XI. Winter 770-771

On a fine cold day of December, the pregnant Countess woke beside her errand rider and cat, ate a big breakfast with him and her friends, and received a message roll that had come in during the night. She then convened what remained of her council.

"Master Clark," she said, lounging in her tall chair, "would you read the letter from the Thane of Tarnver?"

Fergus Clark stood, combed his short grey beard with his hand, cleared his throat and read. "To her Ladyship, the right worshipful Vivian, by the Sun's grace Seventeenth Countess of Clane, and to her lords and ministers in council, from your humble servant Hugo, Thane of Tarnver, this day 11 December 770. Greetings, and I am sorry indeed not to be in your presence. My lady, my lords: First, of the situation in Selac. The Rugian bands have appeared before Acali, and the Horse Marshal and I have composed a force of four hundred pikemen and swordsmen along with forty longbows to defend the town. We believe that the walls which we have caused to be reinforced will be sufficient for now. Radun, it seems, still flies the Grey Cat Couchant, but it is hard beset. We have little news from there, but we know that an assault was made upon the town a fortnight ago, and that it was successfully resisted.

"Second, to the forces of the infidel province of Farlain, whose Duke has offered myself a sum of gold florins to hand my castle over to his traitorous legions. This poor miscalculating person thinks that all choose their road as he does. Yet what should your humble servant do with riches, if he could not in good comfort live in his own skin? My sons and daughters are in agreement on this, as is my late wife, or so the fortune-sayer has told me, and I easily may believe it. I ask no reward for choosing the right way, else it would all be a matter of whose reward was more. In any case, if this adds to your grievance against those sad examples of decay of the soul, Duke Maladar, Prince Salvar and Lord Neil, then so be it.

"And in any case, said forces of said Duke, he of many names that ought not be spoken before a good and upright woman such as your ladyship, they have advanced from Angren on both sides of the Rocky with a force of cavalry and infantry numbering some three thousand. We believe this to be perhaps two parts in five of their force in Clane. This advance does not in the least threaten Tarnhold, but might at times cut our communication with your ladyship.

"The good Horse Marshal, Francis Weaver, has taken upon himself the task of keeping the highway open that leads south from Tarnhold through Clatu to Dubkarin. He has with him more than one thousand cataphracts, and we both believe them to be worth at least twice that many Farlain knights. Marshal Weaver sends his salutations to your ladyship and to the ministers and lords and ladies gathered in your council, and further salutes his lady wife and beloved, and longs so to be together with Lady Angeline and little Jack that he would have me weigh the messenger down with ten pounds of paper to tell them how much he misses them and that he will take care.

"Finally, might your humble servant ask of you whether rumor be true, that indeed you are with child? Such intelligence has come to us from the Lady Rain. If it is true, we rejoice in the glad tiding. And, of the recent decision in council to alter the ancient law of Clane in respect to primogeniture, your humble servant is required by his eldest child Elisse and his eldest son Theodor, to inquire, does such action effect a corresponding change in the law as applies to the succession of Thanes? Your servant the Thane thinks he might not have put forward such an act, and yet he is aware that it does not bear upon him, which person succeed to the seat of the Thane when he is rotting in the ground, which, may the Sun shine upon him, looks not likely to be any time soon.

"Again, your humble servant, requesting to be guided in all these things, and respectfully giving what counsel it is his to give, and wishing all to be well with your ladyship and the lords and folk attending upon you there,

"Thane Hugo of Tarnver, lord of the walls of Tarnhold."

"Thank you, Master Clark." Fergus Clark bowed and sat down. "Any reactions?"

"My lady," said Thane Horst, "I am flattered that I was the first thane to turn down the Duke's offer."

"Unless Skavin's had the same offer, which I doubt," said Sir Rogier. "In any case, the Duke evidently learned from his dealings with you, you old bastard. He won't send cash anymore."

"We appreciate the added funds from the Duke's offer to you, Thane Horst," said Vivian. "The Neil fund was getting low."

"Still," said Thane Horst, "we will eventually have to depend on more traditional sources of revenue. Farlain is clearly intent on taking over more of Clane. Perhaps he despairs of defeating the Avars, and thinks we would be an easier mark. I suppose I would think so too."

"And you think he needs to have his opinion altered," said Vivian.

"My lady, we have discussed an option, you and I and the Horse Marshal."

"Option?" repeated Sir Rogier. "What option? You're not leading the cavalry into battle yourself, are you?"

"Don't be silly, I'm six months pregnant."

"You're going to send Francis into battle!" cried Angeline.

"Well, it's his idea, actually, but--"

"It doesn't matter if it's his idea! He always wants to go riding into battle against impossible odds. That's what you're doing, isn't it?"

"Hey, hey. Who's Countess here? He is my servant, and you, you're my servant too, come to think of it, and if I send him a message with you as errand-rider, I certainly hope you don't open it up and look at it and amend it to suit you! There is nothing to fear. We have a plan."

On the twenty-first of December, Francis Weaver received his orders, borne by the Countess's most trusted messenger (and the father of her unborn daughter). He smiled as he read them, and then forced Willd to sit down and help him empty a bottle of Thane Hugo's wine. After the messenger excused himself and went to bed, the Horse Marshal and his company commanders gathered for a briefing over more wine. The next morning Willd was sent back to Nikolad, returning to the Countess's bed by the evening of 24 December.

An inch or two of snow fell on most of Clane on each of the three days following the delivery of the message. Weaver and his men passed the days by sneaking out through the flurries and ambushing Farlain horse patrols. They did this in most unsporting fashion: twenty or thirty Clanish cataphracts would dismount, tie up their horses and conceal themselves among brush or in ditches, and from such cover they would shoot up groups of no more than five Farlain riders. When enough of these incidents had occurred to cause the occupiers some two dozen casualties, the Duke's eldest son, Prince Salvar, now the chief of Farlain forces in Clane, reacted.

On the morning of 25 December--a date of no particular importance in the Clanish calendar--the sun came out and the temperature rose to just above freezing. It was, to a Clanishman, good riding weather. A force of two hundred Farlain cavalry left Angren and rode toward Tarnhold, with five horsemen riding nervously about a hundred yards in front of the rest. The blowing snow reduced visibility, but the seeing was much better today than it had been during the snowstorms. They covered about twenty miles before their cares began to awaken The forward riders were approaching a suspicious site, where the road ran under a high hedge on the right.

