IV. August 768

Orlad, the seat of the Thane of Skavin, had not fallen. Its walls were as stout and well-defended as those of any town in the County save Vonnis. Scouts rode up to the town at dawn on the first day of August, hailing the sentries and ascertaining that they were not Avars. By mid-morning of a gorgeous summer day the whole force were camped inside the gates of Orlad, in the open area where normally the market was held. A crowd as big as what usually came to market of a midday turned out to gawk at them, and soon people were buying and selling as usual on the margins of the camp. Meanwhile the Countess and her captains met the Thane in his hall.

"My lady," said Thane Burley, "we are glad to have you and your men here with us."

"I'm sorry that my first visit ever to this beautiful town comes in these circumstances. But we seem to have something like this every few months."

"Under your father," said Sir Rogier, "once a year was more usual."

"Well, they've already gained more than they ever did against him, so maybe they think they can topple Clane completely."

"We'll prove them wrong right here," said Burley.

"And we'll have to," said Thane Horst, "several times maybe, before they'll stop trying. We bring a thousand troops. What strength do the Avars have?"

"Six thousand," Thane Burley answered. "Maybe less, but if more, not much more. We have six hundred, more or less, depending on whether you count only the militia or also the old men and housewives."

"Of course we count them," said Vivian. "Um, how about--what is it, Wervin? And what's the other one?"

"Tyef," said Burley. "The fort there is held by three dozen of my regulars. Wervin Castle is defended by a hundred and fifty farmers' militia."

"We have to leave those troops there," said Sir Rogier. "It wouldn't be worth it to lose Wervin or Tyef just so we could have, what, two hundred more here."

"Oh, by the way," said Vivian, "I wouldn't mind if my suitors were tested in battle a bit."

"My lady," said Thane Burley, "I'll be pleased if we're not all tested in battle a bit."

The Countess had a lunch of good bread and meaty stew and the blood-red wine of Skavin. In the afternoon she went out and looked into her troops' accommodations. They seemed comfortably settled in the market square. Avoiding Lord Chalris, she toured the walls with Angeline and Ellean. They looked out from a high parapet over the Lavan River, and half a mile away to the east they could plainly see Avars encamped on the far bluff. Only a small part of the enemy could be seen, but the main force could be heard as a low din from many directions through the trees.

"They'll cross at night," said Angeline. "That's what Captain Weaver says."

"That veteran of old campaigns," said Vivian. "I know as much of the Avars as he does. But yes, that's also what Sir Rogier says, and he was fighting the Avars under my father, fifteen years before I was born."

"So we're going to be cut off here?" asked Ellean.

"That's what it looks like," said Vivian, letting the implications wash over her.

As evening fell, the rain picked up again. Reports came in from the north of Avar forces passing between Orlad and Wervin, encircling the Countess's forces in their fortified positions. Vivian ate with her ministers and captains, sat up late into the night to hear from the scouts and then slipped off to bed around midnight, all without having to deal with her suitors. Prince Frenerac, at least, seemed eager to do battle--he had to be talked out of a sortie against the forward elements of the enemy. Lord Chalris seemed more concerned about being noticed by the Countess. She noticed him, all right, and avoided him, wishing he'd volunteer for a sortie against the enemy.

It rained all night, and the next morning the town seemed clean and bright in the sudden brilliant sun. Vivian woke with a song in her head and a smile on her face in the little room in the Thane's Hold that she shared with Ellean Rain. She used the commode, washed herself off in a basin brought by a maid and looked out upon the town. It was then that she noticed, beyond the south gate on the road to Vonnis, a crowd of banners of many colors.

The Avars had besieged Orlad. Throughout the day of 2 August 768 they crossed the river on rafts and by way of the farmers' wooden trestles. The force on the bluff to the east remained, but new camps were springing up here and there all along the band of woods that encircled the walls at a distance of half a mile or so. Inside, the mood remained good. The Clanish soldiers took comfort in the great cubes of stone that sheltered them, with arrow slits cut at intervals, and traps awaiting a careless attack. The Avars for their part fired off rockets which exploded with great noise and light all around Orlad, but after half an hour of bombardment the soldiers became more or less accustomed to it, and the stone walls and brick houses withstood damage.

The next day, the clouds blew off the plains of Bazir and up the Lavan Valley and stuck on the edge of the mountains over the province of Skavin. Under lowering skies, the besieged watched as the besiegers became more serious about their business. By mid-afternoon it was pouring steadily, and there was news all day of ominous movements in the woods.

That night, while rain pounded the stones outside and the Lavan River rose, the Clanish commanders met in the Thane's hall to wring their hands. Dinner was frugal but there was plenty of Skavin wine. Afterwards, Sir Rogier and Thanes Burley and Horst sat around with the Prince and Captain Weaver and several other young officers, and the old soldiers held forth on how war had been in Count Edmund's youth. Vivian, too nervous to sit, returned to her room.

Putting aside her recent fright, she arranged herself in a closet with her candles, book and wine, and soon her eye drifted out into the night. Again she sought the Avar camps, but the disorienting fog had grown thick as pudding. Something was going on out there, where Vivian probed for sign of an attack--something, wrapped in dense grey blankets. She returned to herself after half an hour, feeling dizzy.

Vivian put her things away and went out. Sir Rogier saw her from the hall and joined her under an awning on the parapet over the stone bridge to watch the steady rain.

"My lady," he asked, "what's wrong?"

"Say, you're good," she replied.

"This is my ninth year as Minister of State, my lady."

"Well," she started, then paused. She reached for words to express what she thought, without mentioning anything about her Eye. The river was roaring below them and still rising. "Well, I don't think they'll be able to attack in this weather," she said at last.

"No, my lady, the river would carry away their boats. But they have forces on this side."

"How many?"

"We don't know, my lady. The weather has also hampered our scouts."

"Do we know where their main force is?"

"No, but we think their headquarters is still on the bluff. Of course, we can't see it, so they might have moved. And we have no idea where they might attack from, if they plan on attacking."

"There seems to be a lot we don't know," she said. "What's going on behind all these curtains of rain?" He didn't answer her. The Countess and the Minister of State, like navigators on a storm-bound ship, stood at the parapet looking out into the dim watery world.

Returning to her quarters half an hour later, Vivian found not Ellean but Lord Chalris. He seemed to think that this was a good time for a very determined, if not strategically brilliant, campaign with the objective of getting inside the Countess's dress. She really tried to just get rid of him, but he was not in the mood to take hints. Finally she opened up her look on him full-bore. She didn't know what it would do: what it did was make him sick to his stomach.

