XVI. Winter 774

"Shall we go over it again, or have some more wine?" asked the Countess.

"Both," said Egon of the Rukh. His hair and beard were blond but mostly grey, and grey eyes sparkled beneath grey brows. He was weighty but not fat, clad in furs and leather, and Vivian could not count the knives and daggers on his person. Yet he struck Vivian as the most mental of all the Rukh she had met. A young warrior brought wine for the four who sat at the table: the Countess of Clane, the Thane of Siret, this chieftain and Ellean Rain. Vivian and Sigrith both held sleeping babies in their laps. These showed no sign of awareness of the wrangling going on above them. Around them, in Egon's Simkin, Rukh and Clanish soldiers watched the proceedings with slight interest and only a little suspicion. When all the cups were full again, Egon picked his up, swirled it around, leaned back and said, in well-taught and slightly accented English, "I must have one of the three."

"All right," said the Countess, "but not Radun and not Acali, so that leaves Simkin."

"Yes, but this Thane of Radun you speak of--"

"Thane of Selac. Rodrik, grandson of the late Thane Robert."

"A great warrior, who deserved a heroic end. Shall we have a smoke?"

"Um, no thank you, Chieftain, but go ahead."

Egon pulled out his pouch and stuffed a brown wad from it into his pipe. He offered the pouch to Ellean. "Don't mind if I do," said the young woman. "May I borrow your spare, um...?"

"Sure," said Egon, pulling out a second clay pipe and handing it to her. "Keep it, as a token of friendship from the Lord of Simkin." Vivian waited patiently while he lit his bowl by a candle. Then while Ellean was lighting hers, he pulled the map closer. "Countess," he said, "I'm not under this Thane."

"Well, you see, that's a problem," said Vivian. "The ancient charters, you know."

"You can be under the Thane of Siret," suggested Sigrith with a grin.

"That's another matter," said Egon, "between you and me, Chieftain-Thane. Now, Countess, I'm flexible, but you have to give me something."

"You're getting one of the three main holds, the only one still substantially intact. And you're getting a third of the territory."

"No, I would say half."

"Then I would say two fifths."

"Everything north of the river and west of Acali," he ventured. "Countess, it is you who now go back on things already agreed. I must take less than half, and I must bow to the Countess, and now I must also bow to the Thane. I should be a Thane myself: if she can be--"

"Watch it," said Sigrith.

"I've got an idea," ventured Ellean. "You'll still claim the mountains to the north, right?"

"Not claim," said Egon. "Rule."

"Of course. So you're Chieftain there, but in addition to what you rule alone, you also hold Simkin and the lands north of the river and west of Acali, as a lord of Clane."

Egon pulled thoughtfully on his pipe, peered over it at the Countess. "But I acknowledge only the Countess, not some village boy."

"All right," said Vivian, "but you pay me two tenths. I'll just send the second tenth back to Radun anyway. It's a lucky thing I've got a good head for figures."

"Do you take two tenths of a cow, or tithe the wine and ale?"

"No, and yes. Livestock is taxed only at sale, but you will owe me some wine."

"I won't send two tenths," said Egon, and took and held a long pull on the pipe before adding, "I'll send a tithe to the boy at Radun as a gesture."

Vivian took a sip of the sweet strong wine and swirled it around in her mouth thoughtfully. Egon waited for her answer, then leaned back and blew out a series of tiny smoke rings: three, four, five, six, seven, each darting through the previous one. Finally Vivian set her cup down, swallowed and said, "What does it matter to me how it's paid? As long as you keep paying."

"Mmm." Another long pull on the pipe. "And that, children, is how Egon became an Imperial Lord." He smiled, a smile that warmed Vivian's heart. Then his eyes narrowed."Now, as for--how do you call them? Military--"

"Military obligations," said Vivian. "Well, let's see what we can do about that. How about if you solemnly promise that should I politely request your assistance, you won't turn me down?"

"How about this," said Sigrith, "if I send troops to the aid of the Countess, then you agree that you would be shamed if you did not likewise?"

Egon smiled. "I have missed our dealings, Sigrith, really I have. I had no choice when Torak was strong. Now I am glad to be on your side again."

"For my part," said the Countess, "I am glad to have both of you on my side. If you'd all followed Torak, I might've ended up ruling an upstairs flat in a bad neighborhood of Calway."

"You needn't spend your free hours thinking of that," said Sigrith. "If I had been Torak's ally, one of us would have spitted the other inside of a month."

"Aye," said Egon. "He would have been the one with the hole in him. It might have been better thus. I could never take him on, and Faulk had no hope at all."

"How do you suppose Chieftain Faulk will fare, back over the mountains?" asked Vivian.

"His men are hardened by war," said Egon. "Like as not, he'll displace some other clan over the heights into Clane. But fear not. Sigrith and I can beat anyone that Faulk can beat."

"I'd like to say I'm sorry he didn't stay," said Vivian, "but I'd be lying. Good riddance to him, and to those of Torak's clan that went with him." She swirled her wine. "I don't know which is harder to believe: that finally Clane has Siret and Selac intact, or that we still hold so little of my father's lands. Still, we are a stronger alloy than we were, because we have added the iron of the Rukh to our own."

"The mixture is sure to be overpowering," said Sigrith. "We'll see when Sigliess grows up."

"So the father is...?" asked Ellean.

"She won't say," said Egon. "It's her way. I think one of them is mine, but I can't tell which one. None, I think, is Torak's."

"You may be sure of that," said Sigrith.

"But to talk of taking back, Countess. There is still much to do, to repair Radun and retake Acali and beat down the brigands that sit in all that land. And my clan will not do all of it, or we want all the reward."

"That," said Vivian, "is why we have the Cataphracts, and Sigfrinda's warriors, close by. I certainly don't see trusting you yet in the reconquest of our lands. I daresay that your own self-interest will be sufficient to induce you to fight off further invasions from over the mountains."

"Your eyesight is good, Countess. I hardly trust myself."

"I trust him, Countess," said Sigrith. "He only puts on the air of a ruthless warlord. In his heart he is a trustworthy ally."

