certain . . . skills. Together with your hounds, if there is aught that stalks this place, we can catch it." He paused, set a hand on Ardent's cold paw, and shut his eyes as he considered.

Suddenly he started up with such violence that the hounds began barking madly.

"Peace!" said Lavastine over their noise, and they subsided.

"It isn't you at all," said the prince. "It's seeking her. She's the one who killed him."

That quickly, and without warning or any least polite words of parting, he was out the door and vanished from their sight. They heard the servants scattering out of his way as he strode down the corridor, and then much murmuring, leaves settling to earth after a gale blows through.

Lavastine sat for a long while in silence, so stern of face that the servants, glancing in, retreated at once. "A curse," he muttered finally. He lowered his eyes to the tangled leash, and sighed as Alain wiped a tear from his own eye.

Poor, good-natured Ardent. It seemed impossible that she wasn't barking cheerfully, begging to be let out for a run.

Then he lifted a hand and touched a finger to his lips as he did when he meant Alain to listen closely. "Prince Sanglant is beholden to me for rescuing him. He favors you, and Henry favors him—which is not surprising. Princess Sapientia is brave but impulsive and unsteady. I have not seen Princess Theophanu, but she is said to be coldhearted. Alas for Henry that the prince is only half of human kin, and a bastard besides. Watch and listen carefully as we ride with the king's progress. I believe the king wishes to make Sanglant his heir—

"But Prince Sanglant was conceived and borne to give King Henry the right by fertility to reign. Not to rule after him!"

"Henry must give him legitimacy, but he cannot simply confer it upon him as he—and I—conferred legitimacy upon you. The princes of the realm will not stand aside and watch a half-human bastard become regnant, no matter how respected a war leader he is. Nay, he's scarcely better than a dog at times now."

He nudged Ardent's corpse with his shoe, then looked surprised and rubbed his toe. With a frown, he touched the hound's ears and with that same hand wiped away tears before turning back to his son. "Which is why the prince seeks to bring me into his circle by showing me such marked favor. He must cultivate powerful allies, and he must marry well."

"Someone like Tallia." Heat flushed Alain's skin and scalded his tears away.

"Yes. Now that you are married to Tallia, no one will remember that you were once a bastard. I believe that Henry will send Prince Sanglant to Aosta. It is what I would do in his place, and Henry is a strong and cunning king." He whistled the dogs to heel. "Come. Let us lay poor Ardent to rest."

They made a solemn procession: the count, his heir, their servants, and the six black hounds. It took six men to carry the corpse on a litter, whose woven branches had to be reinforced twice over before it could take the weight of the dead hound.

Servants had gone ahead to dig a grave outside the lower ramparts. Robins hunting for worms along the banks of newly-turned earth fluttered away as the funeral procession came up beside the open pit. The men carrying the litter set it at the lip of the grave and heaved up one side to roll the body out. The corpse did not budge until they hoisted the litter almost perpendicular, faces strained and backs sweating, and then the body tumbled down. It hit dirt with an audible thud.

Alain winced. Ai, Lady, what a strange death had overtaken her! The hounds snuffled around the upturned earth, but they seemed not to recognize the remains which lay in the grave as those of their sister and cousin. She no longer smelled of the pack.

A space chipped into the bank of soil as the servingmen began to fill in the grave. Clumps of dirt rained down, drowning her, as if sorrow could be buried together with the corpse of a loved one. The patter fell like hailstones.

Somewhere, in the distance, he heard a horse galloping off down the southward road. He smelled the perfume of soil, roots and earth and crawling things intertwined. A worm wiggled out of the unforgiving stare of the sun where it had been upended by the grave-digging and slid away into a heap of moist earth.

The fragrance engulfed him, made his head spin. . . .

He smells blood and cautiously approaches the tumble of boulders. Tenth Son of the Fourth Litter lies splayed in death, limbs bent at awkward angles, throat ripped clean and one arm torn off. The pebbles sprayed everywhere, scuffed ground, moss torn into scraps all around the bloody soil might as well be signs recording in their ephemeral writing the course and outcome of the duel.

By next summer, after winter scours the earth clean, no one will be able to trace in this arena that one fought and the other died.

He grips one copper-skinned shoulder of the corpse and rolls it over to reveal the back of the neck: The braid is shorn free. He touches the braid now coiled around his righ arm. After he cut

t

it off Second Son, he bound it to his

own arm as both trophy and proof, just as one of the other brothers now carries the cut braid of Tenth Son in like manner. Where is that brother now?

He hears a scuff, and the wind shifts to

bring him the whisper of a girdle

shifting along thick flanks as someone steps stealthily toward him behind the cover of rocks. That quickly, he bolts.

That he is slender makes him swift. Fourth Son of the Ninth Litter thunders after him, but his vast girth makes him as slow as he is brutishly s rong t

. This

brother could rend him limb from body with a casual yank—as he did to Tenth Son.

Fifth Son gauges distance and speed and, like lightning forking, veers right to sprint for Lightwoven River, where his second trap waits.

"Hai! Hail Hail Coward and weakling! " howls Fourth Son.

He minds it not but keeps running, although he slows to a lope, knowing that Fourth Son cannot catch him even wi h

t a burst of speed. He need only stay

far enough ahead to be free of that overpowering grip and yet close enough that Fourth Son will keep after him rather than give up to go hunt one of the others.

River gravel spins under his feet. He le

aps for the narrow footbridge tha

t

spans the rushing waters here where they funnel toward the cliff and the great spill of Lightfell Waterfall. The planks sway dangerously under him he feels the

;

weakened ropes creak and can almost smell the strands fray further.

Then he is across, and he spins back just as Fourth Son hits the planks with his heavy pounding run. With the merest snick of his claws, he finishes off the rope struts that are already cut through and frayed to the breaking point.

The b idge c

r

ollapses under Fourth Son's considerable weight. Planks skitter and tumble and rope handholds drop away. He falls into the icy water—not that the water will drown him, but here the current runs narrow and strong as it pours itself over the cliff and spills and spins and sprays down.

Down he falls over the Lightfell Waterfall. His body strikes rocks, spins, bumps, tumbles down the ragged cliff face and finally is doused in the pounding roar at the base where the rush of water hammers into the fjordwaters and erupts as mist.

He goes under.

Fifth Son waits atop the ridge, scanning the waters.

There! A head bobs up, ice-white braid a snake upon the water. Arms stroke with stubborn resolve. Beaten, bloodied, and battered by the fall, Fourth Son is yet alive.

He expected this.

But he does not have to wait long for what he knows will come next.

Farther out, whe e the fjor

r

dwaters lie still, movement eddies. A slick back

surfaces and vanishes, swift and silent as it circles in. There, to its left, another ripple stirs the surface of the water. And another.

Fourth Son strokes toward shore. He is not dead, of course, but he does not need to be dead. He only needs to be bleeding.

Waters part as a tail skims, flicks up, and slaps down. Too late Fourth Son realizes his danger. The waters swirl with sudden violence around him. He thrashes, goes under. Wet scales gleam, curving backs swirl, a ghastly head rears up, water streaming from the netlike hair which itself winds and coils like a living thing. Fourth Son emerges from the roiling waters clawing at his attackers.

From his station at the height of the cliff, Fifth Son hears a howl o trium f

ph as

one of the merfolk shudders and sinks, while an inky black trail bubbles in its wake. The merfolk close in. Water boils. Fourth Son vanishes beneath the cold gleam of the fjordwaters. Like a churning mil , the eddies run round, slow into ripples, smooth over.

All is still again—except for the shattering roar of the falls. Blood stains the water and mingles with inky fluid torn out of the merman.

A back breaks the surface, slides in a graceful curve back into the depths, and turns toward shore. He waits. A rock shelf juts out along one side of the base of the waterfall. Suddenly, the waters part and the creature rears up to reveal its face: flat red eyes gleaming like banked fires, noseless but for dark slits over a nodelike swelling, and a mouth grinning with rows of glittering sharp teeth. As it rises, its hair and mane begin to writhe wildly, each strand with its own snapping mouth as if eels had affixed themselves to its head and neck. It has shoulder and arms, hands tipped with razor-sharp nails, and a ridged back that the light gilds to a silvery shine. The huge tail, longer than legs and far more powerful, heaves out of the water and slaps once, hard, echoing, on the rock. It makes no other sound.

It tosses two braids—one neatly shorn, one sligh ly b t

loody— onto the rocky

shelf. The merfolk are as much beast as intelligent being—or so he has always believed. But they know the contest, and they know the rules. It would not do to underestimate them. An ambitious general can never have enough allies. With an awkward roll, arching backward, the merman spills off the shelf and hits the water hard. The huge splash melds with the waterfall's mist. The tail flicks up, as if in salute, slaps down ag

ain, and i i

t s gone.