In the corridor Vivian fumed to her ladies in waiting. "I have to get out. Otherwise I'll definitely kill him. Let's go for a ride."

"Sure!" said Ellean.

"You'll have to tell Sir Rogier," said Angeline, "and he won't like it."

"I'll take Francis Weaver along for support. Or, no, how about that errand-rider? What's his name? Willd."

"Why not Weaver?" moaned Ellean.

"Oh, he's in there hanging on the old guys' every word. Willd was the one who led the scouting party I joined in Bazir, so he's experienced in leading me into danger. We'd better leave as soon as possible, or I might go back and alter the Inzil succession."

"Can't have that," said Angeline. "Chalris might be your future hubby." She winced at the look Vivian gave her. "Well, you know," she said, "I understand why you're anxious to do something, Countess, but, well, um, I'm bound to say, I'm not sure about the common sense of leaving a besieged town in the middle of the night in the pouring rain."

"I'm ready to go," said Ellean. "I have no common sense."

"Neither do I," said Vivian. "So Angeline, it's your job to stay behind and tell Sir Rogier we went for a look round. We'll be back in an hour or two." She and Ellean went in search of the horses, and found Finesse and the strapping stallion called "that colt of Ellean's" tied up side by side ignoring one another, dining on the long grass in an empty lot near the square. A man was standing nearby, his feet apart, his back to them, looking down. The rain had paused, but there was a sound of falling liquid. He presently turned around and saw the two women smiling at him.

"Just the man I was looking for," said Vivian. "Willd, we're going scouting. You and me and Ellean Rain here."

Willd swallowed his discomfort and asked, "Uh, where to, my lady?"

"Why don't you show us some Avars? How close can we get without being too close?"

"You wish to scout around outside the walls." He sighed. "Your ladyship understands that it's extremely dangerous?"

"Yes, oh yes."

"Well, my lady," said Willd, rubbing his head, "the question is, this side of the river or the other? The trestles will all be pulled up or washed out, so the only way across is the stone bridge. Of course, in the fog--"

"The Avars won't be able to shoot at us, so they'll have to come right up and knife us. I think I can get the Thane's guards to let us out the Bridge Gate and back in again. Where's your horse?"

"We may as well walk, my lady, if we're crossing the bridge and scouting the far bank."

"Fine. Let's go."



They made their way down a wide stair to the inside of the bridge gate: above them was the parapet where an hour before Vivian and Sir Rogier had looked out. Now a word and a flash of the Medallion of the Counts got them out the stout gate and onto the walled stone bridge.

It seemed to reach out into nothing. Ten paces from the gate, the fog became so thick that all was grey beyond. They walked forward into that misty world, and in moments they were wrapped in their own worlds, surrounded by the grey dark, the roar of the river below, the chill of a wet night and the smell of spray and high waters. They slowed to a halt.

"This is no good," said Vivian to herself. She had the same taste in her mouth as when she had looked out into the mist with her mind's eye an hour ago. She felt around with feet and found firm stone still beneath her. Reaching out with her hand and her mind, she found Ellean standing nearby. "Take my hand, Ell," she said.

"The fog is so thick," said the girl. "It's easy to get confused."

"Yes," said Vivian doubtfully. "Put your hand on the wall--there you go--while I try to find Willd." She groped her way onward, and for a moment she was alone again in a grey featureless world. Then she felt someone near.

A few feet ahead, standing with a hand on the wall, was Willd. "My lady!" he whispered. "I've never seen it like this. I don't know if we'll be able to see anything in this."

"It's only fog, and we can follow the bridge," she told him. "Take my hand."

She dragged him back to where Ellean waited. In another moment, Ellean and Willd were being led onward. A moment after that, they were out of the fog, on a stone platform with stone steps running down to the turfy bank. They stood on the east shore of the Lavan in a thin drizzle. They could see a wall of fog over the river's middle.

"I don't understand it, my lady," said Willd. "On the bridge--"

"Have you scouted the camps yourself?" asked the Countess.

"Yes, my lady, yesterday. Their HQ is up the Grassy River, but there should be several thousand Avars quite close by, and two thousand more on the Orlad side of the river."

"Is the Grassy hard to cross down here?"

"Not usually, my lady, there are many bridges of wood that the farmers use, and there are fords fifteen miles upriver."

"Well, let's hike this side of the Lavan till we get to the Grassy, and then see what we see."

They slipped south in the shade of the trees that lined the east bank of the Lavan. All sound was the roar of the flood and the fall of rain on the forest. The camp on the bluffs was practically right above them, but they saw and heard no one as they groped along between the trees and the river in the cloudy dimness. Without warning, they found themselves on the bank of the Grassy River, which flowed from the east off the Avar-controlled plains, skirting the south side of the bluff. A few feet away its slow brown waters joined the clear mountain-born Lavan.
Beside them there were the remains of a wooden trestle, structurally sufficient for the lazy stream that the Grassy River usually was. They could not see the pilings out in the stream, but the near end of the bridge had been torn right out of the bank at their feet.

A soft sound on the moist air drew their attention. There were men just up the Grassy from them on this bank, perhaps forty yards away. They seemed to be Avars, doing something, but it was pitch black under the trees. Even how many there were could not be told, but the Avars seemed not aware of their watchers. They finished their secretive task and vanished eastward.

"Dare we go on?" asked Vivian after a minute.

"I don't know, my lady," said Willd, "I--"

"I wonder what they were up to," said Ellean. "Let's at least go look."

She led the way, and the other two followed hesitantly, walking up the north bank of the Grassy River. There was another wooden trestle here, but its span now slanted downward into the water within twenty feet of shore.

"What do you make of it?" whispered Vivian to Willd, who bent down to bridge the foot of height that separated them.

"My lady, I think this was a major thoroughfare for them. One more loss from the storm--their scouts would have used it on their way around Orlad."

"These would have been scouts too, then," guessed Vivian.

"That would explain their secretiveness."

"Let's go back," said Vivian. "After all, the succession isn't settled."

"Oh. Yes, I see," said Willd. "Not that it would matter much to you or me, if we were discovered here by the Avars."

"Um, my lady," said Ellean, coming up out of the darkness. "I've just crept out onto that bridge."

"Yeees?"

"It's not out because of the storm--look, it isn't bent toward downstream. The piers aren't washed out--the span is just broken. Right in the middle." They gawked. They looked out: the bridge vanished into the blackness. "It was clearly cut. It wasn't just torn up by the water. Just under the water at this end, the wood was chopped against the grain. It hasn't even started to rot from being underwater."