The decoy patrol went forward warily. Most of the following force detached itself and entered the woods on the right. They went as quietly as they knew how, and yet when they came out behind the high hedge, they found their quarry--twenty riders in Clanish grey--making off into the trees.

The Farlainers blew their horns merrily and gave chase. The hunt was on! Over hill, leaping gully, flying down forest path, two hundred horsemen chased twenty. The twenty, led by Captain Edwy Sallier, had a small head start and the pursuers did not catch up much, but what should have surprised them was that the Clanishmen, on their swift horses, on their own ground and wearing less armor, did not easily outrun their hunters. For some miles the pursuit went, and just as the commander of the Farlain force was beginning to feel uneasy, the Clanish riders turned aside, through a thicket of low trees, into a shallow, rocky bowl. A person on foot could have scrambled out, but, as all the pursuers could plainly see, a rider could only escape by returning the way he had come. The Clanish seemed to be heading for a defensible spot near a boulder. If they made it, they would be hard to dislodge. The Farlain commander blew the horn-call for attack.

As soon as the Farlainers entered the bowl, the arrows began to fly. Francis Weaver and four hundred of his cataphracts were dismounted and hiding among the rocks. Their aim was well-practiced, and there was neither wind to deflect nor falling snow to deceive their shots. As the knights' commander watched, his men fell in rows before him. Their quarry now turned and jeered the pursuers, who had no bows, only swords and shields. The longbows with which Weaver had equipped his men had no difficulty in piercing the Farlain armor. A hundred were dead in ten minutes, and the rest fled. For once the Farlain commander was in their forefront.

The Clanish force pursued them for some miles back to the road, where another two hundred cataphracts were waiting in case Prince Salvar had thought to send reserves. He had not thought it necessary. Surrounded, the rest of the Farlain force surrendered. Seventy-eight prisoners were taken that had not suffered mortal wounds.

On the twenty-seventh, when the Farlain commander, a brash young military genius of the upper crust of Calway, met with the Horse Marshal of Clane, he received no better treatment than his men had gotten in the snowy woods.

"Why am I in chains, sir?" he demanded.

"Because we captured you," replied Weaver.

"I demand to be treated as a gentleman," the military genius said.

"I demand to be able to live in my house in Angren," said Weaver. "I also demand that Vonnis be returned to its Countess. Shall I go on demanding? Maybe we can make a trade."

"I am worth a hundred florins to my family," said the genius.

"I think I can get two hundred," said Weaver, "if they really believe I have you. If they don't believe it, I may have to send them your ring finger as proof."

"Please," said the genius, "I promise on my honor as a knight--"

"Promise all you like," said Weaver. "I am no knight, and we Clanish do not fight with honor. Had you noticed?"

"I had," fumed the genius. "Ambushes and tricks."

"It's more honorable, I guess, to pay a traitor for entry into Vonnis, and to carelessly let it burn. Or to offer money to people like me and Thane Hugo, to betray the Countess's trust. You will be ransomed, I doubt it not, but I'll not get for you as much as I would like: it will not be enough to rebuild the most beautiful city in the Empire. No, that cost will have to be paid later, and it won't be in money."

The genius hung his head. "Between us," he said, "that is so."

There was much other business, and it was quite late when Francis Weaver parted from his officers and went to bed. He tossed and turned for a few minutes, thinking of his wife and son, and worrying about what Prince Salvar would do in response, but he was asleep long before he had expected to be. He did not know that eyes had been looking over his shoulder from afar.

The Countess Vivian had retired to her library, lit the candles and opened the book. She had let her eye wander the countryside, swathed as it was in snow, but her own worries brought her to Tarnhold to look in on her marshal. I've lost two horse marshals so far, she thought, I must take better care of this one. She left him in the privacy of his dreams, turning back when his door closed, glancing now over the other occupants of the castle--a soldier chatting up a young lady of Tarnhold; three more soldiers playing cards; two old men of the town drinking and smoking and discussing the world. But the wandering eye of the Countess was easily distracted by the forces of nature--she had learned that this was one of its peculiarities, whereas the Emperor-vision was quite single-minded. Vivian found herself floating up over Tarnhold to look upon the whole valley of the Rocky, river edged with ice, fields buried deep in snow, trees in snow up to their waists, with more snow in their twiggy hair, roofs and fences daubed with it, highways with piles of it for walls taller than a man, and then the rock faces on the sides of hills and the rocky peaks of the mountains, softened by snow. Her eye wandered the high places as she played on the edge of dream, a dream in which the world was mountains and the sky was stars and the snow and ice and wind were the people, feuding, making love, pulling on one another and on the stone of the earth.

But then she found herself in a familiar spot, sheltering from the wind on the high outcrops of Bald Mountain. She looked down onto Vonnis, by reflex almost, and saw it dark. It had never been so before as she had known it: always there were a few lanterns lit, a scattering of bright windows, a fire in the courtyard of the Sun House. She also missed the rising mix of dream that she recalled from her first sojourn such as this: only a few minds turned about in sleep below her, not the thirty thousand that had slumbered more or less peacefully when Vivian ruled there. She listened, wistfully and yet with a practiced ear--for she could hear, in this state, the dreams of folk as one might hear a soft conversation from two rooms away. And just as one might note an unusual accent or tone of voice, without making anything of the words spoken, so, without her seeing into the dreams of others, she sensed several unusual tones below her. She allowed her eye to settle toward the citadel below.

Some were of the Farlain contingent, aristocrats perhaps, annoyed to be posted to this outpost in the sticks. One, no doubt, was Neil of Gorngold. She sensed a bleak undertone, and thought of her ministers and servants who lay in the dungeon. There was something else as well... and she gravitated towards the most unusual accent, her eye settling downward along the wall of the citadel toward the ground, and then in through a boarded-up window in the first floor.

The tone of this strange dream-accent was of glory and fear: the desire for great triumph, and alongside that the anxiety that all might not be well. She could not see into any of the dreams--she was barely capable of such things when physically in the same room as the dreamer, though she had often lain awake at night this past year, forced to listen to the wild antics of a dreaming Ellean or the untroubled night journeys of Willd. All she knew of this dreamer was that it dreamt of conquest and rule and feared weakness unthought of.

And then she was sensed. She was in the dream. It only lasted a moment, but she could see herself, standing in the square at Angren, thin again and older, defiant in the misty night. And then her daughter, a girl of teenage, was beside her, her sandy hair flying back from her head in the wind. And then the dream collapsed and two eyes opened upon her.