Egon looked taken aback. "Chieftain-Thane," he said, "to me, you say this? When for three summers I fought against you on Torak's side?"

"Yes," said Sigrith, grinning, "and even him you would not betray, when it was sure he was lost. Go on, fool yourself; you're not fooling me."

"Your secret is safe with us," said Vivian. "Another round!"

They all refilled their cups, and Vivian drained half of hers. Egon rolled his eyes. "How can she hold so much wine without showing the effects? Even my eyes become blurred, and I must be twice your weight."

"My heart is pure," replied Vivian.

The fall had flown by as Vivian had never known time to fly before. She had heard that this was a symptom of age, but another explanation was the sheer volume of work she had done since the birth of her second daughter Anne. Peace meant repair and revenue and expenditure, it meant projects put off "for the duration" now had no excuse to dally on the drawing board. There were new arrangements to be invented with the Rukh as well as the upkeep of old arrangements, as Clane's institutions continued to adjust to Nikolad as capital.

For the first time since before the fall of Vonnis, Siret was entirely Clanish, if only because Clane had adopted its Rukh invaders. The same thing was happening now to Selac. It was only a matter of time--and labor. Unlike mountain-ringed Siret, whose capital and southern half had never been occupied by an enemy, river-bound Selac had been completely deconstructed. Its capital, Radun, was a shell of stone with a few of its buildings intact, a camp for the Rukh and a squalid remnant of the Clanish inhabitants. Its second town, Acali, was a ruin, the more so since Torak's escaping followers had torn up anything that looked valuable. Four fifths of the surviving Selacans were now living in Tarnver and Westdubbik, but until an operation could be launched against the bandit society that had sprung up between Acali and Clatu, they could not be expected to stream home with all their belongings. Such an operation was beyond the County's means until summer at the soonest, but its planning occupied much of Vivian's mind in the meantime.

She was also hitting the books: her progress in unraveling the secret notations of her predecessors was paying off, but this only opened up another large vein of work. It also served to remind her of how much she didn't know, as symbolized for her by the strange music of the name "Arrenuim", found in a margin of a diary of Countess Tereza, in her son Lenward's hand. Once read, it couldn't be forgotten, but what did it mean?

Meanwhile, many babies had been born: Lady Anne, named for Lady Anne of Wade, Vivian's fondly-remembered stepmother; Angeline's second son Robin Rain; Sigrith's new daughter Sigliess; Lady Mirabel de Nikolad's daughter Patricia; and numerous other children of Nikolad and Hvanar, born of new alliances and new homes and a certain degree of prosperity in the face of war. The wedding of Lady Mirabel and Captain Sallier had taken place on Midsummer Day of 773, with as fancy a party as Nikolad could manage; Mirabel's sixth-month bulge was not considered an impediment. She and Vivian both solemnly swore off childbirth, at least for a few years, but by fall the Duchess Zinyda was pregnant again.

The heiress grew toward the age of three, an impossible and enchanting creature. She was sweet on her sister Anne but terrorized anyone close to her own size. She loved Jen but never ceased to pester her; Willd and Sir Rogier were both wrapped around her tiny finger. When she and her mother visited the Other Side together, Susan still did not speak, but there was a vast power hiding in her blue eyes. Vivian recalled her father's words to her: "You, though, you show signs of being the best of all." She had always wondered about that. Now she thought, if so, then you, my little girl, are going to shake the world.

The generalized war dragged on. Vivian could now conceivably muster as many as five thousand, a number that would have astounded her father, but more than half of those were Rukh, and now many of the Rukh were learning how pleasant the pastoral life could be. She suspected that their troop strength was dropping by the day, and was not sorry about it. In any event, the Farlainers still occupied Vonnis and Angren, and their numbers in Clane had fallen to five or six thousand. "Let's attack them now, while we still have the disadvantage" went the most repeated jest around Nikolad and Tarnhold.

Beyond Clane, there was a strange stale silence over the affairs of the dead Empire. Farlain controlled Amari, southern Shadewind and a piece of Clane, and dominated the Grand Duchy of Avigon and the reconstituted Duchy of Allor. The other Sovereign Lords were quiescent. The Avars seemed to be at peace with all their neighbors, most notably Inzil, a chunk of which was grazed by Avar herds. There was supposed to be an Imperial Diet this Spring, but without even Duke Maladar to spice it up, Vivian doubted it would be interesting enough to risk any of her people. All the scheming and diplomacy seemed redundant: the exercise of power, for better or worse, was out in the open. And for better or worse, the powerful seemed content to bypass the solidified remnant of her County.

This part of the remnant was not very solidified, thought Vivian as she and her escort rode through the wet pine woods between Radun and Acali. With her were little Annie and Ellean Rain and Valerie de Nikolad and a dozen Westdubbik swordsmen, so she felt fairly safe, but all day they had been passing empty farms and abandoned villages. The glare from the white blanket on the ground and in the trees was nearly incapacitating, but the horses somehow managed to stay on the road. There was no telling how far they would sink into the mud if they got into it.

"Seriously," said Ellean, "do you trust him?"

"Egon? Sure I do. As much as I trust you."

"Oh, that much, huh?"

"No, not that much, actually, but sure, I trust him. He just wants to live in peace and prosperity. Not like Sigrith, who also wants glory for herself and her daughters. Or Torak, who wanted to eat the world."

"You don't trust Sigrith?"

"I didn't say that. The thing about Sigrith is, once she decides to respect you, she'll never betray you. It's not glorious to her to win a battle if she has to behave dishonorably to do it. And somehow I've earned her respect."

"There's no mystery to that," said Ellean. "You are the Amazing Vivian!"

They camped among the pathetic ruins of Acali that night, possibly where Lady Selene's hall had been. It took them two more days to ride the empty woods of eastern Selac and western Tarnver. On the last afternoon of January of the year 774, Vivian, Countess of Clane these six years, arrived in Tarnhold with her new daughter and her escort. Thane Hugo, almost eighty, insisted on cooking as usual, and Weaver and Angeline and Sir Rogier and Lady Alice and the Lord Consul were all waiting there for Vivian to tell all about the Winter Moot of the Rukh. But there was Willd standing behind them, with a silly smile on his face and a little girl hanging onto a finger. Vivian excused herself and disappeared with her husband and daughters until dinner.

