The Sum of All Men

1 It Begins in Darkness

Effigies of the Earth King festooned the city around Castle Sylvarresta. Everywhere the effigies could be seen—hanging beneath shopwindows, standing upright against the walls of the city gates, or nailed beside doorways—stationed any place where the Earth King might find ingress into a home.

Many of the figures were crude things crafted by children—a few reeds twisted into the form of a man, often with a crown of oak leaves in its hair. But outside the doors of shops and taverns were more ornate figures of wood, the full size of a man, often elaborately painted and coifed in fine green wool traveling robes.

In those days, it was said that on Hostenfest Eve the spirit of the earth would fill the effigies and the Earth King would waken. At his wakening, he would protect the family for another season and help bear the harvest home.

It was a festive season, a season of joy. On Hostenfest Eve the father in a home would play the role of Earth King by setting gifts before the hearth. Thus, at dawn on the first day of Hostenfest, adults received flasks of new wine or kegs of stout ale. For the young girls the Earth King brought toy dolls woven of straw and wildflowers, while boys might get swords or oxcarts carved from ash.

All these bounties delivered by the Earth King represented but a token of the Earth King's wealth—the vast hoards of the “fruits of the forest and of the field” which legend said he bestowed on those who loved the land.

So the homes and shops around the castle were well adorned that night, on the nineteenth day of the Month of Harvest, four days before Hostenfest. All the shops were clean and well stocked for the autumn fair that would shortly come.

The streets lay barren, for dawn was approaching. Aside from the city guards and a few nursing mothers, the only ones who had reason to be up so late of the night were the King's bakers, who at that very moment were drawing the foam off the King's ale and mixing it with their dough so that the loaves would rise by dawn. True, the eels were running on their annual migration in the River Wye, so one might imagine a few fishermen to be out by night, but the fishermen had emptied their wicker eel traps an hour past midnight and had delivered kegs of live eels to the butcher for skinning and salting well before the second watch.

Outside the city walls, the greens south of Castle Sylvarresta were dotted with dark pavilions, for caravans from Indhopal had come north to sell the harvest of summer spices. The camps outside the castle were quiet but for the occasional braying of a donkey.

The walls of the city were shut, and all foreigners had been escorted from the merchants' quarter hours ago. No men moved on the streets at that time of night—only a few ferrin.

Thus there was no one to see what transpired in a dark alley. Even the King's far-seer, who had endowments of sight from seven people and stood guard on the old graak's aerie above the Dedicates' Keep, could not have spotted movement down in the narrow streets of the merchants' quarter.

But in Cat's Alley, just off the Butterwalk, two men struggled in the shadows for control of a knife.

Could you have seen them, you might have been reminded of tarantulas in battle: arms and legs twisting in frenzy as the knife flashed upward, scuffling as feet groped for purchase on the worn cobblestones, both men grunting and straining with deadly intent.

Both men were dressed in black. Sergeant Dreys of the King's Guard wore black livery embroidered with the silver boar of House Sylvarresta. Dreys' assailant wore a baggy black cotton burnoose in a style favored by assassins out of Muyyatin.

Though Sergeant Dreys outweighed the assassin by fifty pounds, and though Dreys had endowments of brawn from three men and could easily lift six hundred pounds over his head, he feared he could not win this battle.

Only starlight lit the street, and precious little of that made its way here into Cat's Alley. The alley was barely seven feet wide, and homes here stood three stories tall, leaning on sagging foundations till the awnings of their roofs nearly met a few yards above Dreys' head.

Dreys could hardly see a damned thing back here. All he could make out of his assailant was the gleam of the man's eyes and teeth, a pearl ring in his left nostril, the flash of the knife. The smell of woodlands clung to his cotton tunic as fiercely as the scents of anise and curry held to his breath.

No, Dreys was not prepared to fight here in Cat's Alley. He had no weapons and wore only the linen surcoat that normally fit over his ring mail, along with pants and boots. One does not go armed and armored to meet his lover.

He'd only stepped into the alley a moment ago, to make certain the road ahead was clear of city guards, when he heard a small scuffling behind a stack of yellow gourds by one of the market stalls. Dreys had thought he'd disturbed a ferrin as it hunted for mice or for some bit of cloth to wear. He'd turned, expecting to see a pudgy rat-shaped creature run for cover, when the assassin sprang from the shadows.

Now the assassin moved swiftly, grasping the knife tight, shifting his weight, twisting the blade. It flashed dangerously close to Dreys' ear, but the sergeant fought it off—till the man's arm snaked around, stabbing at Dreys' throat. Dreys managed to hold the smaller man's wrist back for a moment. “Murder. Bloody murder!” Dreys shouted.

A spy! he thought. I've caught a spy! He could only imagine that he'd disturbed the fellow in mapping out the castle grounds.

He thrust a knee into the assassin's groin, lifting the man in the air. Pulled the man's knife arm full length and tried to twist it.

The assassin let go of the knife with one hand and rabbit-punched Dreys in the chest.

Dreys' ribs snapped. Obviously the little man had also been branded with runes of power. Dreys guessed that the assassin had the brawn of five men, maybe more. Though both men were incredibly strong, endowments of brawn increased strength only to the muscles and tendons. They did not invest one's bones with any superior hardness. So this match was quickly degenerating into what Dreys would call “a bone-bash.”

He struggled to hold the assassin's wrists. For a long moment they wrestled.

Dreys heard deep-voiced shouts: “That way, I think! Over there!” They came from the left. A street over was Cheap Street—where the bunched houses did not press so close, and where Sir Guilliam had built his new four-story manor. The voices had to be from the City Guard—the same guards Dreys had been avoiding—whom Sir Guilliam bribed to rest beneath the lantern post at the manor gate.

“Cat's Alley!” Dreys screamed. He only had to hold the assassin a moment more—make sure the fellow didn't stab him, or escape.

The Southerner broke free in desperation, punched him again, high in the chest. More ribs snapped. Dreys felt little pain. One tends to ignore such distractions when struggling to stay alive.

In desperation the assassin ripped the knife free. Dreys felt a tremendous rush of fear and kicked the assassin's right ankle. He felt more than heard a leg shatter.

The assassin lunged, knife flashing. Dreys twisted away, shoved the fellow. The blade struck wide of its mark, slashed Dreys' ribs, a grazing blow.

Now Dreys grabbed the fellow's elbow, had the man half-turned around. The assassin stumbled, unable to support himself on his broken leg. Dreys kicked the leg again for good measure, and pushed the fellow back.

Dreys glanced frantically into the shadows for sign of some cobblestone that might have come loose from its mortar. He wanted a weapon. Behind Dreys was an inn called the Churn. Beside the flowering vines and the effigy of the Earth King at its front window sat a small butter churn. Dreys tried to rush to the churn, thinking to grab its iron plunger and use it to bludgeon the assassin.

He pushed the assassin, thinking the smaller man would go flying. Instead the fellow spun, one hand clutching Dreys' surcoat. Dreys saw the knife blade plunge.

He raised an arm to block.

The blade veered low and struck deep, slid up through his belly, past shattered ribs. Tremendous pain blossomed in Dreys' gut, shot through his shoulders and arms, a pain so wide Dreys thought the whole world would feel it with him.

For an eternity, Dreys stood, looking down. Sweat dribbled into his wide eyes. The damned assassin had slit him open like a fish. Yet the assassin still held him—had thrust his knife arm up to the wrist into Dreys' chest, working the blade toward Dreys' heart, while his left hand reached for Dreys' pocket, groping for something.

His hand clutched at the book in Dreys' pocket, feeling it through the material of the surcoat. The assassin smiled.

Dreys wondered, Is that what you want? A book?

Last night, as the City Guard had been escorting foreigners from the merchants' quarter, Dreys had been approached by a man from Tuulistan, a trader whose tent was pitched near the woods. The fellow spoke little Rofehavanish, had seemed apprehensive. He had only said, “A gift—for king. You give? Give to king?”

With much ceremonial nodding, Dreys had agreed, had looked at the book absently. The Chronicles of Owatt, Emir of Tuulistan. A thin volume bound in lambskin. Dreys had pocketed it, thinking to pass it along at dawn.

Dreys hurt so terribly now that he could not shout, could not move. The world spun; he pulled free of the assassin, tried to turn and run. His legs felt as weak as a kitten's. He stumbled. The assassin grabbed Dreys' hair from behind, yanking his chin up to expose his throat.

Damn you, Dreys thought, haven't you killed me enough? In one final desperate act, he yanked the book from his pocket, hurled it across the Butterwalk.

There on the far side of the street a rosebush struggled up an arbor near a pile of barrels. Dreys knew this place well, could barely see the yellow roses on dark vines. The book skidded toward them.

The assassin cursed in his own tongue, tossing Dreys aside, and limped after the book.

Dreys could hear nothing but a dull buzz as he struggled to his knees. He glimpsed movement at the edge of the street—the assassin groping among the roses. Three larger shadows came rushing down the road from the left. The flash of drawn swords, starlight glinting off iron caps. The City Guard.

Dreys pitched forward onto the cobblestones.

In the predawn, a flock of geese honked as it made its way south through the silvery starlight, the voices sounding to him for all the world like the barking of a distant pack of dogs.

2 Those Who Love the Land

That morning a few hours after the attack on Dreys and a hundred or so miles south of Castle Sylvarresta, Prince Gaborn Val Orden faced troubles that were not so harrowing. Yet none of his lessons in the House of Understanding could have prepared the eighteen-year-old prince for his encounter with a mysterious young woman in the grand marketplace at Bannisferre.

He'd been lost in thought at a vendor's stall in the south market, studying wine chillers of polished silver. The vendor had many fine iron brewing pots, but his prize was the three wine chillers—large bowls for ice with complementing smaller pitchers that fit inside. The bowls were of such high quality that they looked to be of ancient duskin workmanship. But no duskin had walked the earth in a thousand years, and these howls could not have been that old. Each bowl had the clawed feet of a reaver and featured scenes of hounds running in a leafy wood; the pitchers were adorned with images of a young lord on a horse, his lance at the ready, bearing down on a reaver mage. Once the pitchers were set into their silver bowls, the images complemented one another—the young lord battling the reaver mage while the hunting dogs surrounded them.

The ornaments on the wine chiller were all cast using some method that Gaborn could not fathom. The silversmith's detailed workmanship was breathtaking.

Such were the wonders of Bannisferre's goods that Gaborn hadn't even noticed the young woman sidle up to him until he smelled the scent of rose petals. (The woman who stands next to me wears a dress that is kept in a drawer filled with rose petals, he'd realized, on some subconscious level.) Even then, he'd been so absorbed in studying the wine chillers that he imagined she was only a stranger, awed by the same marvelous bowls and pitchers. He didn't glance her way until she took his hand, seizing his attention.

She grasped his left hand in her right, lightly clasping his fingers, then squeezed.

Her soft touch electrified him. He did not pull away. Perhaps, he thought, she mistakes me for another. He glanced sidelong at her. She was tall and beautiful, perhaps nineteen, her dark-brown hair adorned with mother-of-pearl combs. Her eyes were black, and even the whites of her eyes were so dark as to be a pale blue. She wore a simple, cloud-colored silk gown with flowing sleeves—an elegant style lately making its way among the wealthy ladies of Lysle. She wore a belt of ermine, clasped with a silver flower, high above the navel, just beneath her firm breasts. The neckline was high, modest. Over her shoulders hung a silk scarf of deepest crimson, so long that its fringes swept the ground. She was not merely beautiful, he decided. She was astonishing. She smiled at him secretively, shyly, and Gaborn smiled back, tight-lipped-hopeful and troubled all at once. Her actions reminded him of the endless tests that one of his hearthmasters might have devised for him in the House of Understanding—yet this was no test.

Gaborn did not know the young woman. He knew no one in all the vast city of Bannisferre—which seemed odd, that he should not have one acquaintance from a city this large, with its towering gray stone songhouses with their exotic arches, the white pigeons wheeling through the blue sunlit sky above the chestnut trees. Yet Gaborn knew no one here, not even a minor merchant. He was that far from home.

He stood near the edge of a market, not far from the docks on the broad banks of the south fork of River Dwindell—a stone's throw from Smiths' Row, where the open-air hearths gave rise to the rhythmic ring of hammers, the creaking of bellows, and plumes of smoke.

He felt troubled that he'd been so lulled by the peacefulness of Bannisferre. He'd not even bothered to glance at this woman when she had stood next to him for a moment. Twice in his life, he'd been the target of assassins. They'd taken his mother, his grandmother, his brother and two sisters. Yet Gaborn stood here now as carefree as a peasant with a stomach full of ale.

No, Gaborn decided quickly, I've never seen her; she knows I'm a stranger, yet holds my hand. Most bewildering.

In the House of Understanding, in the Room of Faces, Gaborn had studied the subtleties of bodily communication—the way secrets revealed themselves in an enemy's eyes, how to differentiate traces of worry from consternation or fatigue in the lines around a lover's mouth.

Gaborn's hearthmaster, Jorlis, had been a wise teacher, and over the past few long winters Gaborn had distinguished himself in his studies.

He'd learned that princes, highwaymen, merchants, and beggars all wore their expressions and stances as if part of some agreed-upon costume, and so Gaborn had mastered the art of putting on any costume at will. He could take command of a roomful of young men simply by standing with head high, cause a merchant to lower his prices with a balking smile. Concealed by nothing more than a fine traveling cloak, Gaborn learned to lower his eyes in a busy marketplace and play the pauper, slinking through the crowd so that those who saw him did not recognize a prince, but wondered, Ah, where did that beggar boy steal such a nice cloak?

So Gaborn could read the human body, and yet he remained a perpetual mystery to others. With two endowments of wit, he could memorize a large tome in an hour. He'd learned more in his eight years in the House of Understanding than most commoners could learn in a life of concerted study.

As a Runelord, he had three endowments of brawn and two of stamina, and in battle practice he could easily cross weapons with men twice his size. If ever a highwayman dared attack him, Gaborn would prove just how deadly a Runelord could be.

Yet in the eyes of the world, because of his few endowments of glamour, he seemed to be little more than a startlingly handsome young man. And in a city like Bannisferre, with its singers and actors from across the realm, even beauty such as his was common.

He studied the woman who held him, considered her stance. Chin high, confident, yet slightly tilted. A question. She poses a question of me.

The touch of her hand—weak enough to indicate hesitancy, strong enough to suggest...ownership. She was claiming him?

Is this an attempt at seduction? he wondered. But no—the body stance felt wrong. If she had wanted to seduce, she'd have touched the small of his back, a shoulder, even his buttock or chest. Yet as she held him she stood slightly away, hesitating to claim his body space.

Then he understood: a marriage proposal. Very uncustomary, even in Heredon. For a woman of her quality, the family should have easily arranged a marriage.

Gaborn surmised, Ah, she is orphaned. She hopes to arrange her own match!

Yet even that answer did not satisfy him. Why did not a wealthy lord arrange a match for her?

Gaborn considered how she must see him now. A merchant's son. He'd been playing the merchant; and though he was eighteen, his growth had not come in fully. Gaborn had dark hair and blue eyes, traits common in North Crowthen. So he'd dressed like a fop from that kingdom, one with more wealth than taste, out wandering the town while his father conducted more important business. He wore green hose and pants that gathered above the knee, along with a fine white cotton shirt with ballooning sleeves and silver buttons. Over the shirt, he wore a jerkin of dark green cotton trimmed in finely tooled leather, decorated with freshwater pearls. Completing the disguise was a broad-brimmed hat, on which an amber clasp held a single ostrich plume.

Gaborn had dressed this way because he did not want to travel openly on his mission to spy out Heredon's defenses, to gauge the true extent of the wealth of its lands, the hardiness of its people.

Gaborn glanced back toward his bodyguard Borenson. The streets here were crowded, made narrow by the vendors' stalls. A beefy, bronze-skinned young man with no shirt and red pants was herding a dozen goats through the throng, whipping them with a willow switch. Across the road, beneath a stone arch beside the door to the inn, Borenson stood grinning broadly at Gaborn's predicament. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a balding head of red hair, a thick beard, and laughing blue eyes.