She fled, her own eye fled on the night wind, out of the citadel, out of Vonnis, out across the snowy hills. She fled from that eye, fled because it was like nothing she had ever seen, and fled because she had seen it before, in the daylight, in the square, in Angren. At the last moment, sensing pursuit, she abandoned her eye and dropped softly into the fields of snow--and slowly came awake, in the library, sitting on the floor. The Priestess card was turned face-down and the left candle was out. She stood, swaying unsteadily as she remembered that she was heavy.

Vivian ran her hands over her face, took a deep breath, and picked up her things. Storing the book, the cup, the candles and the cards, she went out and locked the room behind her. She went down to the great hall and sat down. Presently Jen, who had been loitering about, came to see if her mistress needed anything, and in a few minutes the two young women were sipping pints of Miranda's red ale and talking softly about minor things.

The next few nights her dreams were unpleasant. The shadow figure chased her from world to world; arrows flew from the darkness, barely missing; the knife was there as well, sometimes; so was the daughter to come, but always under threat, always just out of Vivian's reach.

The morning of the twenty-eighth, Vivian felt ill, a nausea not of the body combined with a feeling of being thought of by someone far off. It passed, and she spent the day working, conferring, reading, and walking the walls of Nikolad in company of Sir Rogier and of Willd. She also sent Ellean's sometime love interest Ivor back to Weaver with instructions to arrange ransoms as quickly as possible. Ellean was happy to see him go, though several young belles of Nikolad cried when he left.

Vivian's dreams that night were disturbing. She was chased through a misty landscape by someone she couldn't really see, but as the mist lifted she knew that her pursuer could at last see her. Arrows from the dark played a minor role, but a greater threat bore down on her from behind. She took refuge in a dark abandoned house, but her every hiding place also served to conceal what was seeking her. She peeked out through cracks and nearly met eyes looking in; she hid in an earthy cellar and was followed by an invisible creaking on the stairs; she escaped from the shadows of the house at last, fleeing from the place where she had sought refuge, and staked her freedom on a final sprint through trees and across a field. She could not see it, but it was behind her still, and closing. She pushed her legs to their limit, and her heart and her lungs, but there was no refuge, nothing in all the flat landscape to make for. So she ran, ran while she could.

She woke up breathless, lying in bed on her back, light flooding the room. All was quite still. She tried to take in a breath. Her lungs remained empty except for half a gasp of stale air. Her muscles were frozen: her mind had awakened but her body remained asleep. Panicking, she clawed mentally at herself, tried to force her body to take in air. Still it sat there, a heavy lifeless thing.

She searched the room that stood in her vision, and found it empty but for the expected. This was no dream. She knew it now. The thing that had pursued her in sleep had caught her at that last moment, and now it had her, strangling her slowly, driving the air from her lungs, its spirit hands closing not on her throat but on the nerves that made it work. She struggled and strove, her mind fought desperately, but her body was unmoved, as unmoved as a wall that she might throw herself against. Slowly she suffocated, and slowly the child inside her died.

She reached down to her daughter, and that familiar face was uplifted to her, as if they were both drowning deep in a clear lake, and looked into each other's eyes a last time. Those blue eyes. She saw something in them--a reserve of strength, a bubble of air that her attacker did not know about, a few more seconds of life. She drank greedily of that strength, then held back, leaving half for the child.

Her open eyes examined the room one last time. No one was there, but Willd, lying inert beside her. There was a mirror on the wall beyond the foot of the bed. And in that mirror, in that complete reproduction of the world, with all sense reversed, in that narrow window, less than half a foot in each direction, there was something that was not in the room in which Vivian's body lay.

It was a dark nondescript form, a robed thing, with a hood from which protruded a bit of nose. Beneath that hooked nose was a mouth, a human mouth like many others. It wore a satisfied smile. She examined it in her head, though it knew not that she saw.

It was not her heart, but something beat faster in her as she scrounged around in the dark cluttered room of her skull. Here she found an anger, and there a pride, and she gathered up a ferocity and a mother's love and a longing and a hate. She balled it up with a poison that she found in a pool deep in her soul, and weighed it in her hands: would it be enough? She thought not. And then, nearby, she found the love of a good man, an innocent and total love, and an unexpected strength. With the weight of that as well, she made a great rock, and then she reached out and just as the figure noticed her shadow in the mirror, just as it turned to see what loomed, she pushed the rock in its face as hard as she could. The smile left that mouth as she fought him, as, like the cat sleeping on her bed might have done, she seized him in her front claws and kicked, kicked, until with an unheard howl he broke away and fled. Vivian sat up, panting, on the bed.

Simone lifted her head and yawned and opened her eyes halfway to look into those of her mistress. Vivian took breath after breath of the sweet air. After minutes she became calm. She shifted sideways into a patch of sun and pulled the blankets about her.

Willd lay beside her dreaming of horses. Something dark had touched his dream as well, but indirectly, and now, in typical Willd fashion, he shrugged it off and was riding in the sunny hills. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she hugged her bulging stomach, and then curled up beside her warm man and hugged him too. He half awoke and rolled over to hold her, and so they lay. She did not sleep again that morning, but lay in Willd's arms in the sun, whimpering and whispering, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," over and over again.

That night Vivian sat on the floor in the library in Nikolad and meditated. She scattered a pinch of the Other Crystals into her wine, she lit the left candle with an unsteady glance, and she set the open book before her. Atop its open page, she placed a card: on it, a woman tamed a lion.

She fell toward the gate. The shreds of evil reared back from her now as though she were afire with virtue. Then she was standing in the arch, and someone was beside her. It was the New Woman: Vivian's daughter, as tall as Vivian. They smiled at one another, then walked hand in hand down the path between the hedges. Twilight lay on the garden. Not a breath of wind moved. The very beams of light seemed frozen in the sky. Behind a hedge, half into an opening between hedges, stood a shadow figure looking. Vivian and daughter stopped.

It moved away from them, retreated menacingly. They slipped off along a line of tall flowers toward the side of the mansion. Then they stood at the opening in the hedge, and beside them was the smaller garden with the fountain. The Lady sat there on the stone seat, her child standing before her, and they held hands and talked soundlessly. They turned and smiled at Vivian and the New Woman.

Vivian hurried into the little garden and stood before her tutor. She told her whole story with a look. The lady replied, in a way, something in between "It happened thus to me," and "Your strength is greater than you think," and "So near you were to the abyss!" and "When it comes again you must be ready," and "Perhaps there is something I can do." Then the woman took something from around her neck, a gem that hung between her breasts, and held it out. Vivian put her hand out to take it, but instead the woman placed it upon Vivian's chest, as if it did not hang from a chain at all. It was shaped like a teardrop. Clear and many-faced, it gleamed with its own light. As it sat in Vivian's shallow cleavage, its gleam grew strong as if with the heat of her soul shining out. "This light," the lady said, without words yet clear as could be, "will keep the shadow from you, even in the hour before dawn."