All lies still.

He climbs down the steps carved into the rock beside the falls. Down here, in the cavern hidden behind the spray, the p iest hi

r

d his heart in a chest. He

discovered it because he was patient; he waited and watched, and he listened to the priest murmur and sing about his hidden heart. And when at last one night the priest scurried from his nest cloaked with such shadows as he could grasp in the midsummer twilight, Fifth Son followed him.

Now he controls the priest's heart—and the priest's obedience.

He wonders, briefly, about Bloodheart's curse. By his own testimony the priest turned the curse away from himself. But where did it fall? Who will be cursed by the poison of Blood-heart's hatred and thwarted greed?

Hate is the worst poison of all because it blinds.

He reaches the shelf, pauses to scan the waters, bu they t

lie unsullied by

any evidence of the gruesome fight conducted a short while befo e r . Water

speaks in a short-lived voice, ever-changing, mortal by reason of i s endless t

fluidity.

Yet even water wears away rock in time, so the WiseMothers say.

Out beyond the thrumming roar of the waterfall th

, e sun makes the water

gleam until it shines like a painted surface. Is that a ripple of movement, or only a trick of the light?

He kneels to pick up the two braids. Deftly he binds them around his upper arms like armbands. Three brothers dead. He touches his own braid, making of it a talisman.

Only two left to kill. . .

. . . but they will be the wiliest and smartest and strongest of Bloodheart's sons—besides himself, of course. For them, he has laid the most dangerous trap of al —the one not even he may survive.

Rage snapped at a butterfly and the bright creature skimmed away, lost in the spinning air.

Alain stood alone by the filled-in grave. Only Rage and Sorrow and a single servant, standing at a safe distance, attended him. Everyone else had gone. His knees almost gave out and his head swam as he staggered to kneel beside the fresh grave. But when he touched the soil, he felt nothing but dirt. Ardent's spirit, with her body, had vanished. A bold robin had returned to hunt these rich fields and now looked him over from a safe distance, head cocked to one side.

"My lord?" The servant came forward tentatively.

He sighed and rose. Now the rest of them would go on, and leave her behind. "Where are the others?"

"My lord count has gone to begin preparations for leavetaking. The clerics have told him that tomorrow is a propitious day to undertake a long journey."

"The curse," Alain whispered, recalling his dream. "I must find out what he knows."

"I beg your pardon, my lord?"

"I must speak to Prince Sanglant." He whistled the hounds to him and went to seek out Prince Sanglant.

There was a commotion in the great yard that fronted the king's residence: two riders spoke urgently with the king's favored Eagle while a cleric stood to one side, listening intently. Princess Sapientia and a party of riders attired for a pleasure ride waited impatiently, but because Father Hugh lingered to hear the news, none of them dared ride out yet. The folk gathered to hear the news parted quickly to let Alain and the hounds through. But he had no sooner come up beside the Eagle when the doors into the king's residence swung open and King Henry strode out into the glare of the afternoon sun. Dressed for riding in a handsomely trimmed tunic, a light knee-length cloak clasped with an elaborate brooch at his right shoulder, and soft leather boots, he waved away the horse brought up for him and turned on the steward who stood white-faced and nervous behind him.

"What do you mean, with no attendants?"

"He was in a foul temper, Your Majesty, after he went to the stables, and he was not inclined to answer our questions. And he took the dogs . . . with him, and a spare mount."

"No one thought to ride after him?"

"I pray you, Eagle," said Alain, cutting in now that all others had fallen silent. "Do you know where I might find Prince , Sanglant?"

The Eagle looked at him strangely, but she inclined her head. "He rode out alone, my lord, in great haste, as if a madness convulsed him." She seemed about to say more, then did not.

"Two men rode after him, at a discreet distance," replied the steward who had by now gone red in the face from the heat of the king's anger.

The king grunted. "The southern road," he said furiously. "That is where you'll find him. It takes no scouts to tell me that." His gaze swept the forecourt, dismissing daughter and noble attendants until it came to rest on his favored Eagle. Her, he beckoned to. "Send a dozen riders to track him down. But discreetly, as you say. That would be best."

The Eagle retired graciously, but with haste, toward the stables. The cleric led the two dust-covered riders away as they questioned her about the accommodations that would be available—and Alain suddenly realized that they were not the king's riders but one man and one woman, each wearing the badge of a hawk. Father Hugh had a pleasant smile on his face, and he swung back beside Princess Sapientia and spoke to her in a low voice as they rode away.

Helmut Villam came out to stand beside the king, who lingered, slapping a dog leash trimmed with brass against his palm. Henry beckoned to Alain. "So, young Alain, you seek my son as well."

"So I do, Your Majesty. I saw him earlier this morning. He was agitated, and he spoke of some kind of curse, a trap laid by Bloodheart against any person who sought to kill him."

"Bloodheart! Yet he's dead and safely gone." But abruptly he looked hopeful. "Do you think Sanglant might have ridden north toward Gent?"

Any man would have been tempted to coax the king into a better humor, but Alain saw no point in lying. "Nay, Your Majesty. I think he rode after the Eagle, as you said before."

Henry's expression clouded.

"You should have offered her as a concubine to him," said Villam in the tone of a man who has seen the storm coming for hours and is disgusted because his companion refused to take shelter before the rains hit.

"I did! But I don't trust Wolfhere. She's his discipla. I'm sure it's a plot."

Villam grunted. "Perhaps. But Wolfhere seemed eager enough to remove her from court. On this matter I do not think that your wish and his are far apart."

"That may be," admitted the king in a grudging tone. "What am I to do? If I make Sapientia margrave of Eastfall, then she'll be out of the way, but if I cannot make Sanglant cooperate, see the wisdom of marrying onto the Aostan throne, then what do I do with him?"

"Do not despair yet. I have said before and I say it again: Encourage him in his suit. No lord or lady will follow him if he does not. . ." He hesitated.

"Speak your mind, Villam! If you do not, then who will?"

Villam's sigh had as much meaning as any hundred words.

"He is half a dog. That everyone whispers it doesn't make it less true. He must become a man again and, as the philosopher says, young people are at first likely to fall in love with one particular beautiful person and only later observe that the beauty exhibited in one body is one and the same as in any other."

Henry laughed. "How long did it take you to come to this conclusion, my good friend?"

Villam chuckled. "I am not given up on my study yet. Let the young man make his. He will become more tractable after. Right now he is like to a dog who has sniffed a bitch in heat— he is all madness for her and can't control himself."

Alain blushed furiously, and suddenly the king smiled, looking right at him.

"Go on, son," he said genially. "I saw Tallia enter the chapel earlier. That's where you'll find her."

Alain said the correct polite leave-takings, and retreated. The chapel doors yawned invitingly. Inside, he would find Tal ia. But the thought of her only made him blush the harder.

She reached the threshold before him, escorted by Lavastine, who smiled to see him coming. Tallia shrank away from Rage and Sorrow, and Alain took her aside, away from the hounds.

"Will you ride out?" he asked, eager to make her happy.

"Nay," she said faintly. She looked unwell, quite tired and drawn.

"Then we will sit quietly together."

"Alain." Lavastine nodded toward the king. "I have already made known my intention to leave tomorrow. It is long past time we return to Lavas."

Tallia had the look of a cornered deer.

"We'll rest this evening," said Alain. "You needn't attend the feast if you're unwell."

"Yes," she murmured so quietly that he could barely hear her.

He glanced at Lavastine, who gave a bare nod of approval and then went to instruct his servants about the packing. They retired to their chamber, where she prayed for such a long time that Alain, kneeling beside her bodily but not truly in spirit, had finally to stand up because his knees hurt. He ordered a platter of food brought in, but although it was now twilight and she had fasted all day, she ate only some gruel and two crusts of bread. He felt like a glutton beside her.

"What is it like in Lavas?" she asked fearfully. "I'll be at your mercy."

"Of course you won't be at my mercy!" How could she think of him in such an unflattering light? "You are the daughter of Duke Berengar and Duchess Sabella. How can you imagine that I or anyone could take advantage of you when you are born into the royal kin?"

"I am merely a Lion in the king's chess game, a pawn, nothing more than that," she said bitterly. "As are you, only you do not see it."

"We aren't pawns! God have given us free will."

"That is not what I meant," she said with such a sigh that he thought her in pain. "It is the world I wish to be free of. I want only to devote my life to our Holy Mother, who is God, and to pledge myself as a bridge to the blessed Daisan and in this way live a pure life of holy good deeds as did St. Radegundis."

"She married and bore a child," he said with sudden anger, stung by her words.