Beside Borenson stood a skeletal fellow with blond hair cropped short. To match his chestnut eyes he wore a historian's austere brownish robes and a disapproving scowl. The man, simply called by his vocation, Days, was a chronicler of sorts—a devotee of the Time Lords—who had been following Gaborn now since Gaborn was an infant, recording his every word and deed. He took his name from the order of “the Days.” Like every man of his sect, Days had given up his own name, his own identity, when he'd twinned his mind with that of another of his order. Days watched Gaborn now, keenly. Alert, eyes flickering about. Memorizing everything. The woman who held Gaborn's hand followed his glance, noting the bodyguard and Days. A young merchant lord with a guard was common. One shadowed by a Days was rare. It marked Gaborn as someone of wealth and import, perhaps the son of a guildmaster, yet this woman could not possibly have known Gaborn's true identity.

She pulled his hand, invited him to stroll. He hesitated. “Do you see anything in market that interests you?” she asked, smiling. Her sweet voice was as inviting as the cardamom-flavored pastries sold here in the market, yet slightly mocking. Clearly, she wanted to know if she interested him. Yet those around her would mistakenly believe she spoke of the wine chillers.

“The silver shows some decent handiwork,” Gaborn said. Using the powers of his Voice, he put a slight emphasis on hand. Without ever recognizing why, she would believe that in Understanding's House, he had studied in the Room of Hands, as rich merchants did. Let her believe me to be a merchant.

The vendor of the stall, who had patiently ignored Gaborn until now, lurched from under the shade of his rectangular umbrella, calling, “The sir would like a fine chiller for the madam?”

Until a moment ago Gaborn had seemed only a merchant boy, one who might have reported to his father any interesting wares. Now perhaps the merchant thought him a newlywed, with a wife far more handsome than himself. Merchant lords often married their children off young, seeking monetary alliances.

So the vendor thinks I must buy the silver to humor my wife. Of course such a lovely woman would rule her household. Since the merchant did not know her, Gaborn imagined that she would also have to be a stranger to Bannisferre. A traveler from the north?

The young woman smiled kindly at the vendor. “I think not today,” she teased. “You have some fine chillers, but we have better at home.” She turned her back, playing her role as wife exquisitely. This is how it would be if we married, her actions seemed to say. I'd make no costly demands.

The vendor's face fell in dismay. It was unlikely that more than one or two merchants in all the Kingdoms of Rofehavan had such a fine wine cooler.

She pulled Gaborn along. Suddenly, Gaborn felt uneasy. In the far south, ladies of Indhopal sometimes wore rings or brooches with poisoned needles in them. They would try to lure wealthy travelers to an inn, then murder and rob them. It could be that this beauty had nefarious designs.

Yet he doubted it. A quick glance showed that Borenson was certainly more amused than concerned. He laughed and blushed, as if to ask, And where do you think you're going?

Borenson, too, was a student of body language—particularly that of women. He never took risks with his lord's safety.

The woman squeezed Gaborn's hand, readjusting her grip, holding him more firmly. Was she seeking a greater claim to his attentions?

“Pardon me if I seem over familiar, good sir,” she said. “Have you ever noticed someone from a distance, and felt a tug in your heart?”

Her touch thrilled him, and Gaborn wanted to believe that, indeed, she'd seen him from afar and fallen in love.

“No, not like this,” he said. Yet he felt it a lie. He'd once fallen in love from afar.

The sun shone on them; the skies were brilliant. The air blowing off the river smelled warm and sweet, carrying the scent of hay fields from across the shore. On such a fine day, how could anyone feel anything but invigorated, alive?

The cobbles on the street here were smooth with age. Half a dozen flower girls strolled barefoot through the crowd, calling for patrons in clear voices. They blew past, a breeze rippling a wheat field. They all wore faded dresses and white aprons. They held the centers of their aprons up with one hand, making their aprons into a kind of sack, sacks filled with riotous colors—brilliant burgundy cornflowers and white daisies, long-stemmed roses in deepest reds and peach. Poppies and bundles of sweet-scented lavender.

Gaborn watched the girls drift by, feeling that their beauty was as stunning as that of larks in flight, knowing he would never forget their smiles. Six girls, all with blond or light-brown hair.

His father was camped with his retinue not more than a few hours' ride off. Seldom did his father let Gaborn wander without heavy guard, but this time his father had implored him to take a little side excursion, saying, “You must study Heredon. A land is more than its castles and soldiers. In Bannisferre you will fall in love with this land, and its people, as I have.”

The young woman squeezed his hand tighter.

Pain showed in her brow as she watched the flower girls. Gaborn suddenly realized what she was, how desperately this young woman needed him. Gaborn nearly laughed, for he saw how easily she could have bewitched him.

He squeezed her hand, warmly, as a friend. He felt certain that he could have nothing to do with her, yet he wished her well.

“My name is Myrrima...” she said, leaving a silence for him in which to offer his own name.

“A beautiful name, for a beautiful girl.”

“And you are?”

“Thrilled by intrigue,” he said. “Aren't you?”

“Not always.” She smiled, a demand for his name.

Twenty paces behind, Borenson tapped the scabbard of his saber against a passing goat cart, a sign that he'd left his post at the hostel's doorway and was now following. The Days would be at his side.

Myrrima glanced back. “He's a fine-looking guardsman.”

“A fine man,” Gaborn agreed.

“You are traveling on business? You like Bannisferre?”

“Yes, and yes.”

She abruptly pulled her hand away. “You don't make commitments easily,” she said, turning to face him, her smile faltering just a bit. Perhaps she sensed now that the chase was up, that he would not marry her.

“No. Never. Perhaps it is a weakness in my character,” Gaborn said.

“Why not?” Myrrima asked, still playful. She stopped by a fountain where a statue of Edmon Tillerman stood holding a pot with three spigots that poured water down over the faces of three bears.

“Because lives are at stake,” Gaborn answered. He sat at the edge of the fountain, glanced into the pool. Startled by his presence, huge polliwogs wriggled down into the green water. “When I commit to someone, I accept responsibility for them. I offer my life, or at least a portion of it. When I accept someone's commitment, I expect nothing less than total commitment—their lives—in return. This reciprocal relationship is...it must define me.”

Myrrima frowned, made uneasy by his serious tone. “You are not a merchant. You...talk like a lord!”

He could see her considering. She would know he was not of Sylvarresta's line, not a lord from Heredon. So he would have to be a foreign dignitary, merely traveling in Heredon, an out-of-the-way country, one of the farthest north in all the Kingdoms of Rofehavan.

“I should have known—you are so handsome,” she said. “So you're a Runelord, come to study our land. Tell me, do you like it enough to seek betrothal to Princess Iome Sylvarresta?”

Gaborn admired the way that she drew the proper conclusion. “I'm surprised at how green your land is, and how strong your people are,” Gaborn said. “It is richer than I'd imagined.”

“Will Princess Sylvarresta accept you?” Still, she was searching for answers. She wondered which poor castle he hailed from. She sat beside him on the edge of the fountain.

Gaborn shrugged, feigning less concern than he felt. “I know her only by reputation,” he admitted. “Perhaps you know her better than I. How do you think she will look on me?”

“You are handsome enough,” Myrrima said, frankly studying his broad shoulders, the long dark-brown hair that fell from under his plumed cap. By now she must have realized he was not dark enough of hair to be from Muyyatin, or any of the Indhopalese nations.

Then she gasped, eyes going wide.

She stood up quickly and stepped back, unsure whether to remain standing, curtsy, or fall down and prostrate herself at his feet. “Forgive me, Prince Orden—I, uh—did not see your resemblance to your father!”

Myrrima lurched back three paces, as if wishing she could run blindly away, for she now knew that he was not the son of some poor baron who called a pile of rocks his fortress, but that he came from Mystarria itself.

“You know my father?” Gaborn asked, rising and stepping forward. He took her hand once again, trying to reassure her that no offense had been taken.

“I—once he rode through town, on his way to the hunt,” Myrrima said. “I was but a girl. I can't forget his face.”

“He has always liked Heredon,” Gaborn said.

“Yes...yes, he comes often enough,” Myrrima said, clearly discomfited. “I—pardon me if I troubled you, my lord. I did not mean to be presumptuous. Oh...”

Myrrima turned and began to run.

“Stop,” Gaborn said, letting just a little of the power of his Voice take her.

She stopped as if she'd been struck by a fist, turned to face him. As did several other people nearby.

Unprepared for the command, they obeyed as if it had come from their own minds. When they saw that they were not the object of his attention, some stared at him curiously while a few started away, unnerved by the appearance of a Runelord in their midst.

Suddenly, Borenson hovered at Gaborn's back, with the Days.

“Thank you for stopping, Myrrima,” Gaborn said.

“You may someday be my king,” she answered, as if she'd reasoned out her response.

“Do you think so?” Gaborn said. “Do you think Iome will have me?”

The question startled her. Gaborn continued. “Please, tell me. You are a perceptive woman, and beautiful. You would do well at court. I value your opinion.”

Gaborn held his breath, waiting for her frank assessment. She couldn't know how important her answer was to him. Gaborn needed this alliance. He needed Heredon's strong people, its impregnable fortresses, its wide-open lands, ready to till. True, his own Mystarria was a rich land-ripe, its markets sprawling and crowded—but after years of struggle the Wolf Lord Raj Ahten had finally conquered the Indhopalese Kingdoms, and Gaborn knew that Raj Ahten would not stop there. By spring, he would either invade the barbarian realms of Inkarra or he would turn north to the kingdoms in Rofehavan.

In reality, it didn't matter where the Wolf Lord attacked next. In the wars to come, Gaborn knew he'd never be able to adequately defend his people in Mystarria. He needed this land.

Even though Heredon had not seen a major war in four hundred years, the realm's great battlements remained intact. Even the fortress at lowly Tor Ingel, set among the cliffs, could be defended better than most of Gaborn's estates in Mystarria. Gaborn needed Heredon. He needed Iome's hand in marriage.

More important, though he dared not admit it to anyone, something deep inside told him that he needed Iome herself. An odd compulsion drew him here, against all common sense. As if invisible fiery threads were connected to his heart and mind. Sometimes at night he'd lie awake, feeling the tug, an odd glowing sensation that spread outward from the center of his chest, as if a warm stone lay there. Those threads seemed to pull him toward Iome. He'd fought the urge to seek her hand for a year now, until he could fight no more.

Myrrima studied Gaborn once again with her marvelous frankness. Then laughed easily. “No,” she said. “Iome will not have you.”

There had been no hesitancy in her answer. She had said it simply, as if she'd seen the truth of it. Then she smiled at him seductively. But I want you, her smile said.

“You sound certain.” Gaborn tried to seem casual. “Is it merely my clothes? I did bring more suitable attire.”

“You may be from the most powerful kingdom in Rofehavan, but...how shall I put this? Your politics are suspect.”

It was a kind way to accuse him of being immoral. Gaborn had feared Such an accusation.

“Because my father is a pragmatist?” Gaborn asked.

“Some think him pragmatic, some think him...too acquisitive.” Gaborn grinned. “King Sylvarresta thinks him pragmatic...but his daughter thinks my father is greedy? She said this?”

Myrrima smiled and nodded secretively. “I've heard rumors that she said as much at the midwinter feast.”

Gaborn was often amazed at how much the commoners knew or surmised about the comings and goings and doings of lords. Things that he'd often thought were court secrets would be openly discussed at some inn a hundred leagues distant. Myrrima seemed sure of her sources.

“So she will reject my petition, because of my father.”

“It has been said in Heredon that Prince Orden is 'much like his father.' ”

“Too much like his father?” Gaborn asked. A quote from Princess Sylvarresta? Probably spoken to quell any rumors of a possible match. It was true that Gaborn had his father's look about him. But Gaborn was not his father. Nor was his father, Gaborn believed, as “acquisitive” as Iome accused him of being.

Myrrima had the good taste to say no more. She pulled her hand free of his.

“She will marry me,” Gaborn said. He felt confident he could sway the princess.

Myrrima raised a brow. “How could you imagine so? Because it would be pragmatic to ally herself with the wealthiest kingdom in Rofehavan?” She laughed musically, amused. Under normal circumstances, if a peasant had laughed him to scorn, Gaborn would have bristled. He found himself laughing with her.

Myrrima flashed a fetching smile. “Perhaps, milord, when you leave Heredon, you will not leave empty-handed.”

One last invitation. Princess Sylvarresta will not have you, but I would.

“It would be foolhardy to give up the chase before the hunt has begun, don't you think?” Gaborn said. “In Understanding's House, in the Room of the Heart, Hearthmaster Ibirmarle used to say 'Fools define themselves by what they are. Wise men define themselves by what they shall be.' ”

Myrrima rejoined, “Then I fear, my pragmatic prince, that you shall die old and lonely, deluded into believing you will someday marry Iome Sylvarresta. Good day.”

She turned to leave, but Gaborn could not quite let her go. In the Room of the Heart, he'd also learned that sometimes it is best to act on impulse, that the part of the mind which dreams will often speak to us, commanding us to act in ways that we do not understand. When Gaborn had told her that he thought she would do well in court, he had meant it. He wanted her in his court—not as his wife, not even as a mistress. But intuitively he felt her to be an ally. Had she not called him “milord”? She could as easily have called him “Your Lordship.” No, she felt a bond to him, too.

“Wait, milady,” Gaborn said. Once again Myrrima turned. She had caught his tone. With the word “milady,” he sought to make his claim on her. She knew what he expected: total devotion. Her life. As a Runelord, Gaborn had been raised to demand as much from his own vassals, yet he felt hesitant to ask as much from this foreign woman.

“Yes, milord?”

“At home,” Prince Orden said, “you have two ugly sisters to care for? And a witless brother?”

“You are perceptive, milord,” Myrrima said. “But the witless one is my mother, not a brother.” Lines of pain showed in her face. It was a terrible burden she held. A terrible price for magic. It was hard enough to take an endowment of brawn or wit or glamour from another, to assume the financial responsibilities for that person. But it became more painful still when that person was a beloved friend or relative. Myrrima's family must have lived in horrible poverty, hopeless poverty, in order for them to have felt compelled to try such a thing—to gift one woman with the beauty of three, the cleverness of two, and then seek to marry her to some rich man who could save them all from despair.

“However did you get the money for the forcibles?” Gaborn asked. The magical irons that could drain the attributes of one person and endow them on another were tremendously expensive.

“My mother had a small inheritance—and we labored, the four of us,” Myrrima said. He heard tightness in her voice. Perhaps once, a week or two ago, when she'd newly become beautiful, she'd have sobbed when speaking of this.

“You sold flowers as a child?” Gaborn asked.

Myrrima smiled. “The meadow behind our house provided little else to sustain us.”

Gaborn reached to his money pouch, pulled out a gold coin. One side showed the head of King Sylvarresta; the other showed the Seven Standing Stones of the Dunnwood, which legend said held up the earth. He was unfamiliar with the local currency, but knew the coin was large enough to take care of her small family for a few months. He took her hand, slipping it into her palm.

“I...have done nothing for this,” she said, searching his eyes. Perhaps she feared an indecent proposal. Some lords took mistresses. Gaborn would never do so.

“Certainly you have,” Gaborn said. “You smiled, and thus lightened my heart. Accept this gift, please. You will find your merchant prince someday,” Gaborn said, “and of all the prizes he may ever discover here in the markets of Bannisferre, I suspect that you will be the most treasured.”

She held the coin in awe. People never expected one as young as Gaborn to speak with such grace, yet it came easily after years of training in Voice. She looked into his eyes with new respect, as if really seeing him for the first time. “Thank you, Prince Orden. Perhaps...I tell you now that if Iome does accept you, I will praise her decision.”