Long did Vivian stand there, with the woman of the fountain before her and the New Woman beside her. The girl with the brown ponytails smiled up at her: the girl, too, wore a gem upon her chest. The woman of the fountain still had the same gem between her breasts.

The New Woman pulled at Vivian's arm. She was impatient to be gone, but they lingered for an unknown time, Vivian and her tutor and the girl with the brown ponytails and the New Woman. Something was coming, slowly, like a bubble rising from the depths: it could not be rushed. Vivian looked upon her child, this strange young woman from nowhere, created from the darkness and from Vivian's love and Willd's, but from what were Vivian and Willd? From a line of counts and a line of errand-riders? All was wallpaper laid over dark passages. The New Woman stood before her, an uncertain smile on her intelligent face, her sandy hair blown aside by no particular breeze. Vivian looked upon her and said, "Susan."

Then they turned together and went through the arch, and Vivian fell back into the world, and when she came to herself, in the library, she was still pregnant. She wept a little: she had so hoped she could talk to her daughter, there was so much to say. Now she would have to wait years.

Vivian rose. She had to use the commode, and she felt a little sick. She picked up her things and put out the candles and then she made her way out the door. The baby kicked this way and twisted that way. Susan was impatient to be born.

The clouds gathered all the next day, the thirtieth of December, into a blizzard that evening, and by the eve of the new year eleven inches of fresh snow lay on Nikolad. In the afternoon, when the sun came out, Vivian and Willd and Angeline Rain walked along the wide way atop the walls and gazed on the white world, listening to the roaring of the Glass River below and the whining of the wind out of the peaks. That night there was a subdued banquet. Lady Mirabel presided, sitting at the head of the long table, while Countess Vivian sat in her tall chair halfway down, with Willd at her side and the Rain sisters across from her; the other available nobility were sprinkled about the room, along with Nikolad's craftsfolk, who, led by Miranda the Brewer, had gained the status of squires. Children were permitted on condition of silence: if such was not expected from a child, he or she ate with the servants, which was not a great shame. Jack sat in a high chair beside Angeline and ate mashed potatoes and buttered bread.

At that very moment Francis Weaver was breaking bread with his men and Thane Hugo in Tarnhold, and if he did not fail to appreciate the beauty of the young women who served the feast, and who danced with many of his officers thereafter, he had Angeline on his mind most of the time. Thane Horst was in his hold at Dubkarin, presiding over the feast there as he had for thirty-four years.

After the plates were cleared away back in Nikolad, musicians came in and played while the nobility drank and clapped politely. After a few songs, Vivian was showing signs of drowsiness, and she opened her eyes with a start to see one of the musicians beside her holding out his lute. "My lady," the grey-bearded player said, "I am told you tickle the strings yourself."

She looked over at Ellean and Angeline, who wore satisfied smiles. "Not since before I took on this medallion," said the Countess, but no one in the room would let her out of it, so she got up and allowed herself to be led to the old lute-player's chair. "I only know a few tunes, you know," she protested. No one seemed to care, so she started into a sappy little ballad that she had once known by heart, about lovers who were separated, and who found each other only as the man lay dying on a battlefield. Most of the hall joined in to sing, much to Vivian's relief. She tried to get up after the song, but her subjects begged her for more, and so she did her best to play along with a few dances. She enjoyed herself and people stopped watching her. Ellean and Angeline alternated with Willd, who might have danced better on a horse. Vivian and Willd managed to escape after staying to see Ellean dancing Sir Rogier around the floor.

The Countess and her lover went to their bed that night in their cold room, and after they had warmed each other under several layers of blanket, Willd discovered that Vivian, almost seven months along, still felt a strong passion for him.

"But my lady," he protested, "in your condition--!"

"Don't talk back to me, errand-rider!" she said, as she pushed him down with a kiss.

Afterward they lay cuddled against each other, fitting together like spoons. Just before she dropped off to sleep Vivian remembered how things were a year ago, when she lay in her bed alone in Vonnis on the eve of the new year, guessing that the next year would be little different from the last. She tried to add it all up, the good and the bad, and even with the loss of Vonnis, and Angren, and her exile to this far-off hold, and all the humiliation and grievance and deadly menace piled upon her by her enemies, even with all her losses and all her people's losses, she could not tell the answer. With Willd's arms around her, she smiled in sleep as the world hurtled on into a new year.

The first day of the year 771, according to tradition being exactly seven hundred and seventy years since the First Emperor rose from the sea and received the obeisance of the Dukes, passed uneventfully in Nikolad. The Countess rose before dawn to hear the priest Petrus Petre offer a rousing salute to the Cause of All Life, and then, as it had with laudable regularity every day of her existence, the Sun honored the sky. The rest of the day was spent working, and reading, and practicing her lute.

The second and third days of January were likewise quiet, a blanket of snow cushioning Nikolad from the drum of events outside. However, in the evening of 4 January, the outside intruded on Vivian in the form of a loud knocking on her door, where she and her Willd were peacefully napping, Simone a pool of multicolored fur near their feet.

"I've ever seen him as mad as that, my lady," said the messenger. Vivian and Willd were sitting in wooden chairs, dressed in long nightgowns. The messenger was a few years younger than Willd, with long dirty brown hair, an unkempt short beard and an affable grin. His name was Martin of Auzel, which was a tiny village outside Dubkarin. She thought he had been one of the errand-riders with her back in Bazir, whose smoking had earned a rebuke from Willd. Martin had become a regular among the Countess's messengers and was already somewhat familiar to the Countess. She thought of him as smarter than he looked. "People all across Dubkarin were hiding under their beds," he went on. "You could hear him outside town."

"Are you going to tell me what it was about?"

"Uh, just don't hurt me, my lady. The Farlainers have attacked Fugad."

"Whaaat?"

"You're not going to start throwing things, like he did, my lady?"

"Not at you, not at you, please go on. When did this happen?"

"The last day of December. The Duke's horsemen came around and cut off escape, then his men moved in and burned the town. I guess they killed at least two hundred."

"Two hundred soldiers dead!"