Rested and cleaned up, the couple came down to the Thane's hall in the evening, Vivian carrying Anne, Willd hauling the giggling Susan. Vivian cleaned her plate of soft cheese rolled up in pasta and baked in a sauce under a blanket of more cheese, and only then did she give in to the demand for news. All who wished to hear gathered in the Thane's large drawing room, where the Countess was given the plushiest chair. Jen had come down from Nikolad with Willd and the heiress, and she took it on herself to keep Vivian's wine glass filled.

"Is this to be considered a meeting of the Council?" Vivian asked, noting the Thane's scribe ready with quill, ink and paper.

"If you wish, my lady," said Sir Rogier, "though we lack the Treasurer, the High Priestess and the Interior Minister."

"I only want to know whether to expect the usual uproar about me giving away the County to appease Egon and Sigrith."

"You didn't," said Ellean. "I made sure of that."

"What did you give away?" asked Sir Rogier.

"Sigrith's happy as is," said Vivian, "and by now the rest of Siret is as happy as one could expect. Egon will hold that part of Selac that lies north of the Rocky River and west of Acali, with Simkin as his stronghold. He's accepted the idea of Thane Rodrik of Selac, but won't recognize him as liege lord, except by sending him a tithe of wine and gold. He will also retain whatever control he has over lands outside the boundaries of Clane, but he won't owe tithes for that. His wine is fortified, by the way, but your Countess showed again her superior breeding by outdrinking him with his own stuff."

"Did he get you drunk enough to let him off his military obligations?"

"I drink, Sir Rogier, I do not get drunk. Military obligations were also a subject of our understanding. Sigrith renewed her oath to the County before Egon and his captains, and Egon was shamed into admitting that he too would send troops if asked. He also will pay his tenth to the County, and in all other respects accepts not only my sovereignty but that of my line. My judgement is that he is more trustworthy than he would like people to think."

"In any case," said Thane Horst, "we are at peace with the Rukh, as I am learning to call them, and that alone makes our position far more comfortable than it has been."

"I will only sit in comfort in the Citadel of Vonnis. Still, yes, it's a load off my mind."

"And now we can turn to the reconquest of Eastern Clane?" ventured Weaver.

Vivian regarded him with skepticism, then shrugged. "I don't know. Why not? I mean, we have some work to do yet, but--"

"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "let me remind you that Duke Salvar's whole army numbers something around thirty thousand. His fight with Amari is finished, and he won't need both hands to strangle his enemies in Allor. He still has six thousand in Angren and Vonnis, quiet though they have been of late. It's only a matter of time before he turns back to us."

"Then why hasn't he yet?" asked Vivian.

"Well, he's--well, I don't know. We could ask him."

"Great idea. No, this actually has been worrying me, does it not you? Why this long silence? We defeated him at Nikolad, but only just, and his losses were small, for Torak took the brunt, and it was a year and a season ago. He has no other significant struggle on his hands--he hasn't invaded Rahavon or Orzali, has he? So why not turn ten or fifteen thousand loose on us? Why not at least take advantage of our tiff with Torak to invade Westdubbik? Is he scared?"

"Maybe," said Weaver. "We gave him reason."

"No we didn't," said Thane Horst.

"I don't think so either," said Vivian. "But what's he up to? I mean, Salvar doesn't strike me as the sort to conquer just so much and stop. What's he got up his sleeve?" She glanced around. "I'm really sorry," she said. "The news is all good, and I'm inventing bad news just to depress us all. Wine-steward, refill the cups! And bring me my lute."

"You would play for us?" asked Thane Hugo. "You never play, my lady."

"She's been practicing a lot," said Ellean.

"Well, I only know one song," said Vivian, "and of course it's a depressing one, but if your own musicians play loud enough you won't notice."

The third of February was a full moon, and Vivian secured a small room in Thane Hugo's keep for her nighttime use. She and Susan and the baby Anne repaired thither after dinner. With Anne sleeping in her lap and Susan trying to stay awake sitting beside her, Vivian set out the candles and the book and the card and the goblet. She sprinkled a little of the Other Crystals into the wine, which swirled of its own accord. She put a drop onto Susan's tongue, and then she drank the rest to the dregs. The left candle glowed and burned. Vivian and her daughters were falling past the rags and wisps of evil toward the Arch. Then they stood, three women of the same height and slight build, one brunette, one sandy-haired and one blonder than her father. The Lady of the Fountain and the little girl with the brown ponytails and the bows stood before them.

There was no shadow figure, yet the Lady seemed anxious. They passed by the fountain and out into the wider garden before the mansion, and soon the five of them were walking up the broad avenue. Now the silence of the place seemed strained, as though it were something wrong with Vivian's ears, or as though it were a sound of its own, just loud enough to cover some other noise. The Lady hurried them forward, and they passed by the side path to the left that led to the balustrade, and ventured onward up the avenue, beyond the furthest of Vivian's explorations. They walked until the mansion behind them was a smudge against the twilit horizon, and the avenue among flowers was a mere horse-path between overgrown plots. Another path ran to the right, blocked by branches and trailing brambles. That way the Lady pointed, and Vivian and Susan and Anne picked their way down it to a gap in the hedge.

When they came to the opening, Vivian gasped. She stood at the unguarded brink of a cliff. Perhaps there had been a stair down, perhaps there would be one again--but now there was no way on from here. Then she looked upon the scene below her and gasped once more. She knew the place immediately. Evening light lay across a small walled city full of trees, with lights twinkling from many houses. She thought she could smell cooking and even hear the strains of music and the melodies of conversation. Almost she stepped forward off the cliff, she was so strongly affected by the apparition. But she realized that her road down to that scene was a winding one, not the deadly directness of the fall from the ledge.

Vivian and her grown daughters turned and made their way back to the Lady's side. She smiled wanly at them, seeing that for once Vivian had gotten the message.