"She was pregnant when Emperor Taillefer died. No one knows what happened to the child. I asked Sister Rosvita, and she says the matter is not mentioned again in the Vita. If our Holy Mother had intended St. Radegundis for earthly glory and a wealth of children, She would have showered her with these riches, since it is easily within Her power to grant something so trivial. She had greater plans for Radegundis, who made of herself a holy vessel for this purpose."

"A child doesn't just vanish!" retorted Alain, who could just imagine what his Aunt Bel—not his aunt any longer—would say to the notion of children and prosperity being trivial things in the eyes of the Lord and Lady, through Whose agency all that is bountiful arises.

Tallia laughed, sounding for a moment so heartless that he wondered if he knew her at all. "What do you think would happen to a newborn child of a dead emperor whose last wife has no kin to protect her from the vultures who have flocked to feed on the corpse? I believe Our Lady was merciful, and that the child was born dead."

"That isn't mercy!"

But she only bowed her head and turned away from him to kneel again by the bed, hands clasped atop the beautiful y-embroidered bedspread, forehead resting on her hands as she murmured a prayer. He signed for the servants to leave.

"Tallia—" he began, when they were alone.

She raised her eyes to him reproachfully.

"Tallia." But her fawnlike eyes, the slender tower of her neck, the beat of her pulse at her throat—all this enflamed him. He had to pace to the window, leaning out to get any least draft of cooling air on his face. He had only to be patient, to coax her.

When at last he turned back, she had fallen asleep, slumped over the bed.

She looked so frail that he couldn't bring himself to disturb her but instead gently lifted her onto the bed. Her eyelids fluttered, but she did not wake. He wanted to lie beside her, to keep that contact between them, but it felt somehow obscene because she was so limp, so resistless—as if he had unnatural feelings toward a corpse. He shuddered and eased off the bed.

Restless, he paced a while longer. He sent a servant to inquire after Prince Sanglant, but the prince had not returned to the palace, nor had those sent out to look for him.

Much later he heard the six hounds, confined to Lavastine's chamber, welcome the count with whines and whimpers as he came in from the night's feasting. He kept listening, expecting to hear a seventh familiar voice, but it never came: Ardent was truly gone.

WITH two horses, changing off, he made good time, and the dogs never seemed to tire. There was only one road to follow until the village of Ferse, nestled in the heel of a portion of land protected by the confluence of two rivers.

There he questioned the ferryman about two Eagles who had passed earlier in the day: They had continued south into the forest rather than splitting off on the east-west path. Several startled farmers walking home from their fields along the roadside confirmed that they had seen Eagles riding past.

Neat strips of cultivated fields became scattered woods and pastureland, then forest swallowed everything but the cut of the road. Beneath the trees, summer's evening light filtered into a haze of fading color. The wind blew in his favor: He heard them before he saw them, two riders and two spare horses.

Wolfhere turned first to see who approached from behind. Sanglant heard the old Eagle swear under his breath, and he smiled with grim satisfaction. Then Liath turned to look over her shoulder. She reined in her horse at once, forcing Wolfhere to pull up as well.

"We have farther to go this night if we mean to sleep in the way station that lies ahead," warned Wolfhere.

Liath did not reply, did not need to; Sanglant knew how a woman's body spoke, how her expression betrayed her desire. She tried to master her expression, to give nothing away, but her entire face had lit and a grin kept tugging at her mouth. He knew then that he could succeed if only he behaved as a man, not a dog.

Wolfhere minced no words. "This is madness. Liath, we must ride on."

"No. I will hear what Sanglant has to say."

"You know what I have to say." Sanglant dismounted, staked down the dogs, then crossed to her and offered to take her reins as would a groom. She gave them to him, but did not dismount.

"You are not thinking this through, Liath," continued Wolfhere furiously.

"You will lose the protection of the Eagles, which is all that saved you from Hugh first at Heart's Rest and this very morning at the king's court. All this to go to a man who has nothing, not land, not arms, no retinue, no control over his own destiny because he has no inheritance from his mother—

"Save my blood," said Sanglant softly, and was happy to see Wolfhere glance angrily at him and then away.

—and you will live at his mercy. Without the protection of the Eagles or any other kin he is the only protection you will have against those like Hugh who seek to enslave you. And that protection will be offered to you only for as long as he desires you."

"Marriage is a holy sacrament," observed Sanglant, "and not to be split asunder on a whim."

"Marriage?" exclaimed Wolfhere, and for the breath of an instant, Sanglant had the satisfaction of seeing him look panicked. But Wolfhere was too old and wily to remain so for long. He recovered as quickly as an experienced soldier who has lost his footing in the midst of battle: with an aggressive stab. "Mind you, Liath, King Henry's displeasure is not a thing to be undertaken lightly. He will refuse to recognize the marriage. He has passed judgment: that you serve in his Eagles or return to Hugh. Will he rule differently if you return claiming marriage to his favored son? Or will he wish to be rid of you? And if so, where can you flee, neither of you with kin to support you? Your mother is waiting for you, Liath."

Sanglant recognized danger instantly. "Your mother?"

"I've given up more than you know, Wolfhere," retorted Liath. "If I go to my mother, then I must leave the Eagles in any case. Why would Henry not object then? Only because he would not know and thus could not return me to Hugh? Is my reunion with my mother to be based on deceit? Why should I trust you?"

"Why should you trust Sanglant?" Wolfhere demanded.

But she only laughed, and her laughter made his heart sing with joy, although the words that came next were bitter and angry. "Because he's no more capable of lying than are those dogs. Even Da lied to me. You lied to me, Wolfhere, and I wonder if my mother lied as well. If she had made any kind of effort to find us, wouldn't he still be alive?"

A whiff of smoke rose on the breeze, some distant sparking fire that faded as Liath stared Wolfhere down, her expression as fierce as the king's when he allowed himself to succumb to one of his famous wraths. But a kind of unearthly fire shone from her, something he could almost smell more than see, an uncanny, pure scent. Sanglant took hold of one of her wrists, and she, startled, glanced at him, then sighed. That scent burned in her, almost a living creature in its own right. Her skin seemed to steam with her anger.

Made humble before it, Wolfhere said only: "She must teach you, Liath.

You know by now that you desperately need teaching."

There was the danger. He saw the shadow of it flicker over her expression: she needed something he could not give her, and Wolfhere would use that need to sway her. But Sanglant had no intention of losing her again. "Wherever you need to go," he said, "I will take you there."

"What if your father objects?" Liath asked. "What if he won't give you horses, or arms, or an escort?"

He laughed recklessly. "I don't know. What does it matter what might happen—only what can, now, this night."

"Bred and trained for war," muttered Wolfhere, "with no thought beyond the current battle."

She had a sharp flush on her cheeks and looked away from both of them, but he knew what she was thinking of. He found it hard not to think of it himself.

He released her wrist abruptly. Suddenly his grasp on her seemed too much like Bloodheart's iron collar, a means to force her to do what he wanted her to do rather than to let her make the choice. "It is true I have nothing to offer you by way of estates or income as part of the marriage agreement. It is true that my father will object. But he may also see reason when presented with a vow witnessed, legal, and binding. I am not the only man available to marry Princess Adel-heid. Let my father object first, then we will see. We may both be set upon by bandits and killed before we can get back to Werlida to receive the king's judgment! And I have other resources."

"Such as?" asked Wolfhere, not without sarcasm.

"Where is my mother now, Wolfhere?" asked Liath, cutting him off.

But he remained stubbornly silent.

"You won't tell me," she said harshly.

"I can't speak freely now."

"Because of Sanglant?" She looked astounded.

"We are not always alone," said Wolfhere cryptically, and as if in answer an owl suddenly glided into view. It came to rest quite boldly on an outstretched branch that jutted out over the road a few paces beyond Wolfhere's horse. Could it be the same owl that had led her to ? It was certainly as large. Its sudden arrival set the dogs to yammering until the creature noiselessly launched itself into the air and vanished into the darkening forest. The trees and undergrowth turned to blue-gray as the late summer evening faded toward night.

When Wolfhere spoke again, it was with suppressed anger and a fierce intensity. "You must accept, Liath, that we are caught in greater currents than you understand—and until you do understand more fully, I must be circumspect."

ysV^ny V>es^ung^ eriry iate youT she asked. Yie betrayed himself by glancing at Sanglant, and that caused her to look at him as well. "Do you know?"

she asked, amazed.

"Of course I know." The old story had long since ceased to stir in him anything more than a faint amusement. "He tried to drown me when I was an infant."

"Is that true?" she demanded of Wolfhere.

He merely nodded. He could no longer disguise his anger— the annoyance of a man whose quiet plans are rarely thwarted.

"Alas that he didn't succeed," added Sanglant, now beginning to be truly amused at Wolfhere's sullen silence. "Then I wouldn't have had to suffer through so many of his later attempts to convince me that I was part of a terrible plot contrived by my mother and her kin. 'Who knows what will happen when the crown of stars crowns the heavens?' If only I had known, perhaps I might not have been abandoned by my mother, her unwanted child. At least my father cared for me."