"No, my lady, there weren't any of our troops in town. It was all villagers. Only a dozen or so got out, that were abroad in the countryside and heard the attack. I guess they tried to get a messenger out, but he was shot: Ivor was, trying to get away on his horse."

"Oh, by the Sun, not Ivor."

"My lady," said Willd, "it's a chance we all take."

"You're not taking that chance any more, William Willd," she said, turning on her lover. He knew better than to argue. "So," she said, turning back to Martin of Auzel, "who sent you? The Thane? When he stopped throwing chairs?"

"No, my lady. His daughter Agnes sent me, in a big hurry, right after her dad got the news. I left Dubkarin in the early morning of the second of the year, and I was stuck at Gorngold yesterday because of the snow. He's going to take it out on this Prince Salvar, he says, if it's the last thing he does, and so on, and the lady Agnes says it may just be the last thing he does, so she begs you to do something."

Vivian stood up and paced the floor unsteadily. "Do something. I suppose a direct order not to go out from behind the walls of Dubkarin qualifies." She shook her head. "This is just great. Part of me wants to ride right down there and join Horst for the attack. That's the worst thing." The two errand-riders watched her pace and said nothing, but their faces were dubious. "Well, I don't think just telling him is enough, I'll have to go there. But you--"

"Yes, my lady?" replied Martin of Auzel.

"You will ride like the wind to Tarnhold, get Weaver to bring whatever force he can to Dubkarin as soon as possible, but safely, and tell him that Tarnhold's security is the highest priority. We'll get that written up and sealed, but that's the basic idea. Got that?"

"Certainly, my lady."

"It'll take you three days, I expect, assuming nice weather."

"It's supposed to be cold and clear, that's what the old ladies say."

"Well, clear and cold is good, right? Only watch for ice."

"Yes, my lady. Do I ride tonight?"

"No, no, of course not," Vivian assured him. "You're sleeping in Nikolad tonight. And you haven't even told me about the tactical situation. Don't you have a written message?"

"We were in a big hurry," said Martin of Auzel, "and Mellor the scribe had his hands full with the Thane. I have the news in my head."

"Well, then, where is Prince Asshole's force now, and how big is it?"

"I guess it's three thousand, that's the number they were throwing around, but I guess no one knows exactly. He's bedded down in Fugad."

"They're not used to snow. And if I recall, Fugad hasn't got much for walls on this side. Of course they fear no attack, nor should they." She paced a bit more, then noticed that Martin had still not gotten leave to go. "Um, you can get some dinner now," she told him.

"Yes, my lady!" he said with a smile, and hurried out.

She turned to Willd. "Come, we have work to do."

"Yes, my lady."

"And by the way, I didn't mean it. Of course I'll still need you to do what you're trained for. Only be careful, all right? Errand-riding isn't all you're good at."

"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "you are surely mad. You cannot go galloping across the tundra in your current state. It's insanity."

"No," the Countess replied, "I don't think I'm mad at all this time. The way I see it, only I can stop the Thane from being prodded into doing something regrettable."

They were eating a late dinner, with Willd and Angeline and Lady Alice and Lady Mirabel and Purcell Colmack. Angeline nodded her agreement with her Countess, but the others all looked doubtful. "You tell her," said Sir Rogier to Willd. "She listens to you, doesn't she?" Willd laughed out loud.

"Look," said Vivian. "It's not that complicated. He's liable to attack the Prince if we don't stop him, right? And he hasn't a chance, right? And can you think of anyone other than me that can stop him? No, of course not. Not even a messenger bearing my orders under my seal. No, only one thing can stop him."

"Are you sure," said Sir Rogier, "that anything can?"

"Do you doubt that I can change his mind?"

He held up a surrendering hand, or perhaps he was trying to ward off her glance. "No," he croaked out, "I don't doubt you."

"Good," she said, controlling herself. Poor Rogier, she thought, what a beating he takes around me. She smiled. "Then let's gather what force we can and leave as soon as we can. On that score--Willd?"

"My lady, we can certainly take three hundred on horseback the morning after tomorrow. It will be a lot of work."

"Yes," said Sir Rogier, "we could manage that. I'm with you, of course."

"Of course. Lady Alice, you are vice minister of state in our absence."

"Me? Well, thank you, I suppose."

"Purcell Colmack?" The interior minister looked up, startled. "You're coming with. You should be in Dubkarin to help with the defenses. I'm sure their walls are strong, but they could always benefit from a little loving care from our engineers."

"Yes, my lady," he replied.

"And Angeline, you're coming too."

"Of course," said Angeline. "What about Ellean?"

At that moment Ellean came running in, but she slowed to a walk when she saw a meeting going on. Vivian saw her before she could reverse her momentum and go back out. "Ellean Rain, I have a use for you." Ellean marched over and stood before the Countess. Vivian pointed out the Lady Agnes's messenger, who was eating a large and well-deserved dinner at the far end of the table. "You're going to ride to Tarnhold with that guy over there."

"Martin of Auzel?" hissed Ellean in dismay. "Why?"

"Because you're not going alone, and he isn't either. I'm not having happen to you what happened to Ivor."

"Ivor?" Ellean repeated. "What happened to Ivor?"

"Ellean," said Vivian after an awkward pause, "come sit down."

The next morning, Vivian was awakened by Jen before dawn, and dressed in the dark, left Willd in bed and went to find Ellean. She and Martin of Auzel were eating breakfast together, in animated discussion. They were sharing messenger stories.

"Shot at, yeah," Martin was saying. "Didn't the Avars shoot at you?"

"Nope," replied Ellean, "I hid in a tree. I was coming back from Inzil, it was in the Countess's first year--"

"May I join you?"

"My lady!" they both said, and Ellean moved her chair over. Martin belatedly stood. "Have some pastry," said Ellean.

"Oooh, jelly buns," said Vivian, sitting. "Those sins of Vonnis are starting to show up here in Nikolad. Don't mind if I do." She picked one up and bit into it carefully. Ellean and Martin watched. "So, you guys have met."

"We knew each other for a while, my lady," said Martin, "but we never really got introduced." He had cleaned up--his hair was still wet from bathing--but he still looked shabby in a comfortable way.

"I wanted to get straight who was in charge," said Ellean. "As the veteran rider."

"In charge," Martin muttered, rolling his eyes. "Do you see how she is, my lady?"

"Oh, I know how she is," said Vivian.

"Yeah," said Ellean. "I never got this straight with Ivor, and look what happened."