"My lady," said Willd, "it must have been recent. My lady, that was what those men were up to just now. What else could it have been? I'll wager the same has been done or is just now being done to the other trestles up the Grassy River. What is this girl's name again?"

"Ellean Rain, at your service."

"Again, the one that rode to Inzil and back," he said, shaking his head.

"Hey, you're pretty good yourself, for a guy," said Ellean.

"You're both wonderful," Vivian cut in. "So they besiege the place, and then it rains mountain goats for a day, then we get socked in by this weird fog, and they take the opportunity to destroy the bridges across the Grassy. Why the Grassy? It's only going to slow them down. And their camps become mysteriously quiet."

"Yes, my lady," said Willd. "There's something we don't know."
Vivian sighed. She was thinking of the lively Avar camp she had viewed on the night before her arrival at Orlad--and of what she had dodged there. Its scent still lingered--perhaps the beast itself lingered, waiting in the undergrowth. No, it was gone. She was at a loss to say what it boded, but this fog was a lot better than that army. "I've seen enough. Let's go home."

"You mean," said Ellean, "we're not going to get any closer to the camp? We must be right near it, and we haven't counted their numbers or anything."

"Please, go right ahead, amaze us again," said Willd.

"Don't encourage her," said Vivian. "It doesn't take much."



"I don't understand it either," said Sir Rogier early the next morning. "None of it makes sense. Starting with your decision to go scouting with just one capable ranger."

"We'll let that pass," said Vivian. She and her comrades had returned to Orlad by the stone bridge. Vivian and Ellean had gone back to their room, thrown themselves on their beds and fallen asleep in their riding clothes. Newly washed-up and reclad, Vivian was now forced to accept the price of folly around Sir Rogier. She tried to keep him on her chosen subject. "I'd just like to know why they're going breaking bridges that they themselves must have need for."

"Well," said Thane Horst de Fugad, "maybe they're expecting us to attack their left flank, and this way we can't get across to hit them from both sides."

"That makes no sense at all, begging your pardon," said Sir Rogier, "even less, if I may, than the sense it made for an heirless Sovereign Lord to scout at night from a besieged town in the fog. They should be happy to see us come out from the walls! They're the attackers here, not us."

"I know it, and you're right. Why should they be afraid of our pitiful force? Wouldn't they rather be able to swarm across and fight us wherever we turn up? Mobility favors the larger force, especially if they're also faster, which they are."

"In any case," said Sir Rogier, "we can but wait and see what is to be seen. At least we can see it, now that the fog's given way to this April drizzle."

"Um," said Vivian, "why not send some scouts out to check on Avar activities? They're up to something, but I can't imagine what."

"We'll find out," said Thane Horst. He smiled reassuringly, bowed an inch and went out. Watching him leave, all Vivian could think was, I wish.



The meeting of the captains before noon on the fourth of August was crowded, and not just because the company was large. Thane Burley and his predecessors did not put on big parties, nor did they entertain much democracy in Skavin, so the hall was not built for large gatherings. Thane Burley took his usual chair, the biggest in the room--but he ceded the head of the table to the Countess, who was given his favorite chair from his study. She was the only woman in the room. Burley sat on her left, and Sir Rogier on her right; next to them were, respectively, Thane Horst de Fugad and Captain Francis Weaver; beside Weaver, Prince Frenerac lounged comfortably; Lord Chalris brooded at the far end of the table. Half a dozen other captains, several scouts and three of Thane Burley's underlings filled the rest of the room. Among them was Burley's son Pecham, a soft thirty or so. The scribe of Skavin, Rodric Bingold, sat near the end of the table and sweated as he took notes.

Countess Vivian, feeling tiny in her vast cushioned chair, started the meeting without ceremony. "Thane Horst, do you want to summarize the reports?"
"My pleasure, my lady," replied Thane Horst. "Our scouts that were out this morning report that the Avars are nowhere to be seen. The Avars on this side of the river seem to have fallen back southward. Those who rode around the outskirts of the camps found only the remains of their meals. And one group of scouts that managed to sneak up the Grassy confirms that all the wooden bridges have been broken."

"There are newer reports, my lady," said Thane Burley. "The wooden bridge over the Lavan two miles below Orlad is also broken. And there's more. Garrik?"

One of the Thane's scouts, near the far end of the table, stood up and then bowed shyly toward the Countess. He cleared his throat. He was forty or fifty, and so thin and weathered that Vivian thought she would be able to see light through him if he stood in front of the window.

"My lady, my good sirs," he began. "I rode out this morning before dawn. First I rode north up this side of the Lavan. All the camps were empty, and all the bridges broken. So I rode south in an arc right through the camps of, oh, I guess someone said two thousand and that looked about right. There was not a one there. It had rained hard since they left. So I rode on south and about dawn I meet one of the foresters. And the forester says 'We saw 'em in the woods, gave 'em what for,' if you see what I mean."

"What? There was a battle and I missed it?"

"Well, my lady," said Garrik, sweating a bit--he didn't know the Countess very well yet. "Forester says there was a hundred, but that must've been just the vanguard, he says it was yesterday, while the rain was falling here."

"But they didn't pass?" asked Sir Rogier.

"No, forester swears they didn't, these Avars don't like fighting in the woods."

"Excellent!" said Sir Rogier, rubbing his hands. "Thank the Sun's kindness! No, they don't like fighting in the woods. Ask me how I know. Well, my lady, I think we've dodged an arrow--and we have those foresters to thank for it!"

"Hmm," was all Vivian could manage.

"Do you see?" he went on. "They had two thousand on this side and four thousand on the other side, and they must've known the rain was coming a day ahead--their shamans are quite good, you know."

"Are they."

"And now those two thousand aren't going to be able to flank Vonnis! They must have been forced back across at that farm bridge what, eleven miles south. With six thousand and no river barrier, they could take the city, but now they can't!"

"They could cross at the Deep Ford," said Thane Horst, "thirty miles up from Vonnis."

"Storm surge!" cried Sir Rogier.

"He's right," said Thane Burley. "If the river's at all high, the Deep Ford is impassable. Still, what, six thousand?"

"I'll take Vonnis and a thousand against a hundred thousand," said Sir Rogier, "if you give me the Lavan in flood."

"We must still hurry back to Vonnis," said Thane Horst. "What is it, my lady?"