"And will he care for you still, my lord prince," asked Wolfhere in a harsh voice, "when you return with a bride not of his choosing?"

Sanglant's smile now was grim and sure, his voice steady. "I have other resources because I have made my reputation as a warrior. There are many princes in this world who would be happy to have me fight at their side, even at the risk of King Henry's displeasure. I am no longer dragon—or pawn—to be used in your chess games, Wolfhere, nor in my father's. I have left the board, and I will make my way with his blessing...or without it. So do I swear."

Wolfhere did not reply. Nor did Liath—or at least, not in words. Instead, she unpinned her Eagle's cloak and rolled it up, then unclasped her Eagle's badge and fastened it to the cloak.

"I'm sorry," she said, holding them out. "But I made this choice days ago, and in far stranger circumstances than these. My mother now knows where to find me."

"This was not to be! It is not possible that you should cleave unto him!"

"Because you will it otherwise?" she demanded. "I refuse to be bound by the fate others have determined for me!"

"Liath!" Still he did not lean forward to take cloak and badge. "If you go with him, you will be without any support—

"What other life do you think I have known? Da and I managed."

"For a time." Was his reply meant to be ominous, or was that only his frustration surfacing? He genuinely seemed to care about Liath's fate. "Reflect on this, then. It is not only the cloak and badge I must take, but the horse.

Provision was made for an Eagle, not for Sanglant's concubine."

She smiled triumphantly. "Then it's as well I have my own horse, isn't it?"

She dismounted, tied the cloak neatly onto the abandoned saddle, and removed the blanket roll. "This, too, is mine. It came to me as a gift from Mistress Birta."

She took the reins from Sanglant and offered them to Wolfhere, who did not yet move.

"What of the sword and bow?" he demanded instead.

Her expression did not change. The speed with which she had made her decision and the ruthlessness with which she now executed it impressed Sanglant—and made him a bit apprehensive. She began to unbuckle her belt to loose the sheath and thereby the sword.

"Nay," said Wolfhere quickly. "I cannot leave you defenseless. If I have not persuaded you to come with me, then let that fault lie with me. You may change your mind." Now he did take the reins, but he fixed his gaze on Liath's face as if to peer into her heart. "You can still change your mind—" Here he winced slightly, as at a thorn in his foot. "—until and unless you get pregnant by him. Ai, God, why won't you trust me? There are greater things than you know—"

"Then tell me what they are!"

But he only glanced toward the tree where the owl had alighted.

"Here," said Sanglant, trying very hard to speak steadily, although he wanted to shout with triumph, "I have two horses. The bay is more tractable."

"Nay, let me only tighten the girth on Resuelto. I'll ride him now."

They left Wolfhere on the road, still caught as if by an invisible hand in that pose with one hand on his own reins and one holding that of the horse Liath had ridden. Liath looked back once as they rounded a bend, heading north, to catch a last sight of him. Sanglant did not bother.

At first they had nothing to say, simply rode with eyes intent on the darkening road as they followed the track back toward Ferse. Her breathing, the thud of horses' hooves, and the scrabbling of the dogs as they padded alongside with occasional forays toward the roadside or nipping at each other all melded together with the shush of wind in the branches and the night sounds of animals coming awake.

"Where did you come by the horse?" he asked finally. "He's very fine. It seems to me I've seen him before."

"Count Lavastine gave Resuelto to me as a reward for my service to him at Gent. And all the gear, too."

It stirred, then, a spark of jealousy—quickly extinguished. She wasn't riding with Count Lavastine. She was riding with him,"Will King Henry be very angry?"

she asked in a tremulous voice.

"Yes. He wants me to ride south to Aosta to place Princess Adelheid on the Aostan throne, marry her, and name myself as king regnant. Then he can march south, have the skopos crown him emperor, and name me as his heir and successor because of the legitimacy conferred upon me by my title as king."

Her reply came more as a kind of stifled grunt than anything. They rode out into a clearing, vanguard of the open land that lay before them, and here he could see her expression clearly in the muted light of late evening. "But then, if you marry me—"

He reined in and she had to halt. "Let us speak of this once and not again,"

he said, impatient not truly with her but with the arguments he knew would come once they returned to the king's progress. "As Bloodheart's prisoner I saw what it meant to be a king. This, my retinue—" He gestured toward the dogs who were by now well trained enough that they didn't try to rip out the horses'

underbellies. "—would have torn out my throat any time I showed weakness. So would the great princes do to my father, were he to show weakness. Imagine how they would lie in wait for me, because I am a bastard and only half of human kin. For one year I lived that way trapped in the cathedral in Gent. I will not live so again. I do not want to be king or emperor. But if you cannot believe me, Liath, then return to Wolfhere. Or break with the king and offer your service to Count Lavastine, who obviously values you. I will not have this conversation over and over if you in your heart doubt my intention."

She said nothing at first. Finally, she nudged her horse forward and commenced riding north along the road. He followed her. His heart pounded fiercely and a wave of dizziness swept through him so powerfully that he clutched the saddle to keep his seat. The pounding in his ears swelled until he started up, realizing he heard hoofbeats ahead.

"Pull up," he said curtly, and she did so.

"What is it?" But then she, too, heard. A moment later they saw riders.

Two men reined in, looking relieved. "My lord prince!" Their horses were in a bad state; they had not thought to take remounts.

"We'll return to the village," said Sanglant to them, "where we'll rest for the night. Then we'll rejoin the king."

They nodded, not asking questions.

The sun had finally set, and they pressed forward through the moon-fed twilight, walking the horses in part to spare the blown mounts of their escort and in part because of the dim light. He had nothing to say to Liath, not with the two servingmen so close behind them. He did not really know what to say in any case. What point was there in saying anything? The decision had been made.

There was, thank God, nothing left to discuss.

She rode with a straight back and a proud, confident carriage. Did she have second thoughts as she rode beside him? He could not tell by her expression, half hidden by the deepening twilight. She seemed resolute, with her chin tilted back.

A single lantern burned at the gate to Ferse, like a star fallen to earth—the only light besides that glistening down upon them from the heavens. Clouds had smothered the southern sky, Wowing a brisk wind before it: a coming storm.

He let one of the servingmen pound at the closed gate while he tried not to think of what lay ahead: a cold supper, and a bed. Certainly a few women had approached him in the last month—some, he suspected, at the instigation of Helmut Vil-lam, who seemed to believe that every ill that assailed the male body could be cured by the vigorous application of sex—but he had not touched even one. He was afraid that he would make a fool of himself.

Now, as the gate creaked open and they were admitted within the palisade by a suitably overawed young man acting as watchman, he was sorry he had not. Then at least he would have taken the edge off that terrible appetite which is desire unfulfilled. Even the mothers and fathers of the church understood that it is easier to cure the body of its lust for eat and drink than of the inclination toward concupiscence.

In Ferse, a dozen riders waited, men-at-arms sent by the king who had stopped for that selfsame cold supper before riding on. They stared at Liath when the young watchman led her and Sanglant into the longhouse of his mother, a woman called Hilda. The householder was eager to serve a royal prince. She fed them with roasted chicken, greens, baked turnips, and a piece of honey cake.

"There are two other things we need from you this night," said Sanglant when he had finished his cup of ale. "A bed." Some of the men-at-arms gulped down laughter—but he heard no ridicule, only sympathetic amusement. He recognized all of these men as soldiers who had followed his command at the battle outside Gent. "And your witness, Mistress Hilda, together with that of these men."

They waited expectantly. Mistress Hilda made a gesture for her son to fill the cups again, and the rest of her household huddled among the shadows under the interior eaves to listen.

Liath had spoken no word since the first riders had caught up with them, but she stood now, hand trembling slightly as she took hold of the wooden cup.

He stood hastily beside her, taut, like a hound held to a tight leash. "With these folk as my witness, I thee pledge—" She stumbled, tried again, this time looking at him, holding his gaze. "I freely state my intention before God and these witnesses to bind myself in marriage with this man, given by his mother the name of Sanglant."

He did not stumble, but only because he simply repeated her words. "I freely state my intention before God and these witnesses to bind myself in marriage with this woman, given by her father the name of Liathano."

"I so witness," said Mistress Hilda in a carrying voice. "I so witness,"

mumbled the poor soldiers, who well knew they would be called to explain the whole thing once they had returned to court.

Then everyone drained their cups and there came one of those awkward pauses while everyone waited for someone else to make the first move.

Mistress Hilda acted first. She made such a great fuss about surrendering the use of her best bed that Sanglant would have laughed if he hadn't been so damned nervous. No doubt once word spread that a king's son had spent his wedding night there many a villager would offer a basket of their best fruit, a prize chicken, or several plump partridges for the privilege of letting their own sons or daughters spend their wedding night in that same bed in the hope that some portion of the king's luck and fertility would rub off.