"Well, this all sounds fine," said Vivian, stretching, "but I didn't come down here in the wee hours, haul this extra weight out of a warm bed, just to help Ellean train you to do what she says. I wanted to see that you got off all right, and to make sure you know what you're going to say. Did Sir Rogier give you a message?"

"Fergus Clark did," said Martin. "For Francis Weaver."

"Good. Here," said Vivian, pulling a letter from an inside pocket of her shawl. "This is for the Thane of Westdubbik. It's sealed, but I'll tell you what it says. It's a direct order to wait, in my own handwriting, and a reminder that Fugad was attacked only because it's his home town, and they want to goad him into doing something foolish. I only hope he hasn't done it yet." She held the letter between them, and Ellean grabbed it. "Might I ask, Martin, what you think? Will he have done something foolish by now?"

"Lady Agnes said, 'Just get the Countess to do something, I can hold him for a week.' I don't know, that's just what she said. Me, I wasn't going anywhere near him."

"Well, now I give you similar instructions. You'll stay the night, tomorrow night, at Dubkarin. Emphasize that we'll be there the next night, and what's he got to lose by waiting?"

"Countess," said Ellean, "did you consider the possibility that Prince Jerkface was actually trying to goad you?"

"If he is," said Vivian with a slight and dangerous smile, "then he's succeeding."

That evening Vivian held a miniature council of war, and counted up a miniature army of three hundred men, and a dozen young women of Nikolad, on horseback.

"But what are we going to do with them?" asked Sir Rogier. "Attack Fugad?"

"Sunspots, no," said the Countess. "We're going to keep him from attacking Dubkarin and Tarnhold and of course Clatu."

"How are we going to do that, if I may ask? What will three hundred horsebows matter to three thousand?"

"First of all, we have fortifications at Dubkarin, and an extra three hundred defenders may be just enough to make such an attack impossible. I played with the numbers--when you're the smaller one, it doesn't take as much to change the odds in your favor. And besides, as long as we're all at Dubkarin, he's stuck there too. If he wants to take advantage of our removing forces from Tarnhold, he'll have to pull back, rearrange and then move up again--and in the time that takes, we can reinforce Tarnhold and also retake Fugad."

"Oh, I see, interior lines. Did you get this idea from your father?"

"Oh, no. He never told me anything about strategy. No, I learned all my military ideas from you, Sir Rogier."

The weather warmed up the day they set off. It was still quite cold in the foothills, but the sun shone blindingly off the snow. The horses, however, seemed grateful for the opportunity to escape from their stables, and the whole expedition felt more like a school outing than a maneuver. They left Nikolad early and arrived at Gorngold late, hurrying across the snowy hills with the wind behind them. Vivian was given the lord's bedroom, which she accepted only because it had been Neil's. She relished tossing her dirty underwear on his floor. The next day, 7 January, they rode on muddy highways under drizzly skies to Dubkarin, the seat of the Thane of Westdubbik.

"No," said Horst de Fugad, sitting at a table in his hall with a large goblet of wine, holding his head up with his hand, "Of course I haven't done it yet. The damn officers mutinied. And my daughter was no help."

"They mutinied, did they?" replied the Countess. "They refused your direct orders?"

"They did."

"My lady," said the Thane's secretary, Mellor Megardu, "we could not allow such a slaughter. It was as you said: the Prince was just trying to provoke him."

"Yes," said Vivian, "and you, my good thane, were under my direct orders not to engage in any foolish military actions, even if provoked."

"But they burned Fugad. The house I grew up in's gone. The people I knew as a boy. All the trees I climbed and," and he blew his nose.

Vivian looked around. The mutinous daughter and officers sat around looking morose. "Thane," she said, "I feel bad for you. But you're not the only one who lost a childhood home. I didn't take all the forces I could scrounge up and attack Vonnis."

He took another drink. "So--you want some wine?"

"I want to know the tactical situation," said Vivian, "but, yes, I'll take a glass of wine."

A servant came out of the shadows and poured the Countess a glass, then went around refilling the well-drained cups of the Thane and his captains.

"They have three thousand five hundred," Sian Mark, one of the captains, was saying. "Seven hundred cavalry and the rest on foot, mostly swords but some crossbows too."

"I'll take our longbows against their crossbows anytime," said Thane Horst.

"We're not taking anything against anything," said the Countess severely, "certainly not without Weaver. Captain Mark, are you one of those who is considered to be in custody?"

"I am," said Sian Mark. "Indeed I sinned greatly, my lady."

"He did," said Thane Horst. "But all of my captains did. They refused my direct orders, with only the lame excuse of my daughter telling them to."

"I'm just going to say this once more," said Vivian. "If Clane were whole, then this sort of brouhaha would at least not be life-threatening. As things stand now, however, we will be lost forever if we do not act as one. So: no more stupid heroics, and no more disobeying orders." Muttered Hear, Hear's were the reply. She went on. "So: I brought three hundred cavalry. What more will we have once Weaver's here?"

"I know not exactly what he'll bring," said the Thane, "but let's guess five hundred more Cataphracts. We have about six hundred infantry here, half of that militia, the other half swords, pikes and bows. So, perhaps one and a half thousand, all told."

"Fourteen hundred," said the Countess.

"I was being optimistic, my lady. I do apologize."

"That's all right. I'm just not used to optimism in my councils. Perhaps there'll be more of that in the future."

"I wouldn't bet on it," said Sir Rogier.

It was three days before Francis Weaver could join the Countess at Dubkarin. Angeline and five knights from the highlands of Westdubbik rode to Tarnhold to fetch him: Jack Rain was left in the care of the doting ladies of Nikolad. The rest of the Countess's party were quartered about the stone house of Thane Horst. It was spacious but already housed most of the military force defending the town. Vivian and her Willd refused to take over the Thane's bedroom, instead ousting a junior officer from a small room high up in the mansion. From there, Vivian could see into the courtyard and on over the town to the east, and beyond that she could discern the outer walls and the distant camp of the Farlain force.

Prince Salvar, unable to provoke the Clanish leaders into an expedition to Fugad, had moved his troops up and camped before Dubkarin. It may have seemed to him that the complete conquest of Clane was doable before Spring. But the Dubbik River, ice-free and rapid in its shallow ravine, constituted a major obstacle, as did the recently-rebuilt eastward walls, so there the Farlainers sat, in the cold and mud, while the Countess drank wine and ate beef in the castle.

The Prince ordered one attack, sending five hundred infantry across the river on the south side of the town before dawn on the ninth of January. They tried to take the south gate by a stealthy approach, but it was half-hearted, and when they were sure that the defenders were ready for them, they gave it up and pulled back. Two dozen attackers lay dead, mostly with arrows in them, and among the defenders there were two sprained ankles and a broken finger.