"It's nothing," she replied. They all looked at her. "Well," she said, "look, something's going on that we don't know about." She gazed across the faces of the men, thinking of things that bothered her that she couldn't let them in on. "Look," she went on, "the weather seems to be improving, at least that horrid fog is gone, so shouldn't we scout a bit more?"

"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "do you propose to--?"
"No, no, thanks anyway. I need to go back to bed. But I can't sleep until I answer a few nagging questions. Like, what was the point, anyway? Where are all these mystery armies headed? There's this two thousand, and we only know where they didn't go. Then there's the other four thousand-- remember them? When did they leave camp? Where are they now? Where are they bound?"

"My lady," said Thane Horst, "the scouts think they're back in Bazir."

"The scouts think so, eh?"

Lord Chalris leapt up before anyone else could speak. "My lady, I volunteer my men to follow these vagabonds and learn their destination."

"And do you have any experience of this land?" asked the Countess.

"Well--"

"Perhaps," she went on, "if you had some veterans of the last campaign in Bazir, you could offer them as scouts. But no, that's right, I now recall that there were no Inzili troops helping us when Bazir was invaded, were there?"

"But my lady--"

"Then, my dear Lord Chalris, I would suggest that you return to Vonnis straight away, just in case your father does send the knights you told me that you asked for." He had more words lined up ready to charge out of his mouth, so she went on. "You would be of much more use to us at the head of a thousand knights. If you desire Clane's gratitude, please see to it."

Lord Chalris flushed. He turned on his toe and strutted out. Vivian, suppressing a smile, turned to Thane Horst. "Have your scouts gone out into the plains?" she asked.

"My lady," said Francis Weaver, "if I may, we have some Baziri riders who have volunteered to ride after the Avars. They should report back to us here by midnight."

"Um, can anyone tell me if the, um, two thousand is really such a threat that we should hurry back? Or can we stay the night?"

"We can send the cavalry off in the morning, your ladyship included, and leave the infantry," said Thane Horst. "It's a two day ride, and that ought to be enough."

"Thank you. I appreciate your efforts. Thane Burley?"

"We've got men out," he replied. "We'll have some news in the evening."

"Thane," said Sir Rogier, "we all appreciate the hospitality you've shown us."

"Maybe only for one more night," said Thane Burley. "Not that we wouldn't be happy to have you for a longer visit."

"But perhaps," said Sir Rogier, "without our escort of a thousand men."

"Oh, we appreciate them too."



After only a little more discussion, the Countess adjourned her council. Every one of them felt the same emotion--that of a man who has a great boulder fall and miss him by inches. The Countess was suspicious of such emotions, especially when she wondered where exactly that boulder did land, so when she emerged from the Thane's crowded hall and found William Willd among several other errand riders, she called him over. "Willd," she said, "you're riding to Vonnis tonight. No written message. Just tell Sir Everard from me that he is ordered to stay where he is. Understood?"

"Ordered to stay where he is."

"And if he's already marched when you meet him, you will tell him to turn around and go back to Vonnis with all speed. And apprize him of the situation. All right?"

Sir Rogier came up beside the Countess. "My lady," he said, "let me guess: you're ordering Sir Everard to stay at Vonnis."

"Yes--don't you think it's a good idea?"

"My lady, you are asking me. I will indeed remember this moment for years to come. Yes, it's a good idea. Of course it's a good idea. Go, Master Willd, ride like the wind and you can get all the sleep you want in the Citadel. Only be wary of a horde of Avars a couple thousand strong."

"You have your message, Willd?" asked the Countess.

"I do, my lady." He bowed and left.

"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "I must also guess, with the experience of eight years and counting as Minister of State, that you still harbor some doubts."

"I think you could say that."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, my lady, your father was at his best when he wasn't sure what was going on--the enemy never knew what he was going to do either. With that thought, I will leave you to catch up on your sleep."

"Well, thank you," she replied. She turned to the other three errand riders. One was about her height, with shoulder-length auburn hair and green eyes.

"Ellean," said Vivian. "Hoping for an assignment?"

Ellean smiled shyly at the other two riders, both boys about Angeline's age. She joined Vivian on her way out into the day. "Waiting for you, I guess," she said. "I'm the best rider of the lot, and me and that colt can outrun anyone in Clane, and no one wants to use me. At least the boys are cute."

"They are, aren't they," said Vivian absently. "Other than that, you're all by yourself?"

"Angeline's still in bed," said Ellean. "You'd think she'd been out scouting last night, not us." She took Vivian by the arm and led her over to the wall at the edge of the plaza. It was the east wall of Orlad, overlooking the Lavan River; behind them the quaint castle town climbed its hillside, and the snow-topped mountains rose mistily behind that, finally visible again as the rain clouds dissolved. The influx of the Grassy could be seen across the valley, with a rocky bluff on its left bank. The Avar camp was gone without a trace. "You know what I think?" asked Ellean.

"What?"

"I think she was kissy-facing with Francis Weaver."

"Oh! More power to her! Beats any of my suitors. Anyway, we may be down to just one."

"No kidding! We saw Chalris storm out. Boy, you must've told him off. He and his friends are already down the road. What did you say?"

"Oh, something like how he could really impress me by leading the knights of Inzil against the Avars. He's probably going to challenge their Khan to single combat."
"Good riddance," said Ellean. "Maybe Frenerac wouldn't be such a bad husband."

Vivian gave her a disgusted look. "Not to change the subject, but what do the latest scouts say? You probably hear long before me."

"Um, I guess it's all right if I tell you, but it's a secret, promise?"

"Just talk. To think I have to order you to talk."

"Well, the scouts say the Avars are pulling back southwest. Back into Bazir. They're all saying we were fooled, that the enemy never numbered over a thousand on the Orlad side, that they were gone by yesterday morning."

"I was coming around to that opinion on my own," said Vivian.



The Countess dined with Sir Rogier and Captain Weaver, and brought Ellean along on a whim. Sir Rogier held forth for an hour on politics and strategy and his experiences fighting the Avars under Count Edmund. After dinner, the captains and lords sat around the Countess in the Thane's hall. Her wine glass was filled, and she raised a toast to the late Count her father, whose greatest victory over the Avars had been at Grassyfields just up the Grassy River to the east. Now the invaders' goats grazed that battlefield.

"My lady," said Thane Horst, coming in late in the evening, "it's certain. They're headed southeast and south, quite possibly toward Vonnis."

"Well, that's it," said Vivian. "My orders to Everard should reach him tomorrow night. They'll find over a thousand defending the walls of Vonnis, and we'll be able to get back before they can mount an attack."