She turned and sauntered off through the thickening crowd, circled the fountain. Gaborn watched the graceful lines of her neck, the clouds of her dress, the burning flames of her scarf.

Borenson came up and clapped Gaborn on the shoulder, chuckling. “Ah, milord, there is a tempting sweet.”

“Yes, she's altogether lovely,” Gaborn whispered.

“It was fun to watch. She just stood back, eyeing you like a cutlet on the butcher's block. She waited for five minutes”—Borenson held up his hand, fingers splayed—"waiting for you to notice her! But you—you day-blind ferrin! You were too busy adoring some vendor's handsome chamber pots! How could you not see her? How could you ignore her? Ah!” Borenson shrugged in exaggeration.

“I meant no offense,” Gaborn said, looking up into Borenson's face. Though Borenson was his bodyguard and should thus always be on the watch for assassins, the truth was that the big fellow was a lusty man. He could not walk through a street without making little crooning noises at every shapely woman he passed. And if he didn't go wenching at least once a week, he'd croon even at the woman who had no more shape than a bag of parsnips. His fellow guards sometimes joked that no assassin hiding in between a woman's cleavage would ever escape his notice.

“Oh, I'm not offended,” Borenson said. “Mystified, maybe. Perplexed. How could you not see her? You must have at least smelled her?”

“Yes, she smells very nice. She keeps her gown in a drawer layered in rose petals.”

Borenson rolled his eyes back dramatically and groaned. His face was flushed, and there was a peculiar excitement, an intensity in his eyes. Though he pretended to be jesting, Gaborn could see that Borenson had indeed been smitten by this northern beauty more than he cared to admit. If Borenson could have had his way, he'd have been off chasing the girl. “At least you could have let her cure you of that vexing case of virginity you suffer from, milord!”

“It is a common enough malady for young men,” Gaborn said, feeling offended. Borenson sometimes spoke to Gaborn as if he were a drinking partner.

Borenson reddened even more. “As well it should be, milord!”

“Besides,” Gaborn said, considering the toll a bastard child sometimes took on a kingdom, “the cure is often more costly than the malady.”

“I suspect that that cure is worth any price,” Borenson said longingly, with a nod in the direction Myrrima had gone.

Suddenly, a plan blossomed in Gaborn's mind. A great geometer had once told him that when he discovered the answer to a difficult calculation, he knew that his answer was right because he felt it all the way down to his toes. At this moment, as Gaborn considered taking this young woman home to Mystarria, that same feeling of rightness struck him. Indeed, he felt that same burning compulsion that had drawn him to this land in the first place. He yearned once again to take Myrrima back to Mystarria, and suddenly saw the way.

He glanced at Borenson, to verify his hunch. The guardsman stood at his side, more than a head taller than Gaborn, and his cheeks were red, as if his own thoughts embarrassed him. The soldier's laughing blue eyes seemed to shine with their own light. His legs shook, though Gaborn had never seen him tremble in battle.

Down the lane, Myrrima turned a corner on a narrow market street, breaking into a run. Borenson shook his head ruefully, as if to ask, How could you let her go?

“Borenson,” Gaborn whispered, “hurry after her. Introduce yourself graciously, then bring her back to me, but take a few minutes to talk as you walk. Stroll back. Do not hurry. Tell her I request an audience for only a moment.”

“As you wish, milord,” Borenson said. He began running in the swift way that only those who had taken an endowment of metabolism could; many in the crowd parted before the big warrior, who wound his way gracefully between those who were too slow or clumsy to move for him.

Gaborn did not know how long it might take Borenson to fetch the woman, so he wandered back to the shadows thrown by the inn. His Days followed. Together they stood, annoyed by a cloud of honeybees. The front of the inn here had an “aromatic garden” in the northern style. Blue morning-glory seeds were sewn in the thatch of the roof, and a riot of window boxes and flowerpots held creeping flowers of all kinds: palest honeysuckle dripped golden tears along the walls; mallow, like delicate bits of pearl, fluttered in the gentle breeze above the snow-in-summer; giant mandevilla, pink as the sunrise, was nearly strangled by the jasmine. And interspersed with all of these were rose vines, climbing every wall, splotches of peach. Along the ground were planted spearmint, chamomile, lemon verbena, and other spices.

Most northern inns were decorated with such flowers. It helped mask the obnoxious scents of the market, while herbs grown in these gardens could be used for teas and spices.

Gaborn stepped back into the sunlight, away from the heavy perfume of the flowers. His nose was too keen to let him stay.

Borenson returned in a few moments with his big right hand resting gently on Myrrima's elbow, as if to catch her should she trip on a cobblestone. It was an endearing sight.

When the two stood before him, Myrrima bowed slightly. “Milord wished to speak to me?”

“Yes,” Gaborn said. “Actually, I was more interested in having you meet Borenson, my body.” He left off the word guard, as was the custom in Mystarria. “He has been my body for six years now, and is captain of my personal guard. He is a good man. In my estimation, one of the finest in Mystarria. Certainly the finest soldier.”

Borenson's cheeks reddened, and Myrrima glanced up at the big guard, smiling discreetly, gauging him. She could not have failed to notice by now that Borenson had an endowment of metabolism to his credit. The hastiness of his speeded reactions, the apparent inability to rest, were sure sign of it.

“Recently, Borenson was promoted to the rank of Baron of the Realm, and given title to a land and manor in...the Drewverry March.” Immediately Gaborn recognized his mistake. To give such a large holding was impetuous. Yet now that the words had been spoken...

“Milord, I've never heard—” Borenson began to say, but Gaborn waved him to silence.

“As I say, it was a recent promotion.” The Drewverry estate was a major holding, more land than Gaborn would normally give to a distinguished soldier for a life of service, if he'd had time to consider. But now, Gaborn reasoned, this sudden act of generosity would only make Borenson that much more loyal—as if Borenson's loyalty would ever waver. “In any event, Myrrima, as you can see, Borenson spends a great deal of time in my service. He needs a wife to help him manage his holdings.”

The look of surprise on Borenson's face was a joy to behold. The big man was obviously taken by this northern beauty, and Gaborn had all but ordered them to marry.

Myrrima studied the guard's face without reserve, as if noticing for the first time the strength of his jaw, the imposing bulge of muscle beneath his jerkin. She did not love him, not yet. Perhaps she never would. This was an arranged marriage, and marrying a man who lived his life twice as fast as you, one who would grow old and die while you floundered toward middle age, could not be an overwhelmingly attractive proposition. Thoughtfully, she considered the virtues of the match.

Borenson stood dumbfounded, like a boy caught stealing apples. His face told that he'd considered the match, hoped for it.

“I told you I thought you'd do well in court,” Gaborn said to Myrrima. “I'd like you to be in my court.”

Certainly the woman would take his meaning. No Runelord could marry her. The best she could hope for would be some merchant prince, burdened by adolescent lust.

Gaborn offered her a position of power—more than she could normally hope for—with an honorable and decent man whose life doomed him to a strange and lonely existence. It was no promise of love, but then Myrrima was a pragmatic woman who had taken the beauty of her sisters, the wisdom of her mother. Having taken these endowments, she would now have to assume responsibility for her impoverished kin. She knew the burden of power. She'd be a perfect woman to hold a place in Mystarria.

She looked up into Borenson's eyes for a long moment, face and mouth suddenly hard, as she considered the offer. Gaborn could see that now that the proposal was made, she realized what a momentous decision this was. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded, sealing the bargain. Borenson offered none of the hesitancy that Myrrima had found with Gaborn. He reached out and took her slender hand in both fists.

He said, “You must understand, fair lady, that no matter how sturdy my love for you grows, my first loyalty will always be to my lord.”

“As it should be,” Myrrima said softly, with a slight nod.

Gaborn's heart leapt. I have won her love as surely as Borenson shall, he thought.

At this moment, he felt strange—as if gripped by some great power. It seemed he could feel that power, like a buffeting wind, encircling—invisible, potent, overawing.

Gaborn's pulse raced. He glanced around, certain the source of this emotion must have a cause—a shifting in the earth in preparation for a quake, an approaching thunderstorm. But he saw nothing out of the normal, those around him did not seem troubled.

Yet he could feel...the earth preparing to move beneath his feet—the rocks to twist or breathe or shout.

It was a distinctly odd sensation.

As suddenly as the rush of power had come, it dissipated. Like a gust of wind passing over a meadow, unseen, but subtly disturbing all in its wake.

Gaborn wiped perspiration from his brow, worried. I've come a thousand miles to heed a distant, unheard call. And now I feel this?

It seemed madness. He asked the others, “Do you—do you feel anything?”

3 Of Knights and Pawns

When Chemoise got news that her betrothed was attacked while on guard duty, gutted by some spice merchant, it was as if the dawn sun went black, losing power to warm her. Or it was as if she'd turned to pale clay, her flesh losing all color, no longer able to hold her spirit.

Princess Iome Sylvarresta watched Chemoise, her Maid of Honor, her dearest friend, desperately wishing for a way to console her. If Lady Jollenne had been here, she'd have known what to do. But the matron had been called away for a few weeks to care for her grandmother, who'd had a bad fall.

Iome, her Days, and Chemoise had been up at dawn, sitting near the huge, U-shaped storyteller's stone in the Queen's topiary garden, reading the latest romance poems by Adalle, when Corporal Clewes broke in on their reverie.

He told the news: A scuffle with a drunken merchant. An hour or more past. Cat's Alley. Sergeant Dreys. Fought nobly. Near death. Slit from crotch to heart. Called for Chemoise as he fell.

Chemoise took the news stoically, if statues can be said to be stoic. She sat stiffly on the stone bench, her hazel eyes unfocused, her long, wheat-colored hair stirring in the wind. She'd been weaving a chain of daisies as Iome read. Now she laid them in her lap, on a skirt of coral-colored chiffon. Sixteen and heartbroken. She was to have married in ten days.

Yet she dared not show her emotions. A proper lady should be able to bear such news lightly. She waited for Iome's permission to go to her fiancée. Thank you, Clewes,” Iome said when the corporal continued standing at attention. “Where is Dreys now?”

“We laid him out on the common, outside the King's Tower. I didn't want to move him any farther. The others are laid out down by the river.”

“The others?” Iome asked. She was sitting beside Chemoise; now she took the girl's hand. It had gone cold, so cold.

Clewes was an old soldier to have such a low station. His trim beard was stiff as oat stubble. It poked out from under the broken strap of his iron pikeman's cap.

“Aye, Princess,” he said, remembering to address Iome properly for the first time since he'd intruded into the garden. “Two of the City Guard died in the fight. Poll the Squire and Sir Beauman.”

Iome turned to Chemoise. “Go to him,” she said.

The girl needed no further urging. She leapt up and ran down the path through the topiaries to the little wooden Bailey Gate, opened it and disappeared round the stone wall.

Iome dared not stay long in the corporal's presence alone, with no one other than the Days, who stood quietly a few paces off. It would not be proper. But she had questions to ask him.

Iome stood.

“You're not going to look at the sergeant, are you, Princess?” Clewes asked. He must have caught the anger in her eye. “I mean—it's a messy sight.”

“I've seen injured men before,” she said stoically. She looked out of the garden, over the city. The garden, a small patch of grass with trimmed hedges and a few shaped shrubs, sat within the King's Wall, the second of the three walls within the city. From here, she could see four of the King's Guards on the wall-walk, behind the parapet. Beyond that, to the east, lay the city market, just within the castle's Outer Wall. The streets in the market below were a jumble—roofs of slate, some covered with a layer of sand and lead, forming narrow chasms above the rocky streets. Smoke rose from cooking fires here and there. Fourteen minor lords had estates within the city walls.

Iome studied the area where Cat's Alley could be found, a narrow market street just off the Butterwalk. The merchants' wattle houses there were painted in shades of cardinal, canary, and forest green, as if such bright colors could deny the general decrepitude of buildings that had been settling on their crooked foundations for five hundred years.

The city looked no different today than it had yesterday. She could see Orly rooftops; no sign of murderers.

Yet beyond the castle walls, beyond the farms and haycrofts, in the ruddy hills of the Dunnwood to the south and west, dust rose in small clouds along the roads for miles. People were traveling to the fair from distant kingdoms. Already, dozens of colorful silk pavilions had been set out before the castle gates. In the next few days, the population of the city would soar from ten thousand to four or five times that number.

Iome looked back at the corporal. Clewes seemed like a cold man to have been sent to carry such ill news. Blood had been everywhere after the fight. That much Iome could see. Crimson smeared the corporal's boots, stained the silver boar embroidered into the black of his livery. The corporal himself must have carried Sergeant Dreys up to the common.

“So the fellow killed two men and wounded a third,” Iome said. “A heavy loss, for a mere brawl. Did you dispatch the spice merchant yourself?” If he had, she decided, the corporal would get a reward. Perhaps a jeweled pin.

“No, milady. Uh, we busted him up a bit, but he's still alive. He's from Muyyatin. A fellow named Hariz al Jwabala. We didn't dare kill him. We wanted to question him.” The corporal scratched the side of his nose, displeased at having left the trader alive.

Iome began to stroll toward the Bailey Gate, wanting to be with Chemoise. With a nod, she indicated that the corporal should follow, as did her Days.

“I see...” Iome mused, unsettled. A rich merchant then, from a suspect nation. Come to the city for next week's fair. “And what was a spice trader from Muyyatin doing in Cat's Alley before dawn?”

Corporal Clewes bit his lip, as if unwilling to answer, then said coldly, “Spying, if you ask me.” His voice choked with rage, and now he took his eyes from the stone gargoyle up on the keep's wall, where he'd been staring, and briefly glanced at Iome, to see her reaction.

“I do ask you,” Iome said. Clewes fumbled to unlatch the gate, let Iome and her Days through.

“We've checked the inns,” Corporal Clewes said. “The merchant didn't drink at any of them last night, or else he'd have been escorted from the merchants' quarter at ten bells. So he couldn't have gotten drunk in the city walls, and I doubt he was drunk at all. He's got rum on his breath, but precious little of it. Besides, there was no reason for him to be creeping through the streets at night, unless he's spying out the castle walls, trying to count the guard! So when he gets caught, what does he do? He feigns drunk, and waits for the guards to close—then, out with the knife!” Clewes slammed the gate shut.

Just around the rock wall, Iome could see into the bailey. A dozen of the King's Guard stood there in a knot. A physic knelt over Sergeant Dreys, and Chemoise stood over them, shoulders hunched, arms crossed tightly across her chest. An early-morning mist was rising from the green.

“I see,” Iome whispered, heart pounding. “Then you are interrogating the man?” Now that they were in the public eye, Iome stopped by the wall.

“I wish we could!” Corporal Clewes said. “I'd put a coal to his tongue myself! But right now, all the traders from Muyyatin and Indhopal are in an uproar. They're calling for Jwabala's release. Already they're threatening to post a ban on the fair. And now it's got the Master of the Fair in a fright: Guildmaster Hollicks has gone to the King himself, demanding the merchant's release! Can you believe it? A spy! He wants us to release a murdering spy!”

Iome took the news in, surprised. It was extraordinary that Hollicks would seek audience with the King just after dawn, extraordinary that the Southern merchants would threaten a ban. All of this spoke of large matters spinning wildly out of control.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her Days, a tiny woman with dark hair and a perpetually clenched jaw, was listening. Standing quietly just outside the gate, petting a lanky yellow kitten that she held. Iome could read no reaction on the Days' face. Perhaps the Days already knew who this spy was, knew who sent him. Yet the Days always claimed to remain completely neutral of political affairs. They would answer no questions.

Iome considered. Corporal Clewes was probably right. The merchant was a spy. Her father had his own spies in the Indhopalese Kingdoms.

But if the killer was a spy, it might be impossible to prove. Still, he'd killed two of the City Guard, and wounded Dreys, a sergeant of the King's Guard—and for that, by all rights, the merchant should die.

But in Muyyatin a man who committed a crime in a drunken stupor, even the crime of murder, could not be executed.