The bed, built under the low slanting roof, boasted a luxurious feather mattress and a good stout curtain that could be drawn closed around it. Mistress Hilda herself chased off the two whippets curled up at the foot of the mattress.

While a daughter shook out the blankets outside, the householder made a valiant attempt to brush out fleas and bugs. Then she herded the soldiers down to the empty half of the longhouse where, during the winter, the family stabled their livestock.

One lantern stil burned, and the longhouse doors, thrown open to admit the breeze, allowed a pearlescent gleam of moonlight to gild the darkest confines of the longhouse. Mistress Hilda made much of escorting them to the bed and drew the curtains shut behind them. With curtains drawn it was astoundingly black; he could not see at all. The air within was stuffy. Liath sat next to him.

She did not move, nor did he. He was inordinately pleased with his self-control.

He sat there, thinking that he ought to unwrap his sandals and leggings. Sweat prickled on his neck and a few beads of sweat trickled down his back. The bed still smelled of dog, and of the wool stored under the bed. Outside, where he had staked them, the Eika dogs barked, then settled down.

"Sanglant," she whispered. She let out a sigh, and he almost lost himself.

But he did not move. He was afraid to move.

But she moved. Her fingers touched his cheek, the old remembered gesture from the crypt in the cathedral of Gent, then wandered to his ear and finally down to his neck, where she traced the rough surface of the slave collar around to its clasp.

"I swore that I would never love any man but you." Her voice was tense with amazement. Without asking permission, she found the cunning mechanism that clasped the collar closed. Without chains locking it closed, it was easy for her to undo it. That quickly, she eased it off, then hissed between her teeth as she gently touched the skin beneath. He hissed, too, in pain; it was very tender.

She leaned forward to kiss him at the base of his throat, over the scar from the wound that had ruined his voice, taken four years ago—or was it five? Her lips burned as if with fire, but it was very hot within the curtains. Indeed, the only way to be at all comfortable was to take off his clothes—although in such a confined space, and with her fumbling at her own next to him in such a distracting manner, it was not an easy task.

She brushed him, naked now, her skin hot to the touch, and he most willingly lay down beside her although it took incredible strength of will not simply to have the matter done with in an instant—all the time it would no doubt take him—and be relieved however briefly of this horrible pressure of arousal.

She had no such strength of will, or considered it unnecessary. What passed next went rather faster than he would have wished, but he did not disgrace himself; his prayers did not go in vain, for the Lord watched over him and he managed to get through it as a man would, not losing control like a dog.

"Ai, Lady," she whispered urgently, as if the strength of her passion scared her. "I'll burn everything down." He closed his arms around her, to be a shield against that fear. With her face pressed sideways against his neck she spoke in a slow murmur. "I'm not—I'm not what I seem. You felt it before. Da hid it from me, locked it away—

This close, with her pressed bodily against him and nothing between them, nothing, he finally understood what it was that stirred there, inchoate, restless, almost like a second being trapped within her skin.

Fire.

"You're like me," he said, and heard how the hoarseness in his voice made him sound astonished. As indeed he was.

"What do you mean?" She pushed up, weight shifting, and looked down at him, although she couldn't possibly see him in this darkness.

He chose his words slowly, to be precise. "There's more than human blood in you."

"Aoi blood?" She sounded stunned.

"Nay, I know the scent of Aoi blood, and it isn't that. It's nothing I recognize."

"Lady have mercy." She collapsed so hard on top of him that he grunted, all the breath forced out of his chest.

For a long while he spun in an oblivion of contentment, simply lost track of anything except the actual physical contact between them, her breath on his cheek, her unbound hair spilling over his shoulders, her weight on his hip and chest, the sticky contact of their skin. He might have lain there for the space of ten breaths or a thousand. He simply existed together with her, nothing more, nothing less, they alone in the whole wide world all that mattered.

She said into the silence: "You still have the book."

"I do. Did you intend to leave it with me all along?"

"It all happened so fast. I didn't know what to do." She wiggled to blow on his neck, as if her breath would heal the ring of chafed skin that was now all that remained to remind him of his slavery. "Do you know what is in that book?"

"No."

"My father was a mathematicus, a sorcerer. I suspect he was thrown out of the church because of it, before he married my mother—who was also a sorcerer—and they had me. That book contains his compilation of all learning on the art of the math-ematici that he could find—" She hesitated, again touched the scar at his throat.

He waited. She seemed to expect something from him.

"That doesn't trouble you?" she demanded finally.

"Ought it to?"

"That isn't al ." He heard a hint of annoyance in her voice— that he hadn't responded as she expected him to—and he grinned. Her eyes sparked in the blackness with a flicker of blue fire. From beyond the curtains he heard snoring, a child's cough, the restless whining of a dog, and the faint pop of a log shifting on the outdoor hearth fire, banked down for the night. "What Hugh said about me is true. It's true he wanted me for the knowledge he thought I had, but that wasn't all. He knew all along. He still knows there's something more. When we return to court, he won't give up trying to get me back." Her voice caught. "Do you despise me for what I was to him?"

"Can you possibly believe that after Gent I would judge you? Easier for you to despise me for becoming no better than a dog." He could not help himself.

The growl that emerged from his throat came unbidden and unwanted; he could not control this vestige of his time among the dogs, and he hated himself for it.

"Hush," she said matter-of-factly, pressing her finger to his throat again.

"You no longer wear Bloodheart's slave collar."

"And you no longer wear Hugh's," he retorted. "I tire of Hugh. Whatever power he may still have over you, he has none over me."

"Do you think not? He tried to murder Theophanu!"

He sat up abruptly. "Not so loud," he whispered. "What do you mean?" Her education had given her the ability to recount a tale succinctly and with all necessary details intact. She told him now of the incident in the forest where Theophanu had been mistaken for a deer; then, haltingly at first but when he made no horrified reaction more confidently, told him of the vision seen through fire of Theophanu burning with fever and of the panther brooch that Mother Rothgard had proclaimed a ligatura wrought by a maleficus—that of a sorcerer determined only to advance his own selfish desires.

She had slid a little away from him during the telling, although the bed sagged heavily between them. It was easy enough to take hold of her shoulder and gently pull her into him. He could not get enough of the simple touch of her—but he must pursue this other line of thought, not allow himself to be distracted by her body.

"If Hugh has practiced sorcery, then what other weapon do I need against him as long as he knows I can make such an accusation? But you must tell me what else you have done, if there is more to tell."

At once, he felt her pull away from him—not bodily, but in an intangible way, a sudden retraction of the bond between them. "W-why?"

"So that we can be prepared. So that we can plan our tactics. It isn't just Hugh's interest you've attracted. Ai, Lord! I have never trusted Wolfhere, though I don't dislike him."

"Even after—?"

He smiled. "It is hard to hate a man for a deed you don't remember and were only told about. He has never attempted to harm me that I recall, only plagued me with his endless accusations about a 'crown of stars' and some kind of unfathomable plot fashioned by my mother and her kin. But now it seems clear why he is interested in you, if it's true you're the child of sorcerers. Does he know everything about you?"

"Not everything," she admitted. "I can't trust him, even though he freed me from Hugh. But I don't dislike him. Yet whom can I trust? Who will not condemn me for what I am? Who will not call me a maleficus?"

J

"I will not condemn you."

"Will you not?" she asked bitterly, and she told him about the burning of the palace at Augensburg. "That isn't all. While riding to Lavas, I burned down a bridge in the same way. I saw the shades of dead elves hunting in the deep forest. I've spoken with an Aoi sorcerer, who offered to teach me. I've been stalked by daimones. One of them was as beautiful as an angel but a monster nevertheless for having no soul. You could see that in its eyes. It called for me in a terrible voice, but it passed right by and couldn't see me though I sat in plain sight. I was too terrified to move. Ai, Lady! I don't know what I am. I don't know what Da hid from me!"

"Hush." He pressed a finger to her lips to silence her helpless fury. "But Wolfhere is right: You need teaching."

"Who on this earth will teach such as me without condemning me? Without sending me to the skopos to stand trial as a maleficus?"

"Your mother?"

"Wolfhere wouldn't tell me where she is. I don't trust his secrecy."

"Nor should you."

"And I don't know—I just don't know— It seems so odd for this news to come now, after Da and I struggled so many years alone."

"Then we must find out who can teach you without condemning you.

You're like a boy who is quick and strong and gifted, who's taken up a sword but has had no training. He is as likely to hurt himself and his comrades as fell his enemies."

"Sanglant," she said softly, "why aren't you afraid of me? Everyone else seems to be!" Her hand wandered to splay itself across his left shoulder blade.