"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "at your command, I will send out the orders to our army. The infantry stay for another week, let's say, and the cavalry break camp before dawn. We can take five hundred back to Vonnis in two days, if the road isn't too badly damaged by the rain."

At Thane Burley's signal, servants brought wine, serving the Countess first, of course. She sniffed it and smiled. Prince Frenerac raised his glass and said, "To her Ladyship's health! And to the health of the roads as well." Everyone agreed enthusiastically.

That night in Orlad, occupying about a tenth of the Thane's best guest-bed, while Ellean lay inert on another tenth, Countess Vivian dreamt of banners flying over the plains, of chivalric pennants flying in the wind over barren hills, of the white flags of the Empire flapping, of the restless motion of the winds. She saw the unburied skulls of Bazir, but she also saw life: women with dark skin and long straight black hair, clad in long colorful robes with bright scarves on their heads, milking the goats and beating the grain and bearing and nursing and chasing the children. The wind did not tarry, but pulled Vivian's curious eyes away from these little ordinary lives, on over the lands, riding, running, blowing toward the distant mountains. At the edge of her vision a tiny figure moved, a ripple on the distance. She stood on a stony highland and looked all around, and in all the emptiness saw many places where a shadow might hide.



The next morning they prepared to leave Orlad. Vivian bade farewell to Thane Burley, and then, in the company of Sir Rogier, Prince Frenerac, Lord Margus, Captain Weaver and the Rain sisters, she rode out of the south gate and down the causeway along the west bank of the Lavan River headed for Vonnis. When they got out into the open area outside the gate, Vivian stopped and the others around her gathered in a knot.

"Ellean," she said, "if your horse is so fast, do you think you could get to Vonnis tonight?"

The men around her shook their heads, but Ellean just glanced at the sky. "It's just dawn? Sure, I think so, and if it's dark by the time I get there, I know the area around Vonnis pretty well. This colt can do it, that's sure."

"Well, tell Sir Everard I'm coming. I really don't think he'll do anything rash. Share with him what we've heard. And tell him--tell him not to be fooled by feint and stratagem. There's something up someone's sleeve, tell him that: I'm sure of it. A florin for every hour before midnight. All right?"

"No need for reward, my lady! C'mon, boy!" She turned her overgrown colt around and off they went, flying down out of the hills of Skavin toward Vonnis.

"No need for reward," Sir Rogier repeated. "A future minister of state, perhaps."



The forest crowded in on the road south for a hundred miles and more between Orlad and Vonnis, but in the second hour of their ride south, the Clanish companies came upon a wide trampled scene in a meadowy clearing. There was blood and signs of strife and a bonfire, but only two human dead and a dozen horses could be found.

"The foresters," said Sir Rogier. He and Thane Horst and Captain Weaver and the Countess stood beside the two-day-old corpses, gazing on their details, while the rest of the cataphracts milled about. "I fear these two, at least, paid for their bravery."

"No doubt," said Thane Horst. "But they died fighting."

"Why?" asked Vivian. "Why would two attack thousands? What good would it do? They didn't kill any Avars."

"No," said Thane Horst, "but maybe they were killing the horses."

They stood looking around in the meadow, and then Sir Rogier clapped his hands. "Captain!" he said, "please send men out into the woods. Tell them to look for more dead. My lady, this is exactly what Garrik told us happened."

"You mean, these two foresters gave them what for?"

"Not just these two. These were the only two the woodsfolk lost. The same, I guess, could not be said for the Avars." He strode over to a pile of bonfire remains and began kicking it apart. "See? Bones. Human bones. Avar bones, if you will. They burn their own dead, but they certainly don't give that honor to our dead. How many would you say, Horst?"

"Hmm. A dozen, at least. I see that many skulls alone."

"My lady!" shouted a young horseman. "There's half a dozen dead Avars in the woods here!"

"More over here, my lady," cried another.

"They certainly got what for," said Sir Rogier. "No, the Avars don't like fighting in the woods. They didn't even dare go out into the woods to get their dead."

"Yes," said Thane Horst, pointing toward the unseen Lavan, "and you can see where they turned aside to recross the river. That farm bridge is right down there, at that sand bar in the middle. I'll dispatch scouts to make sure they've gone."

"They had a backup plan," said Vivian. "Well, this is all good news," she said, "but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather be back in Vonnis."



The rest of the day, while Lord Chalris rode far ahead and Ellean chased Willd to Vonnis, the Countess and her cataphracts plodded along behind them all. They were in a good mood, having seen a fight against insurmountable odds turn into light duty in a comfortable castle-town and then a camping trip, a chance for Angeline Rain and Francis Weaver to steal kisses late at night under the stars. On the night after leaving Orlad, after a light dinner and two glasses of wine with Sir Rogier and Thane Horst, the Countess retired to her tent to meditate.

The book she propped open was written in her grandfather Count Theodred's pictograms, with her father's notes in the margins. She placed a cup of wine before her, the book in front of it, and as usual a lit candle on the right and an unlit one on the left. She closed her eyes, opened them again when her inner noise quieted, and let her mind glide over the pictograms: a bird with long legs, an eye in a hill, a wheel within a wheel. The lefthand candle burst into flame so suddenly that she nearly started from her trance. But there was a soothing voice--infinitely old and yet here, in the tent, in her, who had inherited so much from it. She looked down into the cup.

She did not fall into it and emerge all eyes, nor did she settle into dream of future and past. Instead she felt herself spread out into the night like a sheen of oil on a still pool. The light around her faded into insignificance in comparison with the volume of darkness in the broad world. Her tent was only one in the largeness of camp, the camp tiny beside the vastness of the river and the road, the river was infinitely thin in the vast space of the valley, and the valley was insignificant among the mountains and plains and sky.

Here, huddled close, were a scant few of her folk, their eyes blue or green or brown, their hair blond or red or brown, their skin pale; there in the plains to the east was huddled another little gang of folk, with hair long and dark and straight, eyes the color of muddy rivers, and coppery skin. Among them there was a mind debating, there were voices raised and challenges made and refused and accepted, there were insults thrown like flowers at a wedding. This voice of many voices, bereft of bravado, uncertain despite all its strategy, was yet possessed of an implacable desire and grudge-bearing anger. Slowly it chose: between what it wanted and what it could get, slowly, with longing and regret and intense hurt pride, it chose.