Which meant that if her father gave the death sentence, the Muyyatin—and all their Indhopalese kinsmen would bridle at the injustice of the execution.

So they threatened a ban.

Iome considered the implications of such a ban. The Southern traders primarily sold spices—pepper, mace, and salt for curing meats; curry, saffron, cinnamon, and others for use in foods; medicinal herbs. But the traders brought much more: alum for use in dyeing and tanning hides, along with indigo and various other dyes needed for Heredon's wool. And they carried other precious goods—ivory, silks, sugar, platinum, blood metal.

If these traders called a ban on the fair, they'd deal a fearsome blow to at least a dozen industries. Even worse, without the spices to preserve food, Heredon's poor would not fare well through the winter.

This year's Master of the Fair, Guildmaster Hollicks—who, as Master the Dyers' Guild, stood to lose a fortune if a ban succeeded—was suing for a reconciliation. Iome didn't like Hollicks. Too often he'd asked the King to raise the import taxes on foreign cloth, hoping thus to holster his own sales. But even Hollicks needed the merchandise the Indhopalese brought to trade.

Just as desperately, the merchants here in Heredon needed to sell their own wool and linen and fine steel to the foreigners. Most of the bourgeois traders had large amounts of money that they both borrowed and loaned. If a ban were enforced, hundreds of wealthy families would go bankrupt. And it was the wealthy families of Heredon who paid taxes to support King Sylvarresta's knights.

Indeed, Sylvarresta had his hand in dozens of trading deals himself. Even he could not afford a ban.

Iome's blood felt as if it would boil. She tried to resign herself to the inevitable. Her father would be forced to release the spy, make a reconciliation. But she would not like it.

For in the long run, Iome knew full well, her family could not afford such reconciliation's: it was only a matter of time before Raj Ahten, the Wolf Lord of Indhopal, made war against the combined kingdoms of Rofehavan. Though traders from Indhopal crossed the deserts and mountains now, next year—or the year after—the trading would have to stop.

Why not stop the trading now? Iome wondered. Her father could seize the merchandise brought by the foreign caravans—starting the war he'd long hoped to avert.

But she knew he would not do it. King Jas Laren Sylvarresta would not start a war. He was too decent a man.

Poor Chemoise! Her betrothed lay near death, and would not be avenged.

The girl had no one. Chemoise's mother had died young; her father, a Knight Equitable, had been taken captive six years ago while on a quest to Aven.

“Thank you for the news,” Iome told Corporal Clewes. “I will discuss this matter with my father.”

Iome hurried up now to the knot of soldiers. Sergeant Dreys lay on a pallet in the green grass. An ivory-colored sheet lay over Dreys, pulled up almost to his throat. Blood looked as if it had been poured liberally over the sheet, and it frothed from the corner of Dreys' mouth. His pale face was covered in sweat. The slant of the morning sunlight left him in shadows.

Corporal Clewes had been right. Iome should not have seen this. All the blood, the smell of punctured guts, the impending death—all nauseated her.

A few children from the castle were up early and had gathered to witness the sight. They looked up at Iome, shock and pain in their eyes, as if hoping that she could somehow smile and set this whole tragic thing aright.

Iome rushed to one small girl of nine, Jenessee, and put an arm around the girl, then whispered, “Please, take the children away from here.”

Shaking, Jenessee hugged Iome briefly, then did as told.

A physic knelt over Dreys. Yet the physic seemed in no hurry. He merely studied the soldier. When he saw Iome, saw her questioning look, the physic just shook his head. He could do nothing

“Where is the herbalist, Binnesman?” Iome asked, for the wizard was this physic's superior in every way.

“He's gone-to the meadows, gathering costmary. He won't be back until tonight.”

Iome shook her head in dismay. It was a terrible time for her master physic to be out hunting for herbs to drive spiders from the castle. Yet she should have known. The nights were growing colder, and she herself had complained to Binnesman yesterday about spiders seeking warmth in her rooms.

“I fear there is nothing I can do,” the physic said. “I dare not move him more, for he bleeds too badly. I cannot sew the wounds, but dare not leave them open.”

“I could give him an endowment,” Chemoise whispered. “I could give him my stamina.” It was an offer made in pure love. As such, Iome would have wanted to honor it.

“And if you did, would he thank you for it?” the physic asked. “Should you die next time the fever season comes around, he'd rue the bargain.”

It was true. Chemoise was a sweet girl, but she showed no sign of having more stamina than anyone else. She got fevers in winter, bruised easily. If she gave her stamina to Sergeant Dreys, she'd be weak thereafter, more susceptible to plagues and ills. She'd never be able to bear him a child, carry it full-term.

“It's only his endowments of stamina that have kept him alive this long,” Chemoise mused. “A little more—and he might live.”

The physic shook his head. “Taking an endowment, even an endowment of stamina, gives some shock to the system. I wouldn't dare try. We can only wait and see if he strengthens...”

Chemoise nodded. She knelt, cleaned the blood bubbling from the corner of Drey's lips with the corner of her gray skirt. Dreys breathed hard, filling his lungs with air as if each breath would be his last.

Iome marveled. “Has he been gasping like this long?”

The physic shook his head, almost imperceptibly, so that Chemoise would not see him answer. Dreys was dying.

They watched over him thus for a long hour, with Dreys gasping more fiercely for each failing breath, until, finally, he opened his eyes. He looked up as if waking from a troubled sleep.

“Where?” he gasped, gazing into Chemoise's face.

“Where is the book?” one of the Castle Guard asked. “We got it—gave it to the King.”

Iome wondered what the guard was speaking about. Then blood gurgled from Dreys' mouth, and he arched his back, reaching toward Chemoise, grasping her hand.

His breathing stopped altogether.

Chemoise grabbed the sergeant's head roughly, bent low and whispered fiercely, “I wanted to come. I wanted to see you this morning...”

Then Chemoise burst into tears. The guards and physic all moved away, leaving her a few moments to speak some final words of love, in case his spirit had not yet fled the dying body. When she finished, she stood.

Only Corporal Clewes still waited at her back. He drew his battle-axe, saluted smartly, touching the cross formed by the blades to the bill of his iron cap. He did not salute to Iome, but to Chemoise.

He sheathed his axe and said softly, repeating his earlier tale, “He called for you as he fell, Chemoise.”

Chemoise startled at a thought, looked up at Corporal Clewes and said, “A small miracle—that. Most men, when so struck, only manage to gasp once before they piddle on themselves.”

She wielded the truth like an open palm, striking back at the man who had brought her the bad news. Then she added more mildly, “But thank you, Corporal Clewes, for a kind fantasy to ease a lady's pain.”

The corporal blinked twice, turned away, heading toward the Guards' Keep.

Iome put her hand on Chemoise's back. “We'll get some rags, clean him for burial.”

Chemoise stared up at her, eyes going wide, as if she'd just remembered something important. “No!” she said. “Let someone else clean him. It doesn't matter. He's—his spirit isn't in there. Come on, I know where it is!”

Chemoise raced down the street toward the King's Gate.

She led Iome and her Days downhill through the markets, then past the Outer Gate to the moat. The fields beyond the moat were already filling with traders come for the fair, Southerners in their bright silk tents of cardinal, emerald, and saffron. The Pavilions sat arrayed on the south hill, up against the edge of the forest, where thousands of mules and horses from the caravans were tethered.

Past the moat, Chemoise turned left and followed an overgrown trail beside the water to a copse on the east side of the castle. A channel had been dug from the River Wye to fill the moat; this copse sat between the channel and river.

From this little rise, one could see upstream the four remaining arches of the old stone bridge, spanning a river that glinted like beaten silver. Beyond the old bridge stood the new bridge—one whose stonework was in far better shape, but which lacked the beautiful statuary that adorned the older bridge, images of Heredon's Runelords of old, fighting great battles.

Iome had often wondered why her father did not destroy the old bridge, have the statues placed on the new bridge. But looking at it now, she understood. The old statues were rotting, the stone pitted by years of exposure to ice and sun, eaten by the lichens that stained the statues in vermilion and canary and dull green. There was something picturesque, something venerable about those ancient stones.

The place where Chemoise led Iome to look for Sergeant Dreys' spirit was very quiet. The waters in the channel flowed as slowly as honey, as was the custom in late summer.

The high castle walls loomed some eighty feet above the copse, casting blue shadows, bruising the waters of the moat. There was no burbling or tinkle. Pink water lilies bloomed placidly in the shadows. No wind stirred the air.

The grass here grew lush. A hoary oak had once spread its branches over the river, but lightning had blasted it, and the sun had bleached it white as bone. Beneath the oak, an ancient autumn rose made its bower, its trunk as thick as a blacksmith's wrist, its old thorns as sharp as nails.

The rose climbed the oak some thirty feet, creating a natural bower. Roses of purest white hung above Chemoise, like enormous stars in a dark-green sky.

Chemoise took a place on the grass beneath the rose bower. The lush grass here was bent. Iome imagined that it had been used as a bed for lovers.

Iome glanced over her shoulder at her Days. The thin woman stood atop the copse, some forty feet back, arms folded, head bowed. Listening.

Then Chemoise did an odd thing in the privacy afforded by the rosebush: she lay on the grass and hiked her skirts up a little higher on her hips, and just lay, with legs spread. It was a shocking pose, and Iome felt embarrassed to see such a thing. Chemoise looked for all the world as if she waited for a lover to take her.

On the banks of the river, frogs chirped. A dragonfly as blue as if it had been dipped in indigo flew near Chemoise's knee, hovered, flew away.

The air was so still, so silent. It was so beautiful, Iome imagined that Sergeant Dreys' spirit really might come.

All through the walk here, Chemoise had remained calm, but suddenly tears spilled over her long lashes, ran in rivulets down her face.

Iome lay beside the girl, put an arm over her chest, held her, the way that he must have.

“You've been here before, with him?” Iome asked.

Chemoise nodded. “Many times. We were supposed to meet here this morning.” At first, Iome wondered how—how did they get outside the city gates at night? But of course Dreys was a sergeant, in the King's Guard.

The notion was scandalous. As Iome's Maid of Honor, it was Chemoise's duty to see that her mistress remained pure and undefiled. When Iome became betrothed Chemoise would have to swear to Iome's virtue.

Chemoise's lip began trembling. She whispered low so that the Days could not hear: “He filled me with child, I think, six weeks ago.” At the confession, Chemoise reached up and bit her own knuckle, punishing herself. By carrying this child, Chemoise brought dishonor to Iome.

Who would believe any oath that Chemoise swore, if one could see that she herself had been defiled?

Iome's Days might know that Iome was virtuous, but the Days was sworn to silence by her own vows. She would never reveal any detail so long as Iome lived. Only when Iome died would the Days publish the chronicles of her life.

Iome shook her head in dismay. Ten days. In ten days Chemoise was to have been married, and then no one would have been able to prove that she'd been unchaste. But with her betrothed dead, the whole city would soon find out.

“We can send you away,” Iome said. “We can send you to my uncle's estate in Welkshire. We'll tell everyone that you're a newlywed, newly widowed. No one will know.”

'No!” Chemoise blurted. “It's not my reputation I worry about. It's yours! Who will swear for you, when you become betrothed? I won't be able to!”

Plenty of women at court can serve in that capacity,” Iome lied. If she sent Chemoise away, it could still tarnish Iome's reputation. Some people might think that Iome had disposed of her Maid of Honor in order to hide her own indiscretion.

But Iome couldn't worry about such things now, couldn't consider her own reputation when her friend hurt so.

“Maybe, maybe you could marry soon?” Chemoise said. At nearly seventeen, Iome was certainly old enough. “The Prince of Internook wants you. And then—I've heard—King Orden is bringing his son for Hostenfest...”

Iome drew a sharp breath. King Sylvarresta had spoken to Iome several times during the past winter, hinting that the time would soon come for her to marry. Now her father's oldest friend was finally bringing his son to Heredon. Iome knew full well what that meant—and she felt shocked that she'd not been forewarned. “When did you hear this?”

“Two days ago,” Chemoise said. “King Orden sent word. Your father didn't want you to know. He...didn't want you to be in an excitable humor.”

Iome bit her lip. She had no desire to become allied with King Orden's spawn—would never have considered it for a moment.

But if Iome accepted Prince Orden's proposal, then Chemoise could still fulfill her obligation as Maid of Honor. So long as no one knew that Chemoise carried a child, then her sworn statement of Iome's fidelity would not be challenged.

Iome bristled at the thought. It seemed unfair. She wouldn't consent to a hasty marriage just to save her reputation.

As the anger flared in her, Iome stood. “Come on,” she said. “We're going to see my father.”

“Why?” Chemoise asked.

“We'll make this Indhopalese assassin pay for his murder!” Iome hadn't realized what she intended to do. But she was angry now, angry with her father for not telling her about the impending proposal, angry with Chemoise for her embarrassing lack of scruples, angry that Raj Ahten's assassins could murder Heredon's guards—and that the city's merchants would then beg their king for clemency.

Well, Iome could do something about this mess.

Chemoise looked up. “Please, I need to stay here.”

Then Iome understood. An old wives' tale said that if a man died while his lover carried his child, the woman could capture her lover's spirit in the unformed child, so that he would be born again. Chemoise only needed to be present at sunset in the place where she'd first conceived, so that the father's ghost might find her.

Iome couldn't believe Chemoise would put credence in that old fable, yet she dared not deny the girl such a boon. Letting her sleep under the rose bower could do no harm, would only cause Chemoise to love her babe more fiercely.

“I'll see that you come back before sunset,” Iome said. “And you can stay an hour after. If Dreys can come to you, he'll do so then. But for now, I must speak to the King.”

Before speaking to the King, Iome took her Maid of Honor to look upon Dreys' murderer, while the silent but omnipresent Days followed at Iome's heel.

They found the spice merchant chained in the dungeon beneath the Soldiers' Keep, the sole occupant of that dreadful place. Iron shackles and cages hung from the stone walls, and the whole dungeon carried the scent of ancient death. Huge beetles scurried about. In one far corner of the dungeon was a great hole, the oubliette, where prisoners could be kept. The sides of the hole were stained from urine and feces, for those condemned to that awful hole lived in the muck that guards threw down from above.

Dreys' murderer was chained hand and foot to a post. He was a young man, perhaps twenty-two.

His eyes were dark, as dark as Iome's, but his skin was more brown. He smelled strongly of anise, curry, garlic and olive oil, as did the rest his countrymen. The murderer had been stripped to nothing but a breechcloth. Both his legs were broken. A ring had been ripped from his nose. His jaw was swollen. Fresh welts covered his face and ribs. Someone had bitten a chunk out of his shoulder. He'd live.

On his thin ribs, one could see runes of power branded into the flesh, white scars each about an inch to the side. Five runes of brawn, three of grace, one of stamina, one of wit, one of metabolism, one of hearing, two of sight.

No merchant in Heredon wore so many runes of power. This man was a soldier, an assassin. Iome felt certain.

But mere feelings were not proof. In the South, where blood metal was mined, merchants could purchase the precious metals used to make forcibles more easily, then purchase endowments from the poor.

Though Iome doubted that this man was a merchant, his overabundance of endowments alone could not convict him.

Chemoise stared deep into the prisoner's eyes, then slapped his face, just once.

Afterward, the two young women went to the King's Keep. King Sylvarresta was in the informal audience chamber on the first story. He sat on a bench in the corner, talking softly with Iome's mother, a rather somber Chancellor Rodderman, and a terrified Guildmaster Hollicks.

Fresh rushes had been strewn over the floorboards, mixed with balm and pennyroyal. Three hounds sat before the empty hearth. A cleaning girl was polishing the unused tongs and pokers, Iome's Days immediately crossed the room, went to stand out of the way with the King's Days, and the Queen's.

As Iome entered the hall, her father glanced up expectantly. Sylvarresta was not a vain man. He wore no crown, and his only ring was a signet, which he kept chained to his neck. He preferred to be called “Lord” rather than King. But one could see he was a king when one looked into his gray eyes.