They drifted back down the avenue and turned off toward the balustrade above the dark seaside city. Soon the four women and the girl stood gazing down over the familiar vista of foggy hills and light and dark spaces in the evening. There was no sound but the faint crashing of waves, and the tang of the sea air rose up from below. Their guide indicated that Vivian should descend to the city, and she did, with much more reluctance than the first time. Susan and Anne followed her, looking dubious. They reached the foot of the stairs and felt a cool sea air upon them. The bazaar was empty. A few carts and vacant booths were pulled off to the side, but the center of the plaza lay vacant. Vivian looked up toward the top of the stairs, but they faded into the cloudbound night. A thin foggy dew slipped in from the shore and deposited on them a cold film of moisture. The three women, mere wisps in this empty dream, looked at one another, shrugged, turned and wandered on into the city.

Vivian did not count the hours they wandered the wide dark dew-moistened streets. Always there was the soft chill wind, always just covering with silence some faint sense of sound. She beheld scenes and knew at the moment she saw them that they had presented themselves to her before, but all was different now, quiet, empty of mind not like a rock but like a sleeping thing. At last they found themselves standing in a small square with a weathered deformed statue in its midst, and before them was a domed building. It seemed the center of all the waiting silence, as if there was a congress of ghosts holding session inside the building.

They stood and stared at it, at the statue, at the square, at the buildings around, and it struck Vivian suddenly that she had not been here before. She began to get the willies.

Susan walked up to the building and tried the door, but it wouldn't open. Vivian looked at her and said, as clear as if her mouth had spoken, No! Leave it! To which Susan replied with a reluctant look--but complied. They walked away from the square, but Vivian could not help think that she might at any moment see the shadow figure hiding among the fronds of mist. She looked over her shoulder again and again, and her latent panic infected the girls as well: they were soon sprinting across the empty plaza and up the stairs.

The three women pulled up at the top, panting, still mystified. The Lady smiled, shrugged and escorted them all back to the fountain. There she and Vivian sat on the bench and seemed to talk, while Susan and Anne and the little girl sat on the ground and played. After a pleasant time, the Lady got up and led them to the Arch, and with a careworn smile bade Vivian and her daughters farewell.

The fall into the world was disconcerting, because she expected to aim for Nikolad and instead seemed to be heading for--but the fortified town at the influx of one river into another was just Tarnhold, and there she came awake after midnight, looking down into Susan's blue eyes. Annie dozen in Vivian's lap.

"Mama," said Sue, "what was that city?"

"The one with the dome and the sea breeze? I've been there, but I don't know what it is."

"No, not that one, the other one. With the cliff, and the people."

"Oh. Oh. Oh, my child. You'll get to live there some day. That was Vonnis, the city where I was born."

The Countess rested at Tarnhold for several weeks, taking the opportunity to ponder the meaning of things and not getting much out of her pondering. The Thane clearly loved to have her around. "I've been fiddling around with the ingredients," the old guy would say, and she would be presented with another dish of pasta and cheese and spice, sometimes with chicken or beef or mutton, often with a distinct flavor of red or white wine, always with plenty of garlic. He would stand back from her while she tasted it, as if by moving he might bruise the fragile balance of the meal. At each dinner she tried to convey even more of the pleasure her mouth experienced, and she did not need to feign sincerity.

"It can't go on," Vivian told Thane Hugo when she had run out of ways to intensify her facial expression. "One night you will present me with a meal that is not better than the previous night's."

"Do you like my pasta?"

"Oh, no, I clean my plate out of a sense of duty. Could you move to Nikolad?"

"My lady, I have many responsibilities here, and my late wife is here as well, for I see her every morning. Perhaps your ladyship ought to think of moving your provisional capital to Tarnhold. We have much to recommend us: close to Vonnis, very well-defended, central to the major arteries of commerce."

"And good food. No, Thane, do not tempt me. I'm settled in at Nikolad, and I won't move again until I can move back home. But I guess I can afford to waste another week here. Enough of such talk, Thane: sit down and eat your pasta. Don't you like it?"

On the seventeenth of February Vivian had a strange dream, just once in a fortnight of ordinary dreams. She saw the map of the Empire, as though studying it in a book, and then she was looking down upon it from on high. There was the broad expanse of Orzali, the fertile lowlands along the Allor River, the great City of Avigon in its prime. There were armies, innumerable hosts all in the gaudiest uniforms, marching in triumph through the rich avenues in the sun of a summer afternoon, and even the slaves and prisoners were dragged along in chains of gold. There was a throne of marble under a dome of pearl, and looking out from that throne she could see through the walls as if they were glass, see out across the Gulf of Almery to the islands in the summer sea, out across Amari and Rahavon to the mysterious forests, out across Farlain where the hills, dotted with ruins, rose toward the godlike mountains.

There was a place in the high woods of north Farlain where ramparts and towers stood up among the great trees, and fair princesses and wizards defiantly walked the battlements: but no, under a black sky they fell dead in heaps, and the walls fell, and the forest returned in conquest. Far off was a small city secure behind its walls, where the Rocky River flowed into the Lavan, and over the city flew a pennant bearing a grey cat--no, it was a blue horse. To the right stood high plains where nomads wandered, but these too hailed the throne in Avigon. She saw it all not from Vonnis, but from Avigon, the heart of the Empire. Then the dream's view turned to the left.

There was a smaller city, unwalled, partly in ruin: Angren on the north bank of the Rocky River. The majesty of Avigon looked down on this empty and insignificant place, and it seemed after the cities and armies and mountains like a barren plain. But a shape moved there. The eye tried to concentrate upon that shape, but it was featurelessly tiny, like a bird circling high up in the sky. It was a person, a woman, grey and small. She stared implacably back toward Avigon. There in the square of Angren she would be waiting, a knife in her hand.

Vivian came awake and stared at the ceiling. Her heart raced as messages of fear rushed back and forth across her nervous system. But the foretelling was for someone else, not her. At last she fell back asleep, lulled by the sounds of Willd and her daughters breathing, relinquishing her view into someone else's nightmare.