Behind all the voices Vivian picked out one strange tone. Hidden here in this debate of minds was a single alien mind, possessed of an unguessed well of desire and a library of stratagem and ploy. It considered among the routes before it, looking out upon them as though they could all be seen from the plains of Bazir. She saw a town on a hillside overlooking a river with mountains behind, then another town, larger and older but much like the first, and then a third town on a hill with a river before it. The first town was Orlad, and she saw it from the bluffs to the east. Its walls looked even sturdier from the outside than they had from the inside, and each arrowslit was manned by an alert Clanish bowman. Then the view turned through ninety degrees to the left, scanning down the Lavan River, until it came to the second town.

Vivian gasped. It was Vonnis upon which the viewer looked. A shadow fell across her heart. Something heard her gasp and sought for traces of her, but she remained quiet while Vonnis, her hometown, the most beautiful city in the Empire, was considered, desired even, and then passed over. There were more than a thousand soldiers behind its stout walls. The river was wider here and quite deep, and the crossings were impossible without boats and difficult and costly with them. There were riders converging on it from all sides: some hundreds from the north, a few hundred more from the hinterlands of Clane, and then several thousands, bearing the green swan of Inzil, traveling toward it through the empty northern reach of Shadewind.

The watcher in the plains scrutinized this band of knights, and Vivian looked over its shoulder. They were yet far from Vonnis, but they had left their own land a day's ride behind them, and now they camped recklessly in the open hills. The watcher turned again to the left, now one hundred and eighty degrees around from Orlad, and there beheld a prosperous city on another river: Kemif, the trading town of Inzil, on its River Allor. Up the river, on the knees of the eastern mountains, she saw Annavil, Inzil's capital. All was at peace. Gold seemed to litter the streets. The air of smugness that flowed out from the plentiful farms and wealthy towns of Inzil was to the watcher like the smell of fish to a cat.

The hunger in that mind, after the clash of desire and denial, overwhelmed Vivian. She fled from it and from its implications, and found herself falling back into the arms of the darkness of her tent. Her mother's arms were around her, her mother's voice whispered to her, and as she fell back from trance into sleep she was trying in vain, as she had often tried on the edge of sleep, to see her long-gone mother's face, sad and grey and yet smiling.

When Vivian awoke, near midnight, she took quite a while sorting out what it was that she had seen. There was a surge of feelings from the very next tent, where Angeline Rain and Francis Weaver were necking. Even after they parted and Angeline went off to get her sleep, Vivian could not help but sense the captain lying awake thinking of his young lady's kisses.

Vivian sighed. She felt guilty for listening in on others' emotions, but it really wasn't her fault, so she felt angry at them for waking her up with their loud passion, but they weren't really to blame either, so she felt lonely for having no one of her own. She lay in darkness--the candles had winked out, one and then the other, as she was falling asleep. She thought of her mother--and then the vision, the clump of visions and emotions, came back whole. Then she couldn't sleep.



The next night, an hour before dusk, the Countess and her riders came to the northeastern gate of Vonnis. The Clanish horsemen turned along the street just inside the gate to head for camp on the tongue of land below Vonnis where the Rocky flowed into the Lavan from the west. Sir Rogier paused in the gate to hear the latest, but Vivian was in no mood for news: a hot bath was about the only thing she was in the mood for, so she and Angeline and the Countess's guards pressed on into town. There was no crowd waiting to cheer them, but folk saluted and waved and called Vivian's name as she rode toward the citadel square and the Emperor's Gate and the Citadel. There to meet them in the square was Lord Chalris, standing beside his horse.

He bowed, and then announced: "My lady, you wished that I would return with a thousand knights. Well, today I have received word that my father has dispatched not one, but four thousand knights across the hills from Inzil. They should be here in three days."

"Oh."

"You said you might show your gratitude if we were to be of use to you against the Avars."

Misgivings rose in the cold waters of her heart. She stilled them and said, "You might be of some use against the Avars, if they were here, but I don't think they are."

"Hah? Then where are they?"

"Well, I suppose they're back in Bazir," she said, scratching her forehead. "Have you talked to Sir Everard lately? Where's Thane Horst?" Calls for the two went out from her in a spreading echo, and meanwhile Lord Chalris stood impatiently, thinking up meaningful things to say and then throwing them away. In his state of mind, he could not hide any of them from Vivian, who did not really want to hear them but heard them anyway; he might as well have spoken every one.

"My lady," said Thane Horst, riding up in the confusion, "I was helping to array the camp."

"Well," said Vivian, "we need your advice."

Horst looked over at Lord Chalris, standing by his horse ten yards away. The Thane scratched his beard, then trained serious blue eyes on Vivian. "My advice is," he muttered, "don't marry the asshole."

"Never fear," she replied in a low voice. "But what we want to know is what the scouts have been saying about the Avars. He's looking for barbarians to fight."

"Well, it seems that some of them were here just a day ago, two or three thousand strong, not the force that left Orlad but another Avar corps. Yester evening they pulled back up the ridge. Testing our defenses, I guess. But now all indications are that the bulk of the Avar force is back in Bazir, and no one knows what they thought to accomplish. I figured they were pulling back to have a go at Vonnis, a sort of Plan B in case Skavin was defended; now we know they were here, but we have no idea what Plan C might be. If Pimple over there wanted to fight Avars, he could likely have done so without coming so far from home."

"He could have done so in March, and think how differently things might have come out."

"Oh, yes," said Thane Horst, "you might be married to the bastard by now."

"Thank you for reminding me. But what do I tell him?"

"May I, my lady?"

"Be my guest!"

"My good sir," Thane Horst announced, standing by the Countess's steed, "we are very much afraid that the Avars are no longer menacing our towns, although we do appreciate the effort you've expended in our behalf."

"No longer menacing? After I went and got my father's knights to come all the way across Shadewind, five days' journey from Kemif? Now you tell me that you don't need us, that we should just turn around and go home? Does your Countess have even the least regard for me, considering all my exertions on her behalf? What would you have me do, sir?"

"Twit," the Thane muttered under his breath.

"Well," said Vivian, still mounted on Finesse, "I'm telling you there aren't any Avars around right now, but feel free to have a look for yourself."

"Nonsense," said Sir Rogier, coming up to save the day for diplomacy. "My lord Chalris, you will dine with me this night. Please accept the hospitality of the Countess's house. But her ladyship has much on her mind, and indeed much work to do tonight, for we depend on her so much that the daily labors of administration rather tend to pile up when she's away. I'm sure you understand, and if you don't, you will, as soon as you come into your own inheritance." Sir Rogier, continuing in this wise, led Lord Chalris away. Vivian, mentally awarding him a medal, retired in peace to her chambers and soon was deep in hot and soapy water.