Guildmaster Hollicks, though, was another matter. He wore gaudy clothes—a shirt with false sleeves, parti-colored pants, a vest and half cape with cowl, in a rainbow of complementary colors. He was Master of the Dyers' Guild; his clothes advertised his wares. Beyond this penchant for gaudy attire, Hollicks was not a bad man. He showed uncommonly good sense, and would have been likable, if not for the way his unsightly black nose hairs formed half his mustache.

“Ah,” King Sylvarresta said on seeing Iome, “I'd thought you might be someone else. Have you seen any of the foresters this morning? Were they in the bailey?”

“No, milord,” Iome answered.

The King nodded thoughtfully at this news, then said softly to Chemoise, “My condolences. It is a sad day for us all. Your betrothed was admired—a promising soldier.”

Chemoise nodded, her face suddenly pale again. She curtsied. “Thank you, milord.”

“You won't let this assassin get away with murder, will you?” Iome asked. “You should have killed him by now!”

“You see,” Hollicks blurted in his high voice, “you're all leaping to conclusions. You have no proof that this was anything other than an unfortunate, drunken brawl!”

King Sylvarresta strode to the door to the hall, looked into the courtyard a moment, then closed the door, shutting them all in.

The room suddenly became dark, shadowed, for only two small windows with wooden shutters stood open.

King Sylvarresta strode across the room, head bent in thought. “Despite Your pleas for leniency, Master Hollicks, I know this man is a spy.”

Hollicks feigned an expression of incredulity. “You have proof?” he asked, as if he held serious doubts.

“While you were off entertaining your whining cronies,” King Sylvarresta said, “I had Captain Derrow track the man's scent. One of my far-seers spotted this same man yesterday just after dawn. He'd been on a roof in town, and we feared he'd been counting guards to the Dedicates' Keep. We tried to catch him then, but lost him in the market.

“Now he shows up again today. It is no coincidence. Derrow said the man had not been within a hostel all night. Instead, he followed Dreys from outside the gates by climbing the Outer Wall. He killed Dreys because he was searching for this...” Sylvarresta pulled out a slim tome bound in tan-colored lambskin. “It's a book, a very strange book.”

Hollicks frowned at that news. It was bad enough to have the trader accused of spying. He didn't wish to see any damning evidence mount against the man.

“So,” Hollicks said, “is that your proof? A drunken man is wont to do strange things, you know. Why, my stablemaster, Wallis, climbs our apple trees every time the liquor has him. The fact that Dreys had a book means nothing.”

Lord Sylvarresta shook his head woefully. “No, the book has a note in it, addressed to me, from the Emir of Tuulistan. He is blind, you know. His castle was taken by Raj Ahten, and the Wolf Lord forced the Emir to give an endowment of sight. Yet the Emir wrote the story of his life, and sent it to me.”

“He wrote his own chronicles?” Iome asked, wondering why anyone, much less a blind man, would bother when the Days watched their every move, and wrote the chronicles after their deaths.

“Is there news of battles in it?” Hollicks asked. “Does it describe anything of import?”

“Many battles,” the King said. “The Emir tells how Raj Ahten broke his defenses and took neighboring castles. I've only had time to glance at the book, but it may prove important. Important enough that Raj Ahten's spy felt he needed to kill Dreys to retrieve the book.”

“But—the Southerner's papers are in order!” Hollicks objected. “He has a dozen letters of commends from various merchants in his pouch. He has loans to repay! He is a merchant, I tell you! You still have no proof against him!”

And he has more endowments than any merchant you've ever seen,”

Sylvarresta said, “and they are a warrior's mix in proportion.” Hollicks seemed deflated by this.

Iome s father mused, “You know, twenty years ago, when I went south to court Lady Sylvarresta in Jomateel, I once played chess with Raj Ahten himself.” Sylvarresta glanced at his wife, put a comforting hand on Hollicks' shoulder.

Iome's mother stirred uncomfortably. She did not like being reminded that she was the Wolf Lord's cousin.

“Do you know how he opened?” King Sylvarresta asked.

“King's pawn to king four?” Hollicks guessed, choosing the most common opening.

“No. King's knight to king's wizard three. An unusual opening.”

“Is this significant?” Hollicks asked.

“It is how he played the game. He left his pawns at home, and attacked with his knights, wizards, castles, queen—even brought out his king. Rather than seeking to control the center of the board, he attacked with pieces he felt could seize control even at the far corners.”

King Sylvarresta waited for the merchant to grasp the import of what he was saying, but Hollicks seemed oblivious. The King put it more simply: “That spice merchant in the dungeon—he is one of Raj Ahten's knights. The calluses inside his thumb come from years of sword practice.”

Hollicks considered this. “Surely you don't believe Raj Ahten will come here?”

“Oh, he's coming,” Sylvarresta said. “That's why we've sent a thousand knights, plus squires and archers, to fortify Castle Dreis.” Iome's father failed to mention that seventeen kings of Rofehavan planned to meet in two months, to discuss strategies should Raj Ahten invade. Apparently her father felt it was not the merchant's business.

Iome's mother, Queen Venetta Sylvarresta, could have told some tales to frighten Master Hollicks.

Iome's mother once told Iome how her cousin “Young Ahten,” at the age of eight, had visited her father's keep. Venetta's father had thrown the boy a feast, inviting all the captains of the King's Guard, various counselors, and important merchants to the extravaganza. When the tables were laid out, piled with roast peacocks and puddings and wine, Venetta's father invited young Raj Ahten to speak. The boy then stood, turned and addressed Venetta's father, asking, “Is this feast not in my honor, a gift to me?”

Venetta's father had answered, “Indeed, it is all in your honor.”

The boy then indicated the hundred guests with a sweep of his hand, and said, “If this is my feast, then send these people away. I will not have them eating my dinner.”

Appalled, the guests departed in outrage, leaving the boy with more food than he could consume in a year.

Iome's mother used to say that if her father had been wiser, he'd have slit the rapacious child's throat then.

For years, Venetta had tried to convince King Sylvarresta of the necessity of striking the first blow, of crushing Raj Ahten when he was young. Somehow, Iome's father never believed the boy would conquer all twenty-two kingdoms in Indhopal.

Iome urged her father now, “So you will put this spy to death? You must insist on justice.”

Lord Sylvarresta answered, “I will have justice. Raj Ahten will pay dearly. But I won't kill the knight.”

At this news, Hollicks sighed in relief.

Iome must have appeared crestfallen, for her father quickly added. “Your idealistic solution to this matter is laudable, but hardly practical. We can't execute the spy.”

“So, I'll hold him ransom.”

“Ransom?” Hollicks asked. “Raj Ahten will never admit that this spy is his man!”

Iome smiled to hear Hollicks finally admit that the man was a spy.

“Of course not,” King Sylvarresta said. “But the Indhopal merchants claim him as their own. They'll pay the ransom to save the fair. It's a common practice in Indhopal. They say a farmer can hardly go to market without coming home to find the neighbors holding his pigs hostage.”

“And how can you be sure they'll pay?” Iome asked.

“Because the merchants want to save the fair. And because, I believe, Raj Ahten has soldiers hiding in the Dunnwood, waiting for the information this man will give. At least some of these merchants must know this—which is why they are so hasty to demand the fellow's release. So they will be eager to ransom the spy lest we manage to torture a confession from him.”

“And why do you suspect that warriors are hiding in the Dunnwood?” Hollicks asked.

“Because days ago I sent five foresters into the woods to find out where the largest boars are laying up before next week's hunt. They were to report to me yesterday morning. None have returned. Five men. Had it been one, I'd suspect an accident. But these were trustworthy men. Nothing would keep them from obeying my command. They've either been captured, or killed. I've sent scouts to confirm my fears, but I think we already know what they'll find.”

Hollicks' face paled at this news.

“So, Raj Ahten's soldiers hide in the Dunnwood, and they need to attack within the next three days—before the hunts begin, lest they be discovered.” King Sylvarresta folded his hands behind his back, paced over to the hearth.

“Will it be a large battle, milord?” Hollicks asked.

Sylvarresta shook his head. “I doubt it. Only some prewar maneuvering is likely, so late of the year. I think we have a band of assassins out there. They'll either strike the Dedicates' Keep, seeking to weaken me, or they'll strike at the royal family itself.”

“But, what of us merchants?” Hollicks said. “Couldn't they as easily strike our manors? Why, why, no one is safe!”

The idea that Raj Ahten would strike at the bourgeois seemed ludicrous.

Sylvarresta laughed. “Come, old friend, bolt your doors tonight, and you'll have nothing to fear. But now, I need your counsel. We must set a price for this 'merchant's' ransom. How much damage shall we say he caused the King?”

“I would say a thousand silver hawks,” Hollicks answered cautiously.

Iome had listened to her father, followed his reasoning and found it both flawless and infuriating. “I don't like the idea of ransoming this spy. It's...a form of surrender. Certainly, you aren't considering Chemoise's feelings! Her betrothed was murdered!”

King Sylvarresta looked up at Chemoise, a certain sadness, a certain pleading in the troubled creases around his eyes. Chemoise's tears had dried, yet Iome's father looked as if he could see the sadness still burning there. “I am sorry, Chemoise. You trust me, don't you? You trust I am doing the right thing? If I am right, you'll have that murderer's head on a stick by the end of the week—plus a thousand silver hawks of the ransom money.”

“Of course, as you please, milord,” Chemoise said. She could hardly debate the matter.

“Good,” Sylvarresta said, taking Chemoise's words at face value. “Now, Master Hollicks, let's consider that ransom. A thousand pieces of silver, you say? Then it's good you're not king. We'll start by demanding twenty times that—along with fifty pounds of mace, fifty of pepper, and two thousand of salt. And I'll want blood metal. How much have the traders weighed in this year?”

“Why, I don't know for certain!” Hollicks said, all a bluster at the King's outrageous demands.

King Sylvarresta raised a brow in question. Hollicks knew how much blood metal was available to the ounce. Ten years before, in recognition of Hollicks' service to the King, Sylvarresta had granted the merchant a Petition to take out an endowment of wit. Though an endowment of wit did not make the merchant any wiser or more creative or let him think more clearly, that endowment did let Hollicks remember trivial details almost faultlessly.

Taking an endowment of wit was like opening a door into another man's mind. A man who got an endowment of wit suddenly had the capacity to enter a mind and store whatever he liked, while the man who gave the wit had the doors of memory barred and was forbidden to even peek at the contents hidden within his own skull. Now Hollicks stored his tallies in the mind of his Dedicate.

Indeed, it was said that the guildmaster could quote every contract he'd ever written, word for word; Hollicks always knew to the moment when his loans came due.

Certainly, he knew how much blood metal the Southern traders had weighed out in the past week. As Master of the Fair, he was in charge of assuring that all goods were properly weighed, that products sold were of highest quality.

“I...uh, so far, the Southern merchants have weighed in only thirteen pounds of blood metal. They...say the mines in Kartish have not produced well this year...”

Enough to make less than a hundred forcibles. Hollicks cringed, as if Sylvarresta might fly into rage at the news.

Iome's father nodded thoughtfully. “I doubt Raj Ahten knows that so much made it across his borders. We won't see any more, next year. Then to our tally of damages, add a ransom of thirty pounds of blood metal.”

“They don't have that much!” Master Hollicks complained.

“They'll find it,” Sylvarresta said. “If they're smuggling it in, they'll have some secreted away.

“Now, go, send word to our foreign friends. Tell them that the King is beside himself with rage. Urge them to act quickly, for Sylvarresta can hardly be restrained from taking vengeance. Tell them that even now, I'm in my buttery, getting blind drunk on brandy, vacillating about whether I should torture secrets from the man first, or if I should just slit his belly and strangle him with his own guts.”

“Aye, milord,” Hollicks said, flustered. The parti-colored merchant bowed and took his leave, sweating profusely at the thought of the negotiations about to begin.

During this whole discussion, the somber Chancellor Rodderman had kept silent, sitting on a bench by the Queen, narrowly studying the exchange between the King and the Master of the Fair. Sometimes he stroked his long white sideburns. When Hollicks left, the chancellor said, “Your Grace, do you think you'll get that much ransom?”

Lord Sylvarresta said simply, “Let us hope.”

Iome knew her father needed money. The costs of armor and endowments and supplies associated with waging the upcoming war would be onerous.

Sylvarresta glanced about. “Now, Chancellor, fetch me Captain Derrow. If I am not mistaken, we shall be visited by assassins tonight. We must arrange a proper greeting.”

The chancellor got up stiffly, rubbed the small of his back and then left.

Iome's father looked deep in thought. As she prepared to leave, a nagging question took her. “Father, when you played chess with Raj Ahten, who came off victor?”

King Sylvarresta smiled appreciatively. “He did.”

Iome began to leave, but another perplexing question came to mind. “Father, now that we've seen Raj Ahten's knight, should we prepare for him to bring out his wizards?”

Her father's frown was answer enough.

4 Addleberry Wine

Borenson studied Gaborn's eyes. “Do I feel anything, milord? What do you mean? Like hunger, excitement? I feel many things.”

Gaborn couldn't quite express the odd sensation that assailed him in the market at Bannisferre. “No, nothing so ordinary. It's like...the earth...trembling in anticipation? Or...” He suddenly caught an image in his mind. “It's like that moment when you put your hand to the plow, and you thrill to see dark soil fold over, knowing that the seeds will soon be in the ground, and fruit will come of it. Endless trees and fields spreading across the horizon.”

It was odd, but the image came to mind with such force that Gaborn could not think to say anything else. Words did not suffice for what he felt, for he could literally feel his hand wrapping around the worn wooden handles of the plow, feel the strain of the lines from the ox cutting into his back, feel the keen edge of the plow biting into the soil, turning over dark dirt, discovering worms. He could taste the metallic tang of soil in his mouth, see fields and forests streaming out before him. His pockets were heavy with seeds, ready to plant.

He felt as if he were experiencing all these things at once, and he wondered if any gardener had really ever felt such a keen thrill of anticipation as the one that assailed him at this moment. Oddest of all, Gaborn had never done these things—had never hitched himself to a plow or stooped to plant the earth.

Yet he wished at this moment that he had. He wished that at this very second, he stood in the earth.

Myrrima looked at him strangely. Gaborn's Days gave no reply, playing the invisible observer.

But Borenson's eyes shone with laughter. “Milord, I think you have had too much air today. Your face is pale and sweaty. Do you feel well?”

“I feel...very...healthy,” Gaborn said, wondering if he was ill. Wondering if he was mad. Few weaknesses ever impaired a Runelord. An endowment of wit could repair a lord with poor memory, an endowment of stamina could bolster a sickly king. But madness...

“Well then,” Gaborn said, suddenly wanting to be alone with his thoughts, to consider what could cause these profound feelings of...planting, “I think you two should spend some time getting acquainted—the afternoon.”

“My lord, I am your body—” Borenson said, not willing to leave his side. Gaborn could count the times on his fingers when Borenson had been away for more than a night.

“And I will be lounging in a hostel, with nothing more dangerous than a joint of pork before me.” Borenson could hardly refuse. Custom dictated that he go privately to the woman's house to beg her hand in marriage. With a witless mother and no father, custom might be somewhat circumvented in this case, but it could not be put aside entirely.

“Are you certain? I don't think this is wise,” Borenson said, his manner becoming deadly earnest. Gaborn was in a strange country, after all, and he was heir apparent to the wealthiest nation in Rofehavan.

“Just go, will you?” Gaborn urged them, smiling. “If it makes you feel better, I promise that as soon as I lunch, I will go to my room and bolt the door.”

“We'll be back well before dark,” Myrrima said.

Gaborn said, “No, I'll seek out your home. I'd like to meet your kind sisters, and your mother.”

Myrrima urged, breathlessly, “Across the Himmeroft Bridge—four miles down the Bluebell Way, a gray cabin in the meadow.”