He became overpoweringly aware of every part of her, all that was soft, all that was hard, pressed against him.

The absurdity of it made him laugh. "What more can you do to me that you haven't already done? I am at your mercy. Thank God!"

He literally felt indignation shudder through her. He understood at once that she did not know how to be laughed at. But even after that year among the dogs, he remembered something of the intricate dance eternally played out between female and male. There are places a woman's indignation can be taken, and he knew how to get there.

LIATH woke with a strange sensation suffusing her chest and limbs.

Sanglant slept beside her, touching her only where an ankle crossed hers, weighting it down. In fact it was too stifling within the curtained bed to press together. She had no cover drawn over her, yet even so, something lay on her so calming that the sweat and stuffy heat did not bother her. It took her a long while, lying completely still so as not to scare it away, to identify what it was.

Peace.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. A rooster crowed outside. A flea crawled up her arm and she pinched it between two fingers.

Sanglant bolted upright, arms raised defensively, and almost hit her as he growled. "I can't see!" he hissed desperately.

"You aren't in Gent."

"Liath?" He sounded more astonished than pleased. He groped, caught her, and hugged her against him so tightly that she choked out a breath. "Ai, God!

You're real."

"What did you think I was?"

He was weeping. "I dreamed of you so often in Gent, I forgot what was dream and what was real, and then I would wake up. Ai, Lady. That was when it was worst, when I would wake up to discover I was still Bloodheart's prisoner."

"Hush," she said, kissing him. "You're free."

He only shook his head. He rocked back and forth, unable to keep still, but with her still clasped in his arms. Then, as suddenly as he had begun, he ceased and lifted his face to look at her. Light seeped in where wooden rings fastened the curtain to rods attached to the ceiling; she saw his expression as a gray mask, bewildered, joyous, determined.

"Make no marriage, Liath," he whispered, echoing words he had said to her a long time ago, before the fall of Gent. Then he smiled. "Unless it be with me."

"Foolhardy," she murmured.

"What is?"

"This. Marrying."

His voice sharpened. "Do you regret it already?"

She laughed. It was spectacularly disconcerting to have this need consume her. She just could not keep her hands off him. "Oh, no. No. Never." It was a different kind of fire, just as intense but more satisfying. He did not try to resist her even knowing that the village woke beyond the curtains as a new day began, but he was far more restrained than she was—although now and again he would forget himself and nip.

They did, finally, have to dress. They could hear Mistress Hilda and her household moving around, hear the soldiers moving restlessly outside the longhouse, talking and joking, although no one dared disturb the two hidden behind the curtains. She was embarrassed when they at last drew the curtains aside. Sanglant did not seem aware of the stares, the whispers, the giggles, the jocular congratulations. He wound up his leggings and laced up his sandals with intense concentration, obviously making plans. He took in a deep draught of air and held it, then shoek his head as a dog shakes off water.

"Nothing," he murmured. "I do not smell his scent here."

"Whose scent?"

"Bloodheart's." He belted on his sword. "Bloodheart laid a curse as a protection against any person who sought to kill him. Your hand drew the bow whose arrow struck him down."

Mistress Hilda bustled over with two cups of cider. As they drained the cups, she surveyed the tangled bedcovers with satisfaction.

The bite of the cider cleared Liath's head. "A curse is woven of magic," she said in a low voice, "and Da protected me against magic. It can't harm me."

He swore. "Rash words!"

"I don't mean them to be! You didn't see the daimone stalk past me, calling my name and yet not seeing me. That's not the only time it happened."

"That you were protected from magic? What do you mean?"

"I suppose the way armor protects you from a sword blow. It's as if I'm invisible to magic."

He considered this seriously. "Do you remember when Blood-heart died?"

She touched her quiver, propped up against the bed. "How could I forget it? When I first saw you—" She broke off, aware that her voice had risen.

Everyone had turned to watch them: children, adults, slaves, even the soldiers who had crowded to the door as soon as they heard Sanglant's voice. It wasn't every day that such folk got to witness a royal marriage.

"Ah," said Sanglant, looking embarrassed—but she had a sudden feeling that it wasn't their audience that bothered him but the memory of Gent and the bestial condition in which she and Lavastine had found him. He headed for the door, and Liath hurried in his wake, not at all sure where he was going. But he was headed for the three Eika dogs, who barked and scrabbled to reach them as he approached. He cuffed them down, then retrieved the handsome reinforced pouch. Inside she saw The Book of Secrets, but he did not remove it; instead, he pulled out his gold torque, the sign of his royal kinship. He turned.

"This is all I have to give you. My morning gift to you."

The assembled audience gasped at the magnificence of the gift, although Liath knew that among the nobility such a piece of jewelry, while very fine in its own right, would be but one among many such gifts—except that only women and men born into the royal lineage had the right to wear a torque braided of solid gold.

"I can't—" she choked.

"I beg you," he whispered.

It was all he had.

She received it from him, then flushed, humiliated. "I have nothing to give you—" Nothing but the gifts given to her by Lavastine and Alain the day before, and to hand them over now seemed demeaning, to him, to her, and to the lords who had rewarded her. She glanced toward the waiting soldiers, and inspiration seized her. "But I will have, if you are willing to wait."

His laughter came sharp and bright on the morning air. "I have learned to be patient." He sobered, seeing the soldiers waiting, horses saddled, everyone ready to go, and the villagers waiting expectantly. Thunder rumbled again as rain spattered down on the dirt.

"What do I do, Liath?" he muttered. "I've nothing to gift them with for their night's hospitality. I can't just leave without giving them something. It would be a disgrace to my reputation—and my father's. Ai, God!" He winced, hid the expression, then abruptly unsheathed his knife and pried the jewels off the fine leather case in which he carried the book, muttering under his breath as he did so. "Wolfhere was right. I've nothing of my own. Everything comes at my father's sufferance."

She didn't know what to reply. She, too, had nothing—except the book, the horse, and her weapons. Yet in truth few people possessed so much. Still, would it have been wiser to go to her mother, who presumably had the means to feed and house and teach her?

Perhaps.

But as she watched Sanglant distribute this largesse—and jewels certainly impressed the villagers—she could not imagine any decision other than the one she had made last night.

They rode out of Ferse with the wind at their backs only to find that the ferryman wouldn't take them across the water. So they huddled under the trees while the storm moved through, brief but strong. Rain lashed the ground, pounding dirt into mud. Wind whipped the river into a surface of choppy waves.

She used her blanket like a cloak to cover herself while Sanglant walked out in the fell force of the rainstorm, heedless of the rain pouring over him. It drenched him until his hair lay slick along his head and his clothes stuck to him in a most inviting fashion. The fresh scar left by his slave collar stood out starkly against his dark skin.

"You left behind Bloodheart's collar," she said suddenly.

He mopped rain from his forehead and flicked a slick mat of hair out of his eyes. "The villagers will make use of it." Then he grinned, the familiar charming smile she had first seen at Gent. At once he began bantering with the soldiers who, like Liath, huddled under the tree in the vain hope of staying dry. He soon had them laughing—eating out of his hand, as Da had once said years ago when they had watched an Andallan captain-at-arms ready his men to march into battle—and the delay passed remarkably swiftly.

With all the horses, it took six trips to get them over on the ferry, and even then seven of the horses balked at getting on board the rocking ferry and had to be let swim across. Sanglant and two of the soldiers stripped to go in with the horses, and Liath had to look away with her face burning while she listened to their companions, now unable to restrain themselves, making jests about wedding nights and "riding" and other coarse jokes.

"I pray you," said Sanglant sternly when he rejoined them, "do not make light of the marriage bed, or my bride, who will have a difficult enough time at the king's court as it is." They looked a little shamefaced, but he soon pried them out of it by asking each man about his home and family and what battles he had fought in.

Mud and a second squall made for slow going, and Sanglant seemed in no hurry to return. Nor was she. The farther they rode the more nervous she got.

But nevertheless they came within sight of Werlida by midafternoon. Even from the road beneath the ramparts it seemed a veritable hive of activity—more so than when she had left.

At the gates, guards greeted them. "Prince Sanglant, you have returned!"

They looked relieved.

"What's all this?" Sanglant gestured toward the lower enclosure, which was bustling with movement. Just ahead a herd of squealing pigs had been confined in a fenced enclosure from which they were now being removed one by one to be slaughtered.

"They rode in not one hour before you, my lord prince!" exclaimed the guards.

"Who did?"

A horn blasted from the road behind, and two dozen riders wearing the sigil of a hawk galloped up behind them, looking irritated to be kept waiting—

until they recognized the prince.

Sanglant began to laugh. "Lady Fortune is with us this day. My father will be far too busy to remember me!"

The hawk: symbol of the duchy of Wayland.