The next night, the night after the new moon, Vivian returned to the closet she used in Tarnhold, set down her father's book and two candles, drank the wine, and emerged into the night a bodiless eye, while Suzy and Annie slept two rooms away. But again, as on the night before she was chased from Vonnis and the week before Prince Frenerac had needed rescuing, she came up against a low black ceiling.

She returned to herself after banging against the obstacle in frustration. Things had been going so well--and the dream, what was that to do with this? Something far away was thinking of her, and taking the trouble to conceal its designs. Why? What under the Sun was it this time?

Still for a while Vivian and her friends lingered at Tarnhold. The February thaw was well underway. She took two days to ride in the Tarn Valley, the narrow and mountain-walled garden plot of Tarnver. On the night of 20 February she slept at Grangeon, a town of Old Clane utterly untouched by war. "I think I'll just stay here," she told its octogenarian lady holder over an after-dinner glass of brandy, but she returned to Tarnhold the next day.

Angeline took Vivian around the shops and showed her the parks and byways of the castle town, which rode up the side of a great hill in ringed streets crossed by stepped avenues. People waved to her, or stopped her to shake her hand and ask how her daughters were. Vivian hardly knew the place, which was fast becoming Angeline's and Francis's backyard. Thus it was with a shock that Vivian one day discovered her present crossing the path of her past. In the middle of an afternoon tour with the Rain sisters, Ellean grabbed her arm.

"Vivie, remember? It was here that--you remember that night, when we were riding out to Selac to fight?"

They were on the edge of a park, on the other side of which Vivian could see the Citadel of Tarnhold. "Oh, yes," she said at last, thinking of a nauseating headache, and of the descent of dark wings from the ether. "I remember."

"What?" asked Angeline.

"I, um. I remember a, um, terrible headache. It was foggy. I must've had a chill."

"She got over it," said Ellean, "to the extent of personally leading the fight against the Rukh in that battle in the woods."

"Yes," said Vivian, "I got over it."

She was distracted all evening, not by ethereal forces but by the memory of them and the pondering of their meaning. That night she had wild dreams--but the shadow figure was absent. Vivian sought for him in forest and house and finally in a dark and empty Vonnis. It was not a ruin, just vacant of people, as if the town in which she'd grown up had been abandoned overnight. She walked the corridors of the Citadel, and at each door she stopped, certain that something horrid was behind it. Time and again she pulled a door open and thought that a monster or a cloaked figure stood there, but instead there were dusty coats hanging from hooks, or stacks of boxes, or shelves full of books. At last she stood high up on the citadel roof, on the steep shingles of the high tower itself, and noticed someone slipping out of a basement door in the morning gloom before dawn. While she watched, it crept out the front gate of the empty town and took the road south through Intror toward the sea. She looked around and found herself on the roof of a tower below Mount Nikolad, watching as some army of shadows marched off. War and battle there were, but far away, and now she was alone in the mountainous landscape, under a ceiling of unbroken cloud.

That night, the twenty-fourth of February, Vivian and Ellean and Willd and Weaver and Angeline and Sir Rogier and the maid Jen sat up drinking wine and talking about small matters. The minister of state dropped out first, followed shortly by Angeline and Weaver. "You may think you're going to drink me under the table," said Willd after their departure, "but I'm determined to stay awake this time."

"Men," said Ellean. "You always think we're conniving when we're just having fun. It's not like men never do anything devious, or have ulterior motives."

"Then, dear ladies," said Willd, "you mean to say that you're not going to ride to Vonnis?"

Vivian and Ellean looked at one another. "You're smarter than you let on, William Willd," said Vivian. "All right, if you refuse to be fooled, yes, I want to go have a look at Vonnis. From Bald Mountain, not from inside the walls."

"It's too dangerous, my lady. Let your faithful scout go."

"You, or her? No. I'm not sending you into danger. Don't look at me like that, my love. We're so close to Vonnis that I can't stand not to go look."

"But my lady, if something happened to you--you might as well have me along, because I would die if you didn't return to me."

Again Vivian and Ellean looked at one another. "He's won," said Ellean, "admit it. You have to give in. Besides, maybe he's right, maybe it is a bad idea."

"Of course it is," said Willd. "But if you insist on going, you have to take me."

"You can't leave me behind!" said Ellean.

"It must be a very bad idea," said Vivian, "if you both want to go. How about you, Jen?"

"Oh, no, my lady, I have to take care of the heiresses."

"Heiress. I've thought about it, and since I'm still nursing Annie, I'll have to do as the Rukh women do and carry her on my back. I've been taking tips from Sigrith."

"That explains a lot," said Willd.

Vivian sighed. "Look, it's been four years since I was even this close, and it's my hometown, and--well, I have to see it."

"And you remember, my lady," said Willd, "how you fared last time? My beautiful Vivian, you have done so much in the past year, but return to Vonnis?"

"I know, my darling, but, oh, how can I make you understand? Either of you, the two people I care most about, not counting my beautiful daughters. But I am Countess of Clane. Not of Nikolad, or from Angren west. Even while I am prevented from my duty, it is still my duty. Even while I must abandon the lands that were placed in my care, they are still in my care. My father and grandfather and Countess Tereza and Count Robert and Mattas the Old, all the way back to John Zimmish and the Lady Penelope, I cannot excuse myself to them for the dereliction of my responsibility. Vonnis burned, and I was on watch when it happened. Angren was occupied, is occupied, and it is on my watch. Intror is victim of a foul treason, a treason against me and one that I must punish--but not because Karlan betrayed me. Because Karlan is my subject, and what he did is my responsibility. I am Countess even of Bazir and Maklos, not less so though my flag has not flown there since we turned our backs and rode away in my first year. It's true, I can't regain Vonnis, not yet, not soon, not so far ahead as my eyes can see, but that makes it all the more important that I look upon it with my own eyes again."

"We all feel that way," said Ellean, "but--"

"Besides, something strange is going on."

This time Ellean and Willd exchanged looks of resignation. Willd shook his head, but Ellean just raised her glass and said, "Then we're all three of us going. Four, counting Annie. When do we leave?"