For the next few days Vonnis began to forget about war and danger and went about its busy life. While Lord Chalris awaited his promised knights, Vivian found that the work had indeed piled up, and she had little time to think about events and little trouble finding excuses for avoiding her suitors.

The eighth of August came and went--it was the day on which the Inzili knights were supposed to show up. The folk of Clane gave Chalris a wide berth, as did Vivian, her ministers, and Prince Frenerac. Chalris dined with his five remaining knights, while the Countess moved Frenerac up to the place next to her at dinner, and she and he and her ministers and his friends laughed and joked over Farlainish wine.

That night, three nights after returning to Vonnis, the Countess held a council of her intimate advisors--to Angeline and Ellean and the cat Simone were added William Willd and the maid Jen--in Vivian's drawing room.

"Wine, my lady?" asked Jen.

"Please," said Vivian, "and bring yourself a glass. Willd, the news?"

"My lady," he said, stretching out his long legs, "the Avars were here, in numbers close to three thousand. They were hoping we wouldn't have left enough men behind to defend the city."

"They must think me an idiot. No, they think me a woman."

"My lady, they should know better by now than to doubt your tenacity. Sir Everard's muster is not complete, but there are over a thousand here, counting the four hundred he's raised from the city. He also has three hundred knights ready to go--that no doubt dissuaded them from trying to cross at the Deep Ford or further upriver. They left late on the day before you arrived."

"We saw them go," said Ellean, "just as I got here. Everyone was on the walls jeering."

Vivian nodded. "This much I knew from Horst, who knew it from the gate guards I suppose. But where are they now--do we know?"

"None doubt, my lady, that they are far from here," said Willd. "But the latest news I've heard was from two of Thane Horst's men, who met me on their way to find him, not more than twenty minutes ago. I must admit that I used your ladyship's name to persuade them."

"You'll hear no complaint from me. What did they say?"

"That the Avar forces have united, and now proceed into Maklos from Bazir, eight thousand strong."

"Maklos," said Vivian. "Beyond that, Inzil. It starts to make sense."

"What does?" said Angeline. "So the Avars faked an attack on Skavin in order to get us to move our troops there--but that only helps them with Inzil if they know what's going on in Inzil. Who'd have thought that the Count would send four thousand knights?"

"Who indeed," muttered Vivian.

"Could they have a spy?" Ellean suggested.

"An Avar spy?" replied Vivian. "That's a difficult picture."

"Or they have some inside knowledge of Inzil politics," said Angeline. "That's possible, isn't it? There may be people in Annavil who want to use the Avars for their own schemes."

"And if they have inside knowledge of Inzil politics," said Ellean, "who's to say they don't have inside knowledge of Clane politics?"

"What Clane politics? I'm an autocrat. Spies, hmm." She thought again of the eye scanning across Orlad and Vonnis and settling on Kemif, and she pushed the thought away. "You and Willd are my only spies," she said, "and I wonder if you weren't spying out each other the night before I got back, instead of the Avars."

Willd smiled innocently, but Ellean retorted, "So that's how it is? I'll have you know, I would have earned two florins when I got here, and deserved them, too, seeing as the Avars were just over the river at the time, but I didn't want them because it was an honor to serve my Countess. And as a matter of fact, I think he did go out scouting that night. Didn't you?"

"I confess, my lady," said Willd, "that I did no more than scout the taverns, but all the news that was to be had was to be had there."

"I'll remember that," said Vivian, thinking of her book, wine and candles.

Willd finished his glass and stretched his legs again. "My lady, you have all the news I know, and I feel the need of sleep. May I have leave?"

"Of course."

He stood up. "My lady, if I may advise."
"Yeees?"

"Do not marry either of them. All the other scouts agree."

"The servants are all agreed on that as well," put in Jen.

"It's nice to know people care about my life. But just between us and in strictest confidence, my good Master Willd, you may sleep soundly tonight, secure in the knowledge that your Countess will not take a husband until there is a substantial improvement in the quality of the applicants."

"That does put my mind at ease," said Willd, bowing. "Good night, my ladies." They called good night to his departing back. All four of them smiled the same slight smile as they watched him walk away, clad in his close-fitting riding pants. Then they finished off a couple more bottles of wine, talking of nothing deeper than whose imitation of Sir Rogier was the best (it was Angeline's).

Then Vivian claimed exhaustion, but as soon as the others were gone she ran up to the High Room and let herself flow out into the night. But now there was nothing to be seen near Vonnis or Orlad, just empty plains and a few Avar herds--tended by women. She looked to the pass, looked to Bazir, but saw no shadow watching. She came back to herself and went to bed, where she lay for the longest time wondering who was pulling what wool over her eyes.



The next morning everyone in Vonnis seemed to be up before the Countess. Jen was picking up the drawing room when Vivian arose. Jen procured for Vivian a large breakfast, and Vivian made her sit down and share it. Eventually Vivian had to emerge from her sanctuary and be everyone's Countess again. There was a crowd of common folk in Vonnis for the monthly appeals of this kind and that--"this" being against judgements of the magistrates and bureaucrats and minor lords, and "that" being against one another. There were still two suitors to deal with, and, like a hangover from the march to Skavin and back, there were the reports of a party of scouts just come from spying on the Avars.

The Countess skipped lunch and attended to the appeals for two hours. She and Scribe Edgar and Sir Rogier sat at a table in the public hall on the ground floor of the Citadel, while her people, mostly with great show of courtesy, poured out their woes before her. Four farmers and a merchant had their taxes reduced, but eight more did not. She summarily imposed a surcharge on a jeweler of Delyan whose claim for relief seemed so unnecessarily bogus that she presumed he had already cajoled the tax collector into an undeserved reduction. She upheld the finding of the land magistrate in five disputes, on the principle that as long as both sides were unhappy, the decision must have been fair. She required a farmer to give his old father an acre of his twenty for a garden, even though the old man had foolishly not asked for a provision to that effect in the agreement by which he gave the farm to his son. The father did not read or write, of course. He had been living on bread and milk, the only items that the agreement specifically required the son to provide. The scumbag son did not protest much. Finally, she threw out a claim by a landowner of the Countess's Domain against a family of Baziri refugees who had squatted on an unused two acres of swamp. "When they can afford the sixpence that the land is worth," she told the landowner, "I'll see to it that you get paid in full--after taxes, of course."

Sir Rogier ended the session two hours after noon, bidding the remainder go home until next month. "Her Ladyship will have more time then, once this pressing business is settled."