Vivian's dream life went on issuing omens. On the third night in Dubkarin, she was walking the walls of various of her towns--even Vonnis, undamaged by fire, besieged by a multi-ethnic force, but she was her father Count Edmund, seeming undisturbed by the presence of shadow figures wherever she looked. Then he stood, gazing up in apprehension at an empty stone seat. Then she was herself again, carrying in her arms the New Woman she had seen on the other side, a full-sized grown-up. She was standing in mud before a tent. Without warning an arrow came flying out of the tent at Vivian and her daughter, but Vivian had already thrown herself on the ground, her daughter under her. Arrows whizzed by in random directions; then she woke up. She rolled onto her side, curled up against Willd and fell back to sleep. She did not remember any more of her dreams.

On the tenth of January, three hours after noon, Francis Weaver showed up, with his wife and five hundred friends. They were put up in tents in the town square. The Farlain knights made a perfunctory attempt to prevent them from reaching Dubkarin, but a sally by the Countess's three hundred cavalry resulted in a local numerical advantage for the Clanish forces, and the Farlainers were not sufficiently hell-bent for glory to fight against the odds.

"We'll have to wait a little longer," said Sir Rogier that night, during the inevitable council, "to see what they want to do. They may yet attack, but they haven't yet, and we are more numerous than we were. It seems more likely to me that they're hoping we'll attack them, that we were just waiting for the Horse Marshal to come here and lead the assault. They should know by now that we don't fight at those odds either. There are still more of them than of us."

"So," said the Thane, "they really did mean to provoke me."

"The proof is that they haven't attacked anything of military significance. They didn't even make a serious effort to occupy Weaver in Tarnhold or to prevent him from getting into Dubkarin. They want us to come out and fight."

"What if we don't?" asked Vivian. "They can't just sit there all winter."

"No," said Sir Rogier, "they can't. Their position is neither strategic nor comfortable. What will they do? There's one way to find out."

So the Clanish forces sat in warm Dubkarin for five more days, while the Farlainers waited outside in their camp for five days and five cold nights. The Farlain force neither increased nor decreased, unless defections to the infirmary were counted. The gates, walls and guard towers underwent five days of intensive improvement under the care of Purcell Colmack, while in the invaders' camp the trenches filled in with mud as quickly as their occupants could dig them out.

Vivian's dreams were quite varied, but the scene with the tent and the arrow was replayed, and snow began to figure so regularly in them that she was not at all surprised when the warm weather gave way to a blizzard on 14 January. Ten inches fell in twelve hours, and this seemed to focus the minds of the Farlain leadership.

"It's from Prince Salvar," said Vivian, rereading a message on the morning of 16 January. "He wants to hold parley with the Lady Vivian, ruler of parts of the old County of Clane."

"He does?" replied Sir Rogier. "What's to parley about? Not that I would ever turn down an invitation to use diplomacy."

"I think he's going to pull out, and he wants to cover his retreat by pretending it's the result of some negotiation."

"Still," said Sir Rogier, "you can't trust him."

"No," said Vivian. "He'll try to kill me."

"He'll what?"

"It's quite clear to me. You remember saying something to me, back before I was with child, about how, as long as there was no obvious heir, I had to watch out? If I were to be killed, you said that Clane would die also, since you all could never agree on an heir."

"Something like that."

"Yes, well, whether that's all true or not, this is their last chance. I'm due next month, or March at the latest. Thank the Sun. Then it'll be a lot harder to kill both of us, me and," Vivian said, patting her belly, "her."

"So," said Sir Rogier hopefully, "you're going to leave the parleying to me."

"No, not at all," said Vivian. Someone stood beside her, unseen by any, and awaited her answer. "No, I'll just have to be careful."

"My lady." He stared straight into her eyes. "You know, this isn't always going to work. You're not immortal."

"Rogier, I said I'd be careful. And I have my own reasons for going to this parley. It's not that there's anything to discuss."

Someone unseen turned away. Sir Rogier smiled weakly. "Well, when is it?"

"He offers tomorrow morning, in his camp. I offer tomorrow noon, just across the Dubbik bridge. We'll see where it ends up."

The parley between the Countess of Clane and the Crown Prince of Farlain was in fact set for the seventeenth of January at noon at the high point of the east bank of the Dubbik River across from Dubkarin. It was a day of many small clouds dashing across a high blue sky, of bitter wind and scattered light. Vivian looked out on the place an hour before noon from a window of the Thane's hall.

The night before had been a night of the full moon, and Vivian had kept her appointment with the woman of the fountain. All was as before, more or less, but Vivian's tutor seemed to include a warning of danger in every sentence she spoke in the non-language of the Other Side. The little girl sat by the fountain's edge and shivered, but Susan showed no sign of unease. Meanwhile the twilight sky with a few tiny stars hung above them as always: and now it seemed to Vivian that the woman of the fountain fretted in her confinement here, worried about the World the way a prisoner worries about his sundered family.

Now Vivian worried, but it did not stop her from observing. Three men from each army were selected to put up the tent in which Vivian would confer with her opposite. Vivian studied this tent carefully through the spy glass that she had never returned to Sir Everard. Then she called for Ellean, and the two spent half an hour talking before it was time to meet the enemy.

At noon Vivian mounted Finesse and rode out through the east gate. She crossed the bridge, and with her went Sir Rogier and a select armed guard: four men from the Tarnhold Cataphracts and a fifth soldier, also mail-clad but slight, with auburn hair, bearing only a longbow and a quiver full of well-sharpened arrows. All were dressed in plain grey; Sir Rogier bore the standard, a grey cat reclining on a white field. Vivian wore a long grey dress under her coat, and under that, a mail shirt. Meanwhile, Prince Salvar was mounting up along with his aide-de-camp and five knights, with the signs and colors of heraldry all over them, and each of the knights bore a different pennant denoting a different claimed title of the Duke of Farlain. From opposite sides they solemnly approached the top of the rise.

Vivian was concentrating on the tent. Someone was inside it, someone with blood on his mind. It was not the shadow figure, just a soldier owing allegiance to the Prince. The mind was scared, but resolute, and well-paid.

The two parties reached the top of the hill and sat on their horses for a full minute facing each other. Prince Salvar removed his helmet, and underneath was a face as handsome, at least, as that of his brother Prince Frenerac. His hair was dark and he wore a masterpiece of a moustache; his build, as far as Vivian could guess, was not of tremendous strength but wiry and fast. He had put on muscle since the first time they had met, at the Imperial Diet in 768. He was at least thirty.