Borenson shook his head adamantly. “No, I'll come back for you. I won't have you riding alone.”

“Farewell, then, until this afternoon,” Gaborn said. He watched them scurry off through the crowd, hand-in-hand, a certain lightness to their steps.

For a few moments, Gaborn stayed in the market, watching an entertainer who had trained albino doves to do all manner of aerial acrobatics; then he wandered the cobbled streets of Bannisferre, every step dogged by his Days.

In the city's center towered a dozen graystone songhouses, six and seven stories tall, with elaborate friezes and statuary about them.

On the steps of one songhouse, a handsome young woman sang a delicate aria, accompanied by woodwinds and harp. A group of peasants crowded round. Her voice drifted hauntingly, echoing from the tall stone buildings, mesmerizing. She merely advertised, of course. She hoped to attract an audience for her performance later tonight.

Gaborn decided he would attend, bring Borenson and Myrrima.

Sturdy bathhouses and gymnasiums squatted farther down the street. On the broad avenues, several carriages could maneuver with ease. Fine shops displayed bone china, silver goods, and gentlemen's weaponry.

Bannisferre was a young city, less than four hundred years old. It had started simply as a meeting ground for local farmers to exchange wares, until iron was discovered along the Durkin Hills. The ironsmiths opened a foundry, where the quality of the goods soon attracted a wealthy clientele who demanded fine accommodations and entertainment.

So Bannisferre had grown to be a center for the arts, attracting smiths who worked iron, silver, and gold; ceramists famed for their cloisonné and bone china; glassblowers who constructed bewitching mugs and vases in magnificent colors—until finally, the city became crowded with craftsmen and performers from all walks of life.

Bannisferre was a fine place, a city free of grime. Now everywhere it was festooned with images of the Earth King—elaborate wooden images, painted and dressed with loving care. The streets had no urchins running about underfoot. And the reeves hereabout were dressed in fine leather coats with gold brocade, as if they were just another adornment to Bannisferre, not working lawmen.

Somehow, the loveliness of this place saddened Gaborn. The city's defenses seemed woefully inadequate. It was built beside a river, without benefit of a fortress. A low wall of rocks around the city would barely repel a cavalry charge—and then only if the cavalry was not riding force horses, perhaps a few soldiers could hold out for a bit in the songhouses, skirmishing among the statuary.

No, in a war, Bannisferre would be overrun, its beauty defiled. The graceful songhouses and bathhouses were made of stone, but the stonework was wrought for ornament, not with defense in mind. The doorways were too wide, the windows too expansive. Even the bridges across River Dwindell were wide enough so carriages could drive across four abreast. They could not be easily defended.

Gaborn returned to the South Market, ambled back through the cloud of honeybees into the shade of his hostel.

He intended to keep his promise to Borenson, keep safe. He found a corner table, ordered a dinner suitable to a refined palate, then rested his feet on the table.

His Days sat across from him. Gaborn felt like celebrating Borenson's good fortune. He tossed a silver coin to a towheaded servant boy perhaps five years younger than himself. “Bring us wine. Something sweet for the Days. Addleberry for me.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy answered. Gaborn looked around. The room was fairly empty. Three dozen chairs, but only a few of them filled. At the far end of the room, two gentlemen of dark complexion sat talking softly about the relative virtues of different inns in town. A few greenbottle flies wheeled in slow circles. Outside, a pig squealed in the market.

Toward evening, the inn would fill.

The serving boy returned with two brown clay mugs and two genuine bottles of yellow glass, not the hide flasks used in the south. Each bottle had a red wax seal over the cap, with the initial B inscribed. It seemed a fine vintage, the bottles well aged and covered with grime. Gaborn was not used to such nice drink. Wine laid up in bags turned vinegary after six months.

The boy poured a draught for each man, then left the bottles on the table. Moisture began to condense on the bottles. They were that cold.

Gaborn studied the bottles absently, reached out with an index finger and touched the dust on a bottle, tasted the soil. Good, sweet earth. Good for planting.

The Days took a swallow of wine, regarded it carefully. “Hmmm...” he said. “I've never tasted anything so fine.” In seconds he downed the whole mug, thought a moment, then poured himself a second.

Gaborn simply stared at the Days. He'd never seen the like. The Days was such a sober man—he never drank to excess. Neither did he womanize or waste time with any other form of diversion. He was singularly committed to his discipline, to chronicling the lives of kings on behalf of the Time Lords. Since he was twinned with another—each man having given the other an endowment of wit—the two completed a circle. Both men shared a single mind, knowing the same things. Such sharing usually led to madness, both members of the pair struggling for control of the joint minds. But somewhere, in a monastery in the isles beyond Orwynne, Days' partner transcribed all that Days learned. It was only because the two Days had given complete control of their own identities to their order that they both survived.

So it was odd to watch a Days guzzle wine. It was an extraordinarily selfish act.

Gaborn tasted his own wine. Addleberry wine was not truly made with any kind of berry, only with sweet grapes that were treated with herbs—such as vervain, evening primrose, and elderflower—that stimulated thought and reduced the detrimental effects of alcohol. It tasted spicier, less sweet than common wine, and the cost tended to be prohibitive. Its name was a jest: ironically, addleberry wine did not dull the wits, but instead stimulated them. If one were to be intoxicated, Gaborn reasoned, it was best to be intoxicated on insight.

Here in the inn, with the pleasant smells of cooking bread and pork, Gaborn felt a little more at ease. He took a couple of sips of wine, found it surprisingly good, but not as addictive as the vintage Days guzzled.

Yet Gaborn still worried. Outside, an hour earlier, he'd felt an odd rush of power. Outside, he'd just married off his bodyguard, and he'd congratulated himself on doing so. But inside the hostel, it seemed...so peculiar. An impulsive, childish thing to do.

Though he'd someday be sovereign over one of the world's great realms, under normal circumstances he'd never have dared use his position to act as a matchmaker.

Gaborn wondered. He was shouldered with the responsibility of becoming a king. But what kind of king would he make, if he did such foolish things?

In the House of Understanding, in the Room of the Heart, Hearthmaster Ibirmarle had once said, “Not even a Runelord can rule affairs of the heart. Only a fool would try.”

Yet Gaborn had convinced Borenson to take a wife.

What if he ends up hating her? Gaborn wondered. Will he resent what I've done?

It was such a muddling thought. And what of Myrrima? Would she love Borenson?

The Days began drinking his second mug of wine, downed it in a few gulps despite his attempts at restraint.

“I did a good thing, didn't I?” Gaborn said. “I mean, Borenson is a good man, isn't he? He'll love her.”

The Days smiled a tight-lipped smile, watching Gaborn from slitted eyes. “There is a saying among our kind: Good deeds portend good fortune.”

Gaborn considered the words “our kind.” Though the Days were human, they considered themselves as creatures apart. Perhaps they were right.

Their service to the Time Lords required great sacrifices. They forsook home and family, loyalties to any king. Instead, these mysterious men and women simply studied the great lords, wrote the chronicles, published the deeds of a man's life when he died, and in all other ways remained aloof from common politics.

Yet Gaborn did not entirely trust these watchers, with their secretive smiles. They only feigned aloofness in the affairs of men, of that Gaborn felt certain. Every Runelord was followed by a Days who recorded his words and deeds. Sometimes, when two Days met, they reported to one another in coded phrases. Gaborn's ancestors had been studying the Days for generations, trying to break their codes.

But how aloof were they really? Gaborn suspected that the Days had sometimes betrayed secrets to enemy kings. Certain battles could only have been won on the advice of informers—informers who were probably Days. Yet if as a group the Days took sides in wars between nations, neither Gaborn nor anyone else had ever been able to determine where the Days placed their allegiance.

No discernible battle lines were drawn. Evil kings prospered from Days' spying as often as did good. And no king could escape them. Some kings had tried ridding themselves of the Days, either through assassination or banishment. But such kings never reigned for another season. As a group, the Days were too powerful. Any king who dared strike down one Days would discover just how much information a Days' partner could divulge. Distressing information would be revealed to enemy kings, fortunes would be ruined, peasants would revolt.

No one could defy the Days. Nor did Gaborn feel certain that any man should want to do so. An old adage went, “A man who will not bear scrutiny cannot bear a crown.” It was said that those words were given by the Glories themselves, when the Days were first partnered to the kings. “A Runelord should be a servant to man,” the Glories had said.

So Gaborn's title came with a price. He would never be free of this man, never be alone. Though he might rule a kingdom, some things were right-fully denied even to Gaborn.

Lost in thought, Gaborn wondered once again about Borenson. The man was a soldier, and soldiers did not necessarily make good lords, for they were trained to solve every problem through use of force. Gaborn's father preferred to sell titles to merchants, who were trained to barter for what they wanted. Gaborn suddenly realized that the Days had never fully answered him, had avoided the question.

“I said, 'Borenson is a good man, isn't he?' ”

The Days looked up, his head nodding just a bit. The disciple was well on his way to being solidly drunk. He poured more wine. “Not nearly so good as you, Your Lordship. But he'll make her happy enough, I'd wager.”

Your Lordship. Not my lord.

“But he's a good man, isn't he?” Gaborn asked a third time, suddenly angry at the Days' evasion.

The Days looked away, started to mumble something.

Gaborn struck the table hard enough so the wine bottles jumped and the mugs clanked. He shouted, “Answer me!”

The Days gaped in surprise. He knew to take warning. Fists would soon fly. Gaborn had endowments of brawn from three men. His blow could kill a commoner.

“Hah—what does it matter, Your Lordship?” the Days averred, struggling to clear his muddled thoughts. “You've never worried about his goodness before. You've never questioned his moral fiber.”

The Days took another swig of wine, seemed to want more, but thought better of it and carefully set the mug aside.

Why am I questioning Borenson's moral character? Gaborn wondered, and the answers flowed to him: Because you were drinking addleberry wine and noticed how Days tried to evade the question. Because Myrrima said that Princess Iome doubts your own goodness, and now you are worrying at what others think. Because...because you know that any lout can win a parcel of land, but it takes a special kind of king to win the hearts of his people.

Gaborn hoped to win the hearts of Iome and her people. But he dared not reveal details of his plan to Days—or to anyone. If Gaborn's father, King Orden, learned what Gaborn planned, the King might try to stop him.

The wine was having its way with Gaborn now, bringing the world into focus. But Gaborn would not be sidetracked from his questioning by other observations. “Answer my question, Days! What do you think of Borenson ?”

The Days put both hands on the table, screwed up his courage. “As you wish, Your Lordship: I once asked Borenson what his favorite animal is, and he told me he 'admires dogs.' I asked him why, and he answered: 'I love to hear them snarl. I love the way they greet strangers with senseless aggression.' ”

Gaborn laughed. It was the kind of perfect thing Borenson would say. The man was a terror in battle.

The Days seemed relieved by Gaborn's good humor. He leaned forward conspiratorially. “To tell you the truth, Your Lordship, I think Borenson admires another attribute in dogs. One he did not name.”

“Which is?”

“Loyalty.”

Gaborn laughed harder. “So, Borenson is a dog?”

“No. He only aspires to be one. If I may be so bold, I fear he has all of dog's finest virtues but loyalty.”

“So you don't believe he is a good man?”

“He's an assassin. A butcher, Your Lordship. That is why he is captain of your guard.”

This angered Gaborn. The Days was wrong. The historian smiled drunkenly, took another swig to fortify his courage.

The Days continued, “In fact, none of your friends are very good people, Your Lordship. You don't value virtue in your friends.”

“What do you mean?” Gaborn asked. He'd always thought his friends had an acceptable level of virtue.

“It is simple, Your Lordship,” the Days said. “Some men pick their friends based on looks, others on wealth or political station, others on common interests. Some choose friends based on their virtue. But you do not value any of these traits, highly.”

It was true, Gaborn had friends among the ugly, the powerless. His friend Eldon Parris sold roasted rabbits in a public market. And Gaborn also enjoyed the company of more than one person who might best be described as a scoundrel.

“Then how do I pick my friends?” Gaborn asked.

“Because you are young, you value men based upon their insights into the human heart, Your Lordship.”

This statement struck Gaborn like a blast of air off a frozen lake. It was stunning, refreshingly honest, and, of course, obviously true.

“I had never noticed...”

The Days laughed. “It's one of the seven keys to understanding motives. I fear, young master Gaborn, you are lousy at picking friends. Hah! I sometimes imagine how it will be when you are a king: You'll surround yourselves with eccentrics, and scholars. In no time they'll have you taking garlic enemas and wearing pointy shoes! Hah!”

“Seven keys? Where did you learn such lore?” Gaborn asked.

“In the Room of Dreams,” the Days said. Then he suddenly sat up straight, recognizing his mistake.

In the House of Understanding, the Room of Dreams was forbidden to Runelords. The secrets one learned there, of human motivations and desires, were considered by scholars to be too powerful to put in the hands of a king.

Gaborn smiled triumphantly at this little tidbit, raised his glass in toast. “To dreams.”

But the Days would not toast with him. The man would most likely never drink in Gaborn's presence again.

From a far corner of the room, a small ratlike ferrin woman came out of the shadows, bearing one of her pups in hand. The pup squealed in its small way, but the Days did not hear it, didn't have Gaborn's keen ears. All six of the ferrin woman's nipples were red and swollen, and she wore a yellow rag tied round her shoulders. She stood only a foot tall, and her pudgy face was accented by thick jowls. She waddled up behind the Days, nearly blinded by daylight, and stuffed the pup in the Days' coat pocket.

The ferrin were not an intelligent people. They had a language of sorts, used some crude tools. Most folk considered them vermin, since the ferrin constantly tunneled into houses to steal food.

Gaborn had heard it was common for a ferrin woman to wean her pups this way, by finding an inn, then sending the pup off in the pocket of a stranger. But he'd never seen it happen.

Many a man would have tossed a dagger into the ferrin. Gaborn smiled blandly, averted his eyes.

Good, he thought, let the pup eat the lining of the damned historian's coat.

He waited until the ferrin finished.

“And what of me?” Gaborn asked the drunken Days. “Am I a good man?”

“You, Your Lordship, are the soul of virtue!”

Gaborn smiled. He could expect no other answer. In the back of the common room, an Inkarran singer struck up the mandolin, began to practice for the crowd that would gather later. Gaborn had seldom seen an Inkarran play, since his own father would not let them cross the borders, and he enjoyed the diversion now.

The Inkarran had skin as light as cream and hair that fell like liquid silver; his eyes were as green as ice. His body was tattooed in the manner of his tribe—blue symbols of vines twining up his legs, with images that brought to mind the names of his ancestors and his home village. On his knees and arms were images of knots and other magic symbols.

The man sang with a throaty crooning, a very powerful voice. It was beautiful in its own way, and hinted that this singer wore the “hidden runes of talent.” The art of creating hidden runes was mastered only by a few Inkarrans. Yet, despite these runes, the singer's voice could not duplicate the ethereal tones sung by the virtuoso outside the songhouse an hour ago. His voice was more generous, Gaborn decided. The woman at the songhouse had sung for wealth and prestige, but this man sung now merely to entertain. A generous gesture.

The Days stared down at his mug, knowing he'd said too much, needing to say one thing more. “Your Lordship, perhaps it is well that you do not value virtue in your friends. You will know not to trust them. And if you are wise, you will not trust yourself.”

“How so?” Gaborn asked, wondering. With each Days twinned to another, they were never alone, never had the luxury of trusting themselves. Gaborn wondered if this pairing was really an advantage.

“Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, most often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.”

Gaborn grunted, considering.

“If I may be so bold, Your Lordship, I'm glad you question yourself. Men don't become good by performing an occasional kindly deed. You must constantly reexamine your thoughts and acts, question your virtue.”

Gaborn stared at the thin scholar. The man's eyes were getting glassy, and he could barely hold his head up. His thinking seemed somewhat clearer than a common drunk's, and he offered his advice in a kind tone. No Days had ever offered Gaborn advice before. It was a singular experience.