"No, wait," said the Countess, "let us reconvene tomorrow at the hour after noon. Edgar, are you free then?"

"Of course, my lady."

"Come back tomorrow and we will try to hear all the remaining cases. Thank you all."

The unheard litigants chorused their half-hearted thanks to their Countess and started picking up their belongings and leaving.

"I suppose I ought to tell you, my lady," said Sir Rogier, "that you handle the appeals quite well. It was one of your father's strong points, and I expect it will be one of yours too. But we have a more pressing matter."
"Yes. Edgar, run along and get the minutes in order." The scribe nodded and left. Vivian whispered to Sir Rogier, "Where exactly is Lord Chalris? This concerns him, does it not?"

"He--he is outside, my lady, in the turret overlooking the Bridge Gate. He awaits word of his knights."

"But they were supposed to be here yesterday."

"My lady, that touches on what the scouts have to report."



An hour later Vivian, finally feeling wide awake, sat on the balcony outside the council chamber on the second floor of the Citadel, sipping wine with Prince Frenerac.

"Actually," said the Prince, "I think it's quite good. I won't insult you by dressing it in flowery language. I will simply say that it is exactly, exactly as dry as I like a white to be."

"Oh, I agree," said the Countess.

"This is from Intror?"

"Yes, around Delyan. I take it your wine region just to the south produces much the same."

"Oh, no, not at all. North Farlain is known for its blood-red vintages. Make the eyes turn red as well. But ah! we do love to down a few bottles of a night. No, our whites are from down toward Avigon, in the lowlands around Calway. And they are definitely not better than this."

"Well, we usually drink the red, which we grow around here," said the Countess. "We just sold off two hundred cases of the best."

"I know. Father bought a dozen. Each bottle probably bought you a cataphract or two, armor and all. And worth it." He swirled his glass. "And we thought you all drank ale up here."

"But you brought some excellent wine, my Prince, and you have only told me where your mediocre wine comes from. You're not going to tell me that what you brought is ours, are you?"

"No, my Countess, the provenance of that vintage is strictly Farlain. And strictly confidential." He smiled helplessly. "The growers insist. They are a suspicious lot, and as you know, there is much money involved."

"Since we got all our vine stock from Farlain, way back in the dawn of Clane, and didn't get it all openly, I can't very well press the point."

The two young aristocrats sat and swished their wine and gazed out over the town and the county. Vivian looked the Prince up and down: handsome devil, always a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, blond hair neatly combed and then a little tousled. He looked at her and laughed nervously. She smiled back.

"It's pretty ridiculous, isn't it?" he remarked.

"Yes. The world is."

"Ah, philosophy, from one so young."

"I had good teachers. And of course I am the Countess already. I think last summer I would've seemed more like--"

"Like me."
"Not a care in the world, my good Prince. Right?"

"Not a care." He smiled. "Of course, I'm not the heir."

"Still," said Vivian, "I'm glad we could talk. I can't imagine sitting like this with Lord C."

Frenerac laughed loud and long. "Oh," he said, "don't get me started about Chalris. Or Mertenus. Did I tell you--"

A commotion below interrupted him. The gate guards were blowing their horns. For a moment Vivian wondered if another suitor were riding up with his half dozen knights. Then she guessed what it was.

"Come," she said to the Prince, rising. "As long as you understand it's meaningless, let's give Lord C something to think about." She looked down at him, holding out her arm. He gave her a puzzled look, then smiled, stood, and held out his arm to her. She took it, and they walked back through the Citadel and down to the square together, and thence out to the Bridge Gate.

The crowd parted for them. There was Chalris standing before the open gate. Here came exactly four riders bearing Inzil's green swan on white. The Prince and the Countess stood ten yards behind, in the shadow of the turret, with Sir Rogier and Sir Tylon hovering unseen behind them. Chalris did not let his attention waver from the riders on the long stone bridge.

They came up the hill to the gate and dismounted. One knelt before him, bowed his head, then stood and looked into his eyes. "My lord Chalris," said the rider, a few years older than him, "I bring you urgent news. You must return to Inzil." Chalris gaped. Vivian held her breath. "The Avars have invaded. Our forces were slaughtered. Your father is dead. Kemif is theirs. You must return to Annavil and assume your father's title."

Centuries seemed to pass, and not a thing in the world moved. Then for a long moment Chalris turned and looked at Vivian. He looked back at the messenger. "The knights," he asked, "where are they?"

The rider looked disgusted. "We caught up with them in northern Shadewind. We told them the news, but their captain couldn't decide whether to believe us." Chalris stared into space, his mouth open. The knight went on. "They are still camped there, my lord. He said they would await your orders. He said that he was under your command. They are two days' hard ride from here." Chalris gawked at the messenger, who pleaded, "Count Chalris, will you come?"

Chalris looked at him, looked at the others as though they might have different news, then looked at Vivian. Frenerac had slipped from her arm, and now she stood alone. Another century went by. She knew exactly what Chalris was thinking, all of the many things he was thinking, just because she had gone through something like it herself. Her clear voice broke the silence.

"My dear Count Chalris, my good Prince Frenerac," she said, "my people. You know that I am still in mourning for my own lost father." She paused, and again there was utter silence. "And for Lord Smeagle and for Sir Evan Rain and for many others died in the recent troubles. I regret that I cannot receive offers of marriage now, or for some time to come."

She met Chalris's pleading confused eyes with her own. She stared him down, like a person picking up a cat off the dinner table and putting it on the floor. His eyes cast down, he said to the messenger something they couldn't hear.

"Your horse, my lord," said Sir Rogier. The captain of the guard came forth with Chalris's horse, and behind him were the five remaining knights of Inzil. Without another word, they mounted and rode off, and in a minute they were across the bridge over the Rocky River and far down the valley.

The Prince turned to Vivian. "My good Countess," he said, "we will leave you as well. Today. I thought it might go thus."

"You knew Inzil would be invaded?"

"No, though I'm sure you did, at some point. No, I knew you would not marry this year. I can hardly blame you. I thank you for your hospitality."

"I thank you for your good nature. I'm sure coming here was not your idea."

He just smiled. She smiled back, without pretense, then turned and took Sir Rogier's arm, turning her back on all that still hid from her in the wide world. The old minister led his young Countess back into Vonnis as the summer sun cast its blessing upon them and their people. The Prince went off to gather his friends. Around them all, the city returned to its centuried life, while the hooves of the Avars and all that rode with them moved further and further away.

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