"Day after tomorrow? As early as possible. Willd, is there no way I can make you stay here with Suzy and Jen?"

"You could order me, my lady."

"Would it work?"

He smiled. Ellean spoke up. "It won't work with me, so don't bother trying."

So it was that on the twenty-sixth of February, at the moment when the sun would have cleared the horizon had it been late May, three riders left the gate of Tarnhold that faced toward Vonnis. They were all dressed as scouts, and the guards at the gate recognized two of them; the third they took to be one of the Countess's notorious Archer Girls of Nikolad, and the bundle behind her, swathed against the chill, looked a lot like a bedroll.

They rode all through a day of hurrying clouds and spits of rain. They stopped, around noon, in a lonely stretch of the main road halfway to Angren. They shared some bread and fruit and dried meat and wine and Vivian let Annie crawl around looking for cool sticks while they discussed their itinerary.

"We should make Rain Hall tonight," said Ellean. "I'm sure we have room for you guys. Oh, wait a minute--I forgot. We have some guests from Farlain."

"Kick them out. I'm the damn Countess."

"Oh, I wish it were that easy."

"Seriously," said Willd, grabbing Annie up from her path into a thorn bush and turning her the other way, "we should perhaps camp in the forest this side of Angren tonight. Then we can take the hill paths toward Bald Mountain."

"Don't we plan to at least have a look at Angren?" asked Ellean.

"From the woods, dear," said Vivian. "I've learned one lesson. I didn't get stabbed while I was on the mountain or in the woods."

"Who was that, anyway? You always acted like you knew."

"I didn't, and I don't," said Vivian. "I have dreamt of him. But that was no dream."

"It certainly wasn't," said Ellean. "I still have a pair of socks with your blood on them. But where did he vanish to?"

Vivian did not reply. They finished their lunch in silence, mounted up and rode on. By mid-afternoon they were coming to familiar landmarks: a deep-cut stream, a stand of old pines, a house-shaped boulder. Without a word they turned aside from the road and took a forest path most often used by deer. As the sun went down the travelers made a small fire in the shelter of a cluster of rocks, made tea and huddled for warmth as they ate their bread and fruit and dried meat. Their horses tied up nearby, they sat and drank wine and talked in low voices. They smothered the fire and fell asleep with their backs against the rock, their blankets around them.

It was the twilight of morning when Vivian next opened her eyes, though she had to think about it first. Fleeting dreams dissipated, or did they? She was sure, as sure as she could be in the grey gloom and muttering wind under the trees, that she heard voices, soft but quite near. She needed to relieve herself but she sat frozen in place, listening. It was not exactly fear that froze her. Voices she heard, speaking words, but it was no tongue she knew of. The speakers sounded like children whispering, but their sound was also like song, and she listened for some time enchanted. Waking up more, she half rose and struggled to escape the blankets without pulling them off her companions. Now she could see over the rock in front of her: indeed there were figures there, perhaps of child-size, but she could not tell more in the dimness. Did they now look toward Vivian, were they now quiet and motionless? She stared hard at the area in front of her: whoever had been there had evaporated into the twilight.

Ellean roused herself. "Is it morning?" she said. "I ache all over."

"Hmm," said Vivian. She left Annie sleeping, crept out and lost herself among the bushes. When she came back, Ellean was waking the fire from its slumber. "No tea?" was all Vivian said.

"No water?" asked Ellean back.

"Didn't look," said Vivian.

"I will," said Ellean, getting up and pulling a shallow pan out of her pack. "I have to go anyway. Work on this fire, will you?"

Vivian stirred it with a stick, pushed leaves into it, blew on it. It occurred to her that it was an unusual sensation to have someone tell her what to do. Annie finally woke up, wailing of course. When Ellean returned, with the pan still empty, Vivian, nursing, looked up at her and smiled. "You're wonderful," she said. "Water or no."

"Huh? And I thought you were grumpy. You're good too. What's the plan?"

"First, Annie gets fed. After that, I don't know. We find a stream and make tea. We're within a few miles of Rain Hall, aren't we?"

"Yes, but I think we won't fix tea in the kitchen there."

"Mmm," said Willd, stirring. "Morning?"

"Morning," said the two women together.

"Mmm, tea?"

"Not unless you have some water hidden on you," said Vivian.

"You wouldn't want it," he said as he got up and walked off into the bushes. When he returned, the women were warming their feet within inches of the revived fire. Vivian, nursing Annie, looked him in the eye and asked, "Did you hear voices this morning, just as you woke up?"

"I heard the sweet voice of a beautiful woman, and the love songs of birds, who must have been singing to her."

"Isn't that wonderful?" she said to Ellean, who rolled her eyes. "But no others?"

"Well, actually I dreamt there were fairies around us talking about us. Just before I woke. I didn't know what they were saying, but I thought they were having a laugh at our expense."

"Hmm. I think I had the same dream. And I don't doubt you're right; we probably amused them greatly. I wonder what Annie heard. And I wonder what Ell's going to make for breakfast."

"Dried meat and fruit and bread. And wine."

"Sounds good." Ellean handed her a stick of jerky. "Mmm, you know, it's amazing how much of a sheep is edible," said Vivian, chewing. "Or is this beef?"

"Can't say," said Ellean. "They make pretty good jerky at T-Hold, whatever it is, but I'd just as soon not know the recipe. So we're going to Rain Hall?"

"We have to have a look," said Vivian, "but our main objective is Bald Mountain. What's the weather going to be, my handsome Willd?"

He sniffed. "Nothing much today. Should clear up. It won't get much warmer than this."

"Well, let's keep to the woods and camp on the quiet side of Bald tonight. Sound good?"

"You're the Countess," said Ellean.

"Yes, but let's keep that to ourselves for the next day or two, all right?"

Peering from the bushes across a pasture from Rain Hall, Vivian could see for herself that Angren was still under the control of Farlain. Two blue horse flags could be seen from here, one over the house and the other on a brand-new stone gate tower at the west end of the town, facing in the direction of Tarnhold. Horses there were aplenty, of flesh and blood, in pens between the house and the brand-new, very short stretch of town wall. Men of the town slowly labored to extend the wall. Officers went in and out of the house, and stood outside the front door chatting and laughing.