At that moment, the inn door opened. Two more men entered, both with dark complexion, both with brown eyes. They were dressed as merchants fresh off the road, but both wore rapiers at their side, and' both had long knives strapped at their knees.

One man smiled, one frowned.

Gaborn remembered something his father had taught him as a child. “In the land of Muyyatin, assassins always travel in pairs. They talk with gestures.” Then Gaborn's father had taught him the assassins' codes. One man smiling, one man frowning—No news, either good or bad.

Gaborn's eyes flicked across the room, to the two dark men in the far corner. Like himself, they had chosen a secure position, had put their backs to the wall.

One man in the corner scratched his left ear: We have heard nothing.

The newcorners sat at a table on the far side of the room from their compatriots. One man put his hands on the table, palms down. We wait.

Yet this man moved with a casual quickness that could only be associated with someone who had an endowment of metabolism. Few men had such an endowment—only highly trusted warriors.

Gaborn almost could not believe what he was seeing. The gestures were so common, so casual. The speakers did not stare at one another. Indeed, what Gaborn thought was a discussion could have been nothing.

Gaborn glanced around the room. No one in the room could be a target for assassins—no one but him. Yet he felt certain he was not their target. He'd traveled in disguise all day. Bannisferre was full of wealthy merchants and petty lords—the assassins could be hunting one of them, or could even be tracking one of their kinsmen from the South. Gaborn was not properly armed to fight such men. He rose without explanation and left the inn to search for Borenson. Just as he stood, the serving boy brought a passable dinner of roast pork and fresh bread with plums.

Gaborn left it, made his way into the streets, his Days rising drunkenly to follow after.

Whereas in the morning the city had seemed cool, invigorating, alive, now the heat of the day had intensified the odor. The smell of evaporating urine from pack animals filled the market, along with the scents of dirt and human sweat. The closeness of the buildings in the market held the stench in.

Gaborn hurried down the street to the stables, where an old horseman from Fleeds brought Gaborn his dun-colored stallion. The horse neighed on seeing Gaborn, held its head high, and raised its blond tail. It seemed as eager to be off as Gaborn did.

Reaching out a hand to stroke his horse's muzzle, Gaborn inspected the stallion. It had been well tended. Its coat was brushed, tail and mane plaited. Even the teeth were clean. Its belly was fat, and it was still chewing hay.

A few moments later, the stablemaster brought out the Days' white mule. Though it was no force stallion with runes of power branded into its neck, the mule looked as if it had been well groomed, too.

Gaborn kept glancing over his shoulder, looking for signs of more assassins, but spotted nothing out of the ordinary here by the stables.

Gaborn asked the stablemaster, “Have you noticed any men ride into town—men of dark complexion, traveling in pairs?”

The stablemaster nodded thoughtfully, as if just struck by the answer, “Aye, now that you mention it, four like men 'ave their horses stabled wit' me, and I seen four more ride nor', through Hay Row.”

“Is this common, to see such men?” Gaborn asked.

The stablemaster raised a brow. “To tell ye true, I would not 'ave noticed them, 'adn't you mentioned it. But two like gentlemen galloped through town late last night, too.”

Gaborn frowned. Assassins all along the road, heading north. To where? Castle Sylvarresta, a hundred miles away?

As he left town, Gaborn became more concerned. He took his dun stallion over the Himmeroft Bridge, a picturesque bridge of stone that spanned the broad river. From its top, Gaborn could see large brown trout sunning in the deeper pools, rising up to leap at flies in the shallows, in the shade of the willows. The river here was deep, with cold pools. Peaceful.

He saw no sign of assassins here at the bridge.

On the far side of the river, the cobbles gave way to a dirt road that wound off through the country west, A side road went north. The roads met in the woods, and bluebells grew in the woods to the north. So late in the season, none were in bloom. Only a couple of dead flowers stood, ragged and faded to violet. Gaborn turned onto Bluebell Way, let the horse run. It was a force stallion, and had runes of metabolism, brawn, grace, and wit branded on its neck, giving it the speed of three, the strength and grace of two, the wit of four. The stallion was a field hunter by body type—a spirited animal bred for running and jumping through woodland trails. Such a beast was not made to rest in Bannisferre's stables, growing fat on grain.

The Days struggled to keep up on his own white mule, a vile creature that bit at Gaborn's stallion at every opportunity. It soon fell far behind.

Then a bizarre thing happened: Gaborn had been riding through fields, where the newly stacked haycocks hunched beside the river. And the fields were fairly empty, now that the heat of the day was on.

But as Gaborn topped one small hill, three miles out of Bannisferre, he suddenly found himself confronted by a low wispy fog that clung to the ground, shrouding the haycocks ahead in mist.

It was a strange sight, fog rolling in on a sunny day, in the early afternoon. Oak trees and haycocks rose from the mist. The fog seemed off in color, too blue. He'd never seen the like.

Gaborn halted. His horse whinnied, nervous at the sight. Gaborn entered the wall of fog slowly, sniffing.

There was an odd scent in the air, something hard to define. Gaborn had but two endowments of smell, wished he had more. Sulfur, he thought. Perhaps there were hot pools around, and the fog rose from those.

Gaborn spurred his horse forward, along the fields for another half-mile, and the fog grew steadily thicker, until the sun in the sky was only a single yellow eye peering through the haze. Crows cawed in the lonely oak trees.

A mile farther, Gaborn saw a gray house through the mist. A young woman with hair that hung out like straw was chopping wood in front of it. She looked up. From a distance her skin looked as rough as burlap, her features plain and skeletal, her eyes yellow and sickly. This was one of the sisters who had given Myrrima her beauty.

He spurred his stallion, called out to the young woman.

She gasped, put one arm up to hide her face.

Gaborn rode to her, looked down with pity. “No need to hide. One who diminishes herself to enlarge another is worthy of honor. A foul face often hides a fair heart.”

“Myrrima is inside,” the girl mumbled. She fled into the house. Borenson quickly came out, Myrrima on his arm.

“It is a beautiful autumn day.” Gaborn smiled at Borenson. “I smell sunbaked wheat fields on the wind, and autumn leaves, and...treachery.”

Borenson gaped at the fog, perplexed. “I thought it was getting cloudy,” he said, “I had no idea...” He would not have been able to see the fog through the house's parchment windows. He sniffed. Borenson had four endowments of scent. His nose was far keener than Gaborn's. “Giants. Frowth giants.” He asked Myrrima, “Do you have many giants around here?”

“No,” she said, surprised. “I've never seen one.”

“Well, I smell them. A lot of them,” Borenson said.

He looked into Gaborn's eyes. They both knew something odd was afoot. Gaborn had come hours ahead of schedule.

Gaborn whispered, “Assassins rode into town. Muyyatin. At least ten are on the road north to Castle Sylvarresta, but I saw none on my way here.”

“I'll scout this out,” Borenson said. “It could well be that someone is laying a trap for your father. His retinue will pass through town tomorrow.”

“Wouldn't I be safer with you?” Gaborn asked.

Borenson considered, nodded. He retrieved his own horse from behind the house, just as the Days rode up through the mist.

“We'll be back in a bit,” Gaborn told Myrrima, then spurred his stallion out into the meadow behind her cottage. He felt uneasy leaving her, with giants about. Yet he and Borenson were certainly riding into danger.

A slight breeze sighed from the north, carrying the haze. They rode toward it, over green meadows. The river twisted west, and they soon found themselves riding along the banks of River Dwindell, on a hay trail.

Along the river, the unnatural fog deepened, rising in a great cloud, waking it dark, dark enough so swallows quit dipping in the water, and instead a few bats began diving for insects. Fireflies rose like green sparks out of the bushes. The grass along the river was deep, lush, but cropped short.

All along here in the floodplain the farmers had harvested hay. The haycocks stood out along the river, like great rocks in a sea, and each time Gaborn saw one rising from the mist, he wondered if it was a giant, wondered if a giant might be hiding behind it.

Gaborn could smell giants now, too. Their greasy hair smelled bitter, the musk and dung on their skins overwhelming. Mold and lichens grew on their aging bodies.

Until a hundred and twenty years ago, no one in all Rofehavan had heard of Frowth giants. Then, a tribe of four hundred of the huge creatures had come over the northern ice one winter, battle-scarred, fearful. Many of them wounded.

The Frowth could not speak well in any human tongue, had never quite been able to communicate what fearful enemies chased them over the ice. Yet with a few gestures and the odd spoken command, the giants had learned to work beside men to some extent—lugging huge boulders in quarries, or trees for foresters. The rich lords of Indhopal in particular had taken to hiring Frowth giants, so that, in time, most of them migrated south.

But the Frowth excelled in only one thing—making war.

Gaborn and Borenson came to a small croft on a hill beneath some trees, beside the river. The cottage's windows were dark. No smoke roiled from its chimney. A dead farmer lay half in the doorway, hand outstretched. His head lay as if he'd died trying to reach for it as it rolled away. The coppery scent of blood hung heavy in the air.

Borenson swore, rode forward. The mist ahead grew thicker. Heavier.

In the green grass, they found steaming human footprints. The grass beneath the footprints was blackened, dead. Gaborn had never seen the like.

“Flameweavers,” Borenson said. “Powerful ones—powerful enough to transmute to flame. Five of them.”

There were flameweavers in Mystarria, of course, sorcerers who could warm a room or cause a log to burst into flame, but none so powerful that they blackened the ground they trod upon. Not like this.

These were creatures of legend, wizards of such power that they could pry secrets from men's souls, or summon beings of terror from the netherworld.

Gaborn's heart pounded; he looked at Borenson, who was suddenly wary. There were no flameweavers like this in the northern kingdoms, nor so many Frowth giants. They could only have come from the south. Gaborn tasted the air again. That fog, that strange fog, a thinly disguised smoke? Raised by the flameweavers? How big an army did it hide?

So our spies were wrong, Gaborn realized. Raj Ahten's invasion won't wait for spring.

The flameweavers' footsteps led north, along the banks of the River Dwindell. Raj Ahten's troops must be marching through the woods, to hide their numbers. But they would not go far into the wood, for this was the Dunnwood. Wild, old, and powerful. Few men dared enter its heart. Even Raj Ahten would not do so.

If Gaborn took the road north, he could reach Sylvarresta in half a day.

But of course that was why the assassins watched the road, looking to waylay anyone who sought to warn King Sylvarresta. Gaborn reasoned that given the nature of his horse, a good solid hunter, he might be safer riding through the woods. He knew the dangers. He'd been in the Dunnwood before, hunting the great black boars.

The giant boars in the wood often grew almost as tall as Gaborn's stallion, and over the centuries they had learned to attack riders. But there were more dangerous things in these woods, it was said—ancient duskin ruins still guarded by magic, and the spirits of those who'd died here. Gaborn had once seen such a spirit.

Raj Ahten's men would be on warhorses, heavy creatures bred for battle in the desert, not for speed in the woods.

But even riding fast through the woods, it would take Gaborn a day to reach Lord Sylvarresta. Such a journey would be hard on his stallion.

Meanwhile, Gaborn's own father was not far south. King Orden was coming north for the autumn hunt, as was his custom, and this time he had a company of over two thousand soldiers. Gaborn was to have formally proposed betrothal to Iome Sylvarresta in a week, and King Orden had brought an impressive retinue for his son.

Now those troops might well be needed in battle.

Gaborn raised his hand, manipulated his fingers quickly in battle sign. Retreat. Warn King Orden.

Borenson looked wary, signed, Where are you going?

To warn Sylvarresta.

No! Dangerous! Borenson signed. Let me go!

Gaborn shook his head, pointed south.

Borenson glared, signed, I'll go north. Too dangerous for you!

But Gaborn could not let him. He'd intended to take a dangerous road to power, to try to become the kind of lord who would win men's hearts. How better to win the hearts of the people of Heredon, than to come to their aid now? I must go, Gaborn signed forcefully.

Borenson began to argue again. Gaborn whipped out his own saber, aiming just so, slashing Borenson's cheek. The cut was so shallow, the soldier could have got it shaving.

Gaborn fought down his rage. Almost immediately he regretted this impetuous act. Yet Borenson knew better than to argue with his prince in a dangerous situation. Arguments were poison. A man who believes he is doomed to fail tends to fail. Gaborn would listen to no poison arguments.

Gaborn pointed south with his sword, looked at both the Days and Borenson meaningfully. With his free hand, he signed, Check on Myrrima. If Raj Ahten's troops slaughtered peasants just to make certain their force wasn't discovered, Myrrima would be in danger.

It seemed a long moment as Borenson considered. Gaborn was no commoner. With his endowments of wit and brawn, he acted more like a man than he did a child, and in the past year, Borenson had begun treating him as an equal, rather than as a charge.

Perhaps more to the point, Borenson himself had to be torn. Both King Orden and King Sylvarresta needed to be warned as soon as possible. He couldn't ride two directions at once.

There are assassins on the road, Gaborn reminded him. The woods are safer. I will be safe.

To Gaborn's surprise, the Days turned his mule, headed back. Gaborn had seldom been free of the historian's scrutiny. But the Days' mule couldn't keep up with a force stallion. If he tried to follow, the historian would only get killed.

Borenson reached behind his saddle, pulled his bow and quiver, backed his horse, and handed the weapons to Gaborn. He whispered, “May the Glories guide you safely.”

Gaborn would need the bow. He nodded, grateful.

When the men had disappeared through the mist, Gaborn licked his lips, his mouth dry with fear. Preparedness is the father of courage, he reminded himself. A teaching from the Room of the Heart. Yet suddenly all that he'd learned in the House of Understanding seemed...inadequate.

He prepared to fight. First he dismounted, removed his fancy feathered hat, tossed it to the ground. It wouldn't do to ride ahead looking like a wealthy merchant. He needed to seem a humble peasant, without benefit of endowments.

He reached into his saddlebags, drew out a stained cloak of gray, threw it over his shoulders. He strung the bow. He had no battle-axe to cut through armor—only his dueling saber, and the dirk strapped at his knee.

Gaborn stretched his arms and shoulders, limbering them. He slid his saber from its sheath, as familiar with its balance as if it were part of his own body, then slid it back carefully.

He couldn't disguise his horse. The beast stood too proudly, like a being of stone or iron come to life. Its eyes glowed with fierce intelligence.

Gaborn whispered in his horse's ear. “We must hurry, my friend, but travel quietly.”

The horse nodded. Gaborn couldn't be certain how much it understood. It couldn't follow a conversation. But with endowments of wit from other horses in its herd, it followed several simple verbal commands—which was more than could be said of some men.

Gaborn dared not ride the beast at first. Instead, he led it. There would be outriders, he knew, both behind and before Raj Ahten's army. Gaborn didn't want to be a silhouette in the fog for some archer to practice on.

He began running lightly at a pace he could keep up for days. In the unnatural fog, the fields were strangely quiet.

Field mice scurried from his approach; a lone crow cawed from an oak. Sparrows flew up in a cloud. Somewhere, in the forest, he could hear a cow lowing, wanting to be milked.

For a long time as he ran, there was only the dry rattle of bending grass, the muted thump of his horse's hooves.

As he sprinted north through the close-cropped fields, he made a personal inventory. As far as Runelords were concerned, he was not powerful. He'd never wanted to be so. He could not bear the guilt he'd have borne to become powerful, the cost in human suffering.

But shortly after birth, his father had begun purchasing endowments for him: two endowments of wit, two of brawn, three of stamina, and three of grace. He had the eyes of two, the ears of three. Five endowments of voice, two of glamour.

Not a powerful man. A weakling compared to Raj Ahten's “Invincibles.” He had no endowment of metabolism. Gaborn wore no armor. None to protect him, none to slow him down.

No, Gaborn could rely only on cunning, courage, and the speed of his stallion.

Gaborn passed two more houses, both with dead occupants. At the first, he stopped at a garden, let the horse eat apples from a tree, pocketed a few for himself.