Duke Conrad had arrived at last.

DUKE Conrad had arrived at last.

King Henry was in a foul mood, furious about Sanglant's disappearance.

Rosvita feared it would bode ill for Conrad when Henry, upon being told the news that the duke of Wayland would arrive soon after Nones, smiled grimly. He went at once to pray and refused to break his fast at midday, since it was his habit to honor God in this way before wearing the crown.

"Will there be some kind of ceremony?" asked young Brother Constantine, who had only seen the king crowned and robed in splendor once, at Quedlinhame.

Brother Fortunatus shook his head. "He means to show his displeasure by meeting Conrad in full royal dignity." He clicked his tongue softly. "Poor Conrad."

"Poor Conrad!" objected Sister Amabilia. "Do you suppose Duke Conrad is a fool? I don't think he is."

And indeed, Conrad the Black was no fool. He rode in at the head of a magnificent procession, befitting his dignity and his rank, and beside him in the place of honor—and on a very fine white mare—rode Princess Theophanu fitted out in equally fine clothing, obviously a gift from him. She looked at her ease, handsome, vigorous, and elegant in her composure—thank God!

Only now, seeing her, did Rosvita realize how deeply she had missed her composed and sometimes ironic presence over the past months.

Because of the uproar surrounding Sanglant, Rosvita had only that morning discovered among the capitularies sent from the schola the letter from Mother Romgard and its terrifying contents: malefici—malevolent sorcerers—lurking in the court! Mother Rothgard named no names, and perhaps knew none since she had written the letter while Theophanu was still gravely ill, but Rosvita had recognized the panther brooch sketched onto the parchment. Only the margraviate of Austra and Olsatia displayed a panther as part of its sigil.

"This is a matter for the church," Mother Rothgard had written after detailing her suspicions and what manner of instruments and bindings a maleficus would have hidden about her person. "Speak to no one until my representative, a certain Sister Anne whose integrity and knowledge are irreproachable, reaches you. Without her aid, and with no experience in these matters, you will not be able to defeat the maleficus, and will indeed be at her mercy. Once you have the support of Sister Anne, then together you must decide what action to take, if indeed you can flush the maleficus from its lair. This is not a matter for the king's justice."

She dared not show the letter even to Amabilia or Fortunatus. Now she had to wait until the audience had finished, when she could hope to speak privately with Theophanu.

The king received Duke Conrad in kingly state, crowned, with scepter in hand and his entire court in attendance. The yard in front of the great hall was mobbed with people; the king had had his throne brought outside and raised up on a hastily-built platform. To his right sat Princess Sapientia, the only person so honored among the company.

Into this assembly Duke Conrad rode with all the pride of a prince born into the royal kinship. He had a nobleman's seat on a horse, easy and natural, and a soldier's broad shoulders and tough hands. He was a good-looking man, striking in appearance, with all the vitality of a man in his prime—he was not over thirty years of age. Conrad's dark complexion and black hair were indeed startling, but he had keen blue eyes and a wicked grin, which he used now to swift effect on Princess Theophanu as they halted before the king. Rosvita found him rather more to her taste than young Baldwin, who was all beauty and no stature. A servant supported his foot as he dismounted. He himself assisted Theophanu to dismount.

"Your Majesty." He did not kneel. After all, he wore the gold torque—in handsome contrast to his smoky-brown complexion— around his neck to mark his royal kinship. "I give you greetings, cousin, and I bring these gifts to honor you, and I bring as well your daughter, who has ridden beside me from St.

Valeria Convent."

Henry gestured to a servant, and a chair was squeezed in to the left of his throne. Theophanu climbed the two steps to the platform and knelt before her father to receive his blessing and his kiss. Then, coolly, she kissed Sapientia on either cheek, and sat down. She had not changed in outward appearance, except perhaps for a flush in her cheeks when she glanced at Conrad; after that, she kept her gaze fixed on the horizon where forest met sky in a haze. Seeing her so healthy, it was hard to believe that she had almost died at St. Valeria Convent of a fever brought upon her by magic most foul. Yet Mother Rothgard had no reason to lie.

Conrad waited until she was seated, then made a sign to his retinue.

Servants came forward with boxes and chests. The display took some time, all of it artfully handled with clasps undone, cloth unwrapped and wafted aside, fine tapestries unrolled to reveal more precious treasures inside. Conrad had not stinted in his offerings: carved ivory plaques; gold vessels; a dozen finely-crafted saddles; glass pitchers packed in wood shavings; tiny cloisonne pots filled with spices; silver basins so cunningly worked that entire scenes from old tales could be read on their sides; and two delightful creatures he called monkeys that chittered excitedly and gamboled in a large cage.

Henry regarded this munificence without expression. When Conrad had finished, Henry merely raised a hand for silence. The assembly, whispering and jostling the better to see, quieted expectantly.

"Is this how you hope to expiate your treachery?"

Conrad's nostrils flared, and his shoulders stiffened. "I didn't join Sabella!"

"You didn't join me!"

He regained his composure. "Yet I am here now, cousin."

"So you are. What am I to make of your appearance? Why did you turn my Eagle back at your border, in the Alfar Mountains? Why have you troubled my brother Benedict and Queen Marozia of Karrone with your disputes? Why did you not support me against the Eika, and against Sabella's unlawful rebellion against my authority?"

For an instant Rosvita thought Conrad would turn around right then, mount, and ride off in a rage. Unexpectedly, Father Hugh stepped forward from his place in the front ranks, near Sapientia's chair, and placed himself between the two men.

"Your Majesty," he began, "let me with these poor words humbly beg you and your noble cousin to feast together, for as the blessed Daisan once said,

'The measure you give is the measure you will receive.' Greet your kin with wine and food. It is better to enter into a dispute on a full stomach than an empty one, for a hungry woman will feed on angry words while she who has eaten of the feast provided by God will know how to set aside anger for conciliation."

He was right, of course. She took a step forward to add her voice to his.

"What better conciliation," said Conrad suddenly, "than a betrothal feast?

Give us only your blessing, cousin, and your daughter Theophanu and I will speak our consent to be wed."

Henry rose slowly. Rosvita caught in her breath and waited.

Rashly suggested! What did Conrad hope to gain from such bluntness?

But Henry said nothing of marriage. He descended the steps with kingly dignity and raised an arm to clasp Conrad's in cousinly affection. "The news came to us only two days ago, and it was received with many tears. Let us have peace between us, cousin, while we mourn the passing of Lady Eadgifu."

Conrad wept manfully, and with evident sincerity. "We must put our trust in God, They who rule over all things. She was the best of women."

Now many sighs and groans arose from the assembly, both from those who had known the Lady Eadgifu and those whose hearts were touched by the sorrow shown by duke and king. Rosvita could not help but shed a few tears, although she had met the Alban princess on only three occasions, and mostly remembered her because her fair hair and ivory-light skin had contrasted handsomely with the black hair and dusky complexion of her husband; on first arriving from Alba, Eadgifu had spoken Wendish poorly and therefore refrained from speaking much except to her Alban retinue.

One woman among the assembly was not weeping: Theophanu. She had lowered her gaze but under those heavy, dark lids—so like Queen Sophia's—she examined Father Hugh. Her expression had the placid innocence of a holy mosaic, pieced together out of colored stone, and not even Rosvita, who knew her as well as anyone, could tell what she was thinking. Did she want to marry Conrad? Did she still hoard her infatuation for Father Hugh? Did she know the name of the maleficus who had tried to kill her?

Hugh had taken a book of forbidden magic from the young Eagle, Liath.

Was it only coincidence that the unnamed magus had attempted to sicken Theophanu through the agency of a lig-atura woven into a brooch shaped as a panther?

"Make way! Make way!"

Henry dropped Conrad's arm as a small procession appeared. Everyone began to talk at once, pointing and whispering. The king stepped back up onto the first of the two steps that mounted the platform, but there he paused, waiting, and Duke Conrad turned and with a surprised expression moved aside to make room.

"Your Majesty." Prince Sanglant pulled up his horse at a re spectful distance from the throne. He looked travel-worn and unkempt with his rich tunic damp from rain and his hair uncombed, but by some indefinable air he wore as always the mantle of authority. But the Eika dogs that trailed at his heels reminded everyone of what he had been—and what he still harbored within himself. He made a sign, and his escort of a dozen soldiers and two servingmen turned aside and dismounted.

There was one other person with them: a dark young woman with a regal air and a look of tense hauteur, held distant from the crowd that surrounded her.

It took Rosvita a moment to recognize her, although it should not have. What on God's earth was the Eagle—as good as banished yesterday together with Wolfhere—doing with him? Or was she still an Eagle? She no longer wore badge or cloak, although she rode a very fine gray gelding.