"I don't suppose they take their boots off in the entryway," said Ellean.

"No, I don't suppose they do," said Vivian, letting Anne have a little crawl in some old snow. "Not much to see here. Shall we ride on?"

"Let's," said Ellean.

Vivian looked at Willd. "Do you see anything unusual here?"

"No, my lady, I don't. There appears to be exactly the usual amount of activity. If Farlain's changed their commitment of troops to Clane, it's not obvious here."

"The inscrutability is getting to me," said Vivian, picking up Annie. "Come, my little lass. Let's go."

It was late afternoon when they came by steep brushy slopes to the shoulder behind Bald Mountain. Here the snow remained several feet deep, though in the recent warm weather it had become grainy and soggy. The riders dismounted and tied up their horses in a glen that faced west toward Tarnhold and the Rocky valley. "You'll be all right here for the night?" Vivian asked her mare Finesse, who responded by delicately pulling the seed heads off a tuft of old grass.

Climbing through narrow gorges, stumbling, sliding and floundering in areas of deep snow, swimming sometimes through the drifts, they reached the open ledges of the peak just at sunset. They sat down, exhausted from the effort and from laughing like children. Vivian let Lady Anne down off her back to check her diaper and nurse her. Ellean pulled out a flask of brandy.

"Want some?" she said, holding it out to Willd, who took a swig. "It warms you right up."

"I bet it does," said Vivian, reaching for the flask. She took a much shorter swig, coughed a bit, then handed it back to Ellean. "Willd, could you--?"

Willd scowled, then smiled sweetly and took the dirty diaper and set about rinsing it with snow. "No fire up here, I guess," he said. "We'll really clean it when we can boil water again."

"Then I suppose you mind if I light up?" asked Ellean.

"I certainly do," said Vivian, putting on her daughter a mostly dry clean diaper. "Filthy habit. I should never have introduced you to Egon. I recall the guy who took me on my first scouting ride--back in Bazir, I believe. He had no patience for pipe smoking."

"Not in enemy territory," said Willd, squeezing out the old diaper.

"You're right, of course," sighed Ellean. "We can only hope the Farlainers don't smell that." She stood up and strolled over to the southern end of the rock shield that was the top of the mountain. Willd followed. "Well, we're here. What's to see?"

"Careful!" called Vivian. "Can't they see us up here?"

"I doubt it, my lady," said Willd. "Think what you would see if you were down there and looked up."

"I wish I were down there, but I take your point." With a grunt she got up, and carried the newly diapered Annie over to Willd, then climbed on a jutting stone. They stood for a few minutes looking down on the town. They could see even from the mountaintop, even on a cloudy evening, that it was no town but a military camp within a ring of half-ruined, half-repaired walls. Whole residential sections had been cleared of their ashen remains to make room for long plain wooden barracks and stables; horse and livestock pens replaced markets and neighborhoods; where there had been tangles of alley and townhouse there were warehouses and store yards, piled with supplies; and all across the burnt city were heaps of refuse. In the midst of the quarter that had been the old city, the Citadel of the Counts of Clane still rose, in more or less the shape it had worn through all of Vivian's life, except that its lower parts were darkened to black from their former colors, the grey of the local stone and the green of thick ivy. They could see, in the last light of the setting sun, the leaping pennant atop the Counts' Tower: upon a white field, the blue horse of Farlain galloped on the wind.

Willd and Ellean stood dumbly looking down upon it all. They were country-born, from Selac and from Angren, but they had come to Vonnis in young adulthood. Now it was no more: this was a different place than the one they had fled less than four years ago. They tried to make something of it, but there was nothing to be made, just someone else's trashy back yard. Then they heard a soft sound from nearby. It was Vivian, whimpering.

She sat down on the stone and buried her face in her hands. She tried to say words, but all that came from here were sobs, and her face, when she looked at them, was streaked with tears. The other two sat down on either side and tried to comfort her. She gathered her composure, swallowed her weeping and looked from one to the other. Her lips moved, and finally she said, "Why? I just want to know why, that's all." Then she burst into tears again. All three sat and had a good cry, all four as Anne joined them. They went on whimpering while Vivian took Annie and nursed her. The wind blew, a few flakes of snow flew past, and far above the clouds the gibbous moon rose toward zenith.

Hours later, Willd and Ellean lay softly snoring, huddled together in their separate blankets, Annie in Willd's arms. Vivian rose. Pulling her cloak around her and squirming into her boots, she crept to the boulder that marked the mountain's very summit. She climbed onto it and sat cross-legged on its flat top.

Her book and her cards and her candles were locked up in her strong box in Tarnhold, but Vivian felt no need to rely on props this time. The city below her, still showing at least the outline of her home town, served as a trance point. She looked inside herself and found its copy, but with people jostling and shouting and smiling in the streets, with trees swaying in the wind and the sound of voices and music and dogs barking. In the midst stood the Citadel of the Counts, and atop its highest tower flew the old banner, a grey cat reclining on the breeze.

She saw her father looking out the high window, a little girl beside him with blue eyes and brown ponytails and bows in her hair. Then she saw her grandfather, a greybeard with a sparkle in his eye. Three more men took their turns, then a beautiful woman with hair black as coal. She saw, one before another, thirteen men and three women, all wearing that gold chain and medallion. Their families, their ministers blurred together around them--hundreds of ministers, giving their lifetimes without qualm to the city, to the Count, to the County.