A little beyond the last house, the fields ended at a forest of ash, oak, and maple. The border to the Dunnwood. The leaves on the trees were dull, as they will get in late summer, but so low in the valleys the colors had not yet turned.

Following the edge of the field, Gaborn smelled the scent of leather now, of horses hard-ridden, of oiled armor. Still he'd seen no one.

Gaborn found a track for woodcutters' carts leading into the forest. He stopped at the edge of the trees to tighten the cinch on his saddle, preparing to ride hard, when he suddenly heard the creaking of branches.

Just inside the line of trees, not forty feet away, stood a Frowth giant. The huge creature, its fur a tawny yellow, stared at him from wide silver eyes, peering into the mist, perhaps unsure whether Gaborn was friend or foe. The sun slanted over the woods, sending shafts of golden light into the giant's face.

The giant stood twenty feet tall, eight feet wide at the shoulder. Ring mail covered its thick hide; for a weapon it carried a large oak pole bound with iron rings. Its snout was much longer than that of a horse, its mouth full of sharp teeth. The Frowth giants looked like nothing human.

The giant flicked one small, round ear, ridding itself of some stinging fly, then pushed a tree aside as it leaned forward, peering.

Gaborn knew enough not to make a quick move. If he did, the giant would know he was an enemy. The fact that the giant hadn't attacked already told Gabon something: the outriders would be dressed like him, wearing dark robes, riding force horses.

The giant merely wanted to smell Gaborn, to learn whether he was friend or foe. Gaborn would not smell of curry, olive oil, and cotton, as did the soldiers in Raj Ahten's forces.

One way or another, the Frowth giant would be after Gaborn in a moment.

Gaborn wanted to strike, but he couldn't drive a sword through such thick ring mail. He couldn't engage the monster in a drawn battle. Couldn't let it cry out in warning. An arrow wouldn't kill the beast quickly.

No, Gaborn's best chance was to let the giant draw close, bend near enough to sniff him, so that Gaborn could pull his saber and slice the monster's throat. Quickly, quietly.

“Friend,” Gaborn said softly, reassuringly. He dropped the horse's reins as the giant approached, dropped his bow. The giant warily leaned on his pole, hunched forward, sniffed from ten feet away. Far, too far.

It drew a foot closer, sniffed again. Frowth giants do not have keen noses. The monster must have been two feet between the eyes. Its broad nose wrinkled as it sniffed.

Gabon smelled rotting meat on its breath, saw dried blood matted into its fur. It had fed on carrion recently.

It drew half a step closer. Gaborn ambled forward, making soft noises as if he were a friendly soldier trying to prove himself.

The size of the beast overwhelmed him. I am nothing beside it. Nothing. It could lift me like a pup. The beast's huge paws were each almost as long as Gaborn's body. It did not matter that Gaborn was a Runelord. Those enormous paws could smash his bones, rake through his muscles.

The silver eyes drew near, each as large as a plate. Not the throat, Gaborn realized. It was too far for a lunge. Don't stab the throat. The eye. The huge silver eyes were not protected by thick pelt.

The creature was old, its face scarred beneath the fur. One of the ancients, then, that had come over the northern ice. A venerable creature. Gaborn wished he knew some of its tongue, had some way to bribe it.

The Frowth giant knelt forward, sniffed, and its eyes drew wide in surprise.

Gaborn pulled his saber and lunged, ramming the blade deep. The blade twisted when it hit the giant's eye, slid behind the socket, far into the monster's brain. Gaborn wrenched his saber and danced aside, slicing as he pulled free. He was unprepared for the volume of blood that gushed from the wound.

The giant lurched back, grabbing its eye. Its lower jaw went slack in that moment. It bolted upright, staggered a pace to the left, and raised its muzzle to the sky.

Even as it died, the giant bellowed in warning. A thunderous howl shook the forest.

And all around Gaborn, to the north, south, and west, giants howled in answer.

5 In the Dedicates' Tower

Below Castle Sylvarresta that evening, the city lay quiet, hushed. Traders from the South had come in unusually large numbers throughout the day—caravans bringing valuable spices and dyes, ivory and cloth from Indhopal.

Bright silk pavilions decorated the greens before the castle, the lanterns within the tents making them glow like multicolored gems—jade, emerald, topaz, and sapphire.

From the dark, forbidding stone of the castle walls, it seemed a beautiful yet discomfiting sight.

The guards on the wall all knew that the “spice merchant” had been ransomed too quickly that day, the King's outrageous price accepted without argument. But the Southerners could not be happy about the ransom. Tempers were short. Everyone feared the Indhopalese might riot.

But with caravans of pack mules and horses came something new and marvelous, something never seen in all the centuries merchants had traveled from Indhopal:

Elephants. Fourteen white elephants, one branded with runes of power. The elephants wore colorful mats made of silk and beads and gold and pearls on their heads, and bore decorative reins and silk pavilions on their backs.

Their owner, a one-eyed man with grizzled beard, said he'd brought them as a curiosity. But in Castle Sylvarresta it was known that in Indhopal force elephants were often dressed in armor, then sent to ram castle gates.

And the merchants had too many “guards” hired to protect the caravans. “Ah, yes,” the merchants would say, clasping their hands beneath their chins and bowing. “The hill bandits are very bad this year. Almost as bad as the reavers in the mountains!”

Indeed it seemed a record year for reavers. Troops of them had harried the mountain borders to the south in Fleeds, and to the west in Orwynne. Sylvarresta's soldiers had even discovered tracks in the Dunnwood last spring—the first such tracks seen in thirty years.

So the people of Heredon were willing to overlook the hordes of guards in the caravans, and few but King Sylvarresta and his troops worried about elephants in their midst.

A cool wind blew in after sunset, and fog began roiling off the river. A fog that wreathed the city in mist, crept to the parapets of the Outer Wall.

No moon burned in the sky. Only stars. Bright eternal diadems shining in the fields of night.

It is no surprise that the assassins made it over the Outer Wall unobserved. Perhaps the men came into the city during the day, acting the part of traders, then hid in some dovecote or manor-house stable. Or perhaps in their escalade the men took advantage of the way wisps of fog seemed to play between the merlons like tendrils.

Nor was it a surprise when a lone sentry in the King's Keep spotted shadowy figures, like black spiders, scrambling over the King's Wall, down by the Butterwalk.

The King had set extra eyes to watch that direction. Indeed, eyes watched from every arrow slit along each tower.

No, it was no surprise that the assassins attempted an escalade that night. But even the guards felt amazed at how swiftly the assassins came, how silent and deadly.

Only men with endowments of metabolism could move so fast, so swiftly that if you blinked, you almost believed you hadn't seen them. To take such endowments was suicide: an endowment of metabolism let you move nearly twice as fast as a normal man, but also caused you to age at twice the speed.

Yet as the King's far-seer, Sir Millman, watched the escalade, he suspected that some of those assassins were moving at three times the normal human rate. Men so endowed would be decrepit in ten years, dead in fifteen.

And only men with inhuman strength could climb those walls, prying with toes and fingers to grip at cracks in the stone. Sir Millman couldn't even guess how many endowments of brawn each assassin had.

Millman had been watching from inside the King's Tower. With endowments of sight from seven men, he was well qualified for this post. Now he called softly at the door to the King's chamber, “Milord, our guests have arrived.”

King Sylvarresta had been sitting in his father's favorite old reading chair, his back to the wall, studying the tome of Emir Owatt of Tuulistan, trying to decipher which of Raj Ahten's battle tactics were so original that he'd kill to keep them secret.

Now Sylvarresta blew out his lantern, went to the oriel, and gazed out a clear pane in the stained-glass window. The window was so old that the glass was all wavy and distorted, had flowed down like lumps of melted butter.

The assassins had just reached the final defensive wall in Castle Sylvarresta, the wall of the Dedicates' Keep, which housed those people who had granted endowments to House Sylvarresta, for the use of the King's family and soldiers.

So, Raj Ahten's assassins came to destroy Sylvarresta's Dedicates, murder those whose minds and strength and vitality fed the King's forces.

It was a vile deed. The Dedicates could not protect themselves. The brilliant young men who'd given endowments of wit no longer knew their right hands from their left. Those who had granted brawn now lay like babes, too weak to climb from their beds. It was craven to kill Dedicates. Yet, sadly, too often it was the easiest way to assail a Runelord. By murdering those who constantly fed a Runelord strength and support, one deprived the lord of his powers, making him into a common man.

As the attack progressed, Sylvarresta barely had time to marshal his defenders. Boiling oil had been lugged up to the wall-walk shortly after dark. Though the normal complement of three guards marched along the Parapet, a dozen more crouched behind the battlements out of sight.

Still, defenders needed to be warned. Archers manned the towers; soldiers hiding in the city needed to be notified so that they could cut off the assassins' escape.

From behind his stained-glass window, Sylvarresta watched the assassins reach the halfway point on the stone wall of the keep; then the King opened the window and blew a soft, shrill whistle.

As one, his soldiers leapt up and poured oil down the keep's walls, tossing great iron cauldrons over as they emptied. The oil did not have the desired effect. It had cooled too much since sunset, and though the assassins cried in dismay at their burns and some plummeted when swept from the walls by falling cauldrons, more than twenty still scrambled up the walls, swift as lizards.

The guards atop the Dedicates' Keep drew swords and pikes. From the King's Keep, some hundred yards distant, archers let arrows fly. A few more assassins plummeted, but Raj Ahten's knights were frighteningly swift, terrifyingly determined.

King Sylvarresta had imagined the assassins would run when they met resistance. Instead they scurried faster, reaching the tops of the parapet, where razor wire hindered them. Sylvarresta's soldiers hacked at the assassins, so that a dozen more plummeted from the keep's tower.

Still, seven assassins won the top of the tower, where their incredible skills as fighters came into play. The assassins moved so swiftly, Sylvarresta's men could not well defend themselves. Yet four more assassins got cut down, while a dozen defenders were slaughtered.

The three remaining assassins hurtled down the steps into the Dedicates' Keep—just as the King's pikemen rushed from the guardroom beneath the portcullis.

The assassins ignored the guards, instead leapt to the iron grate that covered one low door to the Dedicates' Hall. Though the door was barred with heavy iron, two assassins grabbed a bar and pulled, ripping it from the wall, dislodging two-hundred-pound stones set with mortar.

The third assassin faced the pikemen, ready to defend.

But these pikemen were no common soldiers.

Captain Derrow and Captain Ault came, side by side, holding back nothing. Captain Ault stabbed at the assassin's head, a lightning thrust.

The assassin dodged, his own short sword snaking out, biting Ault's gloved hand. The assassin was a dark monster, draped in robes of black, a man whose speed astonished. He shifted on his feet, weaving from side to side so quickly that no commoner could have landed a blow. He drew a second knife, his hands whirling in the deadly Dancing Arms style.

In that second, the door to the Dedicates' Keep screamed as if in agony.

The two assassins pulled the door wide. One assassin bolted through the door.

Captain Derrow swung his pike as if it were an axe. An assassin by the door took a firm knock to the head.

The assassin guard ducked. Ault anticipated his move and lunged. Ault slammed the pike into the man's chest, then lifted, flinging the assassin up and aside.

Ault tossed away the pike, drew a long dagger, and bolted into the Dedicates' Keep.

Inside, Ault found that the last assassin had already slaughtered two guards posted by the door, then had run into the hall, felling some five or six Dedicates who should have been abed. Even now, the assassin knelt over a victim, scimitar in hand.

Ault threw his short sword, caught the assassin solidly in the back. Had the assassin been a commoner, he'd have collapsed. Had he been an angered man with great stamina, he'd have turned and gone berserk.

What the assassin did next chilled Ault to the bone.

The assassin turned, all dressed in a black caftan and black cotton pants, a black kerchief hiding his face. A gold ring glittered in his ear.

He studied Ault thoughtfully, eyes filled with deadly intent. Ault's heart pounded, for he wondered how many endowments of stamina it took for a man to ignore a sword in his back.

A dozen soldiers rushed through the broken door, filling the Dedicates' Keep. Ault took a hammer from a dead guard.

The assassin looked Captain Ault in the eye, then raised his hands. He said in a thick accent, “Barbarian: As you see this tide of men sweep over me, so shall my lord's Invincibles sweep over you!”

Raj Ahten's Invincibles were elite troops—men with great stamina, each of whom had at least one endowment of metabolism. The assassin made as if to charge. Yet Ault knew it would be a feint. Having won through to the Dedicates' Keep, the assassin would now continue with his duty, to slay as many Dedicates as possible.

Ault lunged, swinging his hammer, just as the assassin spun toward the beds of the sleeping. The warhammer bit into the assassin's neck.

“Don't bet on it,” Ault said.

In his keep, King Sylvarresta felt the deaths of his Dedicates as he began to lose his magical connection to them. It was a nauseating sensation, like a cold snake writhing through his innards. Men who had endowed him with wit died, and Sylvarresta was assailed by a sudden emptiness as rooms of memory closed off forever.

He'd never know what he'd lost—memories of friends from childhood or a picnic in the forest, memories of important sword strokes practiced time and again with his father, or a perfect sunset, or a wife's kiss.

He only became aware that he was sundered. The doors to the rooms of memory slammed shut. The shutters to the windows fell. And in his mind there was a great moment of darkness, a keen sense of loss.

As he rushed downstairs to guard his Dedicates himself if need be, he felt as if he wallowed through the darkness.

A minute later, Sylvarresta reached the Dedicates' Bailey, counted his losses. Ten guards dead, five wounded. And five Dedicates lost.

In studying the corpses of the Muyyatin assassins, he found that each had been formidable. Their leader, whom Ault had slain, had over seventy runes burned into his flesh. With so many endowments, he had to have been a captain among the Invincibles. Many others had twenty runes or more, making them equal to Captain Derrow.

Five of Sylvarresta's Dedicates lay dead. Two gentlemen who had granted Sylvarresta wit, two who had granted sight to the King, and one who had granted sight to the King's far-seer. Sylvarresta imagined that the blind men must have been telling stories by the hearth, and the sound of their voices had brought the idiots their deaths.

When the body count was taken, Sylvarresta considered himself lucky. It could have been worse. If the assassins had made it farther into the Dedicates' Keep, the result would have been devastating.

Yet King Sylvarresta could not help but wonder at what he'd lost. He'd had endowments of wit from five men. Now he'd lost forty percent of all his memories, of years of studies. What had he known five minutes ago that he might need to remember in days to come...?

He considered the dead, wondering. Was this attack a precursor to next year's war?

Had Raj Ahten sent assassins to attack all the kings of the North, in an attempt to weaken them? Or was this a part of some more daring scheme?

Sylvarresta's readings in the Emir's book made him worry. Raj Ahten seldom bothered with feints. Instead he singled out castles, striking with ferocity, overwhelming his opponents, then consolidated his position before moving on.

It seemed odd to Sylvarresta that Raj Ahten would target Heredon. It was not the closest neighbor to Raj Ahten. Nor was it the least defensible of the northern realms.

Yet he recalled his chess game from so many years ago. The way Raj Ahten struggled to control even far corners of the hoard. Though Heredon was at the edge of Raj Ahten's board, the consequences of its loss would be devastating: Raj Ahten would take a Northern country, forcing Fleeds and Mystarria to defend on fronts both to their north and south. Heredon was not a poor country. Sylvarresta's smiths were the finest makers of arms and armor in Rofehavan, and the land was rich in cattle for food, sheep for wool, in timber to build fortifications and engines of war, and in vassals to give endowments.

Raj Ahten would need all of these to take the North.

My wife is his cousin, Sylvarresta reminded himself. Perhaps he imagines she is a danger to him. The Powers know, Venetta Sylvarresta would have stabbed Raj Ahten in his sleep years ago, if she'd had the chance.

Is this part of a grander scheme? Sylvarresta worried. Attacks like this could be taking place in every castle in Rofehavan. If all the assassins struck simultaneously, Sylvarresta would not have time to warn his fellow kings.

He rubbed his eyes, lost in speculation.