Prince Sanglant was not a subtle man. Liath glanced toward him, and he reached to touch her on the elbow. The glance, the movement, the touch: these spoke as eloquently as words.

"What means this?" demanded Henry.

But every soul there knew what it meant: Sanglant, the obedient son, had defied his father.

Rosvita knew well the signs of Henry's wrath; he wore them now: the tic in his upper lip, the stark lightning glare in his eyes, the threatening way he rested his royal staff on his forearm as if in preparation for a sharp blow. She stepped forward in the hope of turning his anger aside, but Hugh had already moved to place himself before the king.

"I beg you, Your Majesty." His expression was smooth but his hands were trembling. "She no longer wears the Eagle's badge that marks her as in your service. Therefore, she is now by right—and your judgment—my slave."

"She is my wife," said Sanglant suddenly. His hoarse tenor, accustomed to the battlefield, carried easily over the noise of the throng. Everyone burst into exclamations at once, and after a furious but short-lived uproar, the assembly like a huge beast quieted, the better to hear. Even the king's favorite poet or a juggling troupe from Aosta did not provide as thrilling an entertainment as this.

The prince dismounted and everyone stared as he hammered i an iron stake into the ground and staked down the dogs. From their savage presence all shrank back as the prince walked forward to stand before his father. Clouds covered the sun, and rain spattered the crowd, enough to keep the dust down and to wet tongues made dry by anticipation.

"She is my wife," Sanglant repeated, "by mutual consent, witnessed by these soldiers and a freewoman of Ferse village, and made legal and binding by the act of consummation and by the exchange of morning gifts."

" 'Let the children be satisfied first,' " said Hugh in a low, furious voice. She had never before seen him lose his composure, but he was shaking visibly now, flushed and agitated. " 'It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' "

"Hugh," warned his mother from her place near the king.

Abruptly, Liath replied in a bold and angry voice. " 'Even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps.' "

Hugh looked as if he had been slapped. He bolted toward her. That fast, and more smoothly than Rosvita believed possible, Sanglant stepped between them, and Hugh actually bumped up against him. But to go around the prince would be to make a fool of himself. Even so he hesitated, as if actually contemplating fighting it out hand to hand, the gracious cleric and the half-wild prince.

"I did not give my permission for you to marry," said Henry.

"I did not ask permission to marry, nor need I do so, since I am of age, and of free birth."

"She is not free," retorted Hugh, recovering his composure so completely that she might have dreamed that flash of rage. "She is either in the king's service, and thus needs his permission to marry, or she is my slave. As a slave, she has no right to marry a man of free birth—much less, my lord prince," he added, with a humble bow, "a man of your exalted rank and birth." He turned back to the king. "Yet I would not dare to pass judgment when we must bow before your wisdom, Your Majesty."

"I gave her a choice." Henry gestured toward the young woman. "Did I not give that choice, Eagle? Have you forsaken my service and thus rebelled against my rightful authority?"

She blanched.

"Let me speak," said Sanglant.

"Sanglant," she murmured, as softly as a person caught in the whirlpool whispers with her last breath before she goes under. "Do not—"

"Sanglant." The king uttered his name with that same tone of warning with which Margrave Judith had moments before spoken her own son's name.

"I will speak! The blessed Daisan said that it is not the things that go into a man from outside that defile him but the things that come out of him that defile him. Look upon him, whom you all admire and love, who is charming and elegant and handsome. Yet out of this man's heart come evil thoughts, acts of fornication forced upon a helpless woman, theft, murder, ruthless greed and malice, fraud, indecency for a man sworn to the church to cohabit with a woman, envy, slander, arrogance—and with his hands and his fine manners he has blinded you all with sorcery—

Theophanu started up out of her chair.

Margrave Judith strode forward, flushed with anger. "I will not stand by quietly while my son is insulted and abused—

"Silence!" roared the king. "How dare you question my judgment in this way, Sanglant!"

"Nay, Your Majesty," said Hugh with humble amiability, grave and patient.

"Let him speak. Everything Prince Sanglant says is true, for I am sure that he hates lying and loves me. Who among us is worthy? I know only too well that I am a sinner. None censures me more than I do myself, for I have often failed in my service toward my king, and toward God."

Did Hugh say one thing more to Sanglant? His lips moved, but Rosvita could not hear—

Sanglant growled in rage and struck in fury: He hit the unresisting Hugh so hard backhanded that Hugh crumpled to the ground, teeth cracking, and before anyone else could move Sanglant dove for him like a dog leaping for the kil . The Eika dogs went wild, yammering and tugging on their chains as they dragged the stake out of the dirt and bolted forward.

People screamed and stumbled back. Liath flung herself off her horse and grabbed for the chains, getting brief hold of the stake before it was yanked out of her hands. Rosvita was too shocked to move while all around her the court scattered—all but Judith, who unsheathed her knife to defend her son. All but the king himself, who bellowed Sanglant's name and jumped forward to grab him by the back of the tunic to haul him off Hugh.

The dogs hit Henry with the full force of their charge.

Rosvita shrieked. She heard it as from a distance, unaware she could utter such a terrible sound. Someone tugged frantically at her robe. Sanglant beat back the dogs in a frenzy, away from his father, and behind him Liath shouted a warning to Vil-lam—who had dashed forward to the king—while she scrabbled in the dirt for the hammer and grasped the stake, trying to drag back on the chains. Lions charged in. They clubbed down the dogs, braved their fierce jaws to grab their legs and drag them off the king, and hacked at them mercilessly until blood spattered the ground like rain.

Pity stabbed briefly, vanished as Sanglant emerged from the maelstrom with Henry supported in his arms. Ai, God! The king was injured! She hurried to his side, vaguely aware of three attendants pressed close behind her: her clerics, who had not deserted her.

Sanglant thrust Henry into the arms of the princesses and plunged back in the fray.

"Down!" His voice rang out above everything else. "Hold! Withdraw!"

The Lions obeyed. How could they not? The prince knew how to command in battle. They withdrew cautiously, and he knelt beside the dogs.

Rosvita knelt beside the king, who had a weeping tear in his left arm, cloth mangled and stained with saliva and blood, threads shredded into skin. Claws had ripped the tunic along his back, too, but mercifully the thick royal robe had protected him from all but a shallow scratch. He shook off the shock of the impact and pushed himself upright. "Your Majesty!" she protested.

"Nay!" He shook off all who ran to assist him, even his daughters, as he limped forward.

"Your Majesty!" cried Villam, and a dozen others, as he approached Sanglant and the dogs, but he did not heed them.

One of the dogs was dead. As Henry halted beside him, Sanglant took out his knife and cut the throat of the second, so badly hacked that it could not possibly survive. The third whimpered softly and rolled to bare its throat to the prince. He stared into its yellow eyes. Blood dripped from its fangs; dust and the vile greenish blood born of its own foul body smeared its iron-gray coat.

"Kil it," said Henry in a voice made dull by rage.

Sanglant looked up at him, glanced at Liath, who stood holding the iron stake in a bloodied hand . . . then sheathed the knife.

The shock of Sanglant's defiance hit Henry harder than the dogs had. He staggered, caught himself on Villam, who got under his arm just in time to steady him. Rosvita's mind seemed to be working at a pace so sluggish that not until this moment did she register Father Hugh, who had somehow gotten out of range and now, supported by his mother, spit bits of tooth onto the ground.

Blood stained his lips, and his right cheek had the red bloom of a terrible bruise making ready to flower.

"I will retire to my chamber," said Henry, so far gone in wrath that all the heat had boiled off to make a fearsomely cold rage beneath. "There, he will be brought to meet my judgment."

Villam helped him away. Servingmen swarmed around them.

Rosvita knew she ought to follow, but she could not make her legs work.

She stared at the assembly as they parted to make way for the king, dissolved into their constituent groups to slip away and plot in private over the upheaval sure to follow. Images caught and burned into her mind: Duke Conrad staying Princess Theo-phanu with a hand lightly touching her elbow, a comment exchanged, the shake of her head in negation, his eyes narrowing as he frowned and stepped back from her to let her by when she walked after her father; Sapientia flushed red with anger and humiliation, taking the arm of her young Eagle and turning deliberately away from Hugh as if to make clear that he had fallen into disfavor; Judith with her lips pressed tight in a foreboding glower; Ivar trying to break through the crowd to get to Liath but being hopelessly caught up in the tide that washed him away from her and then held back bodily by young Baldwin.

"Sister!" whispered Amabilia. Fortunatus had hold of her right arm, whether to support her or himself she could not tell. Con-stantine wept quietly. "Come, Sister, let us withdraw."

Everyone, eddying, swirled away to leave at last several dozen soldiers, two dead dogs and an injured one, the bride, and the prince amid a spray of blood. Left alone, abandoned even by those who had championed him before.

This was the price of the king's displeasure.

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