They stared at each other until they were both more or less at ease. Prince Salvar nodded to his herald, who opened his mouth to speak. Sir Rogier spoke first. "My lord Salvar, heir to the Duchy of Farlain, behold, the Countess Vivian, Seventeenth Countess of Clane and unchallenged heiress to Count Edmund, comes forth to parley with you."

The herald gave Sir Rogier a dirty look, and replied in a stilted Heraldic that Vivian could hardly fathom.

They sat for another twenty seconds. Then Prince Salvar smiled and said, "We have not come here to stare at one another, have we? Come, I will dismount, my lady, if you will also."

"I will," said Vivian. She did so, with the aid of one of her cavalrymen, and waddled over to meet the Prince. The person in the tent was tense, but not ready to act. Vivian looked into Prince Salvar's brown eyes. "How is your brother, prince?"

He was surprised by the question. She tried to rummage through the stuff on the top of his mind, but she had not yet quite the talent; still, her rummaging threw him off of a well-practiced script. The knights shifted uneasily. Vivian's men smirked--they liked to see Vivian happen to someone else for a change.

Prince Salvar cleared his throat. "Come," he said, "let us speak of peace."

Blood! She sensed a flood of it from the tent. She thought no more, but dropped to the muddy ground. It was just as she had seen it. An arrow came whining from the tent flap--and missed Vivian's behind by an inch or two. She heard Sir Rogier curse, and another arrow whined, this time headed the opposite direction.

She took a chance and looked up. Just at that moment the tent flap opened and a surprised-looking soldier came out, an arrow in his chest. He stopped and stood blinking in the light, looking from one to another of the Clanish riders. The Farlain knights looked shocked.

"Over here, stupid," said Ellean in a clear high voice, another arrow ready. "You're dead because of me," she proclaimed. "Because you dared to shoot at the true Countess of Clane."

He rolled his eyes and fell in a heap. Everyone else stood as if planted. Only the pennants moved. Vivian got to her feet carefully.

"My lord," she said, "I apologize if I've disappointed you, not to have ready a matching attempt on your life." She looked him in the eye, brazenly rummaging around in the top shelf of his mind. She noticed names on a list, a few troop strengths--and a painting of a man with no features. He wore a crown. "Tell your master," she said, "I have my eyes open."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied.

The Countess lowered her voice even further, pulling his eyes forward in their sockets. "Tell your master," she said, "that if he wants to fight me, he should do so himself, and not send his hounds to do his hunting. Tell him that I don't like a fair fight any more than he does. Tell him that." She released her grip, and the Prince fell back, literally, landing on his rear end on the ground. Vivian turned and waddled over to her horse. Then she turned back and saw the Prince just getting back up. "As for parley," she said, "I'll have you and your barbarian horde off my property instantly. Understand?" He scowled. "And for now, that means Westdubbik. We'll come for Vonnis later. Or do you doubt me?"

The gallant soldier that had helped Vivian off her horse now helped her back on. The six Farlain knights and the other five riders of Vivian's escort all seemed equally shocked by the attempt, though the Farlainers were more shocked by Vivian's chat with their prince. After watching the Farlainers depart for their camp, the Clanish riders returned to Dubkarin as they had ridden out. Sir Rogier rode up to Vivian and said, in a weak voice, "I won't ask you how you knew that arrow was coming. Did you wonder where it went, my lady?"

"Hmm? Where--Oh, by the Sun, you're--!"

The dart stuck straight out from Sir Rogier's boot. It had gone through and into his calf. He smiled wanly. "I think not fatal, my lady, but do remember this when you ask what sacrifices I have made in your service."

"Oh, Rogier, I've never had to ask that. But honestly, can't you be more careful in the future?" He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again and just shook his head.

It was that night, as the Farlainers were falling back to Vonnis and Angren, that news came to the Countess and her ministers of the fall of Radun to attack by Rugian clans saluting the warlord Torak. Thane Robert, whom Vivian had appointed after the death in battle of Thane Raymond, fell in the square inside the city gate. Of all his sons and grandsons only one still lived, a boy of fifteen named Rodrik, sent away to Tarnhold against his protest the previous fall.

Late at night, the Countess Vivian sat at a table with Ellean, Willd and Sir Rogier, whose right boot had been replaced by a fat bandage. "How long can we keep losing blood like this?" asked Vivian, looking at the dry red stain of the wound.

"What can we do?" asked Sir Rogier, after a long draught of Thane Horst's red wine. "Eventually we'll be insignificant enough, and prickly enough, that people won't try to attack us. Until then--"

"You don't understand. I am the rightful ruler of Clane. This is my land. It's my responsibility to see that justice is done here. It's also your responsibility, and yours too, Ellean, it's everyone's, it's ours. We can't refuse it, so how shall we see to it?"

"I don't know," said Sir Rogier. "How shall we?"

"Well, isn't the Imperial Diet this year?"

"Next month," said Sir Rogier, "but the idea of your going is laughable. Unless you're serious, in which case it would be tragic."

"Oh, no, no, you're right there. I have a responsibility to Clane, and I would be irresponsible to go off to Avigon, risking so much with so little hope of gain. Just like Thane Horst, wanting to take three hundred against three and a half thousand. And then there's this little matter of my baby being due next month."

"So, what then?"

"So," said Vivian, "I'm sending one of you two."

"You're what?" they replied in chorus.

"Or both. What do you say?"

"I say," replied Sir Rogier, "that not only I but Lady Alice as well would never forgive you if I got stabbed en route through Farlain."

"True, they know you there, although that would not normally be an excuse for stabbing you. But you're right. It has to be Ellean."

"I'm up for it," the girl replied.

"I knew you would be. But you can't go alone. Take, um, take Martin of Auzel. Make sure all the other Dukes know we're still around, but watch it, people get grabbed in Avigon and never found. Before you go, I, uh, have a few things I'd like you to look into in the Imperial records. The Dukes still pay to maintain them. And have a look at the Library."

"Of course, my lady," said Ellean.

"And you, Rogier," said Vivian, "you must go to Siret and wave the flag a little. And if you have the chance to negotiate any treaties with barbarians--?"

"I'll see what I can do," replied Sir Rogier. "Of the two, I'd rather have my assignment."

"I'd rather have mine," said Ellean. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, not much, just stay home and secure the Clanish succession."

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