Then she saw the dark walled camp that was below her this night. Her eye came free of all that weight of memory and swooped down toward that familiar high window. Inside, undamaged by fire and untouched by invasion, the High Room lay under an inch of dust. A windowpane was broken, but no intruder had dared come there. Her eye turned and passed through the door. Down the spiral stair she floated, noting again each alcove and pillar. At the bottom, she came out and found the floor where she had once had her apartment. Fire had damaged this part of the keep, and it seemed as if she had never been here before. Still, there was something familiar near. She passed through a door more or less where the anteroom to her boudoir had been. Here, she and Ellean had tried on clothes the night Lord Chalris had come; here, she and the sisters and Willd and Jen had gotten drunk; here, she had taken Willd into her bed on a night of March just four years ago; here, a month or so after that, she had shot two soldiers with her own bow, and fled, never to return. Now it was a study, piled with books and papers and maps and crates of all sizes, and at a large desk, likewise covered with evidence of clerical labor, sat a fat old man with a careworn face. His beard was mostly grey, his eyes sunk in fat and wrinkles, his thin hair long and messy as he squinted at figures on a sheet in the light of several candles. Suddenly she knew him: it was Neil of Gorngold, but he seemed twenty years older.

She fled from him rather than allow herself to feel sympathy. Downward she flew in great haste, for she recalled what it was that had puzzled her before. She passed without a thought the lower floors where Farlain cavaliers made merry and molested imported Farlain wenches. She was under the building now, in the dungeony foundations, but still she felt no threatening power, no hidden menace that might suddenly note her coming. It was empty. Chambers of stacked boxes and discarded things, corridors of cells, some occupied only by skeletons or by corpses or by men and women motionless as corpses. Then she found a long chamber with a bench along one side of it and a single torch for light: and there, along with several skeletons, were a few starved-looking men with matted beards. Three played a game of some sort, throwing bits of bone in a listless manner. Others sat and stared at the walls. Under the torch a man sat, drawing on the floor with charcoal. She examined him closely: sure enough, take away the beard and the dirt and there was the young scribe of Vivian's first council meeting. She ached as she thought of the forty-six months he had sat in this room, but Edgar looked like he could survive a few more years of it.

Unable to touch him or comfort him, her eye flew out, zigzagging from hall to stair to blind shaft. Down, down she fell into the night of the earth. There was something--not a mind, now, only a residue. That there was anything below the dungeons--that there were even dungeons--had never entered her mind in the old days. Now she sought a lodging as far below them as they were below the Count's High Room. Suddenly she found it.

The shaft dropped further into the dark, but she knew that it ended in a pit of waste and ooze an unguessed but finite distance onward. Here, though, a loose wooden door opened into a bare room carven from the bedrock. It was spacious, all the more so for its lack of furnishing: there was a crooked table, there were two chairs, and a cot with a blanket over it, and crates on the floor, empty but for bits torn off the edges of sheets of paper. There was a broken mirror. Bits of rind and shards of broken bottle lay in piles in the corners, along with bones of poultry and ends of candles and pieces of nondescript cloth. The table had rings of wax on it here and there, and in several places the wax was inches thick: someone had sat up many black hours poring over books. The night had won. The mind that had lived here was gone with the candles.

There was something--what? An odor, or a taste of air? Books, old books, opened up crackling after long rest on forgotten shelves. A family pride and bitterness, a mind that dwelt upon genealogy and birthright, a long exile bent on return. A curdled self-absorption, an old bone stewed long in its own juices. Yet, an indomitable power, an inexplicable knowledge, a mystery so vast it was tied to all things, and in particular tied, somehow, to Clane.

Far off she heard something. It was a trumpet blowing: the morning bugle call. For a moment she panicked, fleeing back up and out a cellar door. It was before dawn, but the light was growing already. She relaxed and let herself rise with the morning airs toward her spirit's home: the body of the woman on the mountaintop. There she was, sitting cross-legged--but someone was coming up behind her. Vivian flew back into the closed eyes, roused suddenly and turned.

"Oh, you're awake," said Ellean. "I wondered what happened to you."

"Um," said Vivian, "so did I, Ell. So did I."

On the afternoon of the first day of March, as a blizzard hit its stride and began dumping inch upon inch of snow on Tarnhold, Vivian and her companions rode in the east gate and up to the Thane's Keep. They stabled their horses and, bypassing all questions, made for their beds. Jen shooed away Sir Rogier and Thane Hugo and Angeline and Weaver, but let Susan jump in between her mother and father as they lay in their clothes, and placed Anne, newly diapered, in her mother's arms.

"Mmm," said Vivian, half awake. "Jen, unbutton."

"Yes, my lady," said the maid, unbuttoning the Countess's shirt. Soon Annie was peacefully suckling, while mother, father and sister fell together into a slumber of gentle dream.

A week later the Countess was back in Nikolad, sitting in her high seat at the middle of the dining table, reading correspondence while Maura d'Acali toted up receipts and expenditures. Simone lay in Vivian's lap, glaring defensively at anyone who came near. Susan sat on the floor nearby, playing with her sister. Prince Frenerac sat a few places away, reading. Sir Rogier came in and sat down next to Vivian, but, failing to get her attention, and having no particular business, made small talk with the heiress. Snow swirled in the square, piled up on the windowsill. Inside, the smell of roast mutton was just beginning to seep from the kitchen.

A rider came up outside, unnoticed, and took his horse to the stable. Presently Martin of Auzel came into the dining room, attended by Ellean Rain and William Willd. They had encountered him while he was getting feed for his mare Vera, upon whom he famously doted. The two trailed him as he crossed to the Countess, made a deep bow and waited to be recognized.

"Martin," said Vivian. "You have more mail? It's been quite the day for correspondence. Thane Burley's feeling better, and Hugo sends word of, well, of nothing much, really, and Thane Rodrik apparently is getting some tutoring from his vassal Lord Egon. Where do you come from?"

"Amari, my lady. I--"

"Amari? Who do we know there, these days?" Prince Frenerac looked up, smiled and went back to reading.

"Well, we scout there," said Martin, "and I know this guy who farms in the upland, and he speaks to the Farlain scouts, and he, um, well, he gave me some, ah, interesting news."

"Well, interesting, huh? Sir Rogier? Did you know about this?"

"Hm? Yes, I did, Martin here's quite good at finding friends in foreign lands. We get a certain amount of news that way. So what is it? Something interesting happen at the Imperial Diet? That would be news."

"Well, actually, that's exactly what it is," said Martin of Auzel.

"What is?" asked Vivian.

"Well," said Martin, "it's like this: they've proclaimed a new Emperor."

End of Book